History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 87

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 87

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" And in case it should appear to the said Commit- " tee, inexpedient that any of the said persons should " continue to dwell at his usual place of residence, "that, then, they do assign to such person or persons "another place of residence, in this or one of the " neighbouring Colonies, and take his or their parole, " or word of honour, or, if they should not be deemed " sufficient, other security, to abide there and not "leave it, without license from this or a future Con- "gress ; and, in ease of refusal to give such parole and "security, to commit him or them to safe custody.

" AND WHEREAS it may happen that the said "Committee may be informed of other dangerous " persons, not herein named, whom it would be cx- " pedient and necessary to summon or apprehend :

"RESOLVED, That the said Committee be and they

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

"hereby are authorized and required to eanse sneh "persons to be summoned or apprehended, as they "may think proper, and to proceed against them, in "the same manner as is herein before direeted, with " respect to the persons herein particularly mentioned. "AND WHEREAS employing detachments of the " Militia of this Colony, in arresting the said persons, "will not only be expensive, but the assembling of " them may alarm the suspicions of the said persons "and their adherents, and, thereby, tend to defeat "the design of these Resolutions; and as the Con- " tinental troops quartered in and near the said three "Counties of New-York, Queens, and Richmond, may " be employed in the said business, with little trouble " to themselves and with greater prospect of success : "RESOLVED, THEREFORE, That the said Committee " be and they hereby are authorized to confer with " the Commander-in-Chief of the said troops, and to " request of him such detachments of thein as may be " necessary for the purpose aforesaid; and that he " give orders that the said detachments, while so em- " ployed, be under the direction of the said Committee "or of disereet persons to be by them appointed. "PROVIDED, NEVERTHELESS, That the said Com- " mittee are hereby empowered to employ such de- " tachments of the Militia as they may think exped- "ient for the purpose aforesaid.

"AND WHEREAS there may be, and doubtless are, " in other Counties of this Colony, divers dangerous "persons at present unknown to this Congress:

" RESOLVED, That it be recommended to the Com- " mittees of all Counties in this Colony, to be vigilant, " and to use their utmost endeavours, from time to "time, to discover and summon or apprehend them, "in like manner as herein before described with " respect to the persons hereby ordered to be arrested, "and to report their proceedings therein to the Con- "gress of this Colony for the time being.

"AND WHEREAS it may often happen that the " Committees of Towns and other districts in a County " may discover many dangerous persons whom it would " be proper, immediately, to seenre, in which case au "application to the County Committee would not only " be attended with great delay, but would also afford " such dangerous persons an opportunity to escape :

" RESOLVED, THEREFORE, That the said Commit- "tees of the different Towns and Distriets in the " several Counties in this Colony be and they hereby "are authorized and required to canse all persons "whom they may esteem dangerous and disaffected to "appear before them, either by arrest or summons, as "the said Committees, in their discretion, may think " proper, and take from the said persons respectively, "good and sufficient security to appear before the " General Committee of the County, at such time and " place as they shall order him to attend, and, then "and there, to answer such matters as shall, before " the said General Committee, be alleged against him; "and, on refusal to give such security, to commit to 28

" safe custody the said person or persons so refusing, " until the next meeting of the said General Com- "mittee, with whom the accusation against the said " dangerous and disaffected person or persons ought, "forthwith, to be lodged by the Committee of the " Town or District by whom they may be apprehended, " summoned, or committed, as aforesaid.

"AND WHEREAS there is, in this Colony, divers " persons who, by reason of their holding Offices from " the King of Great Britain, from their having neg- " lected or refused to associate with their fellow citi- "zens, for the defence of their common Rights, from " their having never manifested, by their conduct, a "zeal for and attachment to the American cause, or " from their having maintained an equivocal neutral- "ity, have been considered by their countrymen in a "suspicious light, whereby it hath become necessary, " as well for the safety as for the satisfaction of the " people, who, in times so dangerons and critical, are " naturally led to consider those as their enemies who " withhold from them their aid and influence :

" RESOLVED, That the following persons, who are "generally supposed to come under the above descrip- "tion, to wit :

" In the City and County of New- York .-- Oliver De "Lancey, Chas. W. Apthorpe, William Smith, John "Harris Cruger, Jas. Jauneey, Junr., Wm. Axtell, "Goldsbrow Banyar, Geo. Brewerton, Chas. Nicoll, "Gerard Walton, Donald MeLean, Chas. McEvers, " Benjn. Hugget, Wmn. McAdam, John Cruger, - Ja- "eob Walton, Robert Bayard, Peter Graham, Peter "Van Schaack, Andrew Elliot, David Mathews, John "Watts, Junr., and Thomas Jones.

