Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution, Part 9

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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xxi .. 10, 95 ; xxii., 15 ; xxxiii., 19, 41 ; xxvii., 17 ; and the many papers, concerning Duanesburg, of which he was a principal Proprietor.

I He was the Clerk of the Colonial Court of Chativery ; he was, often, the retained Counsel of the Colonial Government (Opinions of Counsel in the Matter of Cunningham, Appellant, against Forsey, and in the Matter of Charges against Judge Wells :) he was the Counsel of the Lieutenant. governor, in-the celebrated Suit, in Chancery, concerning a division of the Fees of his office, with the Earl of Dunmore, (Letters, etc., in the Matter of the Attorney-general pro Rege against Coblen ;) and the time and the terms of the letters which passed between them, as they have been preserved in " the Colden Papers," in the Library of the New York His_ torical Society, leave no room for doubt on the subject.

" " By my Letter of the 7th of September your Lordship would find I "entertained Hopes that the People of this Province would adopt miod- "erate Measures and avoid giving any new offence to the Parliament. I "know anch were the seutiments of Farmers and Country People in "general who make a great Majority of the Inhabitants. I had a cou- " fidential conference, with one of the Delegates sent from this city to the "Congress now met at Philadelphia who I thought had as much indu- "enre as any from this place, and he gave me assurances of hisdisposition "bring similar."-(Lieutenant governor Colden to the Earl of bastmouth, No. 7., " New York 5th October 1774.")

made only to that other patent fact, that the Con- gress had no sooner closed its sessions, at Philadel- phia, than he hastened to his master, in New York, and reported to that anxious listener, for the use of the Ministry, in England, not only the doings of par- . tienlar Delegations, in the Congress, and those of the Congress itself, but his own general dissent from the proceedings, his request that that dissent should be entered on the Journal, and the absolute refusal of permission to have that privilege given to him, all of which were thus communicated in open violation of his. promise " to keep the Proceedings secret, until "the Majority shall direct them to be made Publick."3 Indeed, he and Joseph Galloway, of Philadelphia, the latter of whom, also, had been a Delegate in the Con- gress, visited Lieutenant-governor Colden, soon after the adjournment of that body, and communicated to that distinguished member of the Government, all that he desired to know of the entire subject, not sparing even those portions of the proceedings of the Congress which it regarded as too delicate to be submitted to the light of day, in its subsequently published .Journal;+ and that, too, in the face of the no- torious fact that each had already asseuted to and sign- ed the Association of Non-Importation which the Con- gress liad adopted,5 which, prima-facie, carried with it, in each instance, to his constituents and to the world, a guaranty of his faithful discharge of the duties con- nected with the great trust which had been laid upon him ; but, when regarded as only one of the links of a chain of evidence, concerning his entire conduct, in the political events of that period, it is one which, until the end of time, will establish the stern fact that James Duane, among others, was insincere, un- trustworthy, and dishonest, as a man and as a politi- cian.

The Colonial Government was decidedly and pe- culiarly opposed to the adoption of any measure, either by the people or the Congress, which would possibly disturb the Trade and Commerce of Great Britain ; and James Duane, a dependent on that Gov- ernment, was not at liberty to sign such a letter, ap- proving the establishment of a Non-Importation Agreement, as that which his four associates on the aristocratie ticket, thus smeared with corruption, had signed, even if the consequence had been a sacrifice

" The fourth Resolution or " Mode of Conduct to be observed," etc., is in these words : " RESOLVED: That the Doors be kept shut during the Time "of Business ; and that the Members consider thetuselves under the "strongest Obligations of Honour to keep the Proceedings secret, until " the Majority shall direct them to be made Publick."- Journal of the Congress, "Tuesday, September 6th, 1774, ten o'clock, A M.")

The Despatch of Lieutenant governor Cobien to the Earl of Furt- month dated, " NEW YORK, December 7th, 1574," in which the Home Government was informed of these dishonorable revelations of the action of the Congress, is too extended to be copied into this Note. The reader is consequently referred to it.

