History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 93

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 93

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Continental Congress, "NEW YORK, 27 June, 1776," postscript dated "June "28th."]

On the following day, General Washington wrote thus: "I suppose "the whole fleet will be in, within a day or two." [It all arrived on that day.] "I am hopeful, before they are prepared to attack, that I " shall get some reinforcements. Be that as it may, I shall attempt "to make the best disposition I cau of our troops, in order to give them "a proper reception, and prevent the ruin and destruction they are " meditating against us," (General Washington to the President of the Con- tinental Congress," NEW YORK, 29 June, 1776.")

A few days after General Washington had thus conveyed the intel- ligeuce of the weakness of his command, to the Continental Congress, the Adjutant-general of the Army is said to have written to a member of the same Congress, on the same subject, in these words: "With an "Army of force, before, and a secret one, behind, we stand on a point "of land with six thousand old troops, if a year's service of about half "can entitle them to the name, and about fifteen hundred new levies, "of this Province, many disaffected and more doubtful. In this situ- " ation we are: every man in the Army, from the General to the Pri- "vate, acquainted with our true situatiou, is exceedingly discouraged. "Had I known the true posture of affairs, no consideration would have "tempted me to have taken an active part of this scene ; aud this sen- "timent is universal," (Adjutant-general Joseph Reed "to a Member of " Congress," "NEW YORK, July 4, 1776," quoted by Dr. Gordon, in his History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America, Edition, London : 1788, ii., 278.)

5 " General Howe is sufficiently strong, considering the goodness of his " troops, to make a successful attempt upon the Americans : but being "in daily expectation of the reinforcements from Europe, he will un - "doubtedly remain inactive till their arrival," (Gordon's History, etc., London edition, ii, 278.)

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

"get up to it; and, from the minutest description, "judging an attack upon this post, so strong by " nature and so near the front of the enemy's works, " to be too hazardous an attempt, before the arrival of "the troops with Commodore Hotham,"1 [.from ' Europe,] "daily expected," the General " declined " the undertaking ; " and, consequently, the day-break came and went without the promised debarkation of the Army; the Fleet weighed its anchors, " passed the " Narrows," came too at the watering place, where it again cast its anchors ; the Army was landed on Staten Islaud, as already stated; 2 the first mistake of the Campaign was committed; the first disastrous delay was inaugurated ; General Washington and his feeble command were, for the time, spared; and the Re- bellion was not suppressed. With an abundant naval force under his command, General Howe commanded and controlled all the waters which were near him ; and Gravesend-bay need not have been regarded as the only basc which he could have occupied-he could have turned the flank of any or of all the lines, either of hills or of armed rebels, and have landed his command either in front or on the rear of either of the latter, as he should have determined ; and he could have led his abundantly supplied, admirably disciplined, and thoroughly willing command to an immediate and effectual suecess, had not his willing ears listened to those who inclined to Peace, and had not his sympathies controlled his judgment and over- come his sense of duty with the hope that the day of reconciliation-of reconciliation to be secured through himself-was not yet passed. He hesitated; and the golden opportunity passed away, never to be re- turned.

On the same second of July, and while the Royal Army was thus occupying Staten Island, the Conti- mental Congress, at Philadelphia, was considering the subject of Independence.

It will be remembered by the reader that, in 1774, when the County of Westchester was invited, by the Committee of Fifty-one, in the City of New York, to

1 Commodore Hotham did not reach New York until tho twelfth of August, as will be seen, hereafter.

2 General Howe to Lord George Germain, "STATEN ISLAND, 7th July, " 1776."

See, nlso, [Captain Hall's] History of the Civil War in America, i., 174; Stedman's History of the American War, i., 190, 191.

Stedman said, " the troops thus landed, "[on Staten Island, ] " consisted "of two Battalions of Light Infantry; two of Grenadiers; the Fourth, " Fifth, Tenthi, Seventeenth, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Twenty-sev- "enth, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-eighth, Fortieth, Forty second, Forty-third, " Forty-fourth, Forty fifth, Forty-ninth, Fifty-second, Fifty-sixth, Sixty- " third, and Sixty-fourth Regiments of Foot ; parts of tho Forty-sixth "and Seventy-first Regiments ; and the Seventeenth Regiment of Light " Dragoons. There were, besides, two Companies of Volunteers, raised " at New-York, consisting of one hundred men each. The total amonut " was niue thousand men"-in which latter statement, in general terms, he is contradicted by General Howe, in his Observations, (vide pages, 367, 368, ante.) although he gave tho aggregate, including tho Officers and Staff, while General Howe included only "the Rank and File of his command.

