Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution, Part 34

Author: Dawson, Henry B. (Henry Barton), 1821-1889. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Morrisania, New York City : [s.n.]
Number of Pages: 592

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The suggestion which was made in this letter, that those of the revolutionary faction, in Westchester- county, whose safety was imperiled by the threats of their conservative and law-abiding neighbors, shonh! go before the King's Magistrates and ask that the latter should be put under bonds to keep the peace towards the former, was received with disfavor by Isaac Sears, of New York, and Melancton Swith, of Duchess-county, and Doctor Lewis Graham and John Thomas, Junior -- the latter a son of one of those who had been threatened with removal from the County- and an attempt was made by them to strike out from the letter that portion "which refers them " [the Committee of Westchester county] " to the Civil Magis- "trate;" but the Congress declined to make the

" This remarkable suggestion, that those, in Westchester county, who were in rebellion, and who were threatened with arrest by those of their neighluas who were not in reb .Hion, should go before the King's Justices of The Peace, and ask that those loyal inhabitants who were unlined to support the lone att Colonial Governments and the Laws and to arrest those who were in rebellion, should be put water bonds to growers the place toread the latter, will be daly appreciated by the reader. Whatever the County Committee of Westchester county may have thought of it, it will le evident to the reader that the Provincial Con- KTens, when it wrote to That Committer and made that suggestion, was not inchned lo regard the men of Westchester-county who were in rebellion as entitled to very much of its respect and sympathy.

5 Junrid of the Provincial Congress, "Di- Veneris, 5 ho., P. M., Novem- " ber 3, 1775."

1 Sammel Townsend represented the Town of Rye, in the County Com- mitter of 1776-7.

" On die twenty-ninth of Angust, 1776, "one Lounsherry of Westchester " County who had beadded a party of about 14 Tories was killed by a Per- "sou hamed Flood on his refusal to surrender himself Prisoner ; That in "his Pocket book was found a Commision signed by Gent. How to " Major Rogers empowering him to raise a Battalion of Rangers with the " Bank of Lient Col Commeunland. That atmeand to this was a Warrant "to this Lonusberry sigurd by Major Rogers appointing him Captain in " one of these Company " & a Muster Holt of the trone atreaty enlisted," (Letter from the Committee of Safely to tiques Washington, " IN Commit- " TAK OF SAFETY, HARLEM, AUEt 30th, 1776.")

Very probably, the Williama Lomaberry who is mentioned in the text was the same bonneberry who had accepted a Commision from Major Rogers, atid was killed, in August, 177r, as stated in the letter.

3 The Sutton referred to was William Sutton, Esq., living on De Lan- cey's Noch, of which he was the tenant, grib page 124, sete )

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

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. hcited change, only the four gentlemen already mentioned having arisen in favor of it. The letter was transmitted to the Westchester county Committee; wol nothing more was heard of the subjects referred .: cool the Committee itself, thenceforth, gradnaily di-appeared from the notice of the world.

The Provincial Congress had continued in session, closely withdrawn from the sight of its constituents, until the eighth of July,' when it had taken a fort- night's rest, during which period a "Committee of "Safety" was left on duty, with large authority, to ad- minister the affairs of the new organization." On the twenty-sixth of July, it had resumed its work, con- tinting it without interruption, until the second of September, when it had adjourned for a month, during which period, a "Committee of Safety " bad again administered the affairs of the new organization.' On the fourth of October, it had re-assembled, and re- sumed its work, continuing it until the fourth of No- vember, when it adjourned, or was dissolved, without day.5

The dissolution of the first Provincial Congress, which occurred at about the close of the first half- year of the entire and, as far as the Colonial and Home Governments were concerned, of the undisputed, domination of the revolutionary faction of the purely aristocratie portion of the Colonial party of the Op- position and its plebean auxiliaries, over the vastly greater body of those who were its fellow-men and fellow-subjects of the Crown and fellow-colonists, within the Colony of New York,-without, however, having interfered with the administration of the public affairs of the Colony, by the Royal Colonial Government, which was continued in all else than in the protection of the Colonists and in the suppression of the revolt, which that Colonial Government had not the means for doing-affords a favorable oppor- tunity for the careful student of the history of that eventful period to rest, aud to review the progress of events, in New York, during the preceding six months; to ascertain, by comparison of its earlier professions with its later practises, how much of sincerity and how much of deceit and of fraud there had been, in the apparent devotion of that controlling faction to "the Rights of man and of Englishmen," of which it had said so much, in its earlier movements toward politieal supremacy ; to learn its matured views con- cerning* the arrogantly assumed prerogatives of the well-born and the contemptnously assigned mission of the lowly, the latter to nothing else than to submission, to obedience, and to labor ; and to ascertain and to examine those systems of government and those

