History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 84

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 84

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11 Cornelius Steenrod to the Committee of Safety, "Jannary 31, 1777 ;" the Commissioners of Sequestration to the Council of Safety, " PEEKS KILL, July "24, 1777 ;" Stephen De Lanrey to Cornelius Steeuro, "May 3, 1777 ;" Testimony of Cornelius Steenrod before the Committee of Westchester county, Jnne 13, 1777 ; Cornelins Sternrod to the Conreation of the State, "Wrsr- "CHESTER COUNTY, CORTLANDT MANOR, June 28, 1777," and the several enclosures therein ; etc.

12 He was anxions, by turns, to command a Troop of Horse, to com- mand a Company of Minute-men, and to raise and command a Company in the Continental Line ; and, in neither of these, does he appear to have paid much respect to the proprieties of the undertaking.

13 Cornelius Steenrod to " the Courention," withont place or date- Journals of the Provincial Congress, ii., 147.

14 In June, 1776, Isaac Youngs testified before the Committee on Con- spiracies, of the Provincial Congress, that Thomas Vernon, that prisoner who made so much trouble, had informed him that one of the Captains in MeDongal's Regiment of Continentals, was a loyalist, in correspond- ence with Governor Tryon, and acting under the orders of the Governor. (Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Miscellaneous Papers, xxxiv., 404 )

Cornelius Steenrod had only recently joined that Regiment, at the head of a Company, when that statement was made.

15 General Lord Stirling's General Orders, "NEW YORK, March 16, "1776."

16 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Mercurii, 10 ho., A.M., Oc- " tober 25, 1776."

17 List of Officers' names of New York Troops, riz .: Colonel MeDougal's Regiment-Historical Manuscripts, etc .: Military Committee, xxv,, 488.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

the War;1 his command reciprocating, like that of Captain Hyatt, by deserting, in great numbers, and, thereby, seriously erippling the Regiment ; 2 and, also like Captain Hyatt, personally, he was reported as "unfit " for his command.3 The similarity of that Company and its Officers and that commanded by Captain Hyatt and its Officers is singularly continued in the fact that the Second Lieutenant who was with Captain Steenrod when the Company was mustered into the Continental Service, was subsequently cashiered,4 assuredly for conduet which was more than ordinarily bad; and in the Report, concerning First Lieutenant Titus and Ensign Jones, that " These two are unfit for the service." 5

Captain Ambrose Horton, who commanded one of the Companies from Westchester-county, in the Cam- paign of 1775, appears to have returned to the service, probably from another County, in 1776;6 but noth- ing more than a mere mention of his name was made, without the slightest additional information. Neither Captain Daniel Mills nor Captain Jonathan Platt, each of whom had commanded a Company from Westchester-county, in the Campaign of 1775, ap- pears to have returned to the service, in 1776.

It will be seen, from the respective records of the fraudulent practices of Ezekiel Hyatt and Cornelius Steenrod and their respective associates, in their en- listment of men for their respective commands; from the records of the questionable manner in which their respective Companies were carried, without their consent, into a line of the Continental Service for which they were not enlisted ; from the records of the personal unfitness for their respective offices of the several Officers of both these Companies ; and from those of the consequent disaffection and deser- tions of the enlisted men, that Westchester-county's quota, in the Continental levy of 1776, was of question- able usefulness to the country or the cause in which it was nominally engaged. Whatever may have been the character and conduct of the Non-commis- sioned Officers and Privates of which those Companies were respectively composed-and it is due to the mem- ory of those unknown men that it should be said of them that no record of bad conduet, on their parts, has

come down among the debris of that period, since it cannot be regarded as a crime that some of them, un- bidden, in that era of disregard of law, helped them- selves to the freedom, belonging to themselves, of which their Officers had fraudulently deprived them -it cannot be consistently pretended, by any one, that the Officers of those Companies were reasonably rep- resentative men of the great body of the farmers of Colonial Westchester-county, of that or of any other period : whether or not they may be regarded as representative men of that other and smaller class of the inhabitants of that County, in 1775-76, of those whose "patriotism " was only ill-concealed selfish- ness, of those whose devotion to " the common cause" was graduated with nothing else than with the prom- ised profits of the investment, of those whose zeal was tempered with nothing as effective as with an Office of some sort, the reader can determine for him- self, from the evidence which has been already ad- dueed, illustrative of the character and conduet of the revolutionary faction, within that County, during that later Colonial Period.