" In Kings-county .- Augustus Van Cortlandt and " John Rapalje.

" In Richmond-county. - Benjamin Seaman and " Christopher Billop.

" In Queens-county .- Gabriel Ludlow, Saml. Mar- " tin, Thos. Jones,1 Archd. Hamilton, David Colden, " Richd. Colden, Geo. D. Ludlow, Whitehead Hieks, " Saml. Clowes, Geo. Folliot, Saml. Doughty, Danl. " Kissam, Gilbt. Van Wyek, John Willett, David " Brooks, Charles Hicks, John Townsend, John Pol- " hems, Benjn. Whitehead, Thomas Smith, John " Shoals, Nathl. Moore, Saml. Hallett, Wm. Wey- " man, Thos. Hicks, at Rockaway, Benjamin Lester. " In Westchester-county. 2-Solomon Fowler 3 and " Richard Morris.4

1 Thomas Jones, one of the Associate Judges of the Supreme Court of the Colony, was The author of that exceedingly valuable History of New York during the Revolutionary Wl'ar, to which so many references are made, in This narrativo. Ilis wife, Aune, was the third daughter of Chief-justice and Lieutenant-governor James De Lancey, which was largely the ground of his offence before The leaders of the Rebellion.

2 The smallness of the list of The proscribed in Westchester-county may, probably, be accounted for by the fact that Judge Thomas, and Major Van Cortlandt, and the greater number of the Colonial Office- holders, in That County, were masquera ling, locally, with The revolu- tionary party.

3 Solomon Fowler appears lo have been of Eastchester.

4 Richard Morris was the Judge of the Colonial Court of Admiralty

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

" And also all such other persons of the like char- " acter as the said Committee may think proper to be " summoned by the said Committee, to appear before " them, at such time and place as they shall appoint, " then and there to show cause, if any they have, " why they should be considered as friends to the " American cause, and as of the number of those who " are ready to risk their lives and fortuncs in defence " of the Rights and Liberties of America, against the " usurpation, unjust claims, and cruel oppressions of " the British Parliament, which Rights and Liberties " and which unjust claims and cruel oppressions are " specified and stated in divers Addresses, Petitions, " and Resolutions of the present and late Continental " Congress, and, in default of appearance, the said " Committee, on proof made of the service of the " said Summons, are authorized and directed to cause " them to be arrested and bronght before them, by " Warrant, under their hands, directed to any Militia " Officer in this Colony, who is hereby directed to cx- " ecute the same.

" And if, on the appearance and examination of " the said persons, it shall appear to the satisfaction " of the said Committee that they or any of them are " friends to the American canse, that such of them " whom they shall so adjudge to be friends, be forth- " with discharged, and a Certificate thereof, under " the hands of the said Committee, given them, and " their names forthwith reported to this Congress, " to the cud that the same may be entered on their " Journals, and published, and justice thereby done " to their characters and reputations. And it is fur- " ther

" RESOLVED, That all such of the said persons as " tlie said Committee shall not adjudge and deter- " mine to be friends to the American cause, the said " Committee be and they hereby are required to treat " and dispose of in the following manner, to wit :

the jurisdiclion of which extended over Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. His father had ecenpied the place, before him ; ho had occu- pied it since Angnst 2, 1762 ; and ho was, also, Clork of the Courts ol Nisi Prius and Genoral Jail Delivery. Ho was a brother of Lewis Mor- ris, the Delegato in the Continental Congress, and of Staats Long Morris, an officer in the Royal Army, and husband of the Dowager Duchess of Gordon ; and Gouverneur Morris was his half-brother. Ile was, also, the grandfather ef Lewis G. Morris, of Fordham Heights.

Although he was classed, in these Resolutions, among those whe oecn- pied " an equivocal neutrality "-ho preferred to retain his bold en the Royal Treasury as long as possible; and the studied denunciation ef him, in these Resolutions, was admirably adapted to secure the steady payment of bis Salary and Fees, and te secure the family estates, in case the Rebellion should be suppressed-just eight weeks after the presentation of this Report, he was appointed, by the same Provincial Congress whe had received and adopted this formidable series of Resolu- tions, to the Bench of the new-formed revolutionary Court of Admiralty ; aud, three years subsequently, when John Jay ceased to be Chief-justice of tho new State, this Richard Morris was appointed to succeed him, in that honorable and influential position. lle held the latter olhice until September, 1790.

