History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 52

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I > Part 52

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1 " With a heart full of loyalty to my Sovereign, I went into Congress- 'and from that loyalty I never deviated, in the least. 1 proposed a Plan " of Accommodation in the Congress, agreeable to my Instructions ;- some " of the best men, and men of the best fortunes. esponsed the Plan, and "drew with me."-( Examination of Joseph Galloway before the House of Commons, 18 June, 1779, London : 1779, 47-54.)

" His scheme " framed "in secret concert with the Governor of New " Jersey and with Colden of New York, " " held out a hope of Continental " Union, which was the long cherished policy of New York ; it was sec- "onded by Duane and advocated by Jay, but opposed by Lee of Vir- " ginia."-(Bancroft's History of the United States, original edition, vii., 140, 141 ; the same, centenary edition, iv., 402. )

" The scheme was intended to perpetuate the dependence of the Colo- " nies on England : and was proposed with the approbation of the loy. "alist Governors, Franklin of New Jersey, and Colden of New York. "Galloway urged it in an elaborate speech ; and it was supported by " Dnane, Jay, and Edward Rutledge. It was not only rejected, however, " but the menbers came at last to view it with so much odinm that the " Motions in relation to it were ordered to be expunged from the Jour- " wals. This result was an end to the loyalist influence in Congress."- (Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, Boston: 1872, 367, 368.)

See, also, Hildreth's History of the United States, First Series iii., 46; Pitkin's History of the United States, i., 299, 300 ; Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, ii., 109; etc.

2 Vide pages 26, 27, ante.

3 John Jay opposed some of the extremely democratic utterances of Pat- rick Henry, very properly ; but he opposed, also, the utterance of Roger Sherman, when that plain man " deduced allegiance from consent, " as lie continued to oppose that democratic dogma, throughout his entire life. The aristocratic Richard Henry Lee was in harmony with him ; but the democratic element of the Congress was widely opposed to him, in all his fundamental propositions.

4 Vide the extracts from Galloway's Examination, Bancroft's History of the United States, and Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, in Note 1, page 34, above.

from the censures of history and to regard him as peculiarly pure and virtuous, as a man and as a poli- tician ; but, as has been well-said by another, "there "are no tricks in plain and simple faith."

It will not be improper to notice, also, in this con- nection, that the proceedings and the recommenda- tions of the Congress were not, by any means, unani- mously accepted and approved, either by the several Colonial Assemblies, or by the several Towns through- out the Colonies, or by the Inhabitants of the Towns, individually ; and that, in many instances, that dissent was made known to the world, in terms which could not be mistaken. Indeed, no intelligent person can arise from a careful and dispassionate examination of the unquestionable authorities which have come down to us, concerning the origin of that Congress, the expressed purposes for which it was called, its organi- zation, the extent of authority which was delegated to the several Delegations of which it was composed, and the action of those Delegations, within the Con- gress, without having been entirely convinced that the Congress was not a legally constituted body, cre- ated in pursuance of Law, and entitled to recognition, in law or in fact, by any individual Colonist or by any legally organized body, of any class; 5 that, on the contrary, it was nothing else than a voluntary associa- tion, in which, every member acted entirely on his individual responsibility, without possessing or acquir- ing the slightest right, in law, to exact obedience from any, beyond what each, for himself, had already spe- cifically consented to yield ; that it was proposed and organized only for consultation and advice and united action, within the well-defined limits of the Law of the Land; that no anthority was vested in it, by its several constituencies, to assume and exercise any legislative functions whatever, to publish decrees equivalent to Statutes, to require obedience to such decrces, nor to order the infliction of penalties where there should be any disobedience to its cnactments ; that, to the extent of its action beyond the letter of the authority which had been delegated to it and as far as that action was in violation of existing Statutes, it acted in open violation of the clearly expressed loyalty of its several constituencies, of its own osten- tations pretensions of fealty to the Sovereign, and of that obedience to the fundamental Laws of the King- dom, an alleged violation of which fundamental Laws, by the Parliament and the Ministry, constituted the gravamen of its denunciations of the Government, and the spirit of its own existence; that, to that extent, also, it was revolutionary ; and, to that extent, there- fore, it gave reasonable cause for discontent, and dis-

5 Although this is not likely to be disputed, by any one, it may be proper to state that it was not claimed to have been so, by those who promoted the call for it-" it is allowed by the most Intelligent among " them, that these assemblies of the People are illegal and may be danger- "ous, but they deny that they are unconstitutional when a national " grievance cannot otherwise be removed."-(Lieutenant-governor Colden to the Earl of Dartmouth, "NEW YORK Ist June, 1774.")

