History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 77

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 77

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It is said that, while the main body of the banditti remained in position, in front of the Bookstore and Printing-office of the proscribed Englishman, "a " small detachment " entered the latter, and gathered " the principal part of his types," which was placed in sacks prepared for the purpose, destroying those

1 Minutes of the General Committee of the City and County of New York, Thursday, November 23, 1775 ; Jones s History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 66 ; Governor Tryon to the Earl of Dartmonth, No. 22, ON BOARD THE SHIP DUTCHESS OF GORDON NEW YORK HARBOUR, 6th Decr 1775 ; etc.

: Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 66. 3 Manual of the Corporation of the City of New- York for 1855, 511.

4 " The main body, consisting of 75, then proceeded to New-York, " which they entered at noon-day on horseback, with bayonets fixed, and "in the greatest regularity, went down the main street, and drew up in "close order before the printiug-office of the infamous James Riving- " ton." (The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [ NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)

See, also, Gorernor Tryon to the Earl of Dartmouth, No. 22, "ON BOARD " THE SHIP DUTCHESS OF GORDON NEW YORK HARBOUR, 6th Decr 1775"; Petition of the General Committee of the City and County of New York to the Provincial Congress, (ride page 134 post ;) the Provincial Congress of New York to the Governor of Connecticut, " IN PROVINCIAL CONGRESS, NEW- 4. YORK, 12th Decr. 1775 ; " Jones's History of New York during the Revo- lutionary War, i., 66 ; etc.

portions which could not be taken away, and demol- ishing, also, his presses and other office-material.5

It is said that three quarters of an hour were spent in that work of reckless destruction, without the slightest attempt by cither the Municipal or the Colonial authorities, legal or revolutionary, to inter- fere, for the preservation of the peace or for the protection of the property of the citizen or for that of the freedom of the Press; and, consequently, after its appetite for outrage had become satisfied, taking with it the type which it had not destroyed and such articles from the Bookstore as were faucied by those who entered it,6 the banditti mounted its horses, its music striking up the tune of Yankee Doodle, and its local sympathizers in the Square and around the head of the Coffee-house Slip giving it cheers which were returned, and left the City by the same route as that on which it had entered it.™

5 " A emall detachment entered it," [the printing-office, ] "and in abont "three quarters of an hour brought off the principal part of his types, " for which they offered to give an order on Lord Dunmore " [who had previously stolen John Holt's type and press, at Norfolk.] (The Connecti- cut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, November 20, 1775.)

They "entered his" [Rirington's] "house, demolished his printing "apparatus, destroyed a part and carried off the remainder of his "types."-(Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 66.)

See, also, Governor Tryon to the Earl of Dartmouth, No. 22, "ON " BOARD THE SHIP DUTCHESS OF GORDON NEW YORK HARBOUR, 6th Decr " 1775 ;" etc.

6 Governor Tryon to the Earl of Dartmouth, No. 22, "ON BOARD THE SHIP " DUTCHESS OF GORDON NEW YORK HIARBOUR 6th Decr 1775."

7 " They then faced and wheeled to the left, and marched out of town to " the tune of Yankee Doodle. A vast concourse of people assembled at " the Coffee House bridge on their leaving the ground, aud gave them " three very hearty cheers."-(The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)

The Petition of the General Committee of the City and County of New York, laid before the Provincial Congress, on the eighth of December, 1775, presented the general facts of the outrage on James Rivington, while it also called for the protection of the City, by that body. The despatch of Governor Tryon to the Earl of Dartmouth, No. 22, "ON BOARD THE SHIP "DUTCHESS OF GORDON NEW YORK HARBOUR 6th Decr 1775," described the raid on Westchester-county as well as that on the City of New York, aud narrated the blustering threats which were made by Sears, to return with "a more numerous body of the Connecticut Rioters and to take "away the Records of the Colony." The letter of the Provincial Congress to the Gorernor of Connecticut, "IN PROVINCIAL CONGRESS, NEW-YORK, "12th Decr., 1775," recited the outrage in Westchester-county as well as that in the City ; but in such delicate terms as indicated that that hody was either in sympathy with the banditti or was intimidated by those who were so. Judge Jones, in his History of New York during the Revolu- tionary War, (i., 65-68,) noticed the entire raid, saying that Sears "en- " tered the town at the head of about 200 inen, well mounted," which, from the context, evidently included those who had gone out to meet the banditti. Gordon, (History of the American Revolution, London : 1788, ii., I21, 122.) made mention of nothing else than of the robbery of the printing-office, of which he said, "While thus employed, people col- " lected, and the street was thronged. To prevent interruption, he called "out and told them that if they attempted to oppose him, he would "order his men to fire on them ; and preparation was made for doing it, " in case it should be needful. This appearance instantly cleared the " street, when Captain Sears and his party rode off iu triumph, with the " booty they were pleased to take away." Dunlap, ( History of New York, ii., Appendix, ccxx,) erroneously stated that the destruction of the printing-office was effected "hy the Connecticut Light Horse," on the fourth of December. Bancroft, (History of the U'united States, original edit. viii., 275,) said Sears was " vexed at his want of influence, impatient at "being overlooked, and naturally inclined to precipitate counsels ; " and in the same work, centenary edition, v., 184, the same author stated