The controlling power among the revolutionary elements, in the Colony as well as in the new-formed State, was not slow to reward tbe Morris family with offices and emoluments; and the latter was equally watchful of its own interests, in accepting whatever was offered.

" That such of them as may be men of influence in " the neighbourhood of the place of their present resi- " dence, be removed to such place, in this or a neigh- " bouring Colony, as will deprive them of an oppor- " tunity of exerting that influence to the prejudice of " the American cause, and respectively bound by " their parole or word of honour or other security, at " the discretion of the said Committee, neither di- " rectly or indirectly to oppose or contravene the " measures of the Continental Congress or the Con- gress of this Colony, and to abide in the place and " within the limits so to be assigned them, till the " further order of the present or future Provincial " Congress or Continental Congress ; and in case they " shall refuse to give such parole or other security, to " conmit them to safe custody.

" And as to such of the said persons whose removal, "in the judgment of the said Committee, shall not " appear necessary, that the said Committee do cause " them to be respectively bound with such security, " by parole or otherwise, as the said Committee shall " deem necessary, neither directly or indirectly to "oppose or contravene the measures of the Conti- " nental Congress of this Colony. PROVIDED, NEVER- " THELESS, that the said Committee shall be and they " are hereby authorized, in case they shall, on " inquiry, find any or either of the said persons to be " so dangerous as that they ought not to be admitted " to go at large, to order such of them to be kept in " safe custody.

" RESOLVED, That the said Committee and the " Connty Committees keep a just record of all their " proceedings, in pursuance of these Resolutions, " and report the same, with the substance of the " evidence offered to them, for and against the several " persons who shall be by them apprehended, sum- " moned, tried, and examined by virtue of the afore- " going Resolutions; and that they have power to " send for witnesses and papers.

" RESOLVED, That the said Committee consist of " the following gentlemen, to wit: Mr. Morris, Col. " Remsen, Mr. John Ten Broeck, Mr. Haring, Mr. " Tredwell, Col. Lewis Graham, and Mr. Hallett; 1 " and that any five of them be a quorum; and that " before they enter on the business herein before " assigned them, they and also all such of the County "Committecs as may be engaged in carrying these

1 Of these, Gouverneur Morris and Lewis Graham were from West- chester-county ; llenry Romsen and Joseph Hallett were from the City and County of New York ; John Ten Brouck was from Albany-county ; John Haring was from Orange-county ; and Thomas Tredwell was from Suffolk. Subsequently, as will be seen hereafter, Henry Remsen was excused from serving en the Committee ; and John lay, of the City and County of New York, and John Sloss Hebart, ef Suffolk, were added to it. At a still later date, Philip Livingston, of the City and County of New York, was also added ; and Leonard Gansevoort, of Albany-county, was substituted for John Ten Broeck. After the Committee bad become organized, John Hlaring retired frem it, Thomas Randall, of New York, taking bis place. A few days before the Congress was disbanded, Joseph Ilallett left the Committee.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

" Resolutions into execution severally take an oath, " diligently, impartially, without fear, favonr, affee- " tion, or hope of reward, to execute and discharge "the duties imposed on them, by the aforegoing " Resolutions.

" RESOLVED, That the said Committee appoint " such persons as they may think proper, to repair to " the said Counties ' to inquire for and procure the " witnesses against the persons herein direeted to be " arrested or summoned to appear, and give evidence "against the said persons, before the said Committee ; " and that the said persons be paid for their trouble at " the rate of fifteen shillings for each day they shall " respectively be employed on that service ; and that " the witnesses they may direet to attend, as afore- " said, be paid their reasonable expenses for travelling " charges and subsistence, to be certified and allowed " by the said Committee ; which Certificate shall be " a Warrant to the Treasurer of this Congress, to pay " the persons in whose favour such Certificate shall " be given, the sum or sums therein allowed, as afore- " said." 2

