Dangerous Interlude: Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge’s Rebel Raid on Fort Saint George, November 23, 1780and Culper, or The Spy

By Michael Mauro DeBonis

It is late November, in 1780. The City of New York and its adjacent territory of Long Island have been under total British military control since the autumn of 1776. It was then that British General Lord William Howe chased American General George Washington and his ragtag ranks of bluecoat battalions from the Isle of Manhattan and its neighboring vicinities of Staten Island and Long Island. Despite the rebel army being outgunned and out-manned by their British opponents, Washington skillfully flees from upper Manhattan north to Westchester County (Tallmadge, 13) by crossing the Harlem River, and he miraculously keeps most of his body of Continental troops intact.

Much of New York City mysteriously burned to cinders during the American withdrawal to the mainland (Rose, 35). But, one fact remains plainly glaring and undisputed… the principal portion of the British Army is in command of Manhattan and its suburbs, and Britain enforces its presence in these dominions with martial law (Rose, 47-48).

In spite of this humiliating defeat at the hands of the British, Washington and his Continental Army fight on. Between the end of December of 1776 and early January 1777, Washington defeats the British forces in the New Jersey Battles of Trenton and Princeton (Rose, 42). American morale is no longer depleted. Yet the American goal of independence in 1780 has not been achieved.

New York City is the headquarters of British Military Intelligence. And in order for Washington to defeat the British, he needs to be able to read his enemies’ minds. In the fall of 1778, he decides to create a spy network that will be first-rate and that will put all others to shame. It will be called the Culper Spy Ring (Rose, 75) and it will be operated from three locales: New York City, Connecticut and Setauket, Long Island.


Its purposes are simple. The Culpers must secretly and silently keep track of British troop movements and numbers, British fighting tactics covertly gained from unsuspecting British military officers by Culper spies in NYC and Long Island, and the Culpers must swiftly and subtly courier the dispatches back to General Washington. Then Washington and his aids would be able to successfully respond to their opponents’ aggression and modes of attack.

Washington selects one of his most loyal and choicest officers, a Long Island cavalryman by the name of Benjamin Tallmadge, to manage the Culper Ring (Kilmeade & Yeager, 40). In late 1778, Tallmadge is a Major in the Continental Army. He has been only recently given command of Washington’s Army Intelligence Unit. Tallmadge will quickly prove himself to Washington as a very valuable resource, and by the fall of 1780, Tallmadge has been promoted to the rank of Colonel (Kilmeade & Yeager, 182). Tallmadge is an excellent spymaster and a superb leader of his division of Second Continental Light Dragoons, even though he is only twenty-four years old. The Culpers, under Tallmadge’s direction, will tremendously aid the patriot cause. Washington’s spies, under great scrutiny from their British overseers, doggedly penetrate New York City. The Culpers accurately report to Washington on England’s number of troops and on the numbers of their adversaries’ ships docked in Manhattan’s numerous harbors. Yet in November of 1780, Washington and Tallmadge have devised a strategy that “would truly shock the enemy,” (Rose, 236). Prodded by fellow Culpers Abraham Woodhull and Caleb Brewster, who had both given to Tallmadge and to Washington reliable and sage intelligence reports (Rose, 237)… of a substantial British and Tory stronghold called Fort Saint George being built at Mastic on Long Island and a huge stockpile of King George’s hay and forage being kept at Coram, also on Long Island, Washington and Tallmadge now saw an excellent opportunity to strike the British Army at New York, via Suffolk County.

Their strategy was quite bold and very wise. By making a raid at both Coram and Mastic, the Continentals could badly disturb and upset British military plans in New York City. If the rebels were able to annihilate the redcoat supplies of hay at Coram, they would drastically restrict British General Sir Henry Clinton’s ability to feed the Royal Cavalry’s horses and supply trains. Without ample hay, the British Army would have difficulty marching anywhere in the tri-state area, specifically during the coming winter of 1780-1781. And without Fort St. George on Long Island’s south shore, the British would be significantly deprived of moving troops, arms and other military supplies, by way of the Great South Bay, to NYC from Suffolk County and Brookhaven Town, and vice-versa.

Time had come for Tallmadge to move against his enemies. Tallmadge described Fort Saint George as Britain’s “most easterly point of defense” (Tallmadge, 39) on Long Island and a “most formidable” (Tallmadge, 40) bastion. Built on the prominent (patriot) Smiths’ family estate, Fort St. George was a triangular-designed outpost situated on the Great South Bay, and it thus had full access to the sea. Its outer wall was constructed of logs and stakes, sharpened severely at their ends (to prevent entry of any sort) and the impressive stockade was tightly held together from behind by a strong rail fence, made (too) of lumber. The perimeter of the stockade was bolstered further, at one of its corners, by a “deep ditch” (Rose, 237). At the center of the triangle were three small houses put up to shelter much of the fifty-man British garrison stationed there (Furman and Furman, 9).