308

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

The progress of the banditti, through Westchester- county, on its return, was necessarily slow, since it finished, at that time, the work of pillage among the farmers of that County, which it had commenced on its outward march-it left the City of New York on Thursday, at two o'clock; and it did not reach Horse-neck, where the detachinent which was guard-

that Sears "deserved a high appointment in the American Navy," which he did not receive ; that he was " impatient at heing overlooked," ete, Not the slightest allusion is made to the doings of the banditti in Westchester county, in either of the editions of that much-praised work. Lossing, (Field Book of the Revolution, ii., 796, 797, ) stated that Mr. Riving- ton "aided by his Royal Gazetteer," was very influential; that he had no regard for the truth nor for "common fairness ; " that Sears had gone to Connecticut " to plan schemes for the future with ardent Whigs; " that the type which was stolen from Rivington was converted into hullets; etc. ; but the truth is that the Royal Gazette was not established until December, 1777, as he had stated on the opposite page of the l'ield Book; that Rivington published everything of news and political papers, re- gardless of party ; that Sears had removed his family and himself to New Haven, to get out of the way of threatened danger and to pont over personal grievances ; and that the printers in Connecticut were too glad to increase their limited supplies of type to convert the stolen tyre be- longing to Rivington into bullets, for which common and far cheaper lead was better adapted. Rev. Doetor Beardsley, (History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. i., 302-305, and Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., 35-47,) appropriately notieed, in detail, the dealings of the banditti with Mr. Seabury, without, however, making the slightest mention of what was done elsewhere than in Westchester- county.

In Connecticut, from that day to this, the doings of that party of ruf- fians have been considered only as praiseworthy. Governor Trumbull, after having snubbed General Washington by sheltering and justifying the wholesale desertion of the Connecticut troops which the latter had denounced, (Compare General Washington's letter to Gorernor Trumbull, "CAMBRIDGE, December 2, 1775," with the reply, "LEBANON, December " 7, 1775; " that of the former, "CAMBRIDGE, December 5, 1775," with the reply, " LEBANON, December 9, 1775" ; ete.,) waited until the following June, before he paid the slightest attention to tho letter which the Pro- vincial Congress had sent to him, in December, 1775, and then only to shelter, if not to justify, the offenders. (Joun. Trumbull to the Honble. Nathl. Woodhull, " HARTFORD, June 10, 1775,") Hinman, ( Historical Collection of the part sustained by Connecticut during the War of the Revolu. tion, 79, 80,) included that lawless raid among the notablo and praiso- worthy acts of Connecticut ; and the following, which is the latest speci- men which has met our eye, presents, at once, the satisfaction with which respectable men, of our own day, in Connecticut, continue to re- gard that ontrage, and the character of what is circulated, in New Eng- land, as veritable history: "Some time during the War, a paper was " published in the City of New York, by one, Rivington. This paper was " professedly and to all outward appearance devoted to the British in- " terests. It was afterwards, however, known to have aided tho Amer- " jeans much, and was under the control of Washington himself. The " hostile appearance of the sheet, however, deceived the Americans as "well as their enemies, and about half a dozon Greenwich men re- "solved that the press should he stopped ; they stolo into the City, de- " stroyed tho press, and bagged the type, which they brought off with "them from the very midst of a watchful enemy. Messrs. Andrew and " Peter Mead were the principal men of the expedition. It is said that " they only of tho company were able to carry the bags of type from the "printing.office to the street and throw them across the backs of their "horses. After tho type was brought to Greenwich, it was totally de- "stroyed, except enough to print each of the company's naines, which "the veterans kept for a long time in memory of their exploit." One might readily suppose this latest tid bit of what has eurrency as history, was written in China or Timhuetoo ; hut the eurious reader may find it in an elegant and expensive History of Fairfield County, Connecticut, compiled under the supervision of D. Hamilton Hurd, and published by J. W. Lewis & Co., Philadelphia, in 1881, 1t occupies a portion of page 378 of that handsomely priuted volume, and affords a fine example of the character of what is written, concerning New Englanders and their character and doings, when the pen of the writer and the patronage of the publisher are withiu that pretentions portion of the Union.

