USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester county in history; manual and civil list, past and present. County history: towns, hamlets, villages and cities, Volume II > Part 21
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This same " Monument Association of the Capture of André " decided to arrange to celebrate, on September 23, 1880, the one hundredth anniversary of the capture of André, by John Pauld- ing, David Williams and Isaac Van Wart.
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The day was an exceptionally fine one, as if the weather desired to shine its blessing upon the day and the occasion. Fully ten thousand people had gathered at Tarrytown to par- ticipate in the day's ceremonies. The Centennial procession was long and imposing. Grand Army men, several Militia Regiments, civic societies, numerous firemen, representing the whole county, relatives of Revolutionary heroes, Governors of States and representatives of municipal governments and others, were in line.
Ex-Gov. Samuel J. Tilden, a resident of our County, was president of the day, and opened the exercises with an address listened attentively to by many thousands of people gathered under a large tent pitched near the monument. During his address, Gov. Tilden said :
" It was one hundred years ago, and on the spot where you have unveiled a monument-the spot on which the treasonable plot was discovered and defeated-three yeomen of the County of Westchester performed patriotic service. It is fitting that on the centennial anniversary of that day, public esteem and gratitude should distinguish that event. Paulding, Van Wart and Williams are all present here by their representatives, or by their children. The homage, the public gratitude, the honors which you have bestowed to-day, will be in all future times, and to all who come after us, not only an example, but an incentive to patriotic virtue."
Listening to Gov. Tilden, among the audience, were the Rev. Alexander Van Wart, the aged son of Isaac Van Wart, one of the captors, and Isaac Forster Van Wart, another descendant; William C. Williams, grandson of David Williams; Caleb W. Paulding, Isaac Paulding, Samuel Paulding, Pierre Paulding and Mary Hallock Paulding, descendants of John Paulding, one of the captors.
The orator of the day was " Westchester's Favorite Son," Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, who gave a graphic account of André's capture, and of details preceding the capture (substan- tially as related here), and then in part said:
"André's story is the one overmastering romance of the Revolution. American and English literature are full of elo- quence and poetry in tribute to his memory and sympathy for his fate. After the lapse of a hundred years, there is no abate- ment of absorbing interest. What had this young man done to merit immortality? The mission, whose tragic issue lifted
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him out of the oblivion of other minor officers, in its inception was free of peril or daring, and its objects and purposes were utterly infamous. Had he succeeded, by the desecration of the honorable uses of passes and flags of truce, his name would have been held in everlasting execration. In his failure, the infant Republic escaped the dagger with which he was feeling for its heart, and the crime was drowned in tears for his untimely end. His youth and beauty, his skill with pen and pencil, his effervescing spirits and magnetic disposition, the brightness of his life, the calm courage in the gloom of death, his early love and disappointment, and the image of his lost Honora hid in his mouth when captured in Canada, with the exclamation, ' That saved, I care not for the loss of all the rest,' and nestling in his bosom when he was executed, sur- rounded him with a halo of poetry and pity which have secured for him what he most sought, and could never have won in battles and sieges-a fame and recognition, which have out- lived that of all the generals under whom he served.
"Are Kings only grateful, and do Republics forget? Is fame a travesty, and the judgment of mankind a farce? America had a parallel case in Captain Nathan Hale. Of the same age as André, he graduated at Yale College with high honors, enlisted in the patriot cause at the beginning of the contest, and secured the love and confidence of all about him. When none else would go upon a most important and perilous mis- sion, he volunteered, and was captured by the British. While André received every kindness, courtesy and attention, and was fed from Gen. Washington's table, Capt. Hale was thrust into a noisome dungeon in the sugar-house. While André was tried by a board of officers, and had ample time and every facility for defence, Captain Hale was summarily ordered to execution the next morning. While André's last wishes and bequests were sacredly followed, the infamous British jailor Cunningham tore from Hale his cherished Bible, and destroyed, before his eyes, his last letters to his mother and sister, and asked him what he had to say. 'All I have to say,' was Hale's reply, 'I regret I have but one life to lose for my country.' His death was concealed for months, because this inhuman Jailor Cunningham said he did not want the rebels to know they had a man who could die so bravely. And yet, while André rests in that grandest of mausoleums, where the proudest of nations garners the remains and perpetuates the
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memories of its most eminent and honored children, the name and deeds of Nathan Hale have passed into oblivion, and only a simple tomb in a village churchyard marks his resting-place. The dying declarations of Hale and André express the animat- ing spirit of their several armies, and teach why, with all her power, army and wealth, England could not conquer America. ' I call upon you to witness that I die like a brave man,' said André, as he spoke from British and Hessian surroundings, seeking only glory and pay. ' I regret I have but one life to lose for my country,' said Hale; and with him and his comrades self was forgotten in that absorbing, passionate patriotism, which pledges fortune, honor, and life to the sacred cause.