Tallmadge, the shrewd operator he was, before embarking on his mission of sabotage and pillaging, visited Long Island himself (incognito of course) in the last week of October or the first week of November 1780, to scout ahead for his mission and he returned safely to Connecticut (Tallmadge, 39). To further insure his success, Tallmadge had secret assistance from Fort St. George’s superintendent, William Booth (a reputed Tory)… who “supplied Colonel Tallmadge with vital information concerning the structural layout of the Fort, and of the British garrison consisting of about fifty men” (Furman and Furman, 10).

After getting approval from General Washington for the raiding expedition, on November 11, 1780, Tallmadge and Brewster promptly went into action (Tallmadge, 40). With a raiding party consisting of about 100 men (mainly dismounted dragoons) Tallmadge and Brewster left Fairfield, Connecticut and they crossed the Long Island Sound on November 21, at 4 PM. And, at 10 PM, their eight whaleboats landed successfully at a harbor on Suffolk County’s north shore called "The Old Man’s "(Rose, 238). This site is present day Mount Sinai (Kilmeade & Yeager, 182)… and six miles east of Tallmadge and Brewster’s native Setauket. Colonel Tallmadge’s intended destination of Mastic is located roughly twenty miles south of Mount Sinai. Brewster and Tallmadge left twenty Continentals behind at the Old Man’s Harbor to guard their whaleboats from any redcoat or Tory patrols (Furman and Furman, 10).

After an initial march of five miles southward to Mastic, a horrible rain storm came over the Americans, and Tallmadge’s group of soldiers were forced to return to their starting point so they could shelter under their overturned whaleboats for the night (Rose, 238). After the storm lifted, some 24 hours later, Tallmadge and his men resumed their southward march (Rose, 238). In the early morning on November 23, they found William Booth, who urged them onto their mission (Furman and Furman, 10). Two miles after their meeting with Booth, Tallmadge’s and Brewster’s company reached the grounds of Fort St. George. It was 4 AM (Rose, 238).

Tallmadge divided his men into three columns for attack (Rose, 238). One column would attack the Fort’s stockade savagely and they would quickly hack through. They were called pioneers and they were trained soldiers to do such work. By then, though, Tallmadge and his two other columns of men had already breached the outpost’s main gate and they all had taken the principally sleeping British completely off-guard. After swiftly bayonetting the gate’s sentry, Tallmadge’s men quickly took the rest of Fort St. George into Yankee custody…their battle cry to signal this result was “Washington and glory” (Rose, 239). Their interjections of victory were premature. The Americans were fired on by British troops who had barricaded themselves in one of the remaining buildings. Tallmadge and his rebels quickly returned fire and they stormed the house where the British were by kicking down its front door (Rose, 239). The Americans subdued their British rivals in a somewhat chaotic fight. Deciding that since the British had fired on them after their fellow British citizens had surrendered to the Americans, Tallmadge and his merry band threw their redcoat prisoners headfirst through the home’s second story windows (Tallmadge, 41).

At this point the British and their Tory allies were shackled together and they were marched north back to Mount Sinai, carrying the small plunder Tallmadge and Brewster had seized from Fort St. George (Rose, 240). The entire British stronghold was set ablaze, as well as two British supply ships docked near the Fort (Tallmadge, 41). The Americans were victorious, but they were not done.

Their main target had always been Coram and its hay and forage (which were both gathered from Long Island’s east end). Tallmadge wasted no time. He took twelve men with horses from Fort Saint George and they broke off from the chief body of American soldiers, heading northwest to King George’s magazine at Coram. Tallmadge “made a vigorous charge upon the guard” (Tallmadge, 42) who had been left there to secure the supplies, and the dozen or so Americans, under Colonel Tallmadge’s direction, set 300 tons of hay and forage afire (Furman and Furman, 10)… an inferno worthy of the devil himself. Then they rejoined their parade and hiked safely back to Old Man’s Harbor.

Tallmadge’s raid on Fort St. George and Coram was entirely successful. His force lost no men and only one soldier was wounded, though horribly (Rose, 241). The British lost seven men and they had numerous wounded, most of them severely (Rose, 241). By 1 AM on November 24, 1780, Tallmadge and all of his men were back across the Sound when they reached home at Fairfield, Connecticut (Tallmadge, 42). Congress gave high regards to all those involved in the operation. Washington himself to Tallmadge declared, “thanks for your judicious and spirited execution of this business” (Rose, 241) and of the loss of the hay, Washington commented it, “must be… severely felt by the enemy at this time,” (Rose, 241).