5 A carefully prepared fac-simile of the last sheet of that Isociation, which contained the signatures of the several Delegation -- those of James Duane and Joseph Galloway being vuing thenr- may be seen in Force's American Archires, Fourth Series, i., opposite folios 515, 916.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

of that opportunity to obtain, for himself, a seat in . York; the purposes, published or withheld, of the that Congress, a contingency which the Colonial Committee it-elf; and the purposes, generally weil- Government was, probably, quite as anxious to avoid, concealed, of some of those who wielded the intin- and one which was evidently guarded against by I ence of that Committee, sometimes for the promotion means which were entirely effective. James Duane was not among those who were suddenly converted, in order to ensure their success at the Polls; but, nevertheless, on the day after the disgraceful political somersault of Philip Livingston, Isaac Low. John Alsop, and John Jay had been declared satisfactory by their plebeian and revolutionary auditory, that eminent adherent to the original policy of the Com- mittee of Correspondence, as well as those who had so ignominiously abandoned it, was elected, at the Polls, by the unanimous vote of "the Inhabitants," !

of their individual and not always righteous interests and sometimes for the suppression of the aspirations of others which were quite as praiseworthy as their own, are, therefore, subjects which cannot be disre- garded, in whatever relates to revolutionary West- chester-county, since it was that Committee, as has been already stated, who made the first assault on the long-established conservatism of the farmers of that ancient County-an assault which was made entirely unsuccessful by their sturdy disregard; since it was that Committee, returning to the assault and offering affording an example, in political engineering, which ; the tempting allurements of place and official anthor- has been too often followed, at the expense of imli- vidual integrity and of the good of the country, from that time until the present.

Perhaps the preceding detail belong, more properly to the political history of the commercial City of New York than to that of the purely agricultural County of Westchester ; yet it would be impossible to i called into existence, successively, the revolutionary present any narrative of the events of the Revolu- tion which occurred within that portion of the Col- ony, which should pretend to completeness, or preci- sion, or accuracy, without having previously explained the precise nature of those influences which were brought, from beyond the limits of the County, to undermine the fundamental and rigid conservatism of those staid, well-to-do, and contented farmers who occupied that County, and to draw any portion of them from the quiet of their rural homes into the seething vortex of partisan excitement, concern- ing measures of the Home Government which did not affect them nor their interests, in the slightest degree -a departure from the ways of their fathers, which, before many months had elapsed, transformed that quiet, and neighborly, and law-abiding community into one of entire untest and disorder, of the most intense partisan bitterness, and of the most complete disregard of all law, human and divine; converting what had been a quiet, and well-cultivated, and pro- ductive agricultural region into one over which were spread the evidences of partisan lawlessness, of vigi- lant suspicion and distrust, of sullen neglect. and, too often, of hopeless and lamentable ruin. The pur- poses, apparent or concealed, of those who created the Committee of Correspondence in the City of New

ity to those who should break from the ranks of their conservative countrymen-who, as will hereinafter appear, by means of such corrupt allurements, first broke the line of those rural home-guards which had previously thrown back the power of the insidious invader; and because it was that Committee who Congress of the Continent and the yet more revolu- tionary Provincial Congress, whence, subsequently, flowed that torrent of disorders and disasters over which Westchester county has not ceased to mourn, from that period until the present. These have been consequently presented, as briefly, however, as was consistent with perspienity ; and a more complete, and precise, and accurate understanding of the details of the revolution of sentiments within Westchester- county, as portions of that more extended revolution, throughout the Colony and the Continent, "in the " minds and hearts of the people," " it is believed. will; therefrom, be more readily and more certainly. if not more permanently, a-sured to the greater number of readers who shall resort to these pages.

Without the slightest indication of any concern be- canse of the humiliating defeat to which it had been subjected, in the abandonment of one of the principal of its peculiar and emphatically declared principles, and in the acceptance. in the place of that abandoned principle, by its own nominees, of one of the pecu- liarly antagonistic principles of those whom it had persistently endeavored to silence and suppress, on the day after the election of the Delegates to the pro- posed Congress, [July 29.] the Committee of Cor- respondence in New York addressed a second Circu- lar Letter to the County Committee, where there was one, or to the Treasurer, where there was no Com-

1 Letter of the Commitee of Correspondence of Yore York to the Commit- fee in Charleston, " NEW YORK, July 20th, 1771," Postscript, dated " July "28th ;" the same to the Committee in Philadelphia, "NEW YORK, July 25th, "1774 ;" the same to Mattier Tilglosen, Chairman of the Maryland Com- mittre, " NEW YORK, July 28th, 1771;" Linh want yourtuer Golden to for Fart of Dartmouth, "NEW YORK " August 1174 ;" the same to Governer Tryon, "SPRING HILL 2 August 1724;" the come to the Hard of Dentmouth, "NEW YORK 7th Septe 1754 ;" the same to Guerraor Tryon. " Seper 7th "1774; " Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i, 31, 35 ; Bancroft's History of the Failed States, original edition, vii , 83; the arts, centenary edition, iv., 35%.

