Across Broadway are community vegetable gardens that began as Victory Gardens during World War I. The park was once the estate of Frederick Zinsser, village mayor and owner of the local factory that produced mustard gas during the war. His house, Locust Wood, no longer standing, was built in 1828 by Anthony Constant. The area is also the probable site of a September 30, 1778 skirmish called the Battle of Edgars Lane, in which Hessian mercenaries marching north from Yonkers were ambushed by American troops, mostly from Virginia.