Among the multitude of requirements, made by General Lee, either on his own motion or at the prompting of those who pandered to his baser ineli- nations, and which were obsequiously obeyed by the Provincial Congress, was one, made early in March, 1776, for "a Magazine of Provisions and Military "Stores, to be established in Westehester-county," the requisition being supplemented with a recommen- dation that "the Deputies of Westchester-county "purchase and deposit, in different stores in that " County, twelve hundred barrels of good salted Pork, "wherever it is to be bought; and that the said " salted Pork be repacked and pickled by a sworn "Packer of New York ; and that the Deputies of "Albany-county purchase eighteen hundred and fifty " bushels of good Peas, and send them to the Depu- " ties of Westehester-county, to be by them stored in "the same manner." 7

The proposed test of the quality of the Pork to be purchased was, however, not satisfactory to those who were manipulating the Congress, in the interest of the job ; and, on the ninth of March, when that body resumed the consideration of the proposition, it was led to suppose that the Resolution which had been adopted, approving the same, was "imperfect, "inadequate to the end, and that the method thereby " proposed will ereate unnecessary expense." It also appointed a Committee of three Deputies, two of whom were John Thomas, Junior, and Colonel Joseph Drake, both of them Deputies from Westchester- county, " to reconsider the method of establishing a " Magazine of Provisions, and to report thercon.""

1 Ibid.

" tieneral .Herunder Me Dougal to Robert Yates, "YONKERS, 21 October, "1776."

3 General MeDougal's Recommendation of Lieutenant-colonel Cortlandt .- Historical Manuscripts, etc .: Military Committee, AXV., 815.

A Certain Secured to the Provincial Congress, " Cor AT NEW YORK, "20 June, 1776."

5 List of Officers' Names of New-York Troops, riz., Colonel Me Dougal's Regiment .- Historical Manuscripts, etc .: Military Committee, XXV., 4%.

6 Recruiting Warrants were issued to him, on the tenth of March, 1776, und to Thomas Le Foy, on the twenty-eighth of the same month, for the Ninth Company of the First Regiment of the New York Line of the Continental Army of 1776; but the record says, also, " Captain Horton "and Officers' commissions not noule out," (Recruiting Warrants issued by the Convention to the First New York Continentals-Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Military (bunuilles, xxv., 165, 676;) and it is probable that they were among those whose blandishments were unsuccessful in obtaining recruits, as has been stated in the text, (page 321, aufe.)

i Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Lume, 3 ho., P.M., March 6. 4, 1776."

8 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Sabbati, 10 ho., A.M., March "9, 1776."

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

The whole subject had evidently been considered, informally, before it was laid before the Congress-in the expressive phrase of practical men, it had been " cut and dried "-and the Committee " speedily re- "turned and reported " a substitute for the original Resolution, which was more " perfect," more " ade- " quate to the end," and less expensive, although it was, also, less favorable to the Congress-it did no more than to omit the provision for the employment of a Packer from New York, by whom, also, the quality of the Pork could have been accurately ascertained, leaving every other portion of the original Resolu- tion, in the form in which it had been adopted, five days previously. The evidently pre-arranged Report and Resolution were promptly approved, without a dissenting voice ; 1 and the scheme was, so far, a com- plete success.

There does not appear to have been a doubt con- cerning the entire safety of such a Magazine, nor of such a series of Magazines, notwithstanding the known hostility of by far the greater number of the inhabitants of Westchester-county, within which they were to be established, against all which per- tained to the Rebellion-an hostility, too, which had become intensified by reason of the repeated and ruinous outrages to which the Conservatives among them, and few were not Conservatives, had been subjected; and if anything were wanted to establish the fact of the quiet, law-observing, and upright personal character of those much abused and much persecuted farmers of Colonial Westchester-county, it may be found in that voluntary tribute to their integrity, thus unwittingly, but freely, paid by their most virulent enemies. A Military Magazine estab- lished in the midst of a community who was hostile to those who gathered and established it, without ample provision for its protection, and depending, largely, if not entirely, for its safety, on the forbearance of those among whom it was placed, was an anomaly in Military Science; but the farmers of Westchester- county were not inclined to retaliate ; and those who were leaders in the Rebellion coukl, therefrom, have learned something which would have been useful to themselves and to their "common cause," had not they been besotted in their greed for Office and its emoluments and for the anthority and the opportuni - ties for personal aggrandizement which office-bearing, in a revolutionary era, always affords to those who are the greater zealots.