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

sent, and alarm, among those who had not been prom- ised such a result ; among those wh , were not inclined to be crowded into insurrection, without their consent ; and among those whose best interests and whose families' best interests rested on a continued peace throughout the Colonies and on a due attention to their own affairs.

The purposes of this work afford no warrant for a more extended narrative than we have given of the really varied designs of those, in other Colonies than in that of New York, who promoted the assembling of a Congress of the Colonies ; nor of the intrigues of those who, some for one purpose and some for another, desired to become members of that body ; nor of the objects for which it was specially invited and con- vened; nor of the influences which controlled it, after it was convened, and which transformed it from that instrument for securing a peaceful redress of those grievances of which the Colonists had complained, that Reconciliation with the Mother Country which was "most ardently desired by all good men," that Harmony and good Will between Great Britain and her Colonists which only a very few revolutionists, in some of the Colonies, did not anxiously hope for, and that general Peace which would have restored pros- perity and happiness to both the Colonists and the inhabitants of Great Britain, for securing all of which and for no other purpose whatever it had been specifi- cally invited and convened, into an instrument for the violation of the rights of individuals and of property, previously regarded as sacred, and for the promotion of Insurrection and of Revolution and of Rebellion, of War and of Devastation and of Ruin, and these for nothing else than for the advancement of individ- ual and sectional interests, for none of which latter purposes was there more than a handful of reckless advocates, in any of the Colonies, and against which, with the exception of the handful of "fire-eaters " of that period, to whom we have referred, there was, in each of the Colonies, nothing else than a firm and un- divided opposition, in which every sect and every fac- tion and every party were sincerely united. All these must be left for elucidation by other hands, in other works ; but we may be permitted to say, here, in brief, that, since what were regarded as grievances, of which complaints had been made and which were sought to be redressed, were peculiarly of a commercial or mer- cantile character, the disaffection of the Colonists, in New York, because of those alleged grievances, was confined to the commercial and mercantile centres, the two Cities of New York and Albany, without af- fecting or disturbing the peace of or, indeed, exciting any particular interest within, the rural Counties, within the Colony ; that, in consequence, whatever means were resorted to, by those of the commercial and mercantile classes, within those business centres and among those who were or who supposed they were aggrieved, for the purpose of obtaining a redress of their alleged grievances-of which means the pro-

posed Congress of the Colonies, honestly or dishonest- ly, was said to have been one-were sustained and ad- vanced, within those business centres, with an almost entire unanimity among their inhabitants and with all the energy and determination which self-interest, largely developed, can arouse among active, ambi- tious, unscrupulous, and wealthy men ; while, among the agriculturists and small country traders, none of whom had been or were, in the slightest degree, ag- grieved by the Colonial policy of the Home Govern- ment,-among whom, therefore, there was no disaffec- tion, because of that policy ; and whose individual interests would be more advanced and better secured by continued quiet, throughout the Colony, than by unrest and political excitement-there was an entire and generally prevailing indifference to the well-told complaints of the commercial and mercantile classes, within the Cities, as well as to the means for obtain- ing a redress of their particular grievances, to which those metropolitan Merchants and Traders had re- sorted, of all of which, the complaints as well as the means employed, these hard-handed rustics, with few exceptions, know almost nothing, and in none of which, the grievances or the means employed for the redress of those grievances, did they possess even the slightest personal interest. Each of these two classes of Colonists, in New York, the commercial and mer- cantile classes, within the two Cities, and the agricul- tural and dependent classes, throughout the country -the former assuming to have been aggrieved by the Home Government and originating means for the re- dress of those alleged grievances, on the one hand ; the latter wholly indifferent to the complaints of the metropolitan Merchants and Traders and to the various means resorted to, by them, in their efforts to effect a removal of those grievances, on the other hand-was sincere, in maintaining what it did main- tain, since each was prompted and controlled by noth- ing else than by its own personal interests ; and what was really "patriotism," the interests of the aggregate body of the Colonists regardless of the interests of any individual or class of those Colonists, in either of those classes, if they were patriotic on any other sub- ject, had no part nor lot in this matter.