methods of administration which, in the unrestrained exercise of its recently acquired, but undisputed, power, and of its seemingly cultured intellect, that revolutionary faction had practically regarded as fit and proper for the government of a " free people." * *

* *

During the interval, between the dissolution of the first and the organization of the second of the series of . Provincial Congresses which controlled the destinies of the Colony of New York and crowded an nawilling community into rebellion and ruin, an illustration was made, first in the County of Westchester and then in the City of New York, of the spirit of the controlling power, among the disaffected; of the shallowness of the prevailing pretensions to patriot- ism and personal integrity in those who were en- gaged in the revolt ; and of the personal character of the ruffians who were employed-as they bad becu employed in the Stamp-act and other riots, earlier in the struggle of parties-by those who were the master- spirits, in the works of lawlessness by means of which the Rebellion was promoted and established and made respectable.5

At that time, there was no newspaper-press in the Colonies which was conducted with greater ability than Rivington's New- York Gazetteer ; or Connectiont, Hudson's River, New-Jersey, and Quebeck Weekly .td- vertiser, which was published, weekly, lo James Riv- ington, in the City of New York. It was a news- paper, in the proper sense of the word; aud it pub- lished the news of the day, from every quarter of the world, regardless of their political character, with rare industry and the most liberal impartiality. It did not accord with the interests of some nor with the passions of others, however, that such a faithful recorder of the sayings and doings of every faction and of every party should be continued in the Col- onies ; and there were times, also, when the exposure of the double dealings of particular individuals, of high as well as of low degree, in well-printed columns. in a widely circulated newspaper, as James Rivington had done, in his Gazetteer, were distasteful to those who were thus exposed and unwelcome to those whom the culprit was serving. It was evidently determined, therefore, that James Rivington should be silenced; and that his only means for inflicting pain on the persons of those who favored the Rebellion should be taken from him.

There was, also, at that time, no one, in the Colony of New York, who possessed greater intellectual and executive abilities combined with superior scholastic attainments, than Samuel Seabury, a Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, ordinarily known as " The Venerable "Society," Rector of the Established Church in the

6 " This I know, a successful resistance is a ' Revoirrios,' not a ' Big- "' RFLLION.' 'RERETLOIN,' indeed, appears on the back of a dying en. "emy ; but . REVOLUTION' Hantes on the breastplate of the victorious "warrior."-(JOHN WILKES, in the House of Communs, February 6, 1775.)

1 Journed of the Provincial Congress, May 22, until July 8, 1775.

Journal of the Committee of Safety, July 11, until July 25, 1775.

$ Journal of the Provincial Congress, from July 26, until September 2, 1:53.

4 Journal of the Committee of Safety, from September I, antil October 3, 1:75.

Journal of the Provincial Congress, from October 4, until No. ember 1, 1775.