The Deputies from Westchester-county were not slow in their movements, homeward, as soon as that Report and that Resolution had been adopted, leav- ing the Deputation in the Congress without the requisite quorum, in their eager pursuit of the advan- tages, to themselves, which were offered in their pur- chases of barrelled Pork. The reason for the embargo

which had closed the foreign markets against the pro- ducers and which had monopolized the trade in favor of the local buyers aud at their own prices, was then made manifest to all observers ; and the favored Depu- ties, who were the official buyers, and their personal friends were provided with an outlet, at favorable prices, not only for the surplus of their own products, but for those additional stocks which the rigidly enforced embargo and their more accurate knowledge of what the future was to develope, had placed within their control ; and that without any limitations concerning prices to be paid, and without any danger, concerning the quality of the article to be sold, from the adverse reports of a sworn Packer and Inspector, from the City of New York.

On the thirteenth of March, a letter was received from General Washington, expressing to " the Com- " manding Officer of the American Forces, New " York,"2 the suspicions of the Commander-in-chief that the Royal Army which was then enclosed in Bos- ton would soon be transferred to New York, and ap- pealing to the Provincial Congress for its best efforts "to " prevent their forming a lodgment before" [he, Gen- eral Washington,] " can come or send to your assist- "ance."

The intelligence thus communicated to the Provin- cial Congress, for General Lord Stirling immediately submitted the letter to that body, led to another revision of the Resolution authorizing the establish- ment of a Military Magazine in Westchester-county, already referred to, which resulted in the adoption of the following Resolution, not necessarily as a substi- tute for the other, nor probably regarded as such a substitute, in practise :

"ORDERED, That Colonel Gilbert Drake repair "immediately to Westchester-county and purchase " twelve hundred barrels of the best Pork, and " have the same safely stored, agreeabic to the " Resolves of this Congress, of the ninth day of " March instant; that he take with him, from New- " York, a sworn Inspector and Repacker of Pork, to "inspect and re-pack the same; and that he purchase "and store, at the cheapest rate in his power, Flour " sufficient for the use of five thousand men for a " month." 3

Notwithstanding the adroitness of Colonel Gilbert Drake, in concentrating within his own person the sole authority to purchase all the Pork and all the Flour which were considered necessary, when the last- named Resolution was adopted by the Provincial Congress, his associates in the Deputation from Westchester-county were already in the field, bar- gaining for barrelled Pork, under the provisions of the former Resolution; entering into competition

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Sabbati, 10 ho., A. M., March " 9, 1776."

2 Stephen Moylan, A.D.C., to the Commanding Oficer of the American Forces in New York, " CAMBRIDGE, 9th March, 1776."

3 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Mercurii, 10 ho., A.M., March " 13, 1776.""

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

with him, among the sellers of Pork, who were not slow to take advantage of that circumstance, in ad- vancing the prices of the goods; and, to a corre- sponding extent, intercepting, advantageously to themselves, the profits of those particular transactions which, but for their interference, would have fallen into his basket.

The Provincial Congress had adjourned, leaving its Committee of Safety to discharge its ordinary duties ; 1 and William Paulding was the only Deputy from Westchester-county who remained in the City of New York. But, on the afternoon of the first day of the existence of that Committee, [March 18, 1776,] Mr. Paulding, whose hand was evidently clean while those of all his fellow Deputies were seriously smirched, " informed the Committee that several of the " members from Westchester-county, conceiving that " they were directed to purchase Pork for a Magazine, " were purchasing quantities for that purpose ; that " Colonel Gilbert Drake, by a late Order of the " Congress, was also purchasing the whole quantity " directed to be stored in that County, whereby there " is danger that the said article of Provisions may " be purchased at an exorbitant price." 2