Yet once we place the Tallmadge raid on Fort Saint George in its proper historical context, it seems to us moderns even more amazing. Yes, Tallmadge and Brewster were both native Long Islanders and they were both very familiar with Long Island’s topography and geography… but when they traveled to Long Island they were entering mainly hostile territory. If caught, they all faced execution at the hands of British authorities. Long Island was from 1776-1783 (when the British finally withdrew from New York City) a place of foreign occupation.

Brookhaven Town Historian Barbara Russell comments that, “Benjamin Tallmadge was a first-rate military man. In a battle that lasted roughly ten minutes (at Fort St. George)…the Colonel was able to bring to fruition a very difficult logistical task. Despite the huge risks of being detected and captured by the enemy…and even being beaten down by horrible weather, Tallmadge and Brewster never gave up. They retained incredible mental focus while carrying out their goals. As a consequence, they and their 100 men of Continentals were very instrumental in stifling the British war efforts, during a conflict which was far from won.”

That the Culpers (mainly Woodhull) helped Tallmadge and Brewster with their enterprise is equally remarkable. Occurring at the middle point of the Culper Ring’s years of operation (1778-1783) Woodhull very well knew, if caught, spies were hung from the gallows and they were very rarely imprisoned. Abraham literally risked his neck to advance the cause of American liberty. Is this not a definitive way to partake in history and to describe the substance of what history is?


About the author: Michael Mauro DeBonis  is native Long Islander of Italian descent who loves and thrives on literature and history. 

Sources:

1) George H. Furman and Judith Furman. “The Manor of St. George,” compiled by the Trustees of the Estate of Eugenie A. T. Smith at Mastic, NY, in the month of August 1955.

2) Brian Kilmeade and Don Yeager. George Washington’s Secret Six. New York, NY: Sentinel and Penguin Books, 2013-2014.

3) Alexander Rose. Washington’s Spies. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 2006.

4) Barbara Russell. “Brookhaven Town Historian’s Interview with Michael M. DeBonis,” at Brookhaven Town Hall, Farmingville, NY: July 20th, 2016, at 1 PM.

5) Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge. Personal Memoir of Col. Benjamin Tallmadge. London, England: Forgotten Books, 2015.

 ______________________________________

Culper, or The Spy

 
by Michael Mauro DeBonis, August 6, 2016.  

Like cats in the shadows, they are not timid…
they all make it a point to stay well-hid.
Some sneak for power, while others skulk for pelf.
The best one will venture to find the truth in himself.
And actors they all are, playing out their roles,
though their voices are said in secrets on scrolls.
A spy has one true accent, but many different lips:

a good one leaves no trace, on the cup from which he sips.

Many think they are jackals, a-hunt in the night,
but spies can be as angels, invisible in daylight.
They will snatch your trust, when you little suspect…
they will grab for every idea your mind can detect.

But eyes keenly trained can see them fully in view.
Be as a hawk when spies come nearest to you.
Once his plunder is taken, he’ll leave off as a ghost.
He’ll take anything he can, ere he comes lost.

This much is his goal. And a woman spy is the same.
She takes from her target, under an assumed name.
For agents of the black arts, derring-do is the game. 

Long Island and New York are their playgrounds of sorts.
While slinking between British and Yankee forts,
they could be friend or foe…
yet with the greatest spies, you may never know.

                         

From Riches to Rags: One man’s experience in the slums of New York

By Nell Darby

When you think of the emigrant experience in New York, and the reasons individuals had for coming to America in the 19th century, what do you think of? In England, the focus is on the poverty-stricken coming to the ‘new world’ to start again, to seek their fortunes, and to escape the miserable conditions of their old homes. Of course, the experience for many on reaching the ‘promised land’ was not what they hoped for; by the end of the 19th century, the Danish-born reporter and photographer Jacob Riis was talking to emigrants who now lived a wretched life in the slums of the Five Points area, only a step away from complete destitution. Many of these were immigrants, and their lives were lived on a day-to-day basis, wondering where the next meal was coming from. Riis noted the peripatetic nature of some families’ lives, shuttling between lodging house, police station and workhouse - where at least they knew they would get fed. Many of the area’s early immigrants had fled the famine that devastated so many lives in Ireland, and throughout the mid to late 19th century, a substantial proportion of the area’s residents continued to be either Irish-born or of Irish origin. These were people who had little left for them in their homeland, where poverty was what they had known before, and where America represented the possibility of improving themselves. These are the people who have been written about and studied. Yet one man left his home country as a middle-class, educated, 19-year-old, and ended up dying in New York as a destitute, drunken, broken man. His experience showed that America could break as many dreams as it made.