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Borough Town of Westchester, and Master of a 'be done without personal risk to the a gressore and Boarding school for Boys, in the same Town. He was whenever, and at no other time, those art of tasks .. news promised that the plunder to be secured then from wonkl afford a sufficient compensation. the friend and Pastor of Isaae Wilkins, the able leader of the conservative majority of the Opposition, in the General Assembly of the Colony; and the He had married the daughter of the keeper of a low, unlicensed alehouse, a resort of sailors, boatmen, stevedores, and such as they, opposite to Beekman's Slip, and that alehouse was his rendezvous; ' and those who had resorted to Jasper Drake's, had always been his ready instruments, in whatever acts of vio- lence in which he had ventured to engage. He had never possessed the entire confidence of the leaders of the revolutionary faction of the Opposition, in the City of New York : he had never been taken into the sanctum sanctorum of that coterie of Livingstons and of Smiths and of Scotts, whose had been the unseen master-hands by whom such puppets as he had been handled and made conspicuous : he had never been permitted to ocenpy any place, in Committee or in Congress, unless in minorities which, because of their comparative insignificance, were incapable of disturb- ing the harmony of the aggregate bodies into which they had been adroitly introduced. Manor of Morrisania was within the boundaries of his Parish ; and the Morrises, brothers-in-law of Isaac Wilkins, but masquerading as leaders in the Rebellion, were, nominally, if not in reality, among his parish- ioners. He was learned, as was well-known : he was fearless in the declarations and support of his well- considered opinions, as was known to his neighbors and friends: that his convictions led him to support the conservative portion of the Opposition, led by his friend, Isaac Wilkins, is more than probable : that the same convictions led hint to oppose, within the circle of his influence and consistently with his min- isterial duties, the doings of the revolutionary faction of the Opposition, among whow his neighbors and parishioners, the Morrises, were capering, was nosecret. When the press was teeming with publications, ad- verse to the violence of the revolutionary faction, he was improperly designated as one of the very few who had written them, with no other evidence to support the allegation than his recognized ability and fearless- ness ; and when " A. W. FARMER " appeared, with his practised and powerful pen, arousing the most violeut bitterness of those who were in rebellion, the intellectual rustie who had written them, by common consent, was erroneously but reasonably said to have been the Schoolmaster and Parson at Westchester, while the real but unrecognized anthor of the obnox- ions publications was generally passed, unnoticed. '

- The political Parson, therefore, was very offensive to those of the revolutionary faction who were not his neighbors-"in justice to the rebels of East and West "Chester, I must say," he wrote, in 1776. "that none " of thein ever offered me any insult or attempted to do " me any injury that I know of " -- and it was evidently determined that he, also, like James Rivington, should be sileneed, even at the expense of his personal liberty and of all which was dear to him, on earth.

There was one man, more than all others, who was qualified to enter on any adventure, no matter how lawless nor how atrocious, provided, and only pro- vided, he could have an abundant force to support him and to overpower any opposition which might possibly arise to obstruct or to endanger him. He had been a privateer, in the War with France and Spain ; and in the only encounter which he had had with an enemy, he had shown the white feather of cow- ardice, his crew having become his aceusers. He was known, subsequently, as one of those blustering, reek- less, law-defying leaders of the floating denizens of the docks, in New York, ready to disregard all Rights, all of every thing except their own wills, in acts of which only the traditional pirates and banditti were sup- posed to have been capable of performing, whenever, and only whenever, in his judgment, those acts could New-York Journal, No. 1671. NEW-YORK, Thursday, February 2, 1975.

At the time of which we write, he was an ignorant blusterer, as vain as he was ignorant ; and he needed only, a- General Charles Lee said of him, "to have " his back clapped" by some one in authority and to be shown that it would be useful to himself-if he could be vested with an office, no matter what nor how ephemeral in its character nor how "impu- " dently " bestowed, so much the better-to be ready, at short notice, to exercise his entire power, as a ruf- fian of the dirtiest water, in any required act of law- lessness, regardless of any Rights of Person or of Prop- erty, or of any claim which age or sex might inter- pose. He called himself a Merchant, in the City of New York; but he had been more conspicuous in shipping Merchandise and Provisions to the eastward, clandestinely, when such shipments to the eastward were interdieted, than in any more legitimate busi- ness. He had been a member of the recently dis- solved Provincial Congress, during a portion of its existence ; but, in entire harmony with his earlier proclivities, when there were threatenings of danger from the Home Government, he had abandoned the

1.A letter from John Case. from the County of Suffolk, on Long Island, "to the Printer of the Sur-York Gucetteer," and published in Hiringlow's Nor-York Gazetteer, No. 91, New-York, Thursday, January 12, 1775, narrated the method in which those who were not inclined to favor the theories and practices of the revolutionary faction were inveigled into that Tavern, and, there, subjected to the teachings of Mevander MeDougal, Isaac Sear; and others of that faction ; and a description of the insults and outrage- indicted on those who were inclined to object to the subject matters of those teachings, by those ale-botise "patriots," especially by Isine Sears, may also be seen, in the same letter.

