History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 60

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 60

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The farmers in Westchester-county, in 1774 and 1775, were quiet men, quietly pursuing their peaceful vocations, interfering with no one, and avoiding the interference of others. They were not political in their aims or inclinations ; they had very clearly manifested, over and over again, their disinclination to be associated, in auy degree, with those who were inclined to become, if they had not already become, politicians ; and, as will be seen, in their action, dur- ing the Winter, and in their subsequent actions, nnder similar circumstances, they were not inclined to be crowded into any political associations, without their consent, without presenting, at least, an open, a man- ly, and a vigorous opposition. The reader will de- termine for himself, therefore, how much, if any, there was of individual and social propriety, and how much, if any, there was of consideration for the wel-

1 This is a copy of the original publication, as it apppeared in Gaine's New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, No. 1223, NEW-YORK, Monday, March 20, 1775.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

fare of those farmers or for that of the Colony, dis- severed from all other considerations, in the Com- mittee of Inspection, alias the Committee of Obser- vation, for the City and County of New York-a merely local organization, vested with no more than the barest local authority, and that confined, exclu- sively, to an entirely different service-when it thrust itself, unasked and undesired, into the midst of that peaceful and peacefully inclined community, only in order to disturb that prevailing peace by marshalling those who composed that rural community into rival parties, embittered against each other, without any aim or purpose in which they were, or in which they were likely to become, in the slightest degree interested, and for nothing else than for the promotion of individual aims and for the advancement to politi- cal place and authority, of aspiring politicians who were not always entitled, by their individual integrity, to any such advancement, anywhere.

As we have said, there was no Town or County Committee, within Westchester-county, unto whom the Chairman of New York's Committee of Inspec- tion could send the Committee's Circular Letter, to which reference has been made ; and other than usual means, therefore, were necessarily resorted to, to se- cure for it even a nominal circulation, within that County. It is not, now, known, beyond a peradven- ture, just what means were thus employed; but the copies of that insidious Circular Letter which were intended for residents of Westchester-county were evidently sent to a leading Westchester-county poli- tician ; and, by him, whomsoever he may have been, they were so manipulated that they reachcd only those residents of the County who would most surely promote the political purposes of that particular Westchesterian who had been thus entrusted with the delivery of them.1

1 We have preferred to consider that there was an intermediate agen- cy, between the Chairman of the New York Committeo and the several Westchester-county gentlemen into whose hands his Circular Letters eventually fell, because those gentlemen were mainly residents of the towu of Westchester and of the neighboring village of New Rochelle; because there was nothing, in that Circular Letter, which designated any time or place of meeting, for auy Caucus or other Assemblage which might be considered necessary, for the particular purposes mentioned in that Circular Letter ; because, only on the warrant of that particular Circular Letter, explicitly stated by them, a dozen men, from at least four different Towns, spontaneously came together, at the same time, in a distant Town in which none of them lived, and on the same errand. Not one of the unmber was from Towns lying northward from the Whito Plains ; not one had come from all the country lying westward from the Bronx-river ; thero was not present either a Van Cortlandt or a Thon- as, already well-known popular leaders, either of whom would have been formidable, as a rival, against any new aspirant for the leadership of the movement and the spoils of office to which that movement tended. There was present, however, one who had, previously, been politically dormant ; by whom the machinery of the movement was evidently run ; and by whom, subsequently, as will be hereafter seen, entirely through its instrumentality, a place was secured for himself, in the Congress of the C'ontiueut, and an opening made for the accession to office and aris- tocratic cousequence and influence, of others of his wide-spread family.

It will have been seen, by every attentive reader, that, very evidently, Isaac Low's package of Circular Letters, intended for circulation in

On the twenty-eighth of March, Theodosius Bar- tow, Esq., James Willis, and Abraham Guion, Esq., all of New Rochelle; William Sutton, Esq., of Ma- maroneck 2; Colonel Lewis Morris, Thomas Hunt, and Abraham Leggett, of Westchester ; Captain Joseph Drake, Benjamin Drake, Moses Drake, and Stephen Ward, of East Chester; and James Horton, Junior, Esq., of Rye,2 all of them, it said, "having received " letters from the Chairman of the City and County " of New York, relative to the appointment of Depu- "ties for this County," to a proposed Provincial Con- vention, "met at the White-Plains, for the purpose of " devising means for taking the Sense of the County " upon the Subject."

