USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 33
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That a post be immediately taken and fortified at or near Kingsbridge, in the Colony of New York ; and that the ground be chosen with a particular view to prevent the communica- tion between the City of New York and the country from being interrupted by land.
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That a post be also taken in the Highlands, on each side of Hudson's River, and bat- teries erected in such a manner as will most effectually prevent any vessels passing that may be sent to harass the inhabitants on the borders of said river ; and that experienced persons be immediately sent to examine said river, in order to discover where it will be most advis- able and proper to obstruct the navigation.
These resolves, with others, were communicated to the provincial congress of New York, with instructions to keep them secret. That body referred the two matters to separate committees, which in due time reported plans for carrying the recommendations into effect. The result as to Kingsbridge was the construction of three redoubts, one of which (on Tetard's Hill) was called Fort Independence; and the first intrenchments thus established were soon supplemented by others along the Harlem and Spuyten Duyvil waterway. Fort Wash- ington, on Manhattan Island, overlooking the Hudson at about the foot of 181st Street, was built under the supervision of Colonel Rufus Putnam, of Washington's staff, previously to the British occupation of New York. It was designed to be-and was, in fact-the main de- fensive position guarding New York City below and the open country above; and Fort Washington and the Kingsbridge defenses were closely interdependent. In addition to its function as a citadel at the northern end of Manhattan Island, Fort Washington covered the passage up the Hudson River, to which end Fort Lee, erected about the same time directly opposite on the New Jersey bank, also con- tributed.
The committee having in charge the matter of advising as to forti- fying both banks of the Hudson in the neighborhood of the High- lands and obstrueting the river navigation paved the way for equally important undertakings in that quarter. Expert commissioners who were sent to examine the country laid stress in their report upon the natural military advantages offered by the northwestern section of Westchester County, which, besides guarding the Highlands, was the eastern terminus of the King's Ferry route (at that time the principal means of communication between the Eastern and Southern colonies), and also afforded an excellent road leading into Connecticut. The famous chain across the Hudson at Anthony's Nose was soon afterward manufactured. It is said to have cost £70,000, almost bankrupting the continental treasury, whereas no compensating beu- etits were derived from it. On two occasions it broke from its own weight. The ill-fated Forts Clinton and Montgomery were con- structed in the Highlands on the west side of the river, with Fort Constitution on an island opposite West Point. The erection of Fort Lafayette at Verplanck's Point and Fort Independence at Peekskill (as also of the famous works at Stouy Point, opposite Verplanck's)
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belongs to a later period. Of the various Revolutionary fortresses in the Highlands and that section, West Point was built last.
In addition to its particular recommendations respecting Kings- bridge, the Highlands, and the Hudson, the continental congress ad- vised New York to have its militia thoroughly armed and trained, and placed in " constant readiness to act at a moment's warning "; and, as a final matter, the colony was summoned to enlist and equip three thousand volunteers, who were to serve until the 31st of De- cember, 1775, unless sooner discharged. In response to the demand for three thousand enlisted men, four regiments were formed, of which one, though known as the Dutchess County regiment, was composed to a considerable extent of Westchester County men. Its colonel was James Holmes, of Bedford, a grandson of one of the original proprietors of that town, who had served with credit as a captain in the French and Indian War. Although, in addition to accepting this commission, Holmes had been a delegate to the provincial congress, and soon afterward served with his command in the invasion of Can- ada, he subsequently became one of the disaffected, turned Loyalist, and was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the corps of Westchester County Refugees. Philip Van Cortlandt, son of Pierre Van Cortlandt and a leading member of the provincial congress, was made lieuten- ant-colonel of the Dutchess County regiment. Three of its ien com- panies were largely from Westchester County.
In the summer of 1775 the provincial congress ordered a complete reorganization of the militia of the colony, and required every mem- ber of that body, between the ages of sixteen and fifty, to provide himself with a musket and bayonet, a sword or tomahawk, a cartridge- box to contain twenty-three rounds of cartridges, a knapsack, one pound of gunpowder, and three pounds of balls. There were no reg- ulations as to uniform. Under this order Westchester County thor- oughly reconstructed its militia, deposing all officers of unsatisfac- tory or doubtful antecedents, and electing stanch patriots in their stead. .