ing its first collection of plunder and its threc pris- ouers (the latter of whom, as the practise then was among that new-formed power, having been pro- vided, meanwhile, with ncither food nor shelter) had halted, until the following Monday, the twenty-scv- enth of November. Its progress through Connecticut appears to have been attended with the highest pop- ular approval; many joined it, "the whole making a " very grand procession ;" and, on Tuesday, the twen- ty-eighth of November, amidst the salutes of two cannon and the cheers of the populacc, it re-entered New Haven. The procession moved through nearly every street in the Town, stopping at every corner, in order that the crowds might gaze on the victims and jeer at and insult them; and, after having quartered the latter, at their own expense, at one of the Tav- erns, the successful banditti, sustained by what there was of the ignorauce aud lawlessness of the New Haven of that period, spent the remainder of the day in "festivity and inuocent mirth."1

The principal portion of the bitterness of the ban- ditti appears to have been bestowed on Mr. Seabury- indeed, there was wisdom in that discrimination, since Judge Fowler and Mayor Underhill were dif- ferently constituted men, more casily intimidated and, therefore, more pliable than he, and very soon rc- canted and were dismissed from their confinement2 _-

1 "On their way home they disarmed all the tories that lay on their "routo ; and yesterday [November 28,] arrived here, escorted by a great " number of gentlemen from the westward, the whole making a very " grand procession. Upon their entranee into town, they were saluted "with the discharge of two eannon, and received by the inhabitants with "every mark of approbation and respeet. The company divided into "two parts and concluded the day in festivity and innocent mirtlı. "Captain Sears returned in company with the other gentlemen, and "proposes to spend the winter here, nuless publick business should re- "quire his presence in New-York .- Seabury, Underhill, and Fowler, "threo of the dastardly protestors against the proceedings of the Conti- " nental Congress, and who it is believed had coneerted a plan for kid- "napping Captain Sears, and conveying him on board the Asia man-of- " war, are (with the types and arms) safely lodged in this town, Where " it is expected Lord Underhill will havo leisuro to form the scheme of "a Incrative lottery, the tickets of which cannot be counterfeited ; and " Parson Seabury sufficient time to compose sermons for the next Conti- "nental fast."- (The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednes- day, November 29, 1775.)

See, also, Seabury's Memorial to the General Assembly of Connecticut, Do- cember 20, 1775, rule page 136, post; and Jones's Ilistory of New York during the Revolutionary Har, i., 66, 67.

2 Although the instruments of the recantation of these two of the threo victims do not appear in The Connecticut Journal, they were printed in Holt's New- York Journal, No. 1718, NEW-YORK, Thursday, December 7, 1775, and may be seen in Force's American Archives, IV., ili., 1708.

1. "Whereas I, Jonathan Fowler, Esq., one of His Majesty's Judges of "the Inferior Court for the County of Westehester, in the Province of " New-York, did, some time ago, sign a Protest against the llonourable "Continental Congress, which inconsiderate conduct I am heartily sorry " for, and do hereby promise for the future not to transgress in the view "of the people of this Continent, nor in any sense to oppose the meas- " nres taken by the Continental Congress.