" But Republics are not ungrateful. The captors of André were honored and rewarded in their lives, and grateful genera- tions celebrate their deeds and revere their memories. Gen. Washington wrote to Congress: 'The party that took Major André acted in such a manner as does them the highest honor, and proves them to be men of great virtue; their conduct gives them a just claim to the thanks of their country.' Con- gress acted promptly. It thanked them by resolution, granted to each an annuity of two hundred dollars for life, and twelve hundred and fifty dollars in cash, or the same amount in con- fiscated lands in Westchester County, and directed a silver medal bearing the motto ' fidelity ' on the one side and ' Vincit Amor Patriæ ' on the other, to be presented to them. The Legislature of the State of New York gave to each of them a farm, in consideration-reads the act-of 'their virtue in refusing a large sum, offered to them by Major André, as a bribe to permit him to escape.' Shortly after, Gen. Washing- ton gave a dinner party at Verplanck's Point. At the table were his staff and the famous generals of the army, and, as honored guests, these three young men, Paulding, Williams and Van Wart-whose names were now household words all over the land; and there, with solemn and impressive speech, Gen. Washington presented the medals. Paulding died in 1818, and in 1827 the Corporation of the City of New York placed a monument over his grave in the old cemetery (the old Van Cortlandtville Cemetery), just north of Peekskill, reciting, ' The Corporation of the City of New York erected this Tomb as a Memorial Sacred to Public Gratitude,' the Mayor delivering the address, and a vast concourse participating in the ceremonies.
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Van Wart died in 1828, and in the Greenburgh church-yard, the citizens of this county erected a memorial in 'Testimony of his virtuous and patriotic conduct.' Williams died in Liv- ingstonville, in Schoharie County, in 1831, and was buried with military honors. In 1876 the State erected a monument, and his remains were re-interred in the old stone fort at Scho- harie Court House. On the spot where André was captured, men of Westchester County, in 1853, built a cenotaph in honor of his captors.
"Arnold, burned in effigy in every village and hamlet in America, received his money and a commission in the British Army, but was daily insulted by the proud and honorable officers upon whom his association was forced, and who despised alike the treason and the traitor. His infamy has served to gild and gloss the acts of André, and, deepening with succeed- ing years, brings out with each generation a clearer and purer appreciation of the virtue and patriotism of Paulding, Wil- liams and Van Wart.
" Pity for André led to grave injustice to Gen. Washington, and detraction of his captors, which a century has not effaced. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton and his officers, in addresses and memoirs, denounced the execution of André as without justifi- cation. Defamers of Gen. Washington claimed that André was under the protection of a flag of truce, that he was within the American lines upon the invitation of the commander of the district, and under the protection of that General's pass, that his intent was free from turpitude, and the circumstances sur- rounding his position entitled him to exchange or discharge. When André was on trial upon the charge of being a spy, he testified in his own behalf that 'he had no reason to suppose he came on shore under a flag of truce,' and such is the con- current testimony of all the witnesses. The story was the sub- sequent invention of Arnold. But even if true, the flag of truce is recognized in the usages of war for definite and honorable purposes-it ameliorates the horrors of the conflict; but, when used as a cover for treasonable purposes, loses its character and protective power. To present it, as a defence and shield for the corrupt correspondence of the enemy's emissary and a traitorous officer, is a monstrous perversion. It is true, he was present at Arnold's invitation, and carried his pass, but he knew the object of his visit, and did not hold the pass in his own name and title. Months before he had written to Col.