The battle of Bunker Hill, on the 17th of June, had still farther widened the breach, which, indeed, now seemed incapable of being closed. Three days previously George Washington had been ap- pointed by the continental congress commander-in-chief of the Amer- ican armies. On June 25 he arrived in New York on his way to the seat of war in Massachusetts, having been met at Newark by a depu- tation of citizens, of whom Gouverneur Morris was one of the prin- cipal members. He stopped over night in the city, and the next morn- ing continued his journey, being escorted for some distance by the
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local militia. His route, of course, lay through our county, along the Boston Post Road.
One of the most noteworthy enactments of the provincial congress of 1775 was a series of regulations for preventing and punishing nn- acceptable aets and language by the Tory element of the province. These regulations were drastic, and, as they were applied with par- ticular severity in Westchester County, a somewhat detailed notice of them is called for. The measure embodying them was adopted on the 26th of Angust. It prohibited the furnishing of provisions or other necessaries, " contrary to the resolutions of the continental or of this congress," to the ministerial army or navy, as well as com- municating by correspondence or otherwise to the British military or naval officers any information prejudicial to the interests or plans of the colonists. Persons accused of offending against the act in these respects were to be brought before the county or city committee, the provincial congress, or the committee of safety, and. if found guilty, were to be disarmed, to forfeit double the value of the articles furnished, and to be imprisoned not to
exceed three months. In case of a second of- fense, the guilty person was to be banished from the colony for seven years. Continuing, the act declared that, " although this congress, having tender regard to the freedom of speech, the rights of conscience, and personal liberty, so far QUOD TIBI VIS FIERI as indulgence in these particulars may be con- sistent with our general security, yet, for the general safety," it was necessary to sternly pun- FACIAS ish abuses of such privileges. Consequently all PHILIPSE ARMS. persons were prohibited from opposing or deny- ing " the authority of the continental or this congress, or the commit- tee of safety, or the committees of the respective counties, cities, towns, manors, precinets, or districts in this colony " and from " dis- suading any person or persons from obeying the recommendations of the continental or this congress, or the committee of safety, or the committees aforesaid." Suspects were to be tried before the county committees, and, if convicted, were to be disarmed for the first offense and committed to close confinement, at their respective expense, for the second. Committees and militia officers were enjoined to appre- hend every person discovered to be enlisted or in arms against the liberties of the country, and to keep him in custody until his fate should be determined by the congress; and the estate of every such in- dividual was to be seized and confiscated.
Very soon after the passage of this measure the zealous local com- mitteemen in Westchester County began to take steps for its wide-
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spread and stringent enforcement. With the autumn of 1775 com- meneed those numerous acts of information, frequently by neighbor against neighbor, and as frequently violative of every private confi- dence and decent obligation between man and man, which form so umch of the history of our county during the Revolution. In no other county of the province did such abundant and inviting ma- terial exist for the exercise of the peculiar activities of the patriotic informer. It is true that Kings, Queens, Suffolk, and Richmond Counties contained a large Loyalist population-perhaps as numer- ous and important, proportionately, as that of Westchester. But with the capture of New York City in the summer of 1776 these island counties came under the complete protection of the British forces, and their Tory inhabitants were consequently exempted from the inquisitorial observation and regulation through a long term of years which the British sympathizers in Westchester County had to suffer. There is no doubt that many of the individual proceedings in this connection in our county were fully warranted. It should also be remembered that such doings are the inevitable concomitants of war -- especially civil war,- even at the present day and under the most enlightened and generous governments. Yet the history of this aspect of the Revolution in Westchester County is peculiarly dis- tressing. The proscriptions were appalling in number, and whatever individual justice, wisdom, or necessity attached to special cases, the characteristic spirit of the Revolutionary authorities was without question merciless. A certain satisfaction, though but a melancholy one, is afforded by the reflection that the British, so far as they had the power to pursue retributive practices here, were even more vin- dictive in their spirit and barbarous in its execution. The Americans at least seldom burned private mansions or devastated estates, which the British did not fail to do in their raids; and, indeed, the West- chester raids of the British were often exclusively for these precise purposes. Summary arrests by the British in this county of persons not in arms, but deemed obnoxious for political reasons, were also very frequent ; and many a Westchester patriot, including some of the most honored sons of the county, perished miserably in the loath- some dungeons and frightful prison-ships which the English com- manders maintained for political captives.