unite with that Committee in sending a Delegation to the proposed Congress of the Continent which had been called for the purpose of seeuring a proper and united opposition to the measures of the Ministry and, as far as possible, a redress of the grievances of the Colonies, the great body of the farmers in that County disregarded that invitation; and that the very few who accepted it, either personally or by their local Committees, assembled at the Court-house, in the White Plains ; called one of the principal land- holders of the County, who was, also, at that time a Representative of the County in the General Assembly of the Colony, Frederic Philipse by name, to the Chair ; and signified the opposition to the measures of the Home Government, of, at least, those who were present, by authorizing the Delegation who had been elected to represent the City and County of New York, to represent, at the same time, the County of Westeliester, in that general assemblage of Delegates.3

It will be remembered, also, that the General Assembly of the Colony, which was convened in January, 1775, although there was not, within it, a single " friend of the Government," every member having been an avowed member of the party of the Opposition, had presented the lamentable spectaele of a great party divided into factions, each seeking to secure the same great result, but by distinct and radically different means. In the conflicts of factions, in that body, it will be remembered that no more consistent and no more steadfast opponents of the Home and Colonial Governments were seen than the two Representatives of the County of Westchester and the other two, who represented, respectively, the Manor of Cortlandt and the Borough Town of West- chester, although Frederic Philipse, representing the County, and Isaae Wilkins, representing the Borouglı, were of one faction, and John Thomas, also repre- senting the County, and Pierre Van Cortlandt, rep- resenting the Manor of Cortlandt, were of the other and opposing faetion.4

At the adjournment of the House, in April, 1775, these four gentlemen appeared to have returned to their respective homes, and to have remained there, without immediately participating in the political events of the day, except in the instance of Frederic Philipse and Isaac Wilkins, who, eight days after the adjournment of the General Assembly, united in the Declaration and Protest against the assembling of the Provincial Convention for the sole purpose of eleeting Delegates to a second Congress of the Continent, which Declaration and Protest a large number of the inhabitants of the County of Westchester then signed and published.5

It will be remembered, also, that among the earliest of those whom the handful of office-seekers, in the interest of themselves and of the Rebellion, proscrib-

3 Vide page 208, anto.

+ Vide pages 224, 225, anto.

5 Vide pages 248-250, ante.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

ed, because of his action in the General Assembly- notwithstanding it was in an earnest opposition to the Ministry and in an equally earnest support of the demands of the Colony for a redress of grievances -- because of his Declaration and Protest at the White Plains, and, undoubtedly, because of his understood authorship of some political tracts which were obnoxious to the controling political faction, Isaac Wilkins was obliged to seek personal safety in flight-he left his family and his estate and found a refuge in London.1

After having spent some months in retirement, Pierre Van Cortlandt resumed his place in the polit- ical turmoil of the period ; while Frederic Philipse and John Thomas, the former at Yonkers and the other in the Harrison Precinct, are not known to have taken any part whatever, in the partisan operations of that period.

When the spirit of proscription was introduced into Westchester-county, destroying the peace which had previously prevailed among its rural inhabitants, Frederic Philipse was named among those who, with- out the slightest evidence of any wrong-doing, were to be arrested and dealt with.2 He does not appear to have been disturbed, however, until the organiza- tion of the notorious " Committee to Detect Conspira- " cies," of which mention has been already made; 3 when, at the head of the List of Suspected Persons, in Westchester-county, who were designated as the victims of that American Inquisition, was placed the name of "*FREDERIC PHILIPSEX"-the asterisk before the name indicating that he was "to be Sum- " moned ;" and the cross which followed the name indicating that he was "to be Arrested." 4

The Minutes of the Committee also indicate that on the twenty-seventh of June, 1776, an Order was made by that body, "That Summonses issue against the " following persons as inimical to the Cause and "rights of America, returnable on Wednesday the " third day of July next at ten o'clock in the forenoon " of the same day, viz: Frederick Philipse and "Samuel Merritt, which said Summonses signed by " all the members present afd were delivered to the "Secretary with directions to deliver them to the " messenger to be served." 5

The Summons thus issued was served on Frederic Philipse, at Philipsborough, the present City of Yonkers, on Saturday evening, the twenty-ninth of June; and, on the following Tuesday, [July 2, 1776,] he made the following reply to the Committee :

"PHILIPSBOROUGH, July 2, 1776.

