USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 44
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On the east side of the river, just above Peekskill village, was a work called Fort Independence.1 This was substantially completed during the winter of 1776-77. There was at that time no other fort on the Westchester shore, although later Fort Lafayette was built at the extremity of Verplanck's Point to protect the King's Ferry route, and on a hill near Cortlandtville Fort Lookout was con- structed. Above Peekskill the passes into the Highlands were pro- treted by detachments of troops, the principal pass being at Robin- son's Bridge. In this vicinity was located the celebrated Continental Village, where the stores were stationed and extensive barracks were erected. From Anthony's Nose to the west shore the chain designed to obsirnet the navigation was stretched. This contrivance. besides being very cosdy, gave the American engineers a vast deal of trouble. On November 21. 1776, General Heath reported that it had - twice broke." Cables were stretched in front of the chain, says Irving. to break the force of any ship under way before she could strike it.
This there were two forts of this name in Westchester County, the other ffrequently re-
ferred to in the preceding pages having been at Kingsbridge.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
On the west side, beginning at the north, was Fort Montgomery. This was located directly opposite Anthony's Nose and just above a little stream called Poplopen's Creek. On the south side of the creek was Fort Clinton. These two strongholds, with the co-operation of Fort Independence below and the help of the obstructing chain, were deemed adequate to the protection of the river. It was considered in:possible that the enemy would ever attempt to march through the difficult passes south of Fort Clinton and attack that place and Fort Montgomery from the rear-although just such a contingency was foroseen by Washington while at Peekskill, and he had recommended the erection of a southerly fort on the west side. Still farther down, opposite Verplanck's Point, rose an eminence called Stony Point. This place, in common with Verplanck's Point, was not fortified at the beginning of the Revolution; but some time after the building of Fort Lafayette, on Verplanck's Point, works were begun on Stony Point, which, before their completion, were seized by the British, who then erected the famous citadel which Anthony Wayne stormed. Finally, above the chain, on an island opposite West Point, was Fort Constitution, to be depended on as a last resort in case the works below should prove insufficient. This fort, like Montgomery, Clinton, and Independence, dates from an early period.
After the ultimate disposition of the two opposing forces was effected-the Americans at Peekskill and the British at Kingsbridge -Westchester County assumed at once the character of a Neutral Ground. Wherever the term, " the Neutral Ground," occurs in gen- eral histories of the Revolution, it applies exclusively to Westchester County-and to substantially the whole of the county. It is generally considered that the Neutral Ground proper embraced only the dis- friet between the Croton River at the north and a limit at the south abont identical with the present city line of New York-that north of the Croton the Americans held undisputed sway, and in the sonih- ern strip adjacent to Kingsbridge the British were unquestioned masters. But in truth there was no Neutral Ground proper. Prac- tically all of Westchester County was continually exposed to alternate American and British raids, forages, and ravages, to depre- dations by bands of irresponsible ruffiaus not regularly attached to either army, and to acts of neighborhood aggression and reprisal by the patriot upon the Tory inhabitants and rice rersa. It is a fact that several of the most formidable descents by the British in the history of the Nentral Ground were upon American posts at or above the Croton. A memorable expedition was made against an American force at Poundridge in the summer of 1759; Bedford was burned upon the same occasion; Crompond, in Yorktown, was successfully
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attacked ; and in 1781 a large body of Americans guarding the Croton, under the command of the brave but unfortunate Colonel Greene, was surprised and many of them were killed. As late as 1782 Crom- pond, though well above the Croton, was deemed a quite exposed situation. On the other hand, daring assaults by the Americans were frequently undertaken down to the very outposts of Kings- bridge, and no part of the county witnessed more animated scenes than the present Borough of the Bronx. The command on the lines, as the projection of the American position below Peekskill was called, was uniformly intrusted to officers of approved courage and enter- prise. Here Colonel Aaron Burr was for some months in charge, highly distinguishing himself by his good discipline and efficiency. The parties which reciprocally served for defense and offense on the enemy's side comprised several well known bodies of horse and foot -notably the Queen's Rangers under Simcoe, de Lancey's corps of Westchester County Refugees, and forces led by Tarleton, Emmerick, and others. The Americans were locally styled in Westchester County the Upper Party, and the British the Lower Party. In addition to the regular troopers on either side, there were numerous unau- thorized and wholly illegal bands, organized principally for private plunder, called Skinners and Cowboys, the former being of professed patriotic and the latter of Tory affiliation. But both Skinners and Cowboys were largely undiscriminating as to the object of their opera- tions so long as they could derive any kind of private advantage from them. Washington Irving's description is without doubt familiar to all our readers:
This debatable land was overrun by predatory bands from either side ; sacking henroosts, plundering farmhouses, and driving off cattle. Hence arose those two great orders of bor- der chivalry, the Skiners and Cowboys, famous in the heroic annals of Westchester County. The former fought, or rather marauded, under the American, the latter under the British baner ; but both, in the hurry of their military ardor, were apt to err on the safe side and rob friend as well as foe. Neither of them stopped to ask the polities of horse or cow which they drove into captivity ; nor, when they wrung the neck of a rooster, did they trouble their heads to ascertain whether he were erowing for congress or King George.