2 "An History of Military Operations, from April 19, 1775, to Si ffera- ." ber 3, 17-3, is not an History of the American Revolution, any In re " than the Marais of Quincy - Military History of Louis XIV, though " much esternad, is a History of the Reign of that Monarch. The " Revolution was in the mintis wul hearts of the people, and in the " Union of the Colonies, Both of which were substantially effected before "hostilities commenced." > Letter from Juha Allams to J didich Mere,

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

mittee, in each of the several Counties in the Colony, in which, after it had stated the election of Delegates to represent the City of New York, in the proposed Congress, to be assembled on the first of September ensuing, at Philadelphia, it presumptuously and with dividual Towns, on any other subjects, were consid- ered desirable, or were expectel to be a-certained, or, if ascertained. were desired to be given to the public. Be that as it may, for some reason, if more than four Towns in Westchester-county took any action what- an assumed air of leadership, continued, in these . ever, in response to the Circular Letter of the Com- words: " It therefore becomes necessary that the inittee, coneerning the political questions of that period, or for the appointment of Deputies to repre- sent the County in the proposed Congress, or for any other purpose, the record of that action has escaped the notice of working historical students-the pro- ceedings of Mamaroneck were communicated directly to the Committee, at New York, in a letter dated on the seventh of August; and those of Bedford were al- so communicated, directly to the same Committee, in a letter dated on the ninth of that month : " the pro- ceedings of Rye and those of the Borough Town of Westchester, because of the respective opinions of those Towns, on other subjects, which were more " Delegates to represent the other Counties in this " Province be speedily appointed. The Counties will " judge of the propriety of confiding in the same per- " sons only which we have chosen, or to appoint such " others to go, with them, to the Congress, as they " may think fit to depute, for that purpose. Permit " us to observe that the number of Delegates is imma- " terial, sinee those of each Province, whether more " or less, will conjointly have only one vote at the " Congress. In order, however, that the representa- " tion of the different Counties may be quite com- " plete, it is absolutely necessary that your County " appoint, with all possible speed, one or more Dele- ! fully and formally expressed, require more particular " gates to join and go with ours to the Congress, or, if notice.

" you choose to repose your confidence in our Dele- " gates, that you signify such your determination, in " the most elear and explicit terms, by the first op. " portunity, after the sense of your County can be " known, on so interesting a subject." 1

To this Circular Letter which was thus sent to the several rural Counties throughout the Colony, only six of those Counties are known to have paid the slightest attention, those of Westchester, Duchess, and Albany having respectively authorized the Delegates whom the City of New York had elected, to represent them, also, in the Congress ; " while those of Kings, 3 Suffolk,' and Orange, respectively, sent Delegates of their own appointment ; and Richmond, Queens, Ul- ster, Cumberland, Gloucester, Charlotte, and Tryon, respectively, did not manifest the slightest interest in the subject.6 For the purposes of this work, only the action of the County of Westebester, on that Circular Letter, ean be noticed in this place.

As the Committee of Correspondence evidently in- tended that only the united action of the entire County, in every instance, should be invited, on the subject of appointing Delegates to the proposed Con- gress, it is not probable that the sentiments of the in-

1 Draft of the Circular Letter sent to the Committee or Treasurer of the diferent Condios, "NEW York, July 29, 1774," appended to the Minutes of the Committee, "New York, July 28, 1774."

See, also, Lieutenant governor Colden to Governor Tryon, "SPRING " HUILE 2 August 1774."

: Credentials of those Delegates-Journal of the Congress, " Monday, "September 5, 1774.""

3 Credential of Simon Boerin-Journal of the Congress, "Saturday, "October 1, 1774."

4 Credential of William Floyd-Journal of the Congress, " Monday, " September 5, 1774."

5 Credential of Henry Wisner-Journal of the Congress, "Wednesday, "September 14, 1771, A.M." and that of John Herring-Journal of the " Congress, " Monday, September 20, 1774, A.M."

- & Lieutenant governor Colden to the Earl of Inutmouth, "NEW YORK. ' 7th september, 174."