In 1856, the local newspapers in Oxford, England, recorded the death of an 83-year-old accountant, who had been active in local politics. John Harper was a Londoner by birth and ancestry, his family living in the same square as Dr Samuel Johnson, the creator of the modern English dictionary. He had a long life, dying at 83 years old, after breaking his leg. But what was significant about his death was that a reference was made in the death notices to ‘publish this in the Colonial newspapers’. This was the death of an elderly man who had spent his entire life in England; why was his family keen to ensure that the death was publicised overseas? The reason lay with his second son, John Ambrose Harper.

Harper family (credit: Nell Darby) – this image shows the author’s grandfather, John Harper, as a boy 
(front row) and behind, in the bow tie, is his father Seth. John Ambrose Harper was Seth’s uncle

John Ambrose was born on April 14, 1818 in London, England. After his mother died in the late 1820s, his father relocated his family 60 miles north to Oxford. A decade later, in 1837, at the age of 19, John Ambrose abruptly left not only Oxford, but England too, making the long journey across the Atlantic to New York. He was used to a certain lifestyle in England, and presumably thought he would have the same kind of life in the US – only there would be more opportunities there for him to shine, to have an exciting and rewarding time. He was an attractive man, just under 5-foot 10-inches, with black hair and eyes – perhaps he might even find a wife, too. So at some point that year, he set off - probably from Liverpool, on the west coast of England and itself a long journey from London in a carriage. He would be one of over nine million people who emigrated from Liverpool to the US, Canada or Australia in the century following 1830.[1] He would have travelled from Liverpool in a packet ship, a boat that carried mail and other cargo as well as passengers. Only a few lucky (and well off) passengers would have been able to afford a cabin; the vast majority of passengers would be crowded into the steerage area. This would have been below deck, and thus dark, damp, and unpleasant.[2] The journey would have taken over a month, and to survive it without becoming seasick, or catching a disease such as cholera or typhus in the confined conditions of steerage would have been an achievement in itself.[3]

Of his first decade of life in New York, little is known, but he was certainly working as a peddler by the mid 1840s – not a skilled occupation or one that suited his background, but presumably the only paid work he had been able to gain. As Tyler Anbinder has noted, peddlers enjoyed the independence offered to them by this kind of work, but faced ‘constant rejection by potential customers, harassment by children on the street, and miles of trudging through all sorts of weather.’[4] It was a hard job, and did not guarantee a regular income. Presumably desperate to improve his lot, on October 16, 1847, at Fort Columbus, he enlisted as a private in the US Army, to serve in the Mexican War, which had, at that point, been underway for nearly 18 months. He served until June 30, 1848, when he was discharged – some four months after the end of the war.[5] Paul Foos has described the ‘naked opportunism’ that the war offered some Americans, but it is unlikely that Harper benefited from, or perhaps even understood, the opportunism and propaganda of the conflict from his perspective as a fairly recent immigrant.[6]

When his father died back in England, his family clearly tried to notify John Ambrose in New York, by advertising in the foreign press; but he does not appear to have got the news, and even if he had, as a pedlar on a very limited income, he was highly unlikely to have been able to afford the passage back home. The irony of this is that his father had left him, with his siblings, an equal share in his estate, and so if he had remained in England, he would have prospered. His siblings certainly did well for themselves; two brothers - Thomas and Francis - were dental surgeons with homes and offices in salubrious parts of central London, both marrying middle-class, affluent women, while back in Oxford, his sister Susanna married one of the city’s pioneering photographers while brother Henry became assistant librarian of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.

But for the black sheep brother of the family, the downhill spiral continued. He moved into a large lodging house on Pearl Street, where the other residents were primarily rag pickers. Peddling was his primary occupation, earning just enough to keep him in the lodging house, and off the streets. But Pearl Street was not one of New York’s salubrious residential streets; it was within the notorious Five Points district, and home to some of the city’s most hardened residents. In the 1870s, one house on Pearl Street had been described in the New York Times as having originally been a merchant’s house, then a ‘genteel boarding-house’ in the 1840s, but which had ‘become a common boarding-house, going continually lower and lower in the scale. It was shamefully pillaged.’[7] By the time of the Times’ piece, it was operating as a boarding house for Irish immigrants, as well as a beer saloon.

Pearl Street, 2016 (credit Nell Darby)

 Pearl Street was prone to violence, a perhaps inevitable consequence of living in close confines with others, including strangers, in dire conditions. In 1871, two boarders at number 532, Joseph Ulding and John Hagewick, had quarrelled whilst drunk. Ulding stabbed Hagewick in the shoulder and neck, and was promptly removed to the Franklin Street Police Station. 