On the fourteenth 3 and fifteenth of June,4 those who were members of the Committee, took the oath required of them; on the last-named day, John MeKesson, who was one, the principal one, of the Secretaries of the Provincial Congress, was made the Secretary of the Committee, also; > and, with a full retinue of Assistant-secretaries, Messengers, Door- keepers, and other Officers,6 on the same day, Philip Livingston, Joseph Hallett, John Jay, Thomas Tred- well, Gonverneur Morris, Lewis Graham, and Leon- ard Gansevoort-Livingston, Jay, and Gansevoort having been meanwhile added to the Committee-

! It appears from tho words in the text, that Richmond, Kings, Queens, New York, and Westchester-counties were all which were to be favored with the attention of that revoln. ionary Inquisition; and, as far as the proceedings of that intamons body have been permitted to be ex- porel to the scrutiny of honest and earnest inquirery, no evidence ap- pears that residents of other Counties were subjected to its despotic practices.

2 Jourwid of the Provincial Congress, " Die Mercurii, 9 ho., A. M., June "5, 1776."

There are intern il evidences, in the two papers, that the Resolutions which the Prov 'neial Congress had adopted, on the twenty-fourth et May (page 312, aute) and those which are now under consideration, were written by . he same hand ; and there is evidence which cannot be misunderstood, that that hand was not John Jay's, as some have sup posed, but Gouverneur Morris's, It is true that Doctor Sparks made no mention of the subject, in his Life of Gouverneur Morris-it was not his purpose to expre tha weaknesses and the wrong deings of his aristocratic and pretentious subject, but to magnify the man and his doings, and to enlogize them-and all those who have preceded us in narrating the events of that period, have, also, preferred to know nothing of this in famous enactment and of its consequences ; but it was really enacted, in New York, for the promotion of the purposes of intended confiscations of individual and family properties ; and, unequestionably, Gouverneur Morris was the author of it, and one of the master-spirits in the execu- tion of its provisions.

3 Journal of the Proriaciul Congress, "Friday Afternoon, June 14, "1776."

A Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Sabbati, A. M., June 15, "1776."

5 I bid.

6 1bid.

being present, the Committee proceeded to the dis- charge of the duties which had been laid on it.7

This secretly acting, inquisitorial body, of which John Jay was made the Chairman, held seeret sessions on the fifteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty- first, twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, and twenty-ninth of June," beyond which period we do not propose, at this time, to follow it; and on the following day, when the Provincial Congress itself was disbanded and fled, every member of this mighty Committee, with the single exception of Gouverneur Morris, had, also, left the City.9 Besides receiving an anonymous information that William Sutton, of Ma- maroneek, had been heard to say "that, in case " Independency was deelared by the Continental Con- " gress, there were three Colonels in the Service who " would join the Ministerial Party ; " 10 and the issue of Summonses to Frederie Philipse, of Yonkers, Richard Morris, of Scarsdale, and Samuel Merritt, of the Manor of Cortlandt, to appear and answer before the Committee, on the third of July ; the issue of similar Summonses to Solomon Fowler, of Eastchester, Nathaniel Underhill, of Westchester, and James Horton, Junior, and William Sutton, botlf of Mama- roneck, to appear and answer, on the fourth of July ; the issue of similar Summonses to Peter Corne and Doctor Peter Huggeford, both of Westehester-county, to appear and answer, on the fifth of July ; and the issue of similar Summonses to William Barker, Joshua Purdy, and Absalom Gedney, all of Westchester- county, to appear and answer, on the sixth of July,tt the Committee appears to have done nothing which particularly concerned Westchester-county, during the period now under consideration ; and, for the present, its doings are dismissed.12 It may not be

7 Minutes of the Committee to Detect Conspiracies, " Die Sabbati, 12 ho., " June 15, 1776."

8 The Minutes of the Committee, during the brief period which elapsed between the date of its erganization and that of the dissolution of the Provincial Congress-which, also, by all parliamentary and statutory law, dissolved the Committee which was only its agent-are scattered, in various places, and generally in manuscript, and noprinted. Of the Minutes of the Meetings referred to in the text-and, in this place, we do not propose to refer to any of subsequent dates-carefully made copies, from the scattered originals, have been examined, in every instance.

9 Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, ii., 296.

On that day, Judge Jones, who had been summoned before the Com- mitter and had come to the City of New York, to answer the Summons, found only Gouverneur Morris ; and by the latter, he was paroled and permitted to return to his home, in Queens-county.