" GENTLEMEN :

" I was served on Saturday evening last with a " paper signed by you, in which you suggest that " you are authorized by the Congress to summon cer- " tain persons to appear before you, whose conduct " had been represented as inimical to the rights of " America, of which number you say I am one.

" Who it is that has made such a representation or " upon what particular facts it is founded, as you have " not stated them, it is impossible for me to imagine ; "but, considering my situation and the near and "intimate ties and connexions which I have in this " country,6 which can be secured and rendered

6 Frederic Philipse was a native of the Colony ; and the family had been well known residents of New York for more thau a century pre- ceding the date of this letter, and was connected, by marriage, with tbe other leading families of America-even George Washington had not scrupled to seek an alliance with it, if tradition speaks truly.

The well-knowu Rev. Timothy Dwight, S. T. D., President of Yale- college, writing of Yonkers, in the Autumn of 1811, said, " it is remark- " able for nothing, except having been the residence of the family of " Philipse, oue of the most distinguised of those which came, as Colonists, " from the United Netherlands. Colonel Philipse, the last branch " resident in this country, I knew well. He was a worthy and re- " spectable man, not often excelled in personal and domestic amiable- " ness. Mrs. Philipse was an excellent woman; and the children, the "eldest of whom was about seventeen, gave every promise of treading " in the same steps," (Travels, in New England and New York, iii., " 442, 443.)

Mr. Bolton (History of Westchester-county, Second Edition, i., 523,) quot - ing from an original manuscript, in the handwriting of John Jay, said that that most zealous and most malignant of all Mr. Philipse's perse- cutors, said of him, probably in the later years of the life of the writer, " He was a well-tempered, amiable man ; and a kiud, benevolent land- " Jord. He had a taste for gardening, planting, &c., and employed " much time and money in that way. * * * At the commencement " of our Revolution, he, Frederick Philipse, was inclined to the Whigs, " but was afterwards persuaded to favor the Tories .* He was removed " to Connecticut, on his parole. Nothing could have been more favor- "able to him, circumstanced as he then was, than to be placed in such "a state of tranquil neutrality. On a certain occasion, he obtained per- " mission to go to New York, while in possession of the enemy. On " being afterwards required to return, he very improperly and unwisely "yielded to the importunities of certain of his friends, and refused to " return. Ilis estate was confiscated."

Sabine, notwithstanding his notorious bitterness, repeated the story of the moral worth of this unwieldy, blind man, who lived on his estate, taking no part whatever in the partisan movements of the period. (Loyalists of the American Revolution, original edition, 537, 538 ; revised edition, ii., 186, 187.)

The persecution of Frederic Philipse and the robbery of his family, mainly through the two Jays, is a subject which somne one will, here- after, be very likely to examine and expose, in all its native ugliness, to the censure of the world.

* No one knew better than John Jay that there was another canse than that named, which led Frederic Philipse to dissent from the doings of John Jay, James Duane, Goverueur Morris, et al. Frederic Philipse continued to be a member of the Colonial party of the Opposition, in New York, until, by the advice of the Committee of which John Jay was one of the master spirits and the Chairman, he was seized by the military power and sent into exile ; and the scheme and trick by means of which those exiles who had been allowed to go into New York, did not receive the notices which Governor Trumbull seut for their return, affording a pretext for the sequestration of their large estates, was not a secret to those who were, then, in the ring of " patriotic" money-seekers, nor is it a secret to us, now.

Common respect for the truth should have led John Jay to have told the whole of the story concerning Frederic Philipse's visit to New York and his stay there, or to have said nothing concerning it.

1 Vide page 254, ante.

2 List of Westchester County Tories : Historical Manuscripts, etc. ; Mis- cellaneous Papers, xxxiv., 193.

3 Vide pages 344-347, ante

4 Minutes of the Committee to Detect Conspiracies, "Die Sabbati, 12 ho.,

" June 15, 1775 :" Historical Manuscripts, etc., Miscellaneous Papers, xxxiv., 307, and xxx., 156.