Numerous graphic accounts of the awful conditions prevailing in the Neutral Ground have been printed from the pens of contem- porary narrators, both military and civil. " From the Croton to Kingsbridge," says one writer, "every species of rapine and lawless- ness prevailed. No one went to his bed but under the apprehension of having his house plundered or burnt, or himself or family massa- ered, before morning." The following picture of the times is from the " Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull," who was an officer on duty in Westchester County during a portion of the war:
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
The Cowboys and Skinners ravaged the whole region." The first, called Refugees, ranged themselves on the British side. They were employed in plundering cattle and driving them to the city ; their name is derived from their occupation. The latter, called Skinners, while professing attachment to the American cause, were devoted to indiscriminate robbery, mur- der. and every species of the most brutal outrage. They seemed, like the savage, to have learned to enjoy the sight of the sufferings they inflicted. Oftentimes they left their wretched vietims, from whom they had plundered their all, hung up by their arms, and sometimes by their thumbs, on barn doors, enduring the agony of the wounds that had been inflicted to wrest from them their property. These miserable beings were frequently relieved by our patrols, who every night seoured the country from river to river. But, unhappily, the military force was too small to render the succor so much needed, although by its vigilance and the infliction of severe punishment on the offenders, it kept in check, to a certain extent, this law- less race of men.
The figures of comparative population in Westchester County be- fore, during, and after the Revolution are exceedingly significant. In 1756 the population of the county was 13,257, and at the next census, in 1771, it was 21,745-an increase of 8,448 in fifteen years. After 1771 no enumeration was taken until 1790, when the total inhabitants of the county were 24,003, only 2,258 more than nineteen years pre- viously, before the war started. In the ten years from 1790 to 1800, on the other hand, the population rose to 27,347, a gain of 3,344. After the peace (1783) special inducements were offered to settlers by the confiscation of Tory estates and the disposition of these valua- ble lands under State auspices at low prices. Even under such favor- ing conditions the population in 1790, after seven years of peace, was but slightly larger than in 1771. The decline during the Revolution must have been considerable.
Dr. Timothy Dwight, in his " Travels," has left a most circumstan- tial description of the disconsolate and desolate condition to which Westchester County was reduced at an early period of the Revolu- tion. Nothing we could hope to write could possibly present so in- forming a view of the whole subject as Dr. Dwight's simple narra- tion; and though it has been frequently quoted its citation here is quite indispensable:
In the autumn of 1777 I resided for some time in this county. The lines of the British were then in the neighborhood of Kingsbridge, and those of the Americans at Byram River. The unhappy inhabitants were, therefore, exposed to the depredations of both. Often they were actually plundered, and always were liable to this calamity. They feared everybody whom they saw, and loved nobody. It was a curious fact to a philosopher, and a melancholy one to hear their conversation. To every question they gave such an answer as would please the inquirer ; or, if they despaired of pleasing, such a one as would not provoke him. Fear was, apparently, the only passion by which they were animated. The power of volition seemed to have deserted them. They were not civil, but obsequious ; not obliging, but sub- servient. They yielded with a kind of apathy, and very quietly, what you asked and what they supposed it impossible for them to retain. If you treated them kindly they received it eoldly, not as a kindness but as a compensation for injuries done them by others. When you spoke to them they answered you without either good or ill nature, and withont any appear- ance of reluctance or hesitation ; Int they subjoined neither questions nor remarks of their own ; proving to your full conviction that they felt no interest either in the conversation or
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yourself. Both their countenances and motions had lost every trace of animation and feeling. The features were smoothed, not into serenity, but apathy ; and, instead of being settled in the attitude of quiet thinking, strongly indicated that all thought beyond what was merely instinctive had fled their minds for ever.
