MINISINK FORD — Due to the forecast of extreme heat and humidity on Saturday, July 23, the commemoration of the Battle of Minisink was moved to the park pavilion, rather than at the monument on the hill. The ceremony drew a sizable crowd, filling the pavilion and spilling into the shady forest beside it. 

Presenting the colors were reenactors from the Navasing Long Rifles, the 5th New York Infantry, and the 143rd New York State Volunteer Infantry.

Suzanne Cecil, president of the Sullivan County Historical Society, lead the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Barbara Gropper of the Wayne Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), read The American's Creed. 

President of The Delaware Company and Sullivan County Historian John Conway served as master of ceremonies and delivered the keynote address, “The Battle of Minisink Re-Examined in the Age of Criticism.” 

Conway noted the current prevalence of criticism in our society, and mentioned former President Theodore Roosevelt’s speech, “Citizen in a Republic,” in which Roosevelt referred to the “man in the arena.”

In it Roosevelt stated, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who … at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…” 

The militiamen who met their foes at Minisink paid the ultimate price for their daring, on a day much the same as this past weekend, 243 years ago. 

Thanking the audience for its support over the years, Conway admitted his own successes have not been without some failure. He encouraged those present to also “aspire to be the ‘man in the arena,’” for without tenacity, little of worth would be accomplished. 

The names of the fallen at Minisink were read by Jim McKeegan, Alexis Patterson and Ryan O’Shaughnessy, all docents from the Fort Delaware Museum in Narrowsburg.

The Beaverkill, Old Mine Road, and Wayne chapters of the DAR laid flowers at the monument of the fallen on the battlefield following the ceremony.