5 Minutes of the Committee to Detect Conspiracies, "Thursday, A.M.,

" June 27, 1776 :" Historical Manuscripts, etc., Miscellaneous Papers, xxxV., 485.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

" happy to me only by the real aud permanent pros- " perity of America, I should have hoped that suspi- "cions of this harsh nature would not be easily " harboured. However, as they have been thought of " weight sufficient to attract the notice of the Congress, " I can only observe that, conscious of the upright- "ness of my intentions and the integrity of my con- " duct, I would most readily comply with your Sum- " mons, but the situation of my health is such as " would render it very unadvisable for me to take a "journey to New York, at this time. I have had the " misfortune, Gentlemen, of being deprived, totally, " of the sight of my left eye; and the other is so "much affected and inflamed as to make me very " cautious how I expose it, for fear of a total loss of "sight. This being my real situation, I must request "the favour of you to excuse my attendance, to- " morrow ; but you may rest assured, Gentlemen, that " I shall punctually attend, as soon as I can, con- " sistent with my health; flattering myself, in the "meantime, that, upon further consideration, you " will think that my being a friend to the rights "and interests of my native country is a fact so " strongly implied as to require no evidence on my " part to prove it, until something more substantial " than mere suspicion or vague surmises are proved " to the contrary.

" I am, Gentlemen, your most obedient, humble "servant FREDERICK PHILIPSE.

"To LEONARD GANSEVOORT, PHILIP LIVINGSTON, " THOMAS TREDWELL, LEWIS GRAHAM, GOUV- "ERNEUR MORRIS, THOMAS RANDALL, Es- "quires." 1

As the Provincial Congress, as well as its Com- mittee to Detect Conspiracies, had hurriedly left the City of New York before the day appointed for the hearing of Frederic Philipse and Samuel Merritt ; 2 and as only one of the members of the Committee had lingered, after the Congress and the Committee had retired ; 3 the proccedings against them, at that time, were evidently suspended-the suspension of the persecution of Mr. Philipse, however, was specdily followed by a similar proceeding, of which mention will be made, hercafter.

The fourth Provincial Congress was directed to meet at the Court-house, in the White Plains, on

until the following day, Tuesday, the ninth of July, the Deputies from a majority of the Counties appeared, produced their Credentials, and organized the Con- gress. General Nathaniel Woodhull was chosen for its President; and John McKesson and Robert Benson, the Secretaries of the former Congresses, were continued in the same places, in this.5

There were only five Deputies present from the City of New York, although twenty-one had been elected; but every member of the Deputation from Westchester-county-Colonel Lewis Graham, Colonel Pierre Van Cortlandt, Major Ebenezer Lockwood, William Paulding, Captain Jonathan Platt, Samuel Haviland, Zebadiah Mills, Colonel Gilbert Drake, Jonathan G. Tompkins, General Lewis Morris, and Gouverneur Morris-was present.6 Of the latter Captain Platt, Colonel Van Cortlandt, Zebadiah Mills, and General Lewis Morris were new members.7

After a letter from the Delegation of the Colony in the Continental Congress, bearing date the second of July, " on the subject of Independence, and request- " iug instructions from this Congress,"8 had been read, a second letter from the Delegation, of a subsequent date, " enclosing the Declaration of Independence," was also read, and referred to a Committee consistiug of John Jay and Abraham Brasier, of the City of New York, Abraham Yates, Junior, of Albany-county, and John Sloss Hobart and William Smith, of Suffolk.9

The Declaration which was thus referred, was a duly authenticated copy of A Declaration by the Rep- resentatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, of which document mention has been already made; and, with its authentication, in extenso, it was entered at length on the Journal of the Congress.10

A very important letter, concerning prisoners of Monday, the eighth of July, 1776;4 but it was not

1 Force's American Archices, Fourth Series, vi., 1215, 1216.

2 Vide pages 340 347, ante.

3 Judge Jones, who was, also, one of those whom the Committee had summoned, related the fact that, on the thirtieth of June, Governeur Morris was the only member of the Committee who had not left the ('ity, in the general panic. History of New l'ork during the Revolu- tionury War, ii., 296.)

In view of Governeur Morris's great anxiety to go into the City of New York, then a military post of the Royal Troops, very soou afterwards, it will hardly be necessary for us to inquire why he was the only member of the Provincial Congress who voluntarily exposed himself to supposed danger from the approach of the Royal Army.

4 Journal of the (third) Provincial Congress, " Sunday afternoon, June " 30, 1776. '

5 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Tuesday, 9th July, 1776."

Very singularly, and without the slightest authority except that of J. Warren Tompkins, Bolton, (History of Westchester-county, original edition, ii., 359 ; the same, second edition, ii., 564,) considered the Con- gress which was assembled, at the White Plains, on the ninth of July, 1776, as the same body as that which had been in session, in the City of New York, from the eighteenth of May until the thirtieth of June, pre- ceding. In other words, both these learned historians regarded the third and the fourth Provincial Congresses as one and the same body. 6 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Tuesday, P.M., WHITE PLAINS, " July 9, 1776."