At best, that meeting of local politicians, or of those who were not indisposed to become politicians, from the south-eastern Towns of the County, no mat- ter by what means they had been induced to go to the White Plains, on that particular March morning, on such an unusual errand, was nothing more nor less than a Caucus of those who were known or supposed to have been in the interest of the Morris family and to have favored the aspirations of those members of that family who hankered after official place and au- thority. Neither Yonkers, nor Greenburgh, nor any of the Towns to the northward of them and of the White Plains, were in the slightest degree represented in that important assemblage ; and every one who had previously appeared as a leader of the farmers of the County, in their very unfrequent political doings, re- gardless of party associations, appears to have been, also, very carefully excluded, not improbably for the purpose of securing that harmonious action, in a pre- ordained direction, which the presence of older and more experienced rivals might have turned toward some other part of the County than toward the Manor of Morrisania.

The Caucus undoubtedly discharged all the duties which its controlling spirit assigned to it-it took into consideration, after a fashion of its own creation, the subject of the proposed election of Delegates to rep- resent the County, or to assume to do so; and it "agreed to send the following Notification to the "principal Freeholders in the different Towns and " Districts in the County," the designation of whom,

Westchester-county, was entrusted to Lewis Morris, of Morrisania, in the Borough Town of Westchester, a brother-in-law of Isaac Wilkins, of that Town, with the last-named of whom, as the leader of the majority of the General Assembly of the Colony, the reader has been already made acquainted.

In all that had previously been said or done, in behalf of the Colony, in its dispute with the Home Government, not a Morris had been heard, except in that instance when one of them described the unfranchised masses of the Colonists as "poor reptiles" (vide Page 188, ante); but the fragrance of tho distant emoluments and influences of office, more fully developed than ever before, had passed over from the City into Westches- ter-county ; and, reasonably enough to all who knew of the greed for of- fice which every Morris of every period had possessed, hoth Lewis and Gouverneur, to say nothing of others, were no longer torpid and in- different.

2 Subsequently distinguished as Loyalists.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

in that selection, having been left to him by whoin the Caueus had evidently been eontrolled-and hav- ing, in behalf of somebody else more than in behalf of the body of the County, thus put the political ma- chinery in motion, satisfactorily to themselves and to their chief, the twelve gentleman waded through the Spring-time mud, baek, to their respective homes.

The "Notification " to which reference has been made, that which the Caueus authorized to be sent to the elect, among the Freeholders of the County, was in these words :

" March 28th, 1775.

SIR :

" A number of gentlemen from different distriets in " the county of Westehester having this day met at " the White Plains to Consider of the most proper " method of taking the Sense of the Freeholders, of " the Said County, upon the Expediency of choosing " Deputies to meet the Deputies of the other Coun- " ties, for the purpose of Electiug delegates to reprc- " sent this Colony in the General Congress to be held " at Philadelphia on the 10th of May next, are of " opinion that the best way of proceeding for that " purpose, will be to have a general Meeting of the " Freeholders of the Said County.

" As this County is very Exteusive we take the " liberty of recommending the meeting to be held at " the White Plains on Tuesday the 11th day of April "next at ten o'clock in the forenoon at the Court " House, and therefore do desire you, to give notice " of the Same to all the freeholders in your distriet, " without exception, as those who do not appear and " vote on that day, will be presumied to aequiesce in " the Sentiment of the majority of those who vote.