After due consideration of the subject, the Com- mittee of Safety determined to limit the price to be paid for the Pork, leaving the rival buyers undis- turbed, which was undoubtedly done for political reasons-it would not have been prudent to have ar- rested the Deputation of a County, while it was so eagerly engaged in a still-hunt for some of the pick- ings which had been placed within its reach, by the revolutionary leaders. The enactment of the Com- mittee of Safety was in these words :

" Whereas different appointments have been made "by the Provincial Congress, for the purchase of " barreled Pork, in Westchester-eounty; it is there- " Tore

"ORDERED, That no person employed in that ser- " vice pay more for that article of Provision than four " pounds per barrel, subject to the expense of the "sellers for cartage to the place of delivery in the "County." 3

On the first of April, 1776-ample time having elapsed, since the two Orders were made, to enable all which could be done in the way of purchases and sales of Pork and Flour, to have been done, satisfac- torily to those who were originally in the secret-the Committee of Safety discovered what it regarded as a fact, that such a Military Magazine as General Lee had called for and which the Provincial Congress had de- liberately established, would " not be absolutely neces- sary ; " and it accordingly " ORDERED, That Colonel

" Gilbert Drake and the other members of West- " chester-County do not purchase any more Pro- " visions, until farther order; and that they return " with all convenient speed to this Committee, an ac- " count of all the Provisions they have purchased, and "in what stores they are placed."

It required eight days for the Committee's letter and Order to reach the busy Deputies and to arrest their eager searches for Pork and Flour; but ou the ciglith day, [ April 9, 1776,] Colouel Drake reported that he, and John Thomas, Junior, and Major Lock- wood, three of the migratory Deputies, had bought about one thousand barrels of the former and six hundred barrels of the latter ; 3 from which one may learn something of the productiveness of Colonial West- chester-county, in 1775, notwithstanding the disturb- ances, already referred to, to which its inhabitants had been so frequently and so seriously subjected-the usual Autumn and Winter sales of these two staple articles had been undoubtedly made ; extraordinary sales had been made for the Northern Army and for distant places, many of them having been made mat- ters of official record; the home-consumption had been supplied, freely, during the Autumn, the Winter, and the early Spring ; and the necessary supplies, also for the home-consumption, until the following Autumn, had been undoubtedly reserved ; but the supply was not exhausted ; and a thousand barrels of salted Pork and six hundred barrels of Flour had been found and purchased, on the account of the Provin- cial Congress, within the limited period of three weeks, and within the limits of that single County. The Westchester-county farmers of our own period, with their greater numbers and greater area of till- able ground, with their modern appliances of artificial manures and improved implements-none of them, at that time, even hoped for-and with all the improved facilities of transit and of transportation which they now possess, may reasonably hang their heads, in humiliation, on a comparison of the results of their labors with the results of the labors of those industri- ous, prudent, and thrifty men who preceded then, with smaller numbers and none of the advantages which are now accessible to every one.

Referenec has been made to the action of the Pro- vincial Congress encouraging the establishment of Powder-mills, and offering loans for that purpose, without interest, to proper persons, in specified Counties, of which Westchester was one. Although no mention was subsequently made of the establish- ment of such a Mill within the limits of Westehester- county, the fact that such an offer was made affords another testimony to what has been already adduced concerning the peaceful disposition of the farmers, throughout that County, even in the face of the greatest

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Sabbati, 9 ho., A. M., March " 16, 1776."

" Journal of the Committee of Safety, "Die Luna, 4 bo., P.M., March " 18, 1776."

+ Journal of the Committee of Safety, " Die Luna, 9 ho., A.M., April 1, " 1776.""

5 Journal of the Committee of Safety, " Die Mercurii, + ho., P.M., April " 17, 1776,""

336

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

aggravations, sinee the want of the Arms of which they had been robbed would not have been a hindranee to any one who had desired to destroy a Powder-mill; and it shows, also, how unwise that revolutionary policy had been, which had tended not only te impair the industrial usefulness of such a community, at a time when the results of its agricultural and other in- dustrial labors were most needed, but to make that element, in the Colony, permanently antagonistie, which, under a peaceful and conciliatory policy, might have been made passive and useful, if not friendly and co-operative.