The first list of suspects for the County of Westchester reported to the provincial congress was headed by the name of Colonel Fred- erick Philipse. Another conspicuous person denounced on the same occasion was the Rev. Samuel Seabury, of Eastchester, to whom Col- onel Lewis Morris had sarcastically alluded a few months before as a missionary for " propagating the Gospel, and not politicks, in for-
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eign parts." Philipse was destined to a brief respite before being summoned to the Revolutionary bar, but Seabury was soon to expe- rience even harsher treatment than that provided for in the sutli- ciently aggressive provincial act. This initial list comprised alto- gether thirty-one persons. So far as their individual cases have been traced, documentary evidence has been found showing that at least twenty of the number were duly convicted and cast into prison. A specially interesting case was that of Godfrey Hains, of Rye, de- nonneed by one Eunice Purdy, supposed to have been a revengeful sweetheart, in an affidavit over her mark. Eunice, being sworn " upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God," alleged that Hains had used extremely incendiary language in her hearing against congresses and committees, and moreover had expressed the heinous wish that men- of-war would come along the Sound. Hains was arrested, and, after being examined by the committee at White Plains, was about to be discharged with the mild sentence that he be disarmed; whereupon he defiantly admitted that he possessed arms, but would not reveal their hiding-place. The committee dispatched him to New York, with a letter describing him as a particularly dangerous man. He was confined in the City Hall Prison, and after a time was arraigned before the provincial congress and recommitted to jail. Taking ad- vantage of a favorable opportunity he escaped, and then, with sev- pral associates, he loaded a vessel with provisions and sailed for Boston, intending to deliver his supplies to General Howe. The ship was wrecked, its cargo was seized by the Revolutionary gov- ernment, and Hains was again imprisoned, this time in the Ulster County jail, where a strong guard was placed over him, and where, presumably, he languished long enough for his Tory ardor to become cooled.
Hains was supposed to have been concerned in a plot to seize the distinguished Judge John Thomas, and other prominent Westchester patriots, and carry them captives to the British general at Boston. Throughout the fall of 1775 there were whisperings of serious Tory conspiracies in Westchester County, which were likely to result at any time in retaliatory measures of a formidable nature. The arrests of Tories had in some instances been resisted by companies of their armed partisans, and in general a spirit of resentment had been manifested which gave considerable uneasiness to the committee. In a letter dated White Plains, the 1st of November, and signed by Jona- than G. Tompkins and others, concerning the rumored plot to abdnet Judge Thomas, the president of the provincial congress was besought to take the necessary steps for causing a number of specified persons to appear before that body and testify. " We would not have troubled
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FROM JANUARY, 1775, TO JULY 9, 1776
the congress," it was added, "about apprehending the above-named persons, but that we look upon ourselves, at present, as too weak to do it without great danger." Remembering that the committee had full power to summon the militia officers to their aid, this is a rather enrious confession. It was particularly feared that British vessels of war would appear on the Westchester shore of the Sound and land marines to carry out concerted local Tory plans. Strong feeling had been excited in this county by an order of the committee of safety for the general impressment of arms-that is, the seizure of all fire-pieces belonging to private persons-on the ground that they were needed for the equipment of the troops. The complaints against this order were so bitter that it had to be reseinded after a few sporadic attempts at its enforcement, none of which appear to have been ventured upon in Westchester County. Unfavorable comment was also caused by the bringing of some four hundred militiamen from Connectient, who were quartered at the northern end of Man- hattan Island under the command of General Wooster. There was at the time no enemy in the vicinity of New York, and none expected, and the necessity of employing troops from another colony in the ab- senee of any such emergency could not be explained to the satisfac- tion of the people. There is no evidence that there was fear of an armed rising in Westchester County, and yet many circumstances of the local situation in the fall of 1775 indicate a well-founded dis- trust of the Tory faction.