" We are &c." 1

There can be no good reason for supposing that that Caucus failed to employ the best means which it could control, to secure the attendance, at the ap- pointed place, on the appointed day, and at the des- ignated hour, of all those of the farmers of the Coun- ty of Westehester, whom it supposed to have been friendly to the Morris family, and who were willing or who could be induced to aeeept the head of that wealthy and aristoeratic, but really unpopular, family, as their politieal leader-to that family, the stake was a very important one; and, to secure that stake, it played desperately. On the other hand, those of the inhabitants of the County who were conservative in their political opinions, and those who were not favor- ers of the new-born, but selfish, zeal of the Lord of

the Manor of Morrisania, were aroused ; and, cspeei- ally in the Borough Town of Westehester, within which the ancestral home of the Morrises was situat- ed, the ambitious purposes of that gentleman and of his family were empathieally snubbed, by a Meeting of his townsmen, duly summoned to take into eonsi- deration " whether or not they should choose Deputies " to represent them at a Provincial Convention." 2 Be- sides that loeal and evidently personal rebuke, by the townsmen of the Morrises, the great body of "the " Freeholders and Inhabitants of the County of West- "chester," or such of them as were " friends of Gov- " ernment and our happy Constitution," was earnestly appealed to, in the circulation of the following stirring Address :

" To the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the County of Westchester. " NEW-YORK, April 6, 1775. " You are earnestly desired to attend a general " meeting of the county, to be held at the White " Plains, on Tuesday next, the 11th inst. to give your " votes upon the questions :-

"Whether you are inelincd to choose deputies to " meet at the eity of New-York, in a Provincial Con- " vention ? Or,

" Whether you are determined to abide by the "loyal and judieious measures already taken by your " own worthy representatives in the general assembly " of this province, for a redress of American grievanees ?

"The consequences that may arise from your ne- "gleeting to attend at the White Plains, on Tuesday "next, to deelare your sentiments relative to the ap- " pointment of deputies to useet in Provineial Con- "gress, may be very fatal to this county ; the friends " of goverment, and our happy constitution, are there- " fore earnestly invited in person, to oppose a measure "so replete with ruin and misery. Remember the " extravagant priee we are now obliged to pay for "goods purehased of the merehants, in consequenee " of the Non-Importation agreement; and when the " NON-EXPORTATION agreement takes place, we "shall be in the situation of those who were obliged " to make bricks without straw.

"A WHITE OAK." 3

2 "A Correspondent acquaints ns, That, on Monday the 3d of March, "the Inhabitants of the Borough of Westchester met, in Consequence of " a Summons, to give their Sentiments upon a Question, whether or not "they would choose Deputies to represent them nt a Provincial Conven- "tion in this City ; when they declared themselves already very ably "and effectually represented in the General Assembly of this Province, " hy Isaac Wilkins, Esquire ; * peremptorily disowned all'Congressional " Conventions and Committees, most loyally repeating the old Chorus, "God save the King, which was seconded by three hearty Cheers ; and " then the jolly Freeholders and Inhabitants spent the Day with great " Hilarity and good Humour over their Tankards and Bowls."- (Gaine's New York Gazette, and the Weekly Mercury, No. 1226, NEW-YORK, Monday. April 10, 1775.)

3 This appeal, an exact copy of the original, was printed in Riringtou's Near- York Gazetteer, No. 103, NEW-Yonk, Thursday, April 6, 1775.

* The wife of Isaac Wilkins was Isabella Morris, sister of Gouverneur Į and half-sister of Colonel Lewis Morris, the head of that family.

1 This narrative of the organization and doings of that notable Caucus, including the copy of the "Notification " which was issued, by its au- thority, is based on the elaborate paper, signed by "LEWIS MORRIS, " ('hairman," which served as the Credentials of those who appeared in the Provincial Convention, as Deputies from Westchester-county, and which is preserved in the Credentials of Delegates, Historical Manuscripts relating to the War of the Revolution-Volume xxiv., l'age 23-in the Office of the secretary of State, at All.any.

The "Notification," as printed in the text, was copied from the original Manuscript.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

