USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution > Part 42
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& Gilbert Doodle to " Me. Marin Soult," ". April the 21ch, 176;" Jared of the Committee of Safety, " Die avis, 10 ho., A.M. April 25, 1776." At Last of the Offers mines in New York: Troops, riz : Col. Methatgot's Regiment. (5) .- I torial Manuscripts, etc. : Mudary Committee, ANV.,
6 Hatorio Mannerripts, etc .: Military Ilurus, XXVII., S. & Historical Moutseries, etc .: Military Pinturas, VIVI., De. I Historical Manntriple, etc. : Military Boleros, XXVII, 12.
" There are good reasons for laheving that that Company, like the similar Company commanded by Cornelius Steenred, of which mention will be made, hereafter, losl leve really enlisted ft Coloured Samuel Drake's Regiment of Minate-men. Then at Howto's Book, as already staled : and that a system of schemes boel Followed, first with Alexander MeDougal, of the fast New York Regiment ; Then with some Connectic
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
and his command were accepted by the Committee of and an intimate friend and confidente of Stephen be Safety, as one of the two Companies required nom Lances, a son of the late distinguished Chief-ju-nie De Lanvey, who was also one of the Proprietor- and a resichent of that . Maur," there can be no doubt. He was peenliarly anxious to obtain an office, no mat- ter what, for on what terms; " he was particularly zealous in his desire that he might administer test- Westchester-county ; 1 and it subsequently constituted the Fifth Company of the First Regiment of the New York Line, commanded by Colonel Alexander Me- Dougal .? It was said of the Company, afterwards, that the Captain "has deceived the Convention " [the Provincial Congress ? ] "in Enlisting the men maths to his neighbors; " and it is more than probable " far 6 & 12 months instead of doing it for ihr " war ; "3 that the men, who had, also, been deceived by their Captain, deserted in large numbers ; ' that the ' claimers." He had been in command of one of the Regiment was greatly reduced by the desertions, of skeleton Companies of Minute-men of which the which those from this Company were part ;3 and the Iskeleton Regiment of Colonel Samuel Drake hiv! Company was thereby disgraced, through all time. i been tonninally composed "-it is more them probable Of Captain Hyatt, it was stated that he was " unfit" to be retained iu the service," as " he wants authority "to make a good Officer :"; of the three Subalterns, the same record stated, "These three wish to de- " cline the service; they will be no loss to it." >
Two days after Ezekiel Hyatt, through the Chair- man of the Committee of Westchester-county, had secured a place for himself and his command, in the New York Line of the Continental Army, [.April 27, 1776,] Cornelius Steenrod appeared, personally, before the Committee of Safety, in the City of New York, and informed that Committee "that he can enlist a "complete Company of men for the Continental ser- "vice, in fourteen days; " and the Committee, after due consideration of the proposal, adopted a Resolu- tion giving to him "full assurance that he and his "Subalterns, with the said Company, will be em- " ployed as part of the troops raising for the defence "of this Colony," provided a full and complete Com- pany of able bodied men should be enlisted and made ready to join a Regiment, within the designated period of fourteen days.9
That Cornelius Steenrod was a Miller, on the Cort- landt's Manor ; evidently a man of some property : 1)
parties ; and finally with the Committee of Westchester-county-each scheme having been an improvement of those which had preceded it- for the disposition of the Company, just as schemes were formed for the promotion of personal interests of Officers, and just as Enlisted Men were trucked and lettered into Regiments which were foreign to them, tar the promotion of those schemes, in another service, within the merway of living men.
1 Janrund of the Committee of Sanity. " Die Jovis, 4 ho., P.M., April 25, " 1776."
? List of Oliverd' armes of Your York Trange, ris : Colonel 3. Dragot's Regiment,-Historical Manuscripts, etc .: Military Committee, NW., les. 3 [hid.
Corporal Alexander McDougal to Robert Jules, " YONKERS, 21 October, "1776."
5 Ibid.
& General M. Dougal's Recommendation of Lieutenant Colonel Von Corthalt -Historien Manuscripts, etc. : Military Committee, ANS., $15.
: List of Oficers' names of Sure You Trumps, Viz .; Colonel The In agur's Regiment,-Historical Manuscript, etc .: Military Committee, AND, is. A Ibid.