In this position of affairs occurred the celebrated Westchester raid of Captain Isaac Sears, resulting in the apprehension and removal to Connecticut of three of the leading men of the Loyalist party-the Rev. Samuel Seabury, Mayor Nathaniel Underhill, of Westchester Borough, and Judge Jonathan Fowler. Seabury and Underhill were men of undisguised and strong Tory sentiments. Fowler, although he had signed a recantation of expressed views of a similar char- acter, was still regarded with a good deal of suspicion. The three men were leading representatives of the disaffected classes who were giving so much trouble to the Revolutionary committee in West- chester County, and Sears conceived the idea that their simultaneous arrest by means of a dashing expedition would exert a wholesome in- fluence toward the proper regulation of that much Tory-ridden region.
Captain Isaac Sears was a picturesque Revolutionary personage. In the French and Indian War he was in command of a privateer sloop, with which, although it carried but fourteen guns, he attacked a French ship of twenty-four, grappling with it three times but finally being compelled by a storm to abandon his bold attempt. Later, he engaged in shipping pursuits in New York of a more or less ques-
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tionable character. At the beginning of the Stamp Act troubles he took the leadership of the Sous of Liberty in that city, and through his many exploits in this connection he came to be popularly known as King Sears. At the time of the Golden Hill conflict between the citizens and the soldiers, in 1770, he was in the thick of the fray, and, finding himself confronted at one stage of it by a fierce grenadier with a bayonet, with great presence of mind and precision of aim hurled a ram's horn at the unfortunate man, which struck him full in the forehead and put him hors de combat. Wherever there was an affray Sears was sure to be, always rough and ready and always victorious. As time sped on to the Revolution, he sought to give to his country's cause the benefit also of his co-operation in council, but received not overmuch encourage- ProPatria The first Man that either distributes or makes use of Slamph Paper lethim take Care of his House, Person, & Effects. Vox Populi; ment in that line from the aristocratic and coldly intellectual Jays, Duanes, Livingstons, and Morrises. Yet as the leading man of the democratic masses he was not to be ignored, and he not only was connected with the New York committee from its organi- zation, but sat in the provincial con- The rare gress of 1775 as a delegate from the city. Resigning his membership in LIBERTY PLACARD. that body, he went to New Haven, Coun., where, continuing to observe the march of events in New York, he was particularly impressed with the unsuitable spirit of so many citizens of Westchester County, and concluded that a little vigorous correction in that quarter would be entirely apropos.
With sixteen mounted and armed men, described by a New Haven newspaper of the day as " respectable citizens of this town," Sears set out on the 20th of November for the avowed purpose of an ex- pedition " to East and West Chester, in the Province of New York, to disarm the principal Tories there and secure the persons of Parson Seabury, Judge Fowler, and Lord Underhill." On the way they were joined by Captains Richards, Silleck, and Mead, with about eighty men. At Mamaroneck they burned a sloop that had been purchased by the British governor to convey provisions to the man-of-war "Asia." A detachment of forty men, commanded by Captain Lo- throp, was sent to Westchester, which without ceremony took Sea- bury and Underhill in custody, the main body meantime proceeding to Eastchester and securing Judge Fowler. The three prisoners were dispatched with a guard of twenty to Connecticut. This completed Sears's business in Westchester County, but he had still another reg-
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ulating duty to perform. He had long been displeased with the editorial conduct of Rivington's New York Gazetteer, and he now rode with his remaining men, a troop of about seventy-five, down to the city, " which they entered at noon-day, with bayonets fixed and the greatest regularity, went down the main streets, and drew up in close order before the printing office of the infamous James Riving- ton."1 They completely wrecked the establishment, demolishing the presses and taking away the types; and, having so successfully com- pleted this final part of their mission, remounted, struck up the tune of " Yankee Doodle," and amid the cheers of the populace returned whence they came.