It is reasonable to suppose that many of the farm- ers of Westchester-county, whatever their political opinions may have been, were more than usually ex- cited by these extraordinary appeals and by others which have not been preserved, addressed to them by those whom they had hitherto regarded as leaders in political affairs; but it is equally clear that not even those extraordinary means, thus employed, were suc- cessful in withdrawing even a respectable minority of the Freeholders, to say nothing of those heads of families who were not Freeholders, who, at that time, inhabited that extensive and thickly settled County, from their homesteads and from the urgent duties, at home, which the opening Spring had imposed upon them. Notwithstanding all the reasons which ex- isted for their continued attention to their respective home duties, however, there were some, relatively a small proportion, of either party, those who were op- posed to the Morrises and to the propositiou to elect Deputies to a proposed Convention of the Colony and those who favored both, who went to the Plains, on that Tuesday morning, the eleventh of April, as, re- spectively, they had been requested to go. They went, as farmers were wont to go and as they continue to go, on such occasions, on horseback or on foot, over Westchester-county's Spring-time muddy roads or "across lots," as best suited their individual con- venience; and the little Village, what there was of it, scattered along the wide spread Post-road, was un- doubtedly, the scene of many a discussion, friendly or unfriendly, as friend met friend or neighbor met neighbor in that ancient thoroughfare, each intent, as farmers only can be intent, on the promotion of the particular cause to which each had become cspecially devoted. Reasonably enough, the two Taverns which were, then, prominent within the limits of the Vil- lage, were made the stopping-places of those rural incomers unto whom no Village houscholder had ex- tended a Village welcome, Captaiu Hatfield, the land- lord of one of those Taverns, entertaining those who were opposed to the Morrises and to the proposed election of Deputies, while those who favored that family and that proposed election, " put up in another " Public House in the Town," probably that which was kept by Isaac Oakley.1

1 Protest of the Inhabitants and Freeholders of Westchester-county, New- York, " COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER, April 13, 1775," published in Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, No. 105, NEW YORK, Thursday, April 20, 1775; and in Gaine's New-York Gazette : and the Weekly Mercury, No. 1227, NEW YORK, Monday, April 17, 1775.

We have been favored by our unwearied friends, Hon. Lewis C. Platt and Hon. J. O. Dykman with information, concerning these two Tav- erns, which our readers will find worthy of their remembrance.

Captain Hatfield's Tavern stood almost due South from the old Court- house, and nearly half a mile distant, on the North side of the OLD stage- road to New York,-the line of that road has been changed, since 1775- on property more recently owned by Samuel E. Lyon, Esq., and now by the heirs of the late Alfred Waller, Esq.

The old building has been removed from the place on which it stood, in 1775, to a place, further to the northward, not far from the site of the old Conrt-house ; and is now occupied as a tenement.

Isaac Oakley's Tavern stood on the East side of the old stage-road,

It is evident that neither of the two factions was very punctual in its attendance, at the appointed hour-a practice which is continued to this day, in Westchester-county, on similar occasions-and, for a reason which was perfectly obvious, the promoters of the proposed Meeting, very evidently, were uot in a hurry to assume the great responsibility of carrying forward the schemes of the revolutionary faction in the City of New York, to which they had been invit- ed, especially in view of the greater number of those who were opposed to those schemes, and who were present and apparently prepared to oppose them ; while those who were opposed to the Morrises and to their schemes and to the pro- posed election, and whose evidently superior numbers had served to dampen the ardor of their op- ponents, could do uothing else than to wait, and to watch the progress of events. Notwithstanding the hour of ten had been named in the Notification through which the assembled farmers had thus met, it was nearly noou before any attempt to organize a Mecting was made-probably, some whose presence was desired and expected, had not arrived ; probably, those leaders of the movement who were present were, meanwhile, "comparing notes," and arranging plans. of action, and enjoying that social glass, frequently renewed, of which their Chairman subsequently made mention, unwittingly; most probably, the superior numbers of those who were known to be opposed to them, whose strength of numbers was being con- stantly increased, warned the ambitious Lord of the Manor of Morrisania and his adherents that "the " better part of Valor is-Discretion."

About twelve o'clock, however, those who favored the Morrises and the proposed election of Deputies appear to have quietly and noiselessly left the Tav- ern, passed over the old post-road, and re assembled in the Courthouse; organized a Meeting; and ap- pointed Colouel Lewis Morris, its Chairman. It was done quietly, if it was not done secretly : it was done quietly, without inviting any others than those of their own faction, to assemble with them: it was donc quietly and in a manner which clearly indicated that something else than an untrammeled and un- biased expression of the will of all those who were present-carrying with it, also, the assumed acquies- cence of all those who were not present-concerning the Morrises and the questions which were pro- pounded in the Notification, was chiefly desired, and must be procured, "by fair means or by foul :" most evidently, it was done, quietly, with an inclination and a hope that it might accomplish all the purposes of

directly opposite to the old Court-house. We remember the old house, very distinctly, having often seen it and, more than once, at least forty years ago, having slept under its roof. It is said that it was burned, about 1868 ; and that the site remains unoccupied.