The Congress of the Colonies, as the reader will remember and as we have stated, was one of those means which were resorted to, by the aristocratic, anti-revolutionary commercial and mercantile classes, within the City of New York and by those Traders whose scat was at Albany, for the purpose, it was alleged, of securing a peaceful redress of what those Merchants and Traders were pleased to consider as grievances-in other words, for the removal of those restraints on that "illicit trade " in which they had been so long, so corruptly, and so successfully engaged, which the Home Government had recently interposed, with more than usual efficiency; and for the exoneration of that lawlessness and reckless de- struction of property, by mobs who had been in-

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

spired and directed by controlling members of those commercial and mercantile classes, for which property the local authorities had neglected or declined to compensate the owners-and, besides the indifference of the farmners, who constituted a vastly great major- ity of the adult males who were permanent residents of the Colony, which we have described, it encoun- tered, from its inception, the earnest and active and unscrupulous handful of "fire-eaters," within the City of New York, because of the moderate temper in which it had been proposed ; because of the disre- gard of the pretensions of the Town of Boston, with which they were in harmonious correspondence ; and because the authors and promoters of the project of convening such a Congress had disregarded the as- pirations of some of those "fire-eaters" for places in the Delegation who would be sent to that Congress, as representatives of the Colony of New York; and, reasonably enough, it encountered, also, the opposition, direct and decided, of that very small number who personally constituted the Colonial Government, and by some of those who occupied places of honor and emolument under its authority, and, most zealously of all these, by those hungry sycophants of authority -hangers on of that Colonial Government who never failed to "snecze, whenever it took snuff"-the aggregate of whom was powerless in its legitimate opposition because of the smallness of its num- bers.

Notwithstanding the direct opposition of the little clique of fire-eating revolutionists and that of the larger and more influential circle of the Colonial Government and its adherents-" friends of Govern- "ment," as they called themselves-and the chilly indifference of the great body of the farmers, consti- tuting the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Colony, that Congress of the Colonies was convened under the auspices of those among whom it was originated ; was turned from the pacific purposes for which it had been called, into others which were revolutionary in their character ; and was dissolved, to take its place in the history of that very eventful period. The "fire-eating " few who had succeeded in effecting that radical change in its character and in securing from it an acquiescence in their revolu- tionary purposes, were, of course, well pleased with the results of the movement. The Colonial Govern- ment and its adherents were, of course, none the less antagonistic to it, because they were powerless to suppress the growing revolt or to protect the Colonists from the effects of the revolutionary action of the Congress. The farmers throughout the Colony con- tinued their agricultural labors in continued indiffer- ence, unmindful of that approaching catastrophe which was, so very soon afterwards, to overwhelm themselves as well as others and to involve all, alike, in one common ruin of every thing which was or which could be dear to them. Of those commercial and mercantile classes among whom the Congress

had originated and by whom it had been fostered, very many disapproved the violence of its declared policy-of that policy which had closed the doors to all hopes for Reconciliation and Peace, and which had opened the doors, invitingly, to Revolution and Rebellion, to War and Ruin-and drew back from those who continued to sustain the Congress and who, then, were preparing to enforce its decrees ; while the latter portion of those classes, allied with the revolu- tionary faction whom those commercial and mercan- tile classes had previously declined to recognize and for whom, individually and collectively, only that superficial respect which practical politicians have always entertained for those, of lower ranks of so- ciety, whom they have sought to employ as the means of their own advancement to place and influ- ence and wealth, was entertained, proceeded to en- force, by fair means or by foul, the various decrees, thinly disguised as " recommendations," which the Congress had enacted.

The memory of those readers whose hairs of gray reveal the advent or the presence of old age, will be very likely to compare all these circumstances with similar circumstances which have occurred, within our own country and within the period of their own personal recollections; and to the practical, personal knowledge of that hoary headed tribunal we may safely refer all these movements and counter-move- inents for the advancement or the obstruction of pre- determined and unholy revolt, for its intelligent judg- ment. The glamour of success may have made all these transactions, before the Congress was convened and while it was in session and after its dissolution, appear to have been possessed of different characters from those which they really possessed ; the diligence of personal descendants, whose best claim to distinc- tion among men rests only on the apocryphal fame of their ancestors, actors in those events, may have transformed the pigmies and the political tricksters and those who were without honor or honesty or man- liness, of that period, into great men and patriots and men of virtue, of integrity, and of personal upright- ness ; but, notwithstanding all these fictitious inter- positions, the Truth remains, unchanged and un- changeable.

