History
The peak has been known as Anthony's Nose since at least 1697, when the name appears on a grant patent. The eponymous Anthony may be St Anthony, as a rock formation called "Saint Anthony's Face" existed on Breakneck Ridge nearby before its destruction by quarrying.
Pierre Van Cortlandt, who owned this mountain, said it was named for a pre-Revolutionary War sea captain, Anthony Hogan. This captain was reputed to have a Cyrano de Bergerac type nose. One of his mates, looking at this mount, as they sailed by it, compared it to that of the captain's nose. He said that they looked similar in size. This good-natured joke soon spread, and the name Anthony's Nose stuck to this peak. Washington Irving's History of New York, a satire, attributes the name to one Antony Van Corlear.
One of the Hudson River Chains was stretched from Fort Montgomery to the foot of the mountain. The Bear Mountain Bridge was later constructed along approximately that alignment. An airway beacon was once located on the summit.
Read more about this topic: Anthony's Nose (Westchester)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)