The old Court-house, the scene of many an adventure during the later Colonial era, occupied the site of the present residence of W. P. Fiero, Esq., on the West side of the stage-road to New York.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

those who had originated and promoted it, secretly and rapidly, without alarming those who were assem- bled at Captain Hatfield's, and before they could be brought to the Courthouse, to defeat those purposes and to relegate the Morrises to that political obseur- ity in which, very ungraciously, they had so loug and so ingloriously rested. It was, in short, nothing else than a politieal coup-de-main; but, unfortunately for the honor of those who participated in it, it was not as respectably successful as those who had contrived it, liad desired. 1

Intelligence of the movement of their opponents very soon reached those who were assembled at Cap- tain Hatfield's Tavern; and. we are told that, un- doubtedly with very little delay, they, also, " walked " down to the Courthouse, although not half of their " friends who were expected had yet appeared." At that time, when the full force of all who thus pre- sumed to aet, in so vital a question, in the name of all who were, then, in Westchester-county-and that, too, without any delegation of authority and, eer- tainly, without any expressed "consent"-was un- doubtedly present and aetiug, there was not present more than from a hundred to a hundred and twenty- five, Freeholders and others; aud there is evidenee that quite as large a number, Freeholders and others, walked down to the Courthouse, from Captain Hat- field's Tavern, and stripped all the novelty and all there was of what was said to have been integrity from the exposed and unsuccessful coup-de-main.2 The individual respectability of none of these, of either faetion, appears to have been impeached by any oue ; but Colonel Morris subsequently attempted to depre- eiate the political standing of some of those who were

I From the fact that the Meeting had been organized and "had already "entered upon the business of the day," before it was known to those who were at Hatfield's Tavern, that any movement toward such an or- ganization had been made-a fact which was openly stated in the Protest of the one faction without having been controverted in the elaborate re- ply of the Chairman of the Meeting -the secrecy of the movement is es- tablished, beyond a question. The motives of those who contrived that partienlar mode of operations, will be mnnifest to all who are acquainted with the facts and with the practices of unsernpulous politicians, in Westclrester-county as often as elsewhere.

" In the narrative which the Chairman of the Meeting prepared, im- mediately after the adjournment of that Meeting, he stated that "a very " numerous body of the Freeholders of the County assembled at the "Court House ; " and that "an inconsiderable number of Persons "( among whom were many tenants not entitled to a vote) with Isaac "Wilkins, Esq., and Col. Philipse at their head, then appeared." In the Protest of the Inhabitants and Freeholders, subsequently published, it is stated, specifically, that when those from Captain Hatfield's Tavern en- tered the Courthouse, ".the numbers on each side seemed to be nearly " equal ; and both together mlght amount to two hundred or, at most, "two hundred and fifty." Nearly a month after the publiention of that Protest, and after he had secured the sent in the Continental Congress for which he had so enrnestly hankered-his half-brother, Gouverneur, being then an aspirant to a seat in the proposed Provincial Congress, to which he was elected, on the following day-Lewis Morris published an elaborate and very minute reply to that Protest, in which, although nearly every feature of the latter was bitterly controverted, lie conveni- ently said nothing whatever of the number of those, of either faction, who were at the Plains; and, therein, he emphatically acquiesced in what was said, on that subject, with so much precision, in the Protest.

not of his supporters, by saying there were among them " many tenants who were not entitled to vote," etc., -they were recognized as respectable farmers, even by that particular Morris who aimed to belittle them; but, in the presence of such as he, with nothing but what he had inherited, to ensure to him even a nom- inal respeetability, they were evidently expected to be no more than dumb dogs, even while their homes and their properties were put in jeopardy and the peace and happiness of their families endangered by the doings of those "better elasses," before one of whom they then stood.

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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 60

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