André Captors' Monument
Village of Tarrytown, Westchester County, New York
Marker Inscription
On this spot the 23rd day of September 1780 the spy Major John André Adjutant General of the British Army was captured by John Paulding, David Williams and Isaac Van Wart, all natives of this county. History has told the rest.
The Story
Here on September 23, 1780, three local militiamen — John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart — stopped a traveler on the road near Tarrytown and discovered he was Major John André, the British adjutant general carrying papers that exposed Benedict Arnold's plot to surrender West Point. Their refusal of André's bribes unraveled one of the Revolution's most dangerous conspiracies. André was later hanged as a spy, and the three captors became early American heroes.
Why it matters
The capture foiled Benedict Arnold's treason and saved the vital fortress of West Point, a turning point Americans long celebrated as proof of ordinary citizens' loyalty.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the autumn of 1780, the American Revolution had ground into a long, uncertain war, and the lower Hudson Valley was its dangerous middle ground. The stretch of Westchester County between the American lines to the north and British-held New York City to the south was a lawless borderland, roamed by militia, raiders, and irregulars — a place where a lone traveler on the road could be stopped and searched by armed men at any moment.
Control of the Hudson River was one of the war's great strategic prizes. Whoever held it could split the rebelling states in two, cutting New England off from the rest. The fortress at West Point, commanding a bend in the river, was the key to holding the Hudson — which is precisely what made it the target of the plot this monument records.
Into this tense landscape, on the 23rd of September, 1780, rode a traveler who was not what he seemed. What happened on that spot near Tarrytown would ripple all the way to the top of both armies.
People & events
Three local men — John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart, all natives of Westchester County — stopped a rider on the road that day. He was in civilian dress and tried to talk his way past them. When they searched him, they found papers hidden on his person: documents that laid bare a conspiracy to hand West Point to the British.
The traveler was Major John André, adjutant general of the British Army, returning from a secret meeting. The papers connected him to the fortress's own American commander, General Benedict Arnold, who had agreed to betray the post to the enemy. André, according to the inscription, offered the three men inducements to let him go. They refused, and turned him in.
The consequences came swiftly. Arnold, learning that André had been taken, fled to the British before he could be arrested — and his name became the byword for treason in America. André, caught out of uniform and behind the lines, was tried as a spy and hanged. The inscription closes with quiet confidence: "History has told the rest."
Its place in the American story
The capture near Tarrytown foiled one of the most dangerous betrayals of the Revolution. Had the plot succeeded, the British might have seized West Point and the command of the Hudson that went with it — a blow that could have altered the course of the war. Three ordinary countrymen, acting on their own, prevented it.
That detail is why Americans held the story so dear for so long. In the captors, the young republic found a parable it wanted to believe about itself: that its liberty rested not on generals and aristocrats but on the plain loyalty of common citizens, men who could not be bought. Congress honored the three with a special silver medal, and their names were taught to schoolchildren as models of civic virtue.
Set against them stands Benedict Arnold, whose name entered the language as a synonym for treachery. The monument marks the exact hinge between the two — the spot where betrayal was caught and turned back by the vigilance of local men.
If you visit
This is a "stand on the very spot" marker, and that is its power. The inscription pins the moment to this ground and this date, so let yourself register that the road you're near is where a war's secret history briefly surfaced and was decided. The monument invites you to picture the encounter: three men, one rider, a search, a choice.
The modern setting has grown up around the memory, as it has throughout the lower Hudson Valley, but the sense of place survives if you look for it. Imagine the country lane it once was, in the fraught borderland between the armies, and the stakes riding — unseen — in a traveler's boots.
It slots naturally into a day of Revolutionary and Hudson Valley history in Westchester County, a region thick with sites from the era. Read the inscription slowly when you arrive; its last line — "History has told the rest" — is an invitation to carry the story onward yourself, to the hanging of the spy and the flight of the traitor it doesn't spell out.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Major John André
- · John Paulding
- · David Williams
- · Isaac Van Wart
- · Benedict Arnold
Related events
- · Capture of Major André
- · Benedict Arnold's plot to surrender West Point
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Treason Site
Town of Clarkstown, NY
In the tense autumn of 1780, American General Benedict Arnold conspired with British Major John André to hand over the strategic Hudson River fortress at West Point — one of the most infamous acts of treason in the nation's history. André was captured while trying to reach British lines, and the plot unraveled, turning Arnold's name into a byword for betrayal. This marker stands near where that fateful meeting took place.
Treason Site
Village of Haverstraw, NY
On a September night in 1780, American General Benedict Arnold met secretly with British Major John André along the Hudson to arrange the surrender of the vital fortress at West Point. André was seized while attempting to return to British lines, exposing the conspiracy and cementing Arnold's reputation as the archetypal American traitor. This marker recalls the wooded ground tied to that betrayal.
Guard Hill Revolutionary War Lookout
Town of Bedford, NY
During the Revolutionary War, the high ground of Guard Hill offered a sweeping view over the surrounding Westchester countryside — the kind of vantage point that decided the fate of armies. It was important enough to be labeled "a commanding height" on the survey maps drawn by Robert Erskine, the Scottish-born engineer who served as Surveyor-General to the Continental Army and mapped the terrain George Washington's forces fought over. Throughout the war years, American observation patrols climbed to this summit to watch for enemy movement across a region that sat perilously between the British stronghold in New York City and the Patriot lines to the north.
Glover's Rock
New York, NY
On October 18, 1776, Colonel John Glover led a small force of Patriots in a fighting delay against advancing British and Hessian troops under General William Howe in what became the Battle of Pell's Point. By slowing the enemy's flanking advance, Glover's men bought George Washington's army the time it needed to withdraw north toward White Plains and Westchester. This boulder marks the ground near where that stand was made.