9 Jaarand of the Committee of Safety. "Die Saldati, 1) ho., A.M., April "27, 1776."
1) Cornelius Steenrod was the owner of three falling mills, if not of some others; and be addressed " the Convention," without date, requesting protection for his miller .- Cornelius Stared to "the Contentand," with- out place of date-Journal of the l'eveincit Congress, ii. 14.
that he was, in fact, a " friend of the Government," in disguise, notwithstanding all his official dis- that one of those two blank Commissions, for Captains of Companies, which had been issued in advance of the formation of those Companies, 1" was held by him ; and it is far from impossible that the men whom he and his Subalterns had evidently on hand, when he applied to the Committee of Safety for admittance into the service of the Continent, in a different Regiment, had been really enlisted for the re-inforcement of the former Regiment, then at Hoern's Hook.
He evidently completed his Company, in season to take a place, as the second Company of the appor- tionment to Westchester county, in the First Regi- ment of the New York Line, in the Continental Army of 1776, commanded by Colonel Alexander MeDougal, of which it was the Sixth Company, Isaae Titus having been his First Lientenant. Isaac Rnyekman, Junior, his Second Lieutenant, and Ben- jamin Jones his Eusign." But, like Captain Hyatt, Captain Steenrod had deceived his men and the Congress, in his enlistment of his command for six and twelve months instead of for the entire period of
11 Cornelius Sterneed to the Committee of Safety, " January 3, 17 ; " . Commissionersof Something in the Court of Safety. .. Peek- Ku. July "24, 1187;" Seplen Do Larry to Curling Served, " May 3. 1757 ;" Testimony of Cornelius Street before the Committee of West. her vorny. June 13, 1777 ; Coraline Strand to the Contration of the Nate. .. Wist- "COESTRE BOUNTY, CURTEANIE MANOG, June 25, 1777." and the sevend enclosures theprin ; etc.
" He was anxime, by tarne, to rommel a Troop of Horses, to com- in the Continental Lane : ami, in neither of these, does he appear to 's paid much respect to the propriation of the undertaking.
13 Cardin Shewent to " the Convention," without pile of drie- Jaroals of the Postacial Congress, ii., 147.
14 In June, 1776, Isaac Youngy testified before the Committee on Cou- spiracies, of the Provincial Coupress, that Thomas Vernou, that prisoner who in; le so rittch trouble. haliabrunel him that one of the Captains in Mebangal's Request of Continentale, was a loyalist, in notrespond- ence will convertor Tryon, and acting under the order of the Governor.
Cornelius Steemiod had only recently joined that Regiment, at the head of a Company, when that statement was made.
Y tienerad ford Stirling's Gemed Orders, "New York, Mark 1. "1776."
's Journal of the Provencial Congress, " Die Mercurii, Who, A.M, Or- " tober 25, 1976."
Regiment-Histo rical Manscripts, et .: Military Committee, ., .
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
the War;1 his rommand reciprocating, like that of come down among the debris of that period, since it cannot be regarded as a crime that sotur of them, un- hidden, in that era of desregard of law, helped them- Captain Hyant, by deserting. in great umabers, and, thereby, seriondy crippling the Regiment : " and. also like Captain Hyatt, personally, he was reported as selves to the freedom, belonging to themselves. of " unfit" for his command." The similarity of that which their Otheers 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 Company and its Officers aml that commanded by Captain Hyatt and its Officers is singularly confirmed in the fact that the Second Lieutenant who was with Captain Steenrod when the Company was mustered into the Continental Service, was subsequently ; period: whether or not they may be regarded as cashiered," 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."> 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-
Captain Ambrose Horton, who commanded one of the Companies from Westchester county, in the Cam- i ised profits of the investment, of those whose zeal paign of 1775, appears to have returned to the service, was tempered with nothing as effective as with an self, from the evidence which has been already ad- dueed, illustrative of the character and conduct of the revolutionary faction, within that County, during that later Colonial Period. probably from another County, in 1756;" but noth- ; Office of some sort, the reader can determine for him- 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 anl 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 engagedl. Whatever may have been the character and conduct of the Non-commis- sionen 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 condnet, on their parts, has
Among the multitude of requirements, made by General Lee, either on his own motion or at the prompting of those who pandered to bis 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 Westchester-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 Westchester-county, to be by them stored in "the same manner." ?
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 there by " proposed will create 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 thereon.">
" General Herunder M. Dougal to labert Yates, " YONKERS, 21 October, "1776."
3 General Melnougat's formamention of Lacuteand cool fortland - Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Military Committee, MAY., 815.
Captain Struced to the Provincial Congres, " Camp Ar New YORK, "20 June, 1976."
& lot of Oficerx' Names of Now-York Tronges, ris, Blant MeVougel's Regional .- Hatorioal Manuscripts, etc .: Military Committee, XXV .. das.