Their houses, in the meantime, were in a great measure seenes of desolation. Their fur- niture wis extensively plundered, or broken to pieces. The walls, floors, and windows were injured both by violence and decay, and were not repaired because they had not the means to repair them, and because they were exposed to the repetition of the same injuries. Their cattle were gone. Their inclosures were burnt where they were capable of becoming fuel, and in many cases thrown down where they were not. Their fields were covered with a rank growth of weeds and wild grass.
Amid all this appearance of desolation, nothing struck my eye more forcibly than the sight of the high road. Where I had heretofore seen a continual succession of horses and carriages, life and bustle- lending a sprightliness to all the environing objects,-not a single, solitary trav- eler was seen from week to week or from month to month. The world was motionless and silent, except when one of these unhappy people ventured upon a rare and lonely excursion to the house of a neighbor no less unhappy ; or a scouting party, traversing the country in quest of enemies, alarmed the inhabitants with expectations of new injuries and sufferings. The very tracks of the carriages were grown over and obliterated ; and where they were dis- cernible resembled the faint impressions of chariot wheels said to be left on the pavements of llerenlaneum. The grass was of full height For the seythe ; and strongly realized to my own mind, for the first time, the proper import of that picturesque declaration in the Song of Deborah : " In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Joel, the high- ways were unocenpied, and the travelers walked through by-paths. The inhabitants of the villages ceased ; they ceased in Israel."
The fearful depredations in the Neutral Ground were viewed by the higher military authorities on the British side with entire approval, and on the American side, it must be admitted, generally without any acute disapprobation. The command of the American troops "on the lines " was always particularly coveted by officers of un- serupulous inclinations, because of the opportunities it afforded for plundering transactions, which their superiors were pretty certain not to discountenance. When Aaron Burr took command on the lines, in January, 1779, his first official duty was to deal with a " Scouting party," which, on the same day, under the lead of his pred- ecessor, had gone below for no other purpose than to seize private property; and the principal condition of unsatisfactory discipline which he had to correct was the extreme fondness of the soldiers for such " scouting " enterprises. It is but fair to say, however, that the American commanders on the lines were usually men of good per- sonal antecedents, and it does not appear that any very notorious person on our side was ever intrusted with authority in Westchester County. But while the American commanders were well-intentioned as a rule, they generally allowed their subordinates and men much license. Burr's stern administration in this particular was excep- tional. The circumstance of the continued existence during the Revolution of the quasi-patriot organization of " Skinners," who were fully as merciless and rapacious as the British " Cowboys," is con- «lusive proof of a studied disinclination on the part of the American
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officers to specially exert themselves for the protection of the in- habitants.
The chief British authorities in New York have left various docu- mentary evidences of their express sanction of the most unlicensed practices of their partisans in the Neutral Ground. The spirit by which they were actuated is very candidly expressed in a remarkable letter by Governor Tryon, dated " Kingsbridge Camp, Nov. 23, 1777." The American General Samnel H. Parsons, commanding at the time at Mamaroneck, had written to Governor Tryon quite indignantly about the conduet of some British soldiers-entirely unprovoked-in burning the dwelling of a Westchester County committeeman on Philipseburgh Manor; also intimating that such outrageous deeds, if continned, might provoke retaliation. Governor Tryon, in his reply, said: " 1 have candor enough to assure you-as much as I abhor every principle of in- humanity or ungenerous conduct-I should, wore I in more authority. burn every committeeman's house within my reach, as I deem those agents the wicked instruments of the continued calamities of this country; and in order sooner to purge the country of them, I am willing to give twenty-five dollars for every ar- tive committeeman who shall be de- livered up to the King's troops."
Ench Crosby.