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Sheldon, commanding the Continental outposts, that under a flag of truce and pass he proposed visiting, on important busi- ness, General Arnold, at West Point, and requesting safe con- duct, and signing and representing himself as John Anderson, a trader. The meeting, which finally took place, was an appoint- ment often before thwarted, and its object to tamper with the integrity and seduce from his allegiance the enemy's officer. The signals and agencies of communication and travel between hostile forces were collusively used to procure the betrayal of an army and the ruin of a nation. André landed at Haver- straw to traffic with the necessities and tempt the irritated pride of a bankrupt and offended general, and, having succeeded in seducing him to surrender the forts and trusts under his com- mand, Benedict Arnold, so far as his confederate, André, was concerned, ceased from that moment to be the American com- mander, and any papers issued by him to further and conceal the scheme were absolutely void. His pass and safe conduct were not only vitiated in their inception by their joint act of giver and receiver, secreting treason in them, but they were issued to an assumed name and borne in a false character. A British soldier found disguised in the American lines, with plans of the patriots' forts, the details of their armaments, and the outlines of the plot for their betrayal hidden in his boots, lost, with the discovery of his personality and purposes, the protection of a fraudulent certificate. Generals Greene, Knox, La Fayette anl Steuben, and other members of the board of officers who tried and convicted André, may possibly have been ignorant of the great authorities upon international law; but had they studied, they would have found in them both prece- dent and justification. While the laws of war justify tamper- ing with the opposing commander, and compassing his deser- tion, the sudden, unsuspected, unguardable, and overwhelming character of the blow render it the highest of crimes, and sub- jects those detected and arrested in the act to summary execu- tion. A general is commissioned by his government to fight its battles and protect its interests.
" When, in 1817, one of André's captors petitioned Congress for an increase of pension, sixteen of the most respected and reputable, and widely known residents of this county certified to Congress, 'that during the Revolutionary War they were well acquainted with Isaac Van Wart, David Williams and John Paulding, and that at no time during the Revolutionary
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War was any suspicion entertained by their neighbors, or acquaintances, that they, or either of them, held any undue intercourse with the enemy. On the contrary, they were uni- versally esteemed, and taken to be ardent and faithful to the cause of the country.' Van Wart and Paulding, in solemn affidavits, reasserted the details of the capture, and the motives of their conduct, to counteract the charge made by André, ' that they stopped him for plunder, and would have released him if he could have given security for his ransom.'
" As each of the three patriots, in ripe old age and the full- ness of years, was called to render his account to the Great Judge, mourning thousands gathered about the graves to tes- tify their reverence; and the respect and gratitude of their countrymen reared monuments to their memories."
It must ever be remembered that this monument, at Tarry- town, was erected to the honor of the three brave men, Pauld- ing, Van Wart and Williams, who captured André, the British spy, and not to honor one caught in the act of being a principal in one of the most infamous of crimes.