6 Recruiting Warrants were issued to him, on the tenth of March, 1771, and lo 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 Aring of ITER; but the record says, ale, " Captain Horton "and Officers' commissions not made out," (Recruiting Microatx werden) by the Cureation to the First Nor York Continentais- Historical Machtscripts, etc .: Military Committee, xxV., 15, 60;) and it is probable that they were atrong those whose blandishments were unsuccessful in obtaining ! recruits, as has been stated in the lext, (page 14.1, unde.)
: Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Luna, 3 ho., P.M., Much 4. 4, 1776 .**
" Jonerand of the Provincial Progress, " Die Sabbati, Io ho., A M, March "9, 1776."
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
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 tar the greater number of the inhabitants of Westchester county, within which they were to be established, against all which per- tained tu the Rebellion -- an hostility, too, which had become intensified by reason of the repeated and ruinons outrages to which the Conservatives among them, and tew 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 treely, paid by their most virulent enemies. A Military Magazine estab- lished in the midst of a commmity who was hostile to those who gathered and established it, withont 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 could, therefrom, have learned something which would have been useful to themselves and to their "common cause." had not they bren besotted in their greed for Office and its @aolments and for the authority and the opportuni- tics 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-
The whole subject lead evidently been considered, informally, before it was laid before the Congress-in , ducers and which had monopolized the made in fiser the expressive phrase of practical men, it had been " of the local buyers and at their own prices, was then " ent and dried "-and the Committee " speedily re- made manifest to all observers; and the favored hepn. "turneil 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 dil no more than to omit the provision for the employment of a Packer from New York, by whom, also, the quality of of what the future was to develope, had places the Pork conll 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. Thr evidently pre-arranged Report and Resolution were promptly approved, withont ar dissenting voice ; ' and the scheme was, so far, a com. plete success.
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 rigilly enforced embargo and their more avenrate knowledge 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,"? 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 tothe Provincial Congress for its best efforts "to " prevent their forming a lodgment before" Che, Con- erul 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- went 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-conuty and purchase "twelve hundred barrels of the best Pork. and " have the same safely stored, agreeable to the " Resolves of this Congress, of the ninth day of " March instant ; that he take with lim, from New- " York, a sworn Inspector and Repacker of Pork, to "inspeet 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 mien 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 Flonr 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 fiehl, bar- gaining for barrelled Pork, under the provisions of the former Resolution; entering into competition
Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Sabbati, lo kos, A M , March ** 9, 1776."
"Si phon M you, .A. D.C., to the Commonading Oghver of the American Forces Ju Nor York, " CAMBRIDGE, 9th March, 1776."
& Journed of the Provincial Congress, " Die Mercurji, Io ho., A.M., March " 13, 1776.""
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with him, among the sellers of Pork, who were not -low to take advantage of that circumstance, in ad- vancing the prices of the goods; and, to a corre- spoonding extent, intercepting, advantageondy 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 ; 'and William Paukling 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 15, 1776,]
After due consideration of the subject, the Coin- 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-county; it is there- " fore
"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.""
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-
" Gilbert Drake and the other members of West. "chester County do not purchase any more I'm- " visions, until farther order; and that they return "with all convenient speed to this Committee, an ar- " count of all the Provisions they have purchased, and "in what stores they are placed." !
It required eight days for the Committee's letter und Order to reach the busy Departies and to arrest their eager searches for Pork and Flour ; but on the eighth day, [April 9, 1776.] Colonel Drake reported " that he, and John Thomas, Junior, and Major Lock. wood, three of the migratory Deputies, had bought obont one thousand barrels of the former and six Mr. Paulding, whose hand was evidently clean while ; hundred barrels of the latter ; " from which one may those of all his fellow Deputies were seriously . learn sontething ofthe productiveness of Colonial West- 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
chester-county, in 1775, notwithstanding the disturb- anees, 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 ales bad 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- ou-, prudent, and thrifty men who preceded them, with smaller numbers and none of the advantages which are now accessible to every one.
Reference has been made to the action of the Pro- vincial Congress encouraging the establishment of Powder-mills, and offering loaus for that purpose, without interest, to proper persons, in specified no mention was subsequently made of the establish- ment of such a Mill within the limits of Westchester- 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 A Journal of the Committee of Safety, " De Lona, Who. A .M., April 1. G ,lomenos of the Committee of safety, " Die Mercurii, + ha., P.3. April "17, 1776."
torily to those who were originally in the secret-the , Counties, of which Westchester was one. Although 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
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