The attempted reply to John Caw, in which Isine Sear- subsequently attempted to raise new issues instead of meeting old ones, served only to establish, more clearly, the truthfulness of Case's original statement ; and those who shall incline to pursue the inqnivy, may find it in Hult's

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way of New York ; and, in the latter part of Novem- | ards, Silleck, and Mead. It was not pretended that ! ... 1775, Isaac Sears .was safely honsed in New : these enterprising Connecticut-men had any other warrant to engage in such an undertaking, than that

Haven, although it is evident that he continued to correspond with the leaders of the Rebellion, in the ; afforded in the propensity of every cowardly thiet former City.

Os Monday, the twentieth of November, 1775, that cowardly ruffian, Isaac Sears, accompanied with six- Bren others of the same elass, all of them mounted, lett New Haven, in Connecticut, for the purpose of regulating Westchester-county.1 It had become a favorite pastime, among the rowdies on the borders of Connecticut, as it has been a favorite pastime among Texan rowdies of a later period, in their coun- try, to make depre latory raids on those who lived on the opposite side of the river-boundary ; and those " border ruilians," in revolutionary Connectient, had been encouraged to raid on the conservative farmers, in Westchester-county; to overpower those farmers with numbers and, especially after the disarming pro- cess had deprived the latter of the means for protect- ing themselves or their property, to rob them of whatever could be carried away; to return to their own side of the Byram-river, well-laden with what- ever had pleased them best, on the farms and in the farm-houses which they had visited ; and to enjoy, in their own " Christian New England," the stolen products of other men's honest and earnest toil, and to be cheered, as "patriots," by their " Christian New " England " neighbors.

The avowed purpose of that band of acknowledged "banditti "2 was "to disarm the principal tories "there," [ut East and West Chester,] " and secure the "persons of Parson Seabury, Judge Fowler, and "Lord Underhill," three residents of Westchester- county ; and it is said they were joined, on their way, by other parties of men, numbering about eighty, under the leadership of "Captains " Rich-

to plunder those who were known to have been strip- ped of their means for defence, and who were, there- fore, helpless. It was not pretended that any of the proposed victims, in the instance under notice, had said or done anything, in opposition to the Re- bellion, which had made them amenable to the un- bridled caprices of those who were in rebellion ; and it was evident that, had those proposed victims thus transgressed against the " Associations " or the " rec- "ommendations " or the " Resolutions " of the revolu- tionary authorities, the local Committee in West- chester-county, or the Provincial Congress in the City of New York, or the Committee of Safety of the last-named body, and not an improvised and self- constituted power, in auother Colony, was the proper tribunal to take cognizance of such an offence. But in such a party, led by such a ruffiau, only the law of the will of the stronger possessed any authority or secured any respect; and that law of "the pirate "and the banditti," unfortunately, prevailed in the instance now under notiec.

The expedition evidently moved slowly, on its way to New York; " and, especially after it had passed the Byram-river, it undoubtedly foraged on those who were unfortunate enough to live on the line of its maich. It pillaged the farm-houses; and, at Mamaroneck, it burned a small sloop which be- longed to one who was assumed to have been a friend of the Government.5 A detachment of about forty men, under a Captain Lothrop, appears to have been pushed forward to the Town of Westchester, where, on Wednesday, the twenty-second of Novem- ber, it seized the person of Nathaniel Underhill, the Mayor of that Borough, and that of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, who, as we have said, was the Master of

1 "On the 20th of this month, sixteen respectable inhabitants of this "town, in company with Captain SEARS, set out from this place, for " East and West Chester, in the Province of New York, to disarm the "principal tories there, and secure the persons of Parson Seabury, "Judge Fowler, and Lord Underhill." * * * (The Connecticut Journal, No. 124, [Voir- Hacen, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)

Frank Moore, in his Diary of the Amerienn Revolution, (i., 173-175,) juddished a mutilated version of that editorial article, from the original of which the alove was extracted-the other portions of the latter of which will be used hereafter -- and credited it to The Pennsylvania Journal, publish 1 in Philadelphia, on the ninth of December.

" In the preceding September, Lord Dunmore, then at Norfolk, in Virginia, had helped himself to the type and printing-press of John Holt, in that Town ; and it was said of the thief and his confederates, "a few "spirited gentlemen in Norfolk, justly incensed at so flagrant a breach "of good order and the Constitution, and highly resenting the conduct "ut Lord Dunmore and the Navy Gentry, who have now commenced " downright Pirates med Bunditti, ordered the drum to beat to arms," etc. (Estruct from a contemporary publication, in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, iii., &IT.)