John Ambrose Harper lived, at various times, at numbers 506 and 508 Pearl Street. 508 Pearl as a particularly notorious building – in 1877, its landlord, the ‘Reverend’ Paul Valentine, went on trial for sexually abusing the children who lodged at number 508. Valentine referred to his cheap boarding house as a ‘college for children, dormitory and eating house’, in order to make it sound more respectable; but it was really just another doss house, and also a cover for his nefarious activities. Valentine, an Italian, had a whole series of cheap eating-houses aimed primarily at Italian immigrants, but also had prior convictions for immorality against children. In 1877, he was again found guilty and sent to the State Prison for ten years with hard labour.[8]

Two years later, two men, Henry Bowling and Francis Connolly, had a fight in the same building, during which Connolly had his arm broken. Bowling was locked up for the assault. As neither man was a resident of the boarding house, they had presumably in the ‘cheap eating house’ downstairs at the time.[9] The same year, another assault took place at 508 Pearl Street, when John West and FJ Fowler started a verbal argument that escalated until West hit Fowler, and Fowler retaliated by biting his nose. Although he was arrested and taken to The Tombs (the unofficial term for the New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention), Fowler had no money to pay bail, and so was committed to stand trial ‘for mayhem’.[10] Meanwhile, at number 506, one of its residents, James Sheridan, had been stabbed in his groin with a pen-knife wielded by John Caslin as they fought in a local saloon.[11]

THE TOMBS. THE PLACE OF DETENTION FOR CRIMINALS AWAITING TRIAL - (photo in public domain)

In 1880, John was listed as a lodger at 508 Pearl Street, one of nine English immigrants there at the time. The building was home to those from across the US and Europe; there were twenty Irish-born residents, two from Italy, six from Germany, and others from Wales, Switzerland, the West Indies, Scotland, as well as from other US states. Although there were several there who gave their occupations as beggars, peddlers, or rag-pickers, others claimed to be printers, cooks, carpenters, and blacksmiths. However, it’s not known how many of these titles were jobs they had once had, as opposed to ones they were currently doing. Anbinder has commented on the relatively high percentage of skilled male workers there were in the Five Points area earlier in the 19th century, with one’s country of origin being a factor in how you were employed; printers and building tradesmen were more likely to be American-born, whereas German immigrants were more likely to be tailors. But the predominantly Irish population worked mainly in higher-status occupations – but despite the respectability that their job titles gave them, they were also among the lowest-paid jobs.[12]

One resident, born in France, gave his occupation as ‘author’, which is particularly interesting. During the late 19th century, many writers were attempting to live in slum areas for a short duration in order to write about ‘how the other half lives’, an extension of the slum tourism that saw middle-class men and women come to gawp at the poor; was this man living in a Pearl Street boarding house to use it as the basis for a book, or newspaper articles? It is unlikely that he would have been staying there otherwise – unless he was really a writer who had fallen on extraordinarily hard times. There is an image of the basement of 508 Pearl Street in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper of March 18, 1882, showing the conditions of those who were reduced to lodging there.[13] Bunks were set up on two sides of the room, two rows on each side, with one set of men sleeping just above those below them. Washing was strung up above them, while the centre of the room saw many more bodies lying where they could, with little space between them - and zero privacy. Even in an illustration, the room looks cold, crowded, and noisy; men are shouting while those without bunks try to sleep sitting up, leaning against the bunks or each other.

Image of 508 Pearl Street referred to in the above paragraph is attached; this is from 1882 and in public domain (and has been used elsewhere accordingly); copy obtained from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

John Ambrose was living in this, and other local boarding houses, for at least 20 years. This was a period when the area was causing great concern to the press and public. In 1877, a piece in the New York Times referred to the cheap lodging houses locally as ‘shelter for the idle’, where ‘many honest poor have to mingle with lazy tramps’. Although it was recognised that many of the poor were simply the victims of fate, ‘driven hurriedly by misfortune, social or business, or both, from honourable positions to the bitterness of poverty’, others were seen simply as ‘hopeless drinkers, confirmed vagrants, professional beggars, or desperate tramps’.[14] Winter was seen as a particularly grim time, and the time of the year that saw record numbers of ‘tramps and professional vagabonds applying for relief’, with the ‘entitled’ sent to the almshouse.

John Harper was one of these hopeless drinkers and vagrants – he fit the stereotype perfectly in these respects. Any spare dime he had went on drink, and by the spring of 1888, he had lost his accommodation, becoming completely destitute. The records of the Blackwell’s Island almshouse state that John was admitted there on 10 March 1888. He was described as a destitute vagrant suffering from old age and intemperate habits. At this point, he was still aware of his background, and stated that he was the son of an accountant from Oxford, England, was English, and could read and write.[15] He also spent time that year in the neighbouring workhouse, due to his status as a pauper. The policy of the authorities was to commit tramps and vagrants to Blackwell’s Island for only a few weeks if possible – ‘the workhouse authorities keep the healthier ones for as short a time as possible’. John, though, was not one of the healthy ones, and had a few spells on the island. Life there was little better than on Pearl Street; in 1889, complaints were being made about the overcrowding of both almshouse and workhouse, with there being 1,841 residents – 893 men and 948 women – in the almshouse, which had been built in 1846 to house a maximum number of 1,500. There were too few ‘cells’ for these people, and so around 450 of them were sleeping on the floors on straw beds. 250 were bedbound with diseases, and 92 were blind; all of them were ‘comparatively old and decrepit’, and looked after by just 31 members of staff. The workhouse, built in 1852, was similarly overcrowded and also regarded as ‘entirely unfit for use’, with at least four people occupying each cell, with some cells having between 12 and 24 occupants. Some of the elderly paupers were being housed in the workhouse – with those who were regarded as being ‘some of the most degraded men and women of the city’ - simply because there was no room for them in the almshouse.[16]

