The fireworks part of Cortlandt's semiquincentennial already happened. On June 25, the Waterfront Park in Verplanck hosted the 250th re-enactment, a plaque dedication, the 42nd Infantry Division Concert Band, and a fireworks finale at nine. If you were there, you had your loud version of 1776. If you skipped it, you have not missed the anniversary. You have missed the noisy half of it.

The quieter half is inland, on Sunday, July 5, in the corner of town most Cortlandt drivers pass through without ever stopping. It runs from about mid-morning through the afternoon, it is free, it does not require registration, and it changes how the rest of a Cortlandt July reads.

The Sunday program, in the order you walk it

The July 5 event is organized jointly by the Van Cortlandtville Cemetery Association, St. Peter's Episcopal Church of Peekskill, the Town of Cortlandt, the Little Red Schoolhouse, the Peekskill Museum, and the Van Cortlandtville Historical Society. That is six local institutions on one program, which is unusual for a summer Sunday and worth turning up for on that alone.

The day is built as a walking loop rather than a lecture, and the stops all sit within a few hundred feet of each other:

• 9 to 11 a.m., Old St. Peter's Church, Oregon Road at Locust Avenue. A colonial-style church service in the 1766 building, described in the county's July 4 listings as taking place where George Washington worshipped.
• Late morning, the Little Red Schoolhouse, 297 Locust Avenue. A public conversation on what the announcement of independence meant in 1776 and how it reads in 2026, framed as an educational follow-up to the parades and fireworks the day before.
• Van Cortlandtville Cemetery. Guided visits to Revolutionary-era graves. Per the Town of Cortlandt, the cemetery is the resting place of 44 soldiers from the Revolutionary War, some identified and others unidentified, and also includes the grave of Paulding, one of the three men who captured British spy John André.
• The John Paulding monument. The largest stone in the cemetery, and the reason bus tours from Tarrytown sometimes end up here without warning.

Admission is free and no registration is required. Parking is available at the cemetery, with access from Locust Avenue.

Why Old St. Peter's is the anchor

If you have lived in Cortlandt Manor for a while, you have probably driven past Old St. Peter's on the way to something else. It is easy to miss. The building is 28 feet by 36 feet, wood-frame sheathed in clapboards, and was restored in 1964. That is smaller than a lot of Cortlandt living rooms.

The scale is the point. This is the building where the actual Revolution touched this specific stretch of Westchester. French troops used St. Peter's as a military hospital in 1781 and 1782, and Claude Blanchard, the French commissary general, wrote in his journal, "I caused my sick men, amounting to more than a hundred, to be … placed in the Peekskill temple." Seven French soldiers who died at St. Peter's were buried in unmarked graves in the Old Cemetery, and an eighth, an officer believed to be related to the royal family, was returned to France for burial.

The parish itself moved to Peekskill in the 19th century. What is left in Van Cortlandtville is now used sparingly. The building is currently used for church services on Memorial Day and the first Sunday in July, and it is also opened for special events throughout the year. First Sunday in July, 2026, happens to also be the country's 250th. That coincidence is why the July 5 program exists in the shape it does.

The July 19 barbecue closes the loop

If July 5 is the intellectual half of Van Cortlandtville's summer, July 19 is the paper-plate half. The Van Cortlandtville Historical Society hosts its Annual Barbecue on Saturday, July 19, from noon onward, at the Little Red School House at 297 Locust Avenue, the same building that anchored the walking loop two weeks earlier.

Two practical notes worth internalizing before you show up. Attendees are advised to arrive on time to ensure hot food and to bring cash, as electronic payments are not always accepted. The Annual Barbecue costs five dollars per meal. Five dollars is not a typo, and it is the closest thing Cortlandt has to a hyperlocal social contract: show up, eat a hot dog, meet a neighbor you have driven past for a decade.

The story most Cortlandt residents know about the town's history is a Hudson River story. Verplanck, the waterfront, Van Cortlandt Manor down in Croton. The July 5 program is the other story, the inland one, and it has been running quietly on Oregon Road the whole time.

The Waterfront half of the month is still doing its work

None of the above cancels out the summer's other spine. The Town of Cortlandt's Annual Summer Concert and Movie Series runs at Cortlandt Waterfront Park at 41 Riverview Street in Verplanck, from mid June through August, with six concert nights and a Hudson River backdrop. Three of those nights land in July:

Food vendors are on site for dinner and snacks. The shape of a well-planned Cortlandt July, if you want one, is Verplanck on Thursday nights and Van Cortlandtville on the two Sundays that matter, the 5th and the 19th.

One traffic note before you plan the drive

If you are coming across town from the river side, the town posted a heads-up worth reading. The Furnace Woods Sewer District Project has a Lafayette Avenue detour running from July 2 through July 10, 2026. That window overlaps the July 5 program. Give yourself the extra ten minutes and route through Oregon Road from the north rather than trying to punch through Lafayette on a Sunday morning.

The Van Cortlandtville pantry, since you are already up there

Once you have made the trip inland for the walking loop, you are two minutes from Hemlock Hill Farm at 500 Croton Avenue, open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. It is one of the oldest family-owned working farms in Westchester, nestled in the green hills and pastures bordering the Croton reservoirs. Established in 1939.

Two things to know about a July visit specifically. First, during the peak summer heat of July and August, farm tours pause as the animals stay in cooler areas and are harder to spot, and tours return in the fall from September through October, every Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. So July is a farm store trip, not a walking tour trip. Second, the farm store carries fresh meat products every day, all cuts of beef, pork, lamb, chickens, and seasonally duck, goose, and turkey. Which turns the sequence of a Sunday, July 5 into something coherent: church service at nine, walking loop mid-morning, cooler in the trunk, Hemlock Hill for Sunday-dinner meat on the way home.

A Van Cortlandtville-shaped July, in one week

If you want to lift the whole thing off the page, one working week looks like this:

1. Sunday, July 5. Old St. Peter's service at 9. Walking loop through the Little Red Schoolhouse, the cemetery, and the Paulding monument. Hemlock Hill Farm store on the way out.
2. Thursday, July 9. FDR Drive at Cortlandt Waterfront Park in Verplanck, 6:30. Different half of town, deliberately.
3. Thursday, July 23. Grateful Bro's plus a family movie night at the Waterfront.
4. Thursday, July 30. Class Action at the Waterfront, last concert before the August 6 finale.
5. Saturday, July 19. Historical Society Barbecue at the Little Red Schoolhouse, noon, five dollars, cash.

Five dates. Two hamlets. One month that finally uses both halves of Cortlandt instead of just the river-facing one.

The reframe

The reason to notice the July 5 program is not that it is bigger or louder than what happened on the 25th. It is neither. It is that the 250th anniversary of the country happens to line up with the first Sunday in July, which happens to be one of the two Sundays a year Old St. Peter's actually opens for a service. That kind of alignment does not repeat. If you have lived in Cortlandt Manor for years and have never walked through the cemetery on Locust Avenue, this is the summer to do it. If you have lived here for months and are still figuring out where the town's history actually sits, the answer is not on the river. It is a mile inland, next to a schoolhouse the size of a garage.

If you are thinking about how a home in this corner of Cortlandt Manor fits into your longer plans, whether that is a move up, a relocation from the city, or a first purchase, Nicole Biello knows the Van Cortlandtville streets, the Verplanck waterfront, and every road in between. Book a free strategy call and let's map out what your next chapter here looks like.