Among the conservative farmers of Westchester- county, generally, it is believed that the result of the Congress was not satisfactory-as will be seen, here- after, some of the most influential of them, who had heartily approved the popular movement for the re- dress of the Colony's grievances, and who had ear- nestly united with their countrymen in calling the Congress, were forced to the seeming inconsistency of open dissent ; and there was significance in that dis- sent, while such other communities as the Towns of Hollis, in New Hampshire;1 Marshfield, in Massa-

1 Proceedings of the Town, in legal Town-Meeting, November 7, 1774, reprinted in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, i., 1229.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

chusetts ; 1 Ridgefield, 2 Newtown, 3 Stratfield, (now Bridgeport,)' Greenwich, 5 Danbury and its vicinity,6 Darien,7 Norwalk.8 Redding,9 Stamford,10 New Mil- ford,11 Morris,1" Plymonth,13 Salisbury,11 etc., indeed the entire western portion of the Colony, 15 in Connecticut; Oyster Bay,16 Jamaica,17 Shawangunk,18 all those in Richmond-county,19 in New York, and many others,20

1 Letter from Marshfield to a Gentleman in Boston, January 24, 1775, published in Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, No. 95, NEW-YORK, Thursday, February 9, 1775, reprinted in Force's _American _Irchires, Fourth Series, i., 1177, 1778 ; Extract of a letter from Boston to a Gentle- num in New-York, January 26, 1775, reprinted in the same work, i., 117%; Proceedings of the Town, in legal Town-Meeting, 20th February, 1775, reprinted in the same work, i., 1249 ; Protest of sixty four of the In- habitants of the Town, 20th February, 1775, re-printed in the same work, i., 1249, 1250.

2 Proceedings of the Town, in Special Town-Meeting, 30th January, 1775, published in Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, No. 94, NEW-YORK, Thursday, February 2, 1775, and reprinted in Force's_American _trchires, Fourth Series, i., 1202, 1203 ; Card signed by twenty-nine of the Inhabit- ants, " RIDGEFIELD, Connecticut, February 2, 1775," reprinted in the same work, i., 1210 ; Proceedings of Adjourned Town-Meeting, April 10, 1775, reprinted in Hlurd's History of Fairfield-county, Connecticut, 939 ; the same work, 650, 653 ; Teller's History of Ridgefield, Conn., 45, 46. 3 Proceedings of the Town, in Town-Meeting, "NEWTOWN, CONNECTI- " CUT, February 6, 1775," published in Rivington's New- York Gazetteer, No. 97, NEW-YORK, TImrsday, February 23, 1775, re-printed in Force's American .lechires, Fourth Series, i., 1215; Hurd's History of Fairfield- county, 465.

4 Hurd's History of Fairfield-county, 78, 79, and the Petition for Harbor Guurd, dated January 14, 1777, which is therein reprinted.

5 Ilurd's History of Fairfield-county, 373, 374, and the Charges made against Rev. Jonathan Murdock, Pastor of the West Society, dated July 12, 1784, printed therein ; Mead's History of Greenwich, 153, 154.

6 Proceedings of the Town, in legal Town-Meeting, February 6, 1775, in Rivington's New- York Gazetteer, No. 97, NEW-YORK, Thursday, Febru- ary 23, 1775, reprinted in Force's .Imerican Archives, Fourth Series, i., 1216; Hurd's History of Fairfiebl-county, 184.

7 1lord's History of Fairfield-county, 268.

& Hurd's History of Fairfield-county, 502-304; Childs's Burning of Nor- walk, in Ilurd's History, 513, 514.

9 Rirington's New- York Gazetteer, No. 97, NEW-YORK, Thursday, Feb- ruary 23. 1775 ; Rev. Mr. Beachi's Reports to the Secretary of the Vener- able society, 1765-1781 ; Hurd's History,of Fairfield-county, 583.

1º Huntington's History of Stamford, 203 ; Hurd's Ilistory of Fairfield- county, 706.

11 Protest of one hundred and twenty Freeholders and Inhabitants of the Toun of New Milford, February 27, 1775, reprinted in Force's .Imericon Archiers, Fourth Series, i., 1270 ; History of Litchfield-county, Connecticut, Phila. : 1881, 451.

12 Dwight's Travels, ii., 369.

13 History of Litchfield-county, 4915, 496.

14 History of Litchfield-county, 530.

13 Hlinman's Historical Collections of the part sustained by Connecticut, during the War of the Revolution, 18, 84, 570.

16 Letter from Oyster-bay to James Rivington, from " A Spectator," de- scribing a Meeting of ninety Freeholders of that Town, on the thirtieth of December, 1774. (Rirington's New-York Gazetterr, No. 90, NEW YORK, Thursday, January 5, 1775.)