On May 11, 1891, John Ambrose was admitted, for the final time, to the overcrowded almshouse, ‘due to destitution and old age’. By this time, he was unable to give any account of his parentage or origins. Three days after being admitted, at 5am on 14 May 1891, he died there from pneumonia and oedema of the lungs, and his body was taken to the New York morgue to be examined by the coroner. He was buried the following day at the City Cemetery, the burial organised by the New York Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society.[17] This was the end of this one man’s American dream – a dream that had turned into a half-century long nightmare, and finished in a pauper’s grave on Hart Island, where the poorest members of New York society were buried and forgotten.[18]

About the author: Dr Nell Darby is an English historian and writer, who specialises in 19th century criminal and social history. Her latest book, Life on the Victorian Stage, will be published in August 2017 by Pen & Sword Books (www.pen-and-sword.co.uk).

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[1] Anon, “Liverpool and Emigration in the 19^th and 20^thcenturies”, Liverpool Maritime Archives and Library, accessed on March 9, 2017. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/archive/sheet/64

[2] Anon, “Enterprise on the Water”, On The Water, The National Museum of American History, accessed March 9, 2017. http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/2_3.html

[3] Anon, “Liverpool and emigration in the 19^th and 20^thcenturies”, Liverpool Maritime Archives and Library, accessed March 9, 2017. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/archive/sheet/64

[4] Tyler Anbinder, Five Points(New York: Free Press, 2001), 119.

[5] “US Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914”, Ancestry, accessed March 8, 2017. www.ancestry.co.uk

[6] Paul Foos, A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican-American War(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 5.

[7] Anon, “Shelter for the Idle”, New York Times, February 12, 1877.

[8] Anon, “An Ex-Clergyman Convicted”, New York Times, April 20, 1877.

[9] Anon, “A Stab and a Broken Arm”, New York Times, November 24, 1879.

[10] Anon, “City and Suburban News”, New York Times, June 23, 1879.

[11] Anon, “City and Suburban News”, New York Times, March 18, 1876.

[12] Tyler Anbinder, Five PointsTyler Anbinder, Five Points (New York: Free Press, 2001), 113.

[13] Included in Tyler Anbinder, Five Points (New York: Free Press, 2001), 79; also at “Teeming, reeking and swealtering filthy New York tenements”, PP’s Blog, accessed March 8, 2017. https://reotokate.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/tenements/.  Original is in the Collection of the Library of Congress.

[14] Anon, “Shelter for the Idle”, New York Times, February 12, 1877.

[15] “New York, Census of Inmates in Almshouses and Poorhouses, 1830-1920”, Ancestry, accessed on March 8, 2017, www.ancestry.co.uk

[16] Anon, “More Room Needed”, New York Times, February 3, 1889.

[17] “Episcopal Diocese of New York Church Records, 1767-1970” on Ancestry, accessed on March 8, 2017. www.ancestry.co.uk

[18] “City Cemetery, 1881-1950s”, New York City Department of Records, accessed on March 8, 2017. http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/archives/collections_cemeteries.shtml; Dan Bloom, “The Island of Lost Souls: The heartbreaking New York cemetery where the poor and the anonymous are buried on an industrial scale”, Daily Mail, April 30, 2014.

New York State White Caps of 1905

by Richard White


“We have portrayed, in Motion Pictures, in a most vivid and realistic manner, the methods employed by the ‘White Caps’ to rid the community of undesirable citizens.” This was a statement from an advertisement in the New York Clipper on October 14, 1905 for a new movie called “The White Caps” which depicts graphically a husband’s drunken attack on his wife, and the tactics of these moral crusaders and nighttime raiders used to deter him from making another attack. Since the late 1800’s, this movement produced locally organized vigilante squads—usually men but on occasion women -- who wore white hoods when they operated outside of the law as shown in the movie. While the movie was art imitating life, the reality in New York in 1905 was that White Caps were actively engaged in missions of morality in the small towns of Darien Center, Rhinecliff, Penfield, and East Syracuse.

