In 1775 General George Washington stopped in New Rochelle on his way to assume command of the Army of the United Colonies in Massachusetts, recounting: "The road for the greater part, indeed the whole way, but the land strong and well covered with grass and a crop of Indian corn intermixed with Pompions (which were yet ungathered) in the fields... The distance of this day's travel was 31 miles in which we passed through Eastchester, New Rochelle, Mamaroneck, but as these places (although they have houses of worship in them) are not regularly laid out, they are scarcely to be distinguished from the immediate farms which are very close together and are separated as one inclosure from another is, by fences of stones which are indeed easily made as the country is immensely stony".