"1 do also eertify that. some time past, being at Court at the White- " Plains, { heard a person say, whom several people present helieved to " be a Lieutenant or Midshipman of the Asia, man-of-war, that the Cap- "tain of the Asia intended to take Captain Sears up, and that there " would soon be delivered, gratis, from on board the man-of-war, great "quantities of Paper Money, in imitation of Continental Currency,

309

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

and he was " prevented from enjoying a frce inter- " course with his friends; forbidden the visits of " some of them, though in company with his guard ; " prohibited from reading prayers in the Church, and "in performing any part of Divine Service, though "invited so to do; interdicted the use of pen, ink, "and paper, except for the purpose of writing to his "family, and then it was required that his letters " should be examined and lieensed " [by the leaders of the banditti,] "before they were sent off; though " Captain Sears eondescended that he should be in- "dulged in writing a Memorial to the Honourable "Assembly. He received only one letter from his " family, and that was delivered to him open, though " brought by the post." Indeed, with characteristic bravado, and entirely conscious of his influence among those, in Connecticut, who were then controlling the Rebellion, Sears told his only remaining victim-the others having ransomed themselves from the hands of their captors with cowardly-made rccantations- " that they did not intend to release him, nor to " make such a compromise with him as had been " made with Judge Fowler and Mr. Underhill, but to "kcep him a prisoner, till the unhappy disputes be- "tween Great Britain and America were settled- " that, whatever he might think, what they had done " they would take upon themselves and support." 1

At that time, and, indeed, until 1818, the Govern- ment of Counecticut, under her Charter, like that of Rhode Island, was based on the Sovereignty of the King of Great Britain; and the lawlessness of the Rebellion had not been permitted to disturb the forms and formalities of cither her Executive or Legislative or Judicial Departments of Colonial Government- adroitly securing the monopoly of that Government in the hands of the comparatively few by whom it was heldl under the Royal Charter of 1661, no matter what the result of the Rebellion might be-and all these were being carried on, in the sevcral long-estab- lished forms, nominally in the name of the Sovereign. Knowing these facts, Mr. Seabury is said to have ap- plied to the Magistrates, in New Haven, for protee- tion and redress, since he was held in captivity, in that Town, by no pretense of legal process nor by any other authority thau the individual will of the ruf-

" which would be printed with the types taken from Mr. Ilolt, of Vir- " ginia.

"As wituess my hand :

" JONATHAN FOWLER.

"NEW-HAVEN, November 29, 1775."

II. " Whereas I. Nathaniel Underhill, of Westchester, in the Province of " New-York, did, some time ago, sign a Protest against the Resolves of "the Honourable Continental Congress, which inconsiderato conduct I "am heartily sorry for, and do hereby promise, for the future, not to "transgress in the view of the people of this Continent, nor, in any " sense, to oppose the measures taken by the Continental Congress. "As witness my hand, in New-Ilaven, November 30, 1775.

"N. UNDERHILL,

" Mayor of the Borough of Westchester." 1 Memorial of Samuel Seabury to the General Assembly of Connecticut, December 20, 1775.

fian, Sears, who was, at best, only a sojourner in that Colony and, subsequently, was sheltered by the Gov- ernor, on that ground ; but his application found no favor before those Magistrates, notwithstanding their authority was undisputed. He then sought the inter- ference of the local revolutionary Committee, with the same result. The Governor, also, disregarded his demand; and when the banditti who continued to hold him, a captive, in the midst of that Capital-town of the Colony, consented that he should memorialize the General Assembly of the Colony, which does not appear to have been, then, in Session,2 no benefit to the memorialist, from the Legislature of the Colony, could have been intended.3

While thesc proceedings were in progress, in Con- necticut, the revolutionary authorities, in New York, were almost equally unmindful of what was due from them, in the protection of the individual Colonists from the aggressions of their neighbors, and in the support of the autonomy of the Colony, which those from Connecticut were beginning to threaten4-the Colonial Government and the armed vessels which