In the quiet hamlet of Darien Center in Genessee County in early February it appears that there were no White Cap operatives. The arrival of one or two families from Batavia prompted their quick formation. According to Batavia’s The Daily News on the 27th, the newcomers “were too lazy to work and were begging through the neighborhood.” On two occasions they were “white-capped,” or confronted in person, by the newly formed band, and “ordered to leave town.” Although these White Caps were recently organized, the movement’s methods were well-known, and the new people left in a hurry. This appears to be the only case of the year in which legal action was taken against the rioters. Two of them who were somehow recognized were “arraigned on a charge of riot” but were released when no one appeared to testify against them. A few months later another White Cap morality foray materialized in a Hudson Valley village.

In July in Rhinecliff in Dutchess County, a mob of White Caps was formed to deal with a wife-beater. The Rhinebeck Gazette observed on July 8 that “there comes a startling tale from Rhinecliff that the picturesque little station village has a band of ‘whitecaps’ duly and properly capped and all its own.” Their solution to this public shame was a beating of the man, Thomas McElroy. One week later, the newspaper published a letter that summed up the situation when the author wrote “Rhinecliff is noted for its peaceful and quiet citizens, and there is no danger of any person being molested in any manner if they behave themselves.” As usual, White Caps sought a solution outside of the law in the form of summary punishment as they would near Rochester in the Fall.

The White Caps of Penfield in Monroe County knew that Allen Decker had acted badly when he induced a married woman in late October to leave town with him—in fact, she brought along her two children. They went to Niagara Falls where Decker was arrested - apparently on a warrant from a judge in Penfield—on a charge of petit larceny for stealing the children’s clothes. Upon his return to face the judge he was fined and released. Vigilante justice awaited him on February 28 when the town’s White Caps dragged him out of the house where he hid. According to the Monroe County Mail, Allen suffered two humiliations. First, he received “a liberal coating of warm tar” (other sources indicate that feathers were then applied). Second, he was “conveyed to the village mill pond, where a rope was tied about his body to prevent his escape, and he was then thrown into the water and given a good sousing. Pulling him out of the water he was ordered to leave town and he obeyed the order with alacrity.” Within a matter of days in a small village in Onondaga County, there would be a reason for action by the self-appointed morals marauders.

In East Syracuse, there was one planned, and one unplanned, attack by the locale’s White Caps. Their intention was to thrash a husband for wife beating after he became indignant when she tried to dissuade him from seeing another woman. On November 9, The Syracuse Journal described how they gave Frederick John Smith a beating that “he will not likely soon to forget.” However, circumstances arose that spurred another beating when the “other woman,” Mrs. Clark Teft, became involved. Teft rushed to the scene carrying a club, and a few of the White Caps turned on her which resulted in “severe injury to her nose.” These brave, hooded men forcefully stoppeda woman from interfering with their operation.

In 1906, there was no sequel to “The White Caps,” although groups of them in real life continued their reign of terror in New York for a few more years. In August, for example, they covered a man with green paint and feathers due to his relationship with a married woman in East Syracuse. Other communities where they organized and operated that year include Jordan, Tonawanda, and Milton.

About the author: Richard White's articles have appeared in Civil War History, The Journal of Negro History, and other publications.

Frederick Douglass in Whitney’s Point, 1880

by Richard White

Frederick Douglass

“Bear with me kindly, for my voice is broken, and my throat is ragged and sore.” These were the words of the famous orator, Frederick Douglass, on October 22, 1880 in Whitney’s Point (now known as Whitney Point) as published a few days later in the weekly Broome Republican. In spite of a sore throat, he spoke to hundreds of people in “front of the academy” for two hours on an almost sacred topic to him — to rally voters to the Republican Party in this Presidential election year. Douglass had often stated, “The Republican Party is the ship, all else is the sea.” In the Point and elsewhere, he addressed crowds of all races about the seaworthiness of this “ship.”

For the second year in a row, the Republican State Committee selected him to campaign around the State on behalf of its candidates. After all, not only was he skilled speaker but also a devoted Republican. In fact, in 1879 in Binghamton, he addressed a crowded Ouaquaga Hall on behalf of the Party, and its gubernatorial candidate, Alonzo Cornell.

The Binghamton Daily Republican offers the most thorough coverage of this event in its October 23 issue. Most of Douglass’ speech in the Point extolled the virtues of Republicans. After all, he declared, “thanks for the magnanimity, humanity, and greatness of the Republican Party, I am an American citizen.” A “grand procession” led by people carrying flags and banners, and “a large cavalry company,” took Douglass to the stage where “a vast audience” awaited him. Not surprisingly, local Democrats were anxious. Earlier on the 22nd , the Binghamton Daily Democrat demeaned Douglass, stating that he only supported Garfield in order “to hold onto a good thing four years longer” in regard to Douglass’ position as U.S. Marshall for the District of Columbia. The newspaper concluded by suggesting that “Fred., although not a full-blooded white man, has more brains than all the [unreadable] law combined in the county.” But Douglass was at least used to such derision, and worse.