That popular romance, Cooper's " Spy" (the earliest of its anthor's novels of American life), is, as its title states, a " Tale of the Neutral Ground." Cooper's hero, who goes in the novel by the name of Harvey Birch, was a real personage, whose true name was Enoch Crosby, and who became a respected citizen of our county after the Revolution, dying at Golden's Bridge in 1835. It is widely known that Cooper was mainly indebted to Chief Justice John Jay for the facts of Crosby's career which led to the writing of the " Spy," but it appears that Jay was in error in supposing that Crosby's opera- tions took him occasionally within the British lines in New York City. The fact is, he devoted himself quite exclusively to the coun- try districts. Mr. Joseph Barrett, the well known local historian of our Town of Bedford, in an address delivered before the Westchester County Historical Society in 1879, gave a very thorough account of Crosby's life and patriotic services. The great and permanent in-
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terest of the subject justifies the following extended reproduction, copied from the digest of Mr. Barrett's address in Scharf's History:
Crosby was born in Harwich, Barnstable County, Mass., Jannary 4, 1750, and at the break- ing out of the Revolution was a shoemaker at Danbury, Con. Ile had previously been a tanner and eurrier. He was an ardent patriot, and enlisted before the battle of Lexington in Benedict's company, of Waterbury's regiment, which was attached to that branch of the Canada expedition of August, 1775, commanded first by Schuyler and then by Montgomery. llis term of enlistment expiring, he returned to Danbury after the occupation of Montreal, and then traveled over Dutchess and Westchester Counties as a peripatetic shoemaker. Thus he not only acquired that intimate knowledge of the country that was to prove so valuable to the American cause, but also was brought into contact with the Whigs and Tories, the bum- mers, raiders, Cowboys, and Skinners who infested the Neutral Ground between the lines of the opposing armies.
His first work as a spy was accidental. Determining to re-enlist, he tramped sonthward toward the American forces, through Westchester County, in September, 1776, and on the way met a Tory, who fell into the belief that Crosby was one of his own stamp. Crosby did not undeceive him, and, as the stranger had a loose tongue, the young American was soon put in information of all the Tory secrets in that part of the country. Having learned so much, it occurred to him that he might as well prosecute the adventure which fortune had placed in his hands, and asked to be taken to a meeting of Tories, which his companion had told him was to be held near by, to raise a company for the king's service. He must have played his part admirably, for he gained audience with all the important royal sympathizers of the neighborhood, including the secret enemies of the patriots, and laid a most admirable plot for their discomfiture.
Learning that a meeting of the Tory band was to be held on a certain night, he slipped away on the previous morning and by a forced march across the country reached at midnight the house of a Mr. Youngs, eight miles from White Plains, whom he knew to be a true Am- erican. Prevailing on this man to accompany him, they aroused Messrs. Jay, Duer, Sackett, and Platt, the committee of safety at White Plains, and Crosby gave them the news which he had gathered with so much daring and adroitness. They ordered ont Captain Townsend's company of mounted rangers, who swept across the country under Crosby's lead, surprised the assembled Tories, and ere daylight dawned had every man of them prisoners and on their way to White Plains.
The fame of this exploit went everywhere through the American lines. Crosby, then a strapping fellow of twenty-seven years, nearly six feet tall, broad and musenlar, talked to Mr. Jay abont re-enlisting, but that sagacions gentleman represented to him that in no way could he do so much for his country as by continuing in that line of duty for which this one achievement seemed to mark him as specially fitted. " Our greatest danger," said Mr. Jay to him, "is our secret foes. We know how to guard against our enemies in the field, but we have no defense against secret enemies, who profess to be friendly to us and plot their trea- son in midnight cabals. One who can counteract these influences is entitled to more credit than he who fights in the ranks." Crosby demurred at first, but finally accepted the employ- ment of a spy on the condition that if he should die in their service the committee would see that his name was vindicated. With much feeling Mr. Jay and his associates gave him this solemn assurance, and Crosby consecrated himself to his dangerous and arduons task.