After the autocratic General Lee was ordered to the South, in March, 1776, the military command of the Continental forces in the City of New York was vested in General Lord Stirling ; and, on the thirteenth of that month, that commanding General requested the Provincial Congress to appoint a Committee, to con- fer with him on various subjeets connected with the defense of the City and Colony.1

On the following day, [ March 14, 1776,] for the pur- pose of putting the City into a proper condition to sustain an attack, "all the male inhabitants, capable "of fatigue," were ordered to " be immediately em- " ployed on the fortifications of the City, and as well " all the negro men in the City and County of New " York " were similarly ordered; and, at the same time, the inhabitants of Kings-county were ordered to be similarly employed on the defenees of that County ; while levies were made on the southern part of Orange, or what now constitutes Roekland, County, and on the County of Westchester, for detachments from the Militia of those Counties, respectively, for the support and assistance of the working parties in the City of New York.2

That portion of the Regulations, thus agreed to between General Lord Stirling and the Committee of the Provincial Congress, which related particularly to Westchester-county, is in the following words:

" 7thly. RESOLVED AND ORDERED, That Colonel "Joseph Drake and Colonel Thomas Thomas, of " Westchester-county, do draft out of their Regiments " two hundred men, in the following proportions, to "wit; Two Companies of sixty-five Privates each, " besides the Captains and other inferior Officers, out " of Colonel Joseph Drake's Regiment, and one Com- "pany of sixty-five Privates, with the Captain and " other inferior Officers, of Colonel Thomas's Regiment, " and as many more men out of those two Regiments " as will turn out, Volunteers for that serviee, to be im- " mediately sent to the City of New York, armed and " aceoutred in the best manner possible, and to be "joined to Colonel Samuel Drake's Regiment, and to

"receive the same pay and provisions as the other "Continental forces in this Colony."

As what was called the Regiment of Westchester- county Minute-men, commanded by Colonel Samuel Drake,3 was then at Hoern's Hook, opposite Hell-gate, it will be seen that Westchester-county was largely depended on ; but no record has been found which indicates which of the Companies of the Militia of that County were thus drafted and sent to throw up the defensive works within the City of New York, nor is it now known who, if any, of the farmers of that County, volunteered their services, for that la- borious duty.

As has been already stated, early attention was paid by the Provincial Congress to the subject of the election of Deputies to a new Congress and to that of its own dissolution. To that end, on the sixteenth of December, 1775, the Congress adopted the follow- ing Resolution :

"RESOLVED, That the Committee of Safety be and "hereby are fully empowered to issue orders to the " respective Counties in this Colony, to elect Deputies " for a Provincial Congress of this Colony, to meet " on the second Tuesday in May next. The said "Committee, by their Order, appointing the day of "Election, in each County, to be at least twenty-one " days before the said second Tuesday in May next."+

Notwithstanding that Resolution, there appears to have been some other " plan for the election of Depu- "ties to form a Provincial Congress to meet when the " present Provineial Congress will expire." It is not now known what that other " plan " embraced nor by whom it was introduced or supported; but it was evidently intended to limit the right of voting for Deputies to the new Congress, to those who had signed the Association, and to have the vote taken by ballot. It appears, also, to have been resolutely and successfully opposed, at least as far as the limitation of the right of suffrage was ineluded in its provisions; and its evidently radieal supporters, after their defeat on that portion of the "plan," abandoned the pro- ject for an election 'by ballot.5 The entire subject was then referred to a Committee, for further consid- eration ; and, on the afternoon of the same day, after the said " plan " had been "read, and again read, " paragraph by paragraph, amended, and corrected," it is said to have been " approved," subject, however, to a further consideration, on the following morning.6

3 Vide pages 328, 329, ante.

4 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Sabbati, 10 ho., A.M., Decr. "16, 1775."

5 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Luna, 10 ho., A. M., March " 11, 1776."

6 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Luna, I ho., P.M., March 11, " 1776.".

The obscurity of the Journals of the second Provincial Congress, on the subject under consideration, is relieved, to some extent by the Jour- wals of the third of those Congresses in an occasional reference to the subject,

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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 84

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