7 The Journal of the Congress, July 9, placed Colonel Van Cortlandt's name at the head of the list of "the new members present" why " took the general oath of secrecy," although the Colonel liad headed the Deputation from Westchester-county, in the third Provincial Con- gress, as will be seen by reference to the Credentials of that Delegation, in the Journal of that Congress, "Die Sabbati, 10 ho., A.M., May 18, " 1776."

The explanation of that apparent contradiction may be found in the fact that that short lived third Provincial Congress was dissolved before Colonel Pierre Van Cortlandt took his seat in it or was qualitied to do so, by his taking the oaths of the office of Deputy.

8 George Clinton, Henry Winner, John Hoop, William Floyd, and Francis Ivicis, to the Provincial Congress, " PHILADELPHIA, July 2, 1776."

Journal of the Provincial Congress " Tuesday, 9th July, 1776." :0 11.i.l.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

war and those who were, also, confined in the Jail, in the City of New York, for debt,1 was received from General Washington, and referred to a special Com- mittee ; 2 and after the transaction of some other busi- ness, the Congress adjourned until the afternoon.

On the afternoon of the same day, [ Tuesday July 9, 1776,] the Committee to whom had been referred the letter from the Delegation from the Colony in the Continental Congress and the Declaration which that letter had covered, made a Report, thereon, in the following words :

"IN CONVENTION OF THE REPRESENTA- "TIVES OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK,3 " WHITE PLAINS, July 9th, 1776.

"RESOLVED, UNANIMOUSLY, That the reasons " assigned by the Continental Congress for declaring "the United Colonies frec and independent States " are cogent and conclusive; and that, while we "lament the cruel necessity which has rendered that " measure unavoidable, we approve the same and " will, at the risk of our lives and fortunes, join with " the other Colonics in supporting it.

" RESOLVED, That a copy of the said Declaration " and the aforegoing Resolution be sent to the Chair- "inan of the Committee of the County of Westches- " ter, with order to publish the same, with beat of " drum, at this place, on Thursday next," [July 11, 1775]; "and to give directions that it be published, " with all convenient speed, in the several Districts " within the said County ; and that copies thereof bc " forthwith transmitted to the other County Com- " mittees within the State of New York, with orders to "cause the same to be published in the several " Districts of their respetive Counties.

" RESOLVED, That five hundred copies of the " Declaration of Independence, with the two last men- " tioned Resolutions of this Congress for approving " and proclaiming the same, be published in hand- " bills and sent to all the County Committees in this " State.

" RESOLVED, That the Delegates of this State, in " Continental Congress, be and they are hereby "authorized to consent to and adopt all such mea- "sures as they may dcem conducive to the happiness "and welfare of the United States of America."

It is said that the Report which was thus made by the Committee was unanimously adopted by the Congress ; and, further, that an Order was made by the Congress directing that copies of the Resolutions which constituted the Report should be transmitted to the Continental Congress.4

The reader nced only to be reminded that the evident author and the known supporters of this series of Resolutions were the same author who, twenty- eight days previously, had written, and almost entire- ly the same individual Deputies who, at the same time, had voted, that the authority of "the good " people of this Colony" was, then, necessary to ena- ble the Provincial Congress or the Delegates of the Colony in the Continental Congress "to declare this "Colony to be and continue independent of the Crown " of Great Britain ; " that, in the absence of any such authority already delegated to themselves or to the Colony's Delegates in the Continental Congress, it was, at that time, considered proper and necessary to ask for authority to do so, if it should be subsequently considered expedient and proper to make such a declaration of Independence, in behalf of that "good " people " of whom they, then, acknowledged them- selves to have been only agents or deputies ; that, for reasons which will be remembered, no such authority, then nor subsequently, had been delegated to either themselves or to the Colony's Delegates in the Con- tinental Congress, by that "good people" whose servants and representatives both they and tlie Dele- gates referred to acknowledged themselves to have been ; and that, on the later occasion, which is now under notice, themselves having been the witnesses, they were quite as much without authority, legal or revolutionary, "to declare this Colony to be and " continue independent of the Crown of Great " Britain," as they had been, on the former occasion, of which mention has been made. If it had been an act of usurpation to have declared the Independence of the Colony, without the "consent " of the Colony, previously given, on the former occasion, how much less flagrant was the act, also without having obtain- ed that "consent," on the later occasion, which is now under consideration ? Were John Jay and those whom

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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 93

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