2 We are not insensible of the fact that it is said that Mr. Seabury's Memorial was laid before the General Assembly, and referred to a Special Committeo of scven members, of which William Samnel Johnson was the Chairman, and unto whom the Letter from tho Provin- cial Congress of New York had been already referred, (Beardsley's Life and Correspondence of Rt. Rev. Samuel Seubury, D.D, 43 ;) but in his recital of the circumstances, in his letter to the Venerablo Society, on the twenty-ninth of December, 1776, Mr. Seabury made mention of nothing else than of his "puting iu a Memorial to the General Assem- "bly," (Ibid, 46 ;) and Mr. Ilinman, who was Secretary of State, with the original Journals before him, in his carefully-mado synopsis of the doings of the General Assembly, from the opening of the May Session, 1774, until the close of the February Session 1778, stated that the Special Session of the General Assembly, which was assembled by special order of the Governor, on the fourteenth of December, 1775, closed its busi- ness, and was adjourned by Proclamation, on the same day ; that the Special Committee of which Mr. Johnson was Chairman, was appointed for an entirely different purpose ; and that the Session of the General Assembly which next succeeded that which was adjourned on the four- teenth of December, 1775, was not commenced until the ninth of May, 1776. (Historical Collections of the part sustained by l'onnecticut in the War of the Revolution, 198, 200.) General Peter Force, who diligently re- printed all the Journals of the General Assembly, in his elaborate American Archives, made no mention of a Session of the General Assembly, be- tween that which was dissolved on the fourteenth of December, 1775, and the ninth of May, 1776, as stated by llinman.

What mockery there was in that grace of the banditti, therefore, when it favored its captive with permission to memorialize an Assenibly which had been dissolved, six days before tho Memorial was written.

3 Memorial of Samuel Seubury to the General Assembly of Connecticut, December 20, 1775 ; Samuel Seabury to the Venerable Society, " NEW-YORK, " December 29, 1776" ; Joncs's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 67, 68.

4 Besides tho unceasing attempts to encroach on tho territory of New York, and, in other ways, to invade tho Rights of the Colonists, in that Colony, which Connecticut and men from Connectient were constantly making, Isaae Sears, on the occasion now under notice, with the evident purpose of throwing all the titles of properties, in New York, and all the domestie and business relations, therein, into confusion and uncer- tainty, in order to make the inroads of depredators more certain of snc- eess, "intimated his design speedily to revisit this Province with a more "numerons body of tho Connecticut Rioters, and to take away the " Records of tho Province." (Governor Tryon to the Earl of Dartmouth, No. 22, "ON BOARD THE SHIP DUTCHESS of GORDON NEW-YORK ILAR- " BOUR, 6th Decr 1775.")

The declarations of Colonel Waterbury and Isaac Scars, on the salt subject, subsequently, will be noticed hereafter.

310

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

occupied the harbor and commanded all the ap- proaches to the City, by water, and by whom a large armed force could have been thrown into the City, to protect the inhabitants from such outrages as that which is now under consideration, meanwhile, re- maining, apparently unconcerned, without raising a hand or firing a gun for that principal purpose of their presence in the Colony.

In the evening of the day on which the outrage on James Rivington was committed, [Thursday, Novem- ber 23, 1775,] Lancaster Burling and Joseph Totten, members of the General Committee for the City and County of New York, offered a Resolution, in that body, citing Isaac Sears, Samuel Broome, and John Woodward to appear before it, to answer for their conduct in entering the City, on that day, with a number of horsemen, in a hostile manuer, which the movers of the Resolution considered a breach of the Association ;1 but on the following evening, probably because it was distasteful to the greater number, Mr. Burling withdrew the Resolution,2 rather than to see it ignominiously defeated.

Three days after the event, John Jay, with more self-respect and, certainly, with more respect for the honor of the Colony, notwithstanding he, also, ap- pearcd to take no interest in any other portion of the general subject, wrote a letter to the President of the former Provincial Congress, in which he warmly con- demned the proceeding ;3 but, as has been stated, there was, then, no Provincial Congress to receive and to consider his protest.

On the fifth of December, the General Committee of the City and County of New York returned to the subjcet and adopted a well-written Petition to the Pro- vincial Congress praying that that body would take measures to protect the inhabitants of the Colony from a renewal of such aggressions.4

1 Minutes of the General Committee for the City and County of New York, " Thursday, November 23, 1775."

2 Minutes of the General Committee, etc., "Friday, November 24, 1775." 3 The following are his words, on the subject of the raid :

* * "The New-England exploit is much talked of, and conjec- *

" turcs are numerons as to the part the Convention will take relative to "it ; some consider it as an ill compliment to the Government of the " Province, and prophesy that you have too much Christian meekness " to take any notice of it. For my own part, I don't approvo of tho

" feat ; and I think it neither argues much w sdom or much bravery ; at "any rate, if it was to have been done, I wish our own people, and not " strangers, had taken the liberty of doing it.

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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 77

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