1: Dechiration of ninety-one Freeholders and forty fire other principal Iu- habitants of Jamaica, "JAMAICA, Jannary 27, 1775," in Rirington's New- York Gazetteer, No. 94, NEW-YORK, Thursday, February 2, 1775.

18 ('arl, dated " ULSTER-COUNTY, NEW YORK, February 11, 1773," pub- lished in Force's American Archires, Fourth Series, i., 1230.

19 Proceedings of the Committee of Observation of Elizabethtown, You Jersey. February 13, 1775, published in Holt's New-York Journal, No. 1676, NEW-YORK, Thursday, February 16, 1775 ; and those of the Com- mittee for Observation for the Township of Woodbridge, New Jersey, " WOODBRIDGE, February 20, 1775," published in Force's American Archires, Fourth Series, i., 1249, each providing for "boycotting " the Staten Islanders.

2 Lieutenant-governor Coldeu to the Eurl of Dartmouth, " NEW YORK. "2 Nov. 1771 ;" the same to the same, " NEW YORK, December 7, 1774 ; "

some of them by formal Votes, in legal Town-ineet- ings, and all of them, in praetise, also declared their disapproval of the revolutionary measures adopted by the Congress and recommended by it, to be enforced in the several Colonies.

While the more conservative portions of the Colo- nists, in opposition to the Home Government, were earnestly laboring to maintain themselves in the lead- ership of the political elements of the Colony, and, at the same time, to seenre a redress of the grievances to which the Colony had been subjected and to effect an honorable reconciliation between the Colonies and the Mother Country, the revolutionary portion of the same body of Colonists, strengthened by the accession to their number, of those, recently of the opposite portion, who were endeavoring to pose, for office-sake, both as aristocrats and as democrats, as might best suit successive audienees, nominally intent on the ac- complishment of the same ends, was really employed in zealously promoting measures which were better adapted to the defeat of itself, in whatever it should really seek to accomplish, in the interests of peace.

On the seventh of November, James Duane, who had already distinguished himself, in connection with John Jay and Joseph Galloway, as everything else than an honest promoter of anything which was rev- olutionary in its tendencies, pandered to the revolu- tionary spirit which pervaded the revolutionary por- tion of the nnfranchised inhabitants of the City, through whose influence he had once been elevated to a seat in the Congress and through whose eontin- ued influence, only, a similar favor might be secured, in the near future-that James Duane submitted a Resolution to the Committee of Correspondence, in the City of New York, for the election, by the Free- holders and the Freemen of the City, of eight persons in each Ward, for the purpose " of observing the con- " duct of all Persons tonehing the Association " [of Non- Importation, and Non-Exportation, and Non-Consump- tion] "entered into, by the Congress," against Great Britain and her Colonies, and for the purpose, also, of publishing the names of all those whom that Com-

the same to Gorernor Tryon, "NEW YORK, Dec. 7, 1774 ;" Governar Gage to the sume, " BosTox, December 15, 1774 ;" Joseph Reed to Josiah Quincy, Junior, " PHILADELPHIA, November 6, 1774 ; " Proceedings of u Meeting of Freeholders of Middleses-county, Nor Jersey, "according to a "Notice," January 3, 1775, reprinted in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, i., 1083 ; Proceedings of Tora of Barnstable, Massachusetts, in Town- Meeting, January 4, 1775, reprinted in the same work, i., 1092; Letter from Georgia to a Gentleman in Som link, datel February Is, 175 ; reprinted in the same, i., 1160 ; Proceedings of the General ('.mmitter, [establishing non-intercourse with Georgia} " CHARLESTOWN, "SOUTH CAROLINA, February >, 1775 ;" Duchess-county [New York ] Association, January IS, 175 ; Letter to James Kirington, dated " Fitsu- "ING, IN QUEEN'S COUNTY. LONG-ISLAND, Jan. 14," published in Rir- inglou's New York Gazetteer, No. 92, NEW-YORK, Thursday, January 19, 1775 ; Letter to the same, dated, " NEWTOWN ON LONG ISLAND, Jan. 12, "175," published in the same issue of that paper ; Letter to the same frota Ulster-county. Sur-York, published in the same paper, No. 93, NFw- YORK, Thursday, January 26, 1775 ; Letter to the same, from Duchien- county, published in the same paper, No. 95, NEW YORK, Thursday, Feb- ruary 9, 1775 ; etc.

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 52

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1354

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354