On the tenth of August, responsive to the Circular Letter from the Committee in New York, the Free- holders and Inhabitants of Rye, who sympathized with that Committee in its proposal that Westchester- county should appoint Delegates to represent it in the proposed Congress, met and appointed John Thomas, Junior, Esq., James Horton, Junior, Esq., Robert Bloomer, Zeno Carpenter, and Ebenezer Haviland, for " a Committee to consult and determine, with the "Committees of the other Towns and Distriets within " the County," in County Convention, to be assem- bled at the Court-house, at the White Plains, on Monday, the twenty-second of August, " upon the ex- "pedieney of sending one or more Delegates to the "Congress, to be held in Philadelphia, on the first " day of September next."

The Meeting appears to have patiently waited, without adjourning, while the Committee which it had appointed, organized, by the appointment of Ebenezer Haviland, as its Chairman; and considered the great political questions of the day; and ex- pressed its conclusions on those questions, in a series of Resolutions, in the following words :

" THIS MEETING being greatly alarmed at the late "Proceedings of the British Parliament, in order to "raise a Revenue in America; and considering their late "most eruel, unjust, and unwarrantable Act for block- : " ing up the Port of Boston, having a direct tendency to " deprive a free People of their most valuable Rights "and Privileges, an introduction to subjugate the In- "habitants of the English Colonies and to render " thein Vassals to the British House of Commons : "RESOLVE, FIRST, That they think it their greatest " Happiness to live under the illustrious House of " Hanover ; and that they will steadfastly and uni- "formly bear true and faithful Allegiance to llis

i Minnes of the Committee, "New York, Vaguest 20, 1771."

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

" Majesty, King George the Third, under the enjoy- " mient of their constitutional Rights and Privileges, Isidered and well-worded Resolution-, as well-adapted " as fellow-subjects, with those of England.

"SECOND, That we conceive it a fundamental part " of the British Constitution, that no Man shall be " taxed but by his own Consent, or that of his Repre- " sentative, in Parliament ; and as we are by no means " represented, we consider all Acts of Parliament " imposing Taxes on the Colonies, an undue ex- " ertion of Power, and subversive of one of the most " valuable Privileges of the English Constitution.

" THIRD, That it is the Opinion of this Meeting " that the Act of Parliament for shutting up the Port " of Boston, and divesting some of the Inhabitants of " private Property, is a most unparalleled. rigorous, " and unjust piece of Cruelty and Despotism.

"FOURTH, That unanimity and firmness of " Measures iu the Colonies are the most effectual " Means to secure the invaded Rights and Privileges " of America, and to avoid the impending Ruin which . " now threatens this once happy Country.

" FIFTH, That the most effectual mode of redress- "ing our Grievances will be by a general Congress of " Delegates from the different Colonies; and that we "are willing to abide by such Measures as they, in "their Wisdom, shall think most conducive upon "such an important Occasion."

These Resolutions were duly submitted to the Meet- ing; and, as the official record says, they "were " unanimously approved of; " when the assemblage quietly dispersed.1

Those who are acquainted with the questionable practices of ambitious, and, not unfrequently, unscru- pulous politicians, will be prepared, without warning, for the reception of any modification of the recorded features of that Meeting, at Rye, of which mention has been. made-the first demonstration, in West- chester-county, concerning the great political ques- tions of the day, of which there is, now, any existing record.

It does not appear, nor is it pretended, that the Meeting of "the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the "Township of Rye," now under consideration, was numeronsly attended ; and, as it was held during the busiest season of the agricultural year, there is no reason for supposing that many were present. In the same connection, it will be seen that the place of meeting is, also, uunoticed on the record. The master- spirit of the assembled farmers, whether many or few in number, was John Thomas, Junior, one of a family of officeholders under the Home and the Colonial Governments,2 and, himself, an anxious office-seeker,

J Official report of the proceedings of the Meeting-Holt's New- York Journal, No. 1650, NEW-YORK, Thursday, August 18, 1774.

See, also, Gaine's Notre-York Gazette, and the Weekly Mercury, No. 1192, NEW-YORK, Monday, August 15, 1774, and Rirington's Noe-Fork Ga- zettrer, No. 70, NEW-YORK, Thursday, August 16, 1774.