In connection herewith, we are permitted the privilege of publishing notes taken from papers of the late Gen. Pierre Van Cortlandt, of Croton, referring to interviews between the General and John Paulding, one of the captors, as follows:
"April 16, 1817 .- John Paulding, in the year 1780, was a sergeant under Lieutenant Peacock, who was stationed with his corps at Daniel Requa's on the road leading from Tarrytown to Bedford. This command was stationed on the lines to protect the inhabitants against the marauding parties of British cow thieves, and was in pay either from the State of New York or from the United States, and consisted of between thirty and forty men. Early one morning they were surprised and attacked by Captain Totten with upward of one hundred British refugee dragoons, and John Paulding, with about twenty men of Pea- cock's corps, was taken prisoner, some badly wounded. Daniel Requa and Thomas Dean were also taken, Requa badly wounded. John Paulding and the other prisoners were immediately marched to New York and confined in the old Dutch Church, where he remained for about three months. One evening, the prisoners being allowed to walk by squads in the yard, Paulding, taking advantage of the Hessian sentinel turning his back toward him, leaped the board fence into the yard of an adjacent house. Here he was seen by a black woman, who favored his
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escape into the street, after dark. He went to the house of a friend, Nathaniel Leviness, who lived near the prison. This friend furnished him with provisions, after secreting him for the night, and purchased for him an old British uniform coat (a yager coat, green, laced with red), in which to effect his escape from the city. Mr. Leviness advised him to keep out of the road as much as possible until he reached Bloomingdale, where he might find a small boat in which to cross the river. Paulding followed his advice, and near Bloomingdale espied a small boat aground. He went into the bushes near by and took a nap until the tide was high enough to float the boat. Just in the dusk of the evening he got in and paddled across the Hudson, landing somewhere near Bull's Ferry, on the Jersey shore. He then made the best of his way to the Ameri- can camp, near English Neighborhood; was carried to the com- manding officer (who, he thinks, was the Marquis de Lafayette) and a pass was given him to return to Westchester County. He traveled up and recrossed the river at West Point and went directly to Haight's, now Somerstown Plains, in the manor of Cortlandt. Paulding was very anxious to see his mother, who was then living at the house of old Peter Paulding, at the old Sawmill river, three miles east of Tarrytown, on the road leading to White Plains. His father was fearful to remain below, and therefor resided in the manor of Cortlandt, where he was shortly after joined by his wife.
" Paulding and six others went from the manor of Cort- landt to Daniel Requa's, the place where Paulding had been made prisoner. They had heard that a number of horses had been stolen, and formed themselves into a scouting party to intercept the thieves if they should attempt to pass with their booty to New York. Four of the party were stationed at old William David's, on the hill, and the other three-Paulding, Williams and Van Wart-stationed themselves on the Post road at a small brook, hidden by some bushes, in Tarrytown. This was, he thinks, the fourth day after his escape from the old Dutch Church, in New York. The British uniform coat Pauld- ing procured to favor his escape from that city, he wore the day (as he had no other at hand) they captured André, and this undoubtedly deceived André into his first unguarded ques- tion, for in reply to his asking as to what party they belonged, Paulding answered, ' Look at my dress and you cannot be mis-
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taken.' 'If you belong to the lower party,' said André, 'so do I.' The result is too familiar to all to require repetition."
AFFIDAVITS OF VAN WART AND PAULDING.
To correct judgment of the conduct and motives of the three men engaged in the capture of Major André, and to put at rest unmerited distrust, sixteen of the oldest and best known residents of the county, above their signatures, certified, in January, 1817, that, " during the Revolutionary War, we were well acquainted with Isaac Van Wart, David Williams and John Paulding, who arrested Major André, and that at no time during the Revolutionary War was any suspecion entertained by their neighbors or acquaintances, that they or either of them held any undue intercourse with the enemy (as had been charged by André). On the contrary, they were universally esteemed and taken to be ardent and faithful in the cause of their country. We further certify, that Paulding and Williams are not now residents among us, but that Isaac Van Wart is a respected freeholder of the town of Mount Pleasant; that we are well acquainted with him; and we do not hesitate to declare our belief, that there is not an individual in the County of Westchester, acquainted with Isaac Van Wart, who would hesitate to describe him as a man whose integrity is as unim- peachable as his veracity is undoubted."