10 An anonymous Information, forwarded by John Thomas, Junior, Chairman, " IN COMMITTEE OF SAFETY, WHITE PLAINS, June 23, 1776,' among the papers of the Committee, ol the same day.

11 Minutes of the Committee to Detect Conspiracies, "Thursday, A. M., " June 27, 1776."

12 Those who are interested in the methods of this Committee, the subsequently much enlogized Chief-justice of the State of New York and Chief-justice of the United States being the presiding officer, may so the forms of its Summons and its Parole, in Joues's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, ii., 295, 296 ; the forms of its Wiraute, in its Minutes of June 19, 22, and 24, 1776; and those of its varions Bonds, in ita Miuntes of June 24, 25, 26, and1 27, 1776.

The future enlogists of John Jay and Gouverneur Morris may advan-

348

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

improper for us to state, however, that, thirteen days after its sessions were interrupted, in the general panic which was produced by General Howe's arrival, there remained twenty-seven prisoners, con- fined in the cells in the City Hall, and forty-three, including the Mayor of the City, in those of the new Jail.1

It would appear incredible that such a relentless spirit of partisan bitterness could have been enter- tained, at such a time, in such a body as the Proviu- cial Congress of New York; but the records of the Congress which clearly avowed such bitterness, and those of the Committee which it created for the pur- pose of executing its malignant enactments, to say nothing of the unwritten and other informal testimony of the terrorism which was at once revived, and the renewed activity, in persecution, of every petty Pre- cinct, District, and Town Committee, all bear ample testimony to the fact that personal animosities and partisan malignity had so entirely overwhelmed the reason and the judgment and the humanity of the aristocratic leaders of the Rebellion, in their haughty demands for uniformity of opinion as well as of practice, in religion as well as in politics,2 that not even the near approach of an avowed aud power- ful enemy nor the severely pressing necessity of pre- paring to receive and to successfully oppose that not distant enemy could check their headlong and reckless work of arousing those, among themselves, victims of their former oppression and plunder and outrage- many of whom, nevertheless, would have remained passive spectators of the struggle-and of forcing them, in retaliation and self-defence, to become earn- est and active, if not desperate, belligerents, on the side and in support of the Crown.

As portions of the general subject of proscription, mention may be properly made, in this place, of two

tageously read, from these Minutes, what those distinguished lawyers were capable of doing, judicially, when they were within closed and closely guarded doors ; what they, then, regarded as offences before the law ; the methods which they adopted, in their inquisitorial process ; and what their judgments were and what penalties they inflicted ..

With these instances of the cupabilities of those two men before ns, we luve been enabled to understand, more clearly than ever before, some of actions of the Chief Justice and of the Ambassador which, previously, had needed additional explanation.

1 List of Prisoners in the City Hall, New York, July 12, 1776, and List of Prisoners in the New Goal, among the papers of the Committee- Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Miscellaneous Papers, xxxiv., 490.

? It will be remembered that the opinions of its victims, on questions of Law, of Legislation, and of Political Economy, were regarded as matters of offence, even where no ort which was obnoxious had been charged against them ; and that, for those opinions, only, in many instances, those victims were subjected to punishment. It will be re- membered, also, that the leaders of the Rebellion assmned the right of determining when and in what manner religions services should be con- ducted by the Churches, in the Colonies, and those for whom Churches and individuals should and should not offer their prayers to Almighty God. In Connecticut, every Episcopalian Church, except one, was closed, because the Clergy would not submit to the requirements con- cerning their prayers to God ; and in that single exception, the conr- ageons preacher maintained his relations with his Master, notwith- standing the opposition ; and the cowards did not seriously disturb him.

or three instances which occurred in Westchester- county.

It appears that it had become the practise of sev- eral of the local Committees-those in Westchester- county, in some instances, having been of the num- her-of sending those who were offensive to them, without the slightest authority, revolutionary or con- servative, to the Forts in the Highlands, which were then garrisoned with Continental troops, "with orders "to the commanding Officers to keep them at hard "labor, until further orders," no matter what the disability of the victims to sustain such hardships may have been-a process concerning the propriety of which even General Putnam, who was then the Officer in command of the Army, in the absence of General Washington, entertained some very reasonable and very clearly expressed doubts ; 3 and the Provincial Congress, in consequence of those doubts and of other considerations: was constrained to countermand those portions of the commitments to those Forts, which had imposed hard labor on the prisoners.+

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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 87

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