" The Grandfather of John Thomas, Junior, was the Rev. John Thomas, Rector of St. George's Clintch, Hempstead, Long Island, who, I

from the revolutionary party; 3 and the well-con-

for the protection of the father's official positions as for the construction of others for the son's advance- ment, and evidently the work of a master-hand which was not seen in the Committee nor in the Meeting, promote a suspicion that that Meeting of "the Free- " holders and Inhabitants of the Township of Rye," the first indication of Westeliester-county's inclina- tion to enter the area of political strife, was nothing more nor less than a movement in the Thomas family, and for its particular benefit. Subsequent events, in connection with the doings of those who were present, at that particular Meeting, serve to strengthen that suspicion, if not to confirm it.+

While the politicians, in Ryc, were discussing, with more or less satisfaction, the result of their doings, to which reference has been made, those in the Bor-

from his Ordination, in 1704, until his death in 1727, was a Missionary In the employ of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parte, in London. The father of John Thomas, Junior, was Hon. John Thomas, wbo, from 1743 nutil the di -- olution of the Colonial Govern- ment, in 1776, was a Member of the General Assembly of the Colony, representing the County of Westchester ; and, from May, 1755, natil the dissolution of the Colonial Government, in 1776, he was the First Judge of the Colonial Court of Common Pleas for the County of Westcbester- both of which offices could have been held by no one who was not well- disposed to the Colonial and Home Governments; and neither of which was surrendered by him, while he lived.

The following extract from a letter from Timothy Wetmore, the Ven- erable Society's Schoolumaster at Rye, to the secretary of that boxly, at London, dated " Rys, May 6, 1761," affords additional evidence of the political tendencies of the Thomas family, and of its hankerings after the power to manipulate the " patronage " of those in authority, through- out Westchester-county : "Mr. Thomas, who is que of the Representa- "tives in this County, and who, in Governonr De Lancey's time, being "favoured with all the Administration of all offices in the Country, civil "and military, by the help of which he has procured bimself a large in- "terest in the County, especially in the distant and new Settlements, " which abound with a Set of People governed more by venality that "any thing else. This Gentiruien, although one of the Society's " Missionaries" Sons, is so negligent and indifferent toward Religion " (in ituitation of some of our great Men) that it has been a steady "Method with him, for years, not to attend Publick Worship, perhaps "more than once or twice in a year, whose example has been mis- "chievous. This man is not only one of our Vestry (though very "little esteemed by the true friends of the Churchy, but has procured "that the Majority of the Vestry are Men that will be governed by " him ; several of the Vestry are not of the Church ; and not one of "them a communicant in the Church ; accordingly. the Church are " not at all consulted with regard to a successor, " to the former Rector, who had died in the preceding May.

With the father, ou the Bench, and in the Legislature, and in the interest of the Crown, and the sou in the front runk, if not the actual head, of the revolutionary element, what there was of it, within the County, it mattered very little to the Thenas family, which of the two, the Crown of the Colonists, should become the victors.

3 Johu Thomas, Junior, by this early movement in behalf of the rev- olutionary element, placed him-elf in the tront rank of successful poli- ticians in Westchester-county-he wa- a member of the Committee of the County, and its Chairman ; a Member of the Provincial Convention, representing Westchestercounty, in 1775; a Member of the First and Second Provincial Congress, representing Westchester county, in 175, 1776 ; Quartermaster of the Second Westchester county Regiment, of which his brother, Thomas, was Colonel ; and Sheriff of Weste lister- county, from 1778 to 1781-his brothers, also, having been well provided for, in the public service.

+ See the Disclaimer of Fame Kidney and eighty-three other " Freeholders " und Inhabitants of Rye," "RYE, New York, September 24, 1774," pages 32, 33, post.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

. ugh Town of Westchester, within which the political fantily of Morris was seated,' prepared to follow their example. For that purpose, on Saturday, the twen- tieth of August, also in response to the Circular Letter received from the Committee of Correspondence in the City of New York. those of "the Freeholders " and Inbabitants " of that Borough Town who sympa- thized with that Committee in its request that West- chester-county should appoint Delegates to represent it in the proposed Congre-s, met, and appointed James Ferris, Esq., Colonel Lewis Morris, and Cap- tain Thomas Hunt, " a Committee to meet the Com- " mittees of the different Towns and Precincts, within "this County, at the White Plains, on Monday, the "twenty-second instant, to consult on the expediency "of appointing one or more Delegates to represent " this County, at the general Congress, to be held at " Philadelphia, the first day of September next."

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Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution, Part 9

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