Near this site, members of the U.S. Army's 9th, 21st, and 23rd Infantry, along with 313 light dragoons and the Albany Volunteers, took position in a drainage ditch to defend the approach to Fort Tompkins. For more than an hour they held their ground until ordered to retire, twice forcing the British back to the edge of the forest. Major Jacint Laval of the U.S. Dragoons wrote to the President on 16 August, 1815, that the dragoons in particular fought like lions and were the best infantry on the line. During the battle, an American junior navy officer watching from Black River Bay believed all was lost and sent a prearranged signal to the navy yard, leading to fires in the American barracks and warehouses that destroyed the supplies the British hoped to carry back to Kingston, Upper Canada. The Hall Farm later occupied part of the battlefield: Jesse Smith bought a portion from Michael Mooney in 1832 and sold it three years later to Thomas S. Hall, a member of whose family built the Greek Revival house about 1835. From 1815 to 1949, various owners ran a small dairy farm south of the cantonment area, and the surviving buildings of the complex date from 1835 to 1907. In 1967, New York State bought the farm and added it to the historic site property.