Besides the entire hitness of the words to distinguish those who were guilty of such lawless doings, a precedent for the use of those otherwise wrong terms in such specific connections, is afforded in the above ex- trut, from unquestionably revolutionary authority ; and we offer no apol- egy for applying one or both of them to those, from Connecticut, on the t- casion now under police, when Lord Dunmore was far outdone, in wan. tou atrocity.

3 "On their way thither" [for East and West Chester, ] "they were "joined by the Captains Richards, Scillick, and Mead, with about 80 "men." * * * (The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN] Wed- nesday, November 29, 1755.)

It is ley to the respectable portion of the inhabitants of the Connecti- cut of that period, that mention should be made of the fact that no such names as these appear on the lists of Officers of Connecticut Companies, in 1775, which Mr. Hinman published in his Historical Collections of the part sustained by Connecticut during the War of the Revolution; and that it is very probable that these three " Captains, " like that other "Captain " who led them, ou that occasion, possessed no other warrant than that of "courtesy," so called, for the privilege of carrying the title.

+ It left New Haven on Monday, the twentieth of November ; but it did not reach Westchester until Wednesday, the twenty eccond, and the City of New York, to which place it extended its excursion, until noon on Thursday, the twenty-third of that mouth.

5 " At Marinek they burnt a small sloop, which was purchased by Gov- "ermuent, for the purpose of carrying provisions on board the . Ixia."- (The + mnecticut Journal, No. 421, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)

# * * * * and burnt one sloop belonging to persons friendly to gov- "ernment."-(Governor Tryon to the Earl of Dartmouth, No. 22. "ON " BOARD THE SHIP DUTCHESS OF GORDON NEW YORK HARBOUR, Geb Dect "1775."

i 1 :

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a Boarding-school and Rector of the Established ! private papers and scattered them ; and carried Away Church, in the same place, the former, as wan ath- sequently seen, only because he had signed the Declaration and Protest, at the White Plains, in the · preceding April, the latter, beeanse he was more obnoxious to those who were in rebellion, in conse-

a small woo of money, which was in the drawer of his desk, Of course, the Boarding school for Boys. which he had organized and established with so much lahor,' for the better support of his family, was broken down; and the pupils, five of whom were quence of his greater intellectual power and of his t from Jamaica and one from Montreal, the parents of four others being in Europe, besides "others from " New York and the country," were necessarily scat- tered, inflicting an hreparable injury to him and to

decidedly greater bravery in the assertion and maintenance of his opinions and of his Rights .? Having accomplished its purposes in the seizures of the persons and in the plunder of the properties of | his large and dependent family .?

When these seizures had been accomplished and seepred, another detachment from the main body of the banditti was sent back to Horseneck [ West Green- wich, Connectiont, ] as an escort and guard of the three prisoners and of the booty ;> while the main body, itself, numbering seventy-five mounted men, moved for- ward, from East Chester, toward the City of New York."

the two victims, in Westchester, the detachment per- mitted Mr. Seabury, if not Mr. Underhill, to send for ! after what had been stolen had been sufficiently his horse ; and. then, it hastened away, on the road which connected that Town with Kingsbridge. It had not proceeded far, however, when it was met by the main body of the banditti, with whom, with characteristie cowardice, was Sears ; and the entire party then returned to Eastchester, where, on its way toward New York, it had already seized the Where that large body of horsemen spent the fol- person of Jonathan Fowler, who was one of the Judges of the Superior Court of Common Pleas and 6 The following advertisement, copied from Rivington's New- York Ga- alleer, No. DT, New-York, Thursday, February 23, 1775, will clearly in- dicate the high chara, ter of that Colonial Westchester Boarding school tor Boys, probably the prototype of those similar institutions, in more recent days, which have made Westchester county so widely known, in the world of Education : Colonel of one of the Battalions of the Colonial Militia, against whom, also, it seems there was no other complaint than that he, also, had signed the Declaration and Protest, at the White Plains, in the preceding April.3

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Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution, Part 34

Author: Dawson, Henry B. (Henry Barton), 1821-1889. 4n Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Morrisania, New York City : [s.n.] Number of Pages: 592

Author: Dawson, Henry B. (Henry Barton), 1821-1889. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Morrisania, New York City : [s.n.]
Number of Pages: 592