Isaac Van Wart, one of the captors of André, made the fol- lowing affidavit:
" Isaac Van Wart, of the town of Mount Pleasant, in the County of Westchester, being duly sworn, doth depose and say, that he is one of the three persons who arrested Major André, during the American Revolutionary War, and conducted him to the American camp. That he, this deponent, together with David Williams and John Paulding, had secreted themselves at the side of the highway, for the purpose of detecting any persons coming from or having unlawful intercourse with the enemy, between the two armies; a service not uncommon in those times. That this deponent and his companions were armed with muskets; and upon seeing Major André approach the place where they were concealed, they rose and presented their muskets at him, and required him to stop, which he did. He then asked them whether they belonged to his party; and then they asked him which was his party ? to which he replied, the lower party. Upon which they, deeming a little stratagem,
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under such circumstances, not only justifiable, but necessary, gave him to understand that they were of his party; upon which he joyfully declared himself to be a British officer, and told them he had been out on very particular business. Hav- ing ascertained thus much, this deponent and his companions undeceived him as to their characters, declaring themselves Americans, and that he must consider himself their prisoner. Upon this, with seeming unconcern, he said he had a pass from Gen. Arnold, which he exhibited, and then insisted on their permitting him to proceed. But they told him that as he had confessed himself to be a British officer, they deemed it to be their duty to convey him to the American camp; and then took him into a wood, a short distance from the highway, in order to guard against being surprised by parties of the enemy, who were frequently reconnoitering in that neighborhood. That when they had him in the wood they proceeded to search him, for the purpose of ascertaining who and what he was, and found inside of his stockings and boots, next to his bare feet, papers, which satisfied them that he was a spy. Major André now showed them his gold watch, and remarked, that it was evidence of his being a gentleman, and also promised to make them any reward which they might name, if they would but permit him to proceed, which they refused. He then told them that if they doubted the fulfillment of his promise, they might conceal him in some secret place, and keep him there until they could send to New York and receive their reward. And this deponent expressly declares that every offer made by Major André to them was promptly and resolutely refused. And as for himself, he solemnly declares, that he had not, and he does most sincerely believe that Paulding and Williams had not, any intention of plundering their prisoner; nor did they confer with each other, or even hesitate whether they should accept his promises; but, on the contrary, they were, in the opinion of this deponent, governed, like himself, by a deep interest in the cause of their country, and a strong sense of duty. And this depo- nent further says that he never visited the British camp, nor does he believe or suspect that either Paulding or Williams ever did, except that Paulding was once before André's cap- ture, and once afterwards, made a prisoner by the British, as this deponent has been informed and believes. And this depo- nent for himself expressly denies that he ever held any unlawful traffic, or any intercourse whatever with the enemy. And-
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appealing solemnly to that omniscient Being, at whose tribunal he must soon appear-he doth expressly declare that all accusa- tions, charging him therewith, are utterly untrue.
" ISAAC VAN WART.
" Sworn before me, this 28th
day of January, 1817.
Jacob Radcliff, Mayor."
Likewise and relative to the same subject, John Paulding, another of the captors of André, made an affidavit, as follows :
" John Paulding, of the County of Westchester, one of the persons who took Major André, being duly sworn, saith, that he was three times, during the Revolutionary War, a prisoner with the enemy; the first time he was taken at White Plains, when under the command of Captain Requa, and carried to New York and confined in the Sugar House. The second time he was taken near Tarrytown, when under the command of Lieutenant Peacock, and confined in the North Dutch Church, in New York; that both these times he escaped, and the last of them only four days before the capture of André; that the last time he was taken he was wounded, and lay in the hospital in New York, and was discharged on the arrival of news of peace there. That he and his companions, Van Wart and Williams, among other articles which they took from Major André, were his watch, horse, saddle and bridle, and which they retained as prize; that they delivered over André, with the papers found on him, to Colonel Jameson, who commanded on the lines; that shortly thereafter they were summoned to appear as witnesses at the headquarters of General Washington, at Tappan; that they were at Tappan some days, and examined as witnesses before the court-martial on the trial of Smith, who brought André ashore from on board the British sloop-of-war; that while there, Col. William S. Smith redeemed the watch from them for thirty guineas; which, and the money received for the horse, saddle and bridle, they divided equally among themselves and four other persons, who belonged to their party, but when André was taken, were about half a mile off, keeping a look-out on a hill; that André had no gold or silver money with him, but only some Continental bills, to the amount of about eighty dol- lars ; that the medals given to him and Van Wart and Williams, by Congress, were presented to them by General Washington,
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