Carrying a pass from the committee, which was to be used only in cases of extreme necessity, and disguised as a traveling cobbler, he set ont on his secret mission to discover and entrap the bands of Tories forming under cover. This was in the late fall of 1776. Very shortly he applied for a shoemaker's job at a farm-house, and discovering that a royalist com- pany was being enlisted in the vicinage, professed a desire to enlist, but declined to give his name because the roll might fall into the hands of the rebels. He gained the confidence of the Tory leaders so completely that he was allowed to examine the roll, and was shown an immense haystack in a meadow near the captain's house, which proved to be a framework covered with hay and capable of concealing forty or fifty men. A meeting of the company having been arranged for the next evening, he left his bed in the captain's house during the night previous, reported to the committee at White Plains, and was back in his bed before
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the family were stirring. The band was duly surrounded and captured, Crosby among them, by Townsend's Rangers, and marched to confinement in the old Dutch Church at Fishkill, where they were examined by the committee. By collusion, Crosby escaped from the church, but was compelled to rush past the sentinels in the dark. They fired at him, but he escaped unhurt.
By agreement with the committee he was known as John Smith. Twelve miles northwest of Marlborough he wormed out of a Tory farmer the information that an English captain was hiding in a eave near by, and trying to recruit a company. Repeating his ruse of a desire to enlist, the spy discovered that a meeting was to be held on Tuesday, November 5, 1776, at a barn on Butter Hill. Suggesting to the captain that they had best leave the eave separately, he departed and sent word to the committee. Crosby arrived at the barn in due time with the Tories and laid down with them in the hay. Presently he heard a cough outside, the signal agreed upon, which he answered, and the barn was quickly filled with the rangers. Colonel Dner, of the committee of safety, had come with them for the express purpose of protecting Crosby, and, indeed, had given the signal. The English captain was ordered to eall his roll, but Crosby did not respond to his name. Townsend, who was not in the secret, prodded him ont with a bayonet from the hay, and, recognizing the man who had escaped him at Fishkill, promised to load him with irons. lle shackled the spy, took him to his own
quarters, and confined him in an upper room. But when Townsend had drunk after dinner plentifully of wine which the maid, instructed by the committee of safety, had enriched with a gentle opiate, and was sleeping soundly, she unlocked the door with the key which she took from Townsend's pocket, and led Crosby forth to Freedom.
By such methods Crosby was instrumental in the capture of many Tory bands. He spent several weeks in the family of a Dutchman, near Fishkill, where he was known as Jacob Brown. He had numerous fetitions names, of which Harvey Birch was one. In December, 1776, he was sent to Bennington, Vt., by orders of the committee. The object of his journey was accomplished, for, besides apprehending a number of secret enemies of the country in that region, he obtained such information as enabled him to surprise a company of them much nearer home. This was at Pawling, Dutchess County, and, fearing to trust himself again to the vengeance of Captain Townsend, he arranged with Colonel Morehouse, a Whig of the neighborhood, to raise a body of volunteers and capture them. When their rendezvous was surrounded, Crosby, he having again made a false enlistment, was dragged out from under a bed, where he had taken refuge, and complained that his leg was so much injured that he could not walk. The accommodating colonel took him on his horse, and, of course, he soon got away.
For three years Crosby continued in the employ of the committee of safety, but at last the Tories, marveling much at the detection of their eovert undertakings, fixed suspicion upon him. A band traced him to the house of his brother-in-law in the Highlands, and beat him until they left him for dead. They were followed by a company of Whigs, who pursued them to the Croton River, where some were killed and others driven into the stream. It was months before Crosby recovered, and it was then plam that his days of usefulness as a spy were past. He joined Captain Philip Van Cortlandt's company, and was appointed a sub- ordinate officer. While on duty at Teller's Point, in the spring of 1780, he deeoyed a boat's crew from a British ship in the stream to the shore by parading on the beach a soldier dressed in Lafayette's uniform. fle had his ambuscade set for them and captured them all. In the following fall his enlistment expired and he retired to private life. His whole pay from the government was but two hundred and fifty dollars, so that any remuneration he received from the committee of safety must have been very little. In October, 1781, in partnership with his brother Benjamin, he bought three hundred and seventy-nine acres of the forfeited Roger Morris estate, near Brewster's. A part of this traet is now covered by the Croton Reservoir. He erected a Frame house on the east branch of the Croton River, a short distance east of the upper iron bridge at Croton Falls, where he lived a quiet life many years. The property is now owned by ,Joel B. Purdy. Later, Crosby built the house now owned by his granddaughter, Mrs. S. E. Mead, of Golden's Bridge. It stands north of the old house. In this house Crosby passed the later years of his life, and died June 25, 1835. Ile was interred in the old Gilead burying-ground, near Carmel, Putnam County.
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