Some incidents of Sears's raid suggest that it was not exclusively an enterprise of patriotic enthusiasm. Certain acts of indecorum were committed, to characterize them by no harsher term. At Sea bury's house they broke open his desk, examined and scattered his papers, appropriated some three or four dollars in money, and quite offensively threatened and insulted his daughter. From Fowler's residence they carried away a beaver hat, a silver-mounted horse- whip, and two silver spoons, besides the sword, gun, and pistols which belonged to his official dignity as colonel in the militia. They more- over visited the homes of various Tories along the route, where sup- posably they did not uniformly resist taking such articles as were to their liking. Our nineteenth century Tory historian, Dawson, in his account of this raid, comments with uncontrolled and terrible excitement upon every phase of it, describing Sears as a cowardly, plundering ruffian of the dirtiest water, and his troopers as diabolical banditti, and insists that they returned to Connecticut laden with spoils. Of this there is no evidence whatever. Abundant evidence does exist that they brought back with them a large and curious collection of arms from Westchester Loyalists of notorious repute. The expedition, however lawless and reprehensible, was a bona fide one in the patriot interest, and not an adventure for mere private phunder, although it can not be questioned that some incidental pecu- lating was done. Compared with the villainous doings of the Cow- boy and Skinner bands of subsequent years, it was a quite virtuous and legitimate enterprise.
As such it was unhesitatingly regarded by the good people of Con- neetient, who right royally welcomed home the returning regulators. The guard having the three prisoners in charge had halted at Horso-
1 The circumstance. as recorded by the vera- Mious chronicler, that they rode into the city " with bayonets fixed." is powerful evidence of the griminess of the business upon which they we're bent. The editor of this History has wit-
nessed many mounted troops going into or in process of action, but does not recall any orea- sion when fixed bayonets were among their arnis.
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neck, where on the 27th of November they were joined by the parent band. The next day the whole party took up their triumphal march to New Haven. They were escorted, says the local newspaper from which we have already quoted, " by a number of gentlemen from the westward, the whole making a grand procession. Upon their en- trance into town they were saluted with the discharge of two can- nons, and received by the inhabitants with every mark of approba- tion and respect. The company divided into two parts, and con- eluded the day in festivities and innocent mirth. "Captain Sears," ingennously adds this patriotic sheet, "returned in company with the other gentlemen, and proposes to spend the winter here, unless publiek business should require his presence in New York." It does not appear that any such " publick business," so far as Westchester County was concerned, transpired to interfere with the virtuous cap- tain's amiable arrangements. Ile does not again figure, at least to the knowledge of the present historian, in the concerns of our county. Judge Fowler and Mayor Underhill were released in a day or two, after signing papers presented to them by the Connecticut officials, wherein they declared themselves to be heartily sorry for their "in- considerate conduct," and promised never more to transgress in like manner. But the Rev. Mr. Seabury was not so leniently dealt with. It was widely believed that he was the author of " A. W. Farmer " tracts, so peculiarly offensive to the patriotic sentiment of the times; and however that might be he was undeniably a Tory of the most in- tractable and odions type. It was remembered with great indigna- tion against him that he had refused to open the church at East- chester on the day appointed for the continental fast. Finally, he was regarded with deep private resentment by Captain Sears, who suspected him of complicity in a scheme to seize him (Sears) while he was passing through Westchester County on a former occasion, and carry him on board a man-of-war. He was held in confinement for more than a month, at his own financial charge, his prayers to the courts for relief being utterly ignored. At length be submitted an able memorial to the Connecticut legislature, in which he dwelt upon the flagrant illegality of the whole proceedings in his case, and that body presently ordered his release. Returning to Westchester, he found his affairs there in a sorry plight. The private school upon which he had mainly depended for support was completely broken up. He was under a heavy burden of debt, his influence in the community was at an end, and he and his family were obliged to submit to many discourtesies and insults. During the military campaign of 1776 he was obliged to give accommodation in his house to a company of
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