His opening remarks were patriotic, and not partisan-- Frederick Douglass profusely praised America. The Daily Republican recorded Douglass's words, some of which were,

“Ours is a great land. We see its greatness manifested in its commerce….in agriculture, invention, and the cultivation of the high arts. But it is greater in nothing than in the recognition which it bestows upon the rights of its people. We are here to exercise this afternoon one of its rights—the unchecked freedom of speech.” 

Later, he reasoned why voters must consider Republican office seekers. “Parties make candidates….Whatever may be said in behalf of a candidate it is better to know and understand the party that supports him. Parties are the assimilation of moral conditions….and principles of a people. ” Douglass must have praised to his Party’s nominee for President, James Garfield — as he would at a rally in New York City on October 25—but the Daily Republican’s coverage does not say so. (The local Democratic newspapers do not offer follow-up coverage on this rally).

Douglass did not stay in Broome County for long. His schedule required a political stump speech the next day in Woodhull in Steuben County. In Whitney’s Point, though, he illustrated why he was sometimes called “Old Man Eloquent,” especially for his devoted support of the Republican Party.

About the author: Richard White's articles have appeared in Civil War History, The Journal of Negro History, and other publications.

“No Man’s Land” Revisited

The New York and Vermont State 1814 Border Monument and

 the 1904 Marble Obelisk on Washington County Route 153.

By William A. Cormier
Salem, New York Historian

When James and Marilyn Alcott, residents of Beattie Hollow Road, invited me to visit the deteriorating Beattie Hollow boundary monument with them, I realized that another chapter regarding “no man’s land” needed to be written.

Few people remember the long-standing, and sometimes violent, border disagreement between New York and Vermont. In particular, the land of the Town of Rupert, Vermont, bordering Salem and Hebron, was hotly contended. In fact, the boundaries between New York and her other neighboring states and Canada were contested for many years until properly surveyed, agreed upon by the surveyors of both sides, and officially approved by their respective legislatures. New York agreed to the boundary on June 8, 1812; Vermont agreed to the boundary on November 6, 1812.

According to The History of New York State, Book I, Chapter I, Pt. III, by Dr. James Sullivan, once the boundary survey had been approved, markers were to be placed every mile along the boundary of Canada, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, until uniformity was decided upon as to the placement and type of the monuments, monuments were of various sizes, shapes and materials.

Historical records show that state and international boundary line settlements with New York took place over a span of years as the boundaries were resurveyed with more accurate equipment and old monuments located. Sullivan notes the years other land surveys were approved: Canada in 1842, Connecticut’s original 1731 boundary was re-certified in 1879, Massachusetts in 1853, New Jersey in 1834, and Pennsylvania’s 1786 boundary was recertified in 1885.

The settlement between New York and Vermont citizens was particularly contentious as described in Crisfield Johnson’s History of Washington County, New York, 1737 to 1878 and as found in the personal stories recorded by Dr. Asa Fitch, Jr. in his Manuscript History of Washington County, NY.

In 1742, the first Vermont settlers arrived from Massachusetts to settle near Brattleboro, Vermont. Their settlement became controversial since both New York and New Hampshire claimed the land between the Connecticut and Hudson River. In 1764, King George III, ruled in favor of New York State, but the early Vermont settlers refused to pay for land they considered theirs under the title of the New Hampshire Grants awarded by Royal Governor Benning Wentworth. They organized militias in 1771 and vigorously resisted the authority of New York State. Crisfield Johnson, and later, genealogist Merritt C. Barden in his 1928 book, Vermont, Once No Man’s Land noted that many of the skirmishes against the Yorkers, led by Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, were violent. Barden tells us that when Yorker landholders and suspected Tories like Rueben Nobles, Charles Hutchinson and John Reid were forcibly driven from their Vermont property, they sought refuge on the New York side in Upper White Creek [Salem] and Black Creek [Hebron].

Numerous recollections, taken from witnesses, are found in the Dr. Asa Fitch, Jr. manuscript notes. Their statements reflect the hotly divided political and land ownership conflict on both sides. The violence against Charles Hutchinson and John Reid is recorded in the Fitch manuscript. Charles Hutchinson “was a former Sgt. in a Highland Regiment, residing in Hebron, [Black Creek] NY.” He was “driven by Ethan Allen from lands granted to him on Indian River because he would not admit that the N.H. title was as good as a N.Y. title. Allen ejected him from his house & burned it. On the same day, John Reid’s house was burnt & 8 or 9 other families were driven from the area.” The burned out pioneers took shelter in Salem at the house of [Presbyterian Minister] Dr. Clark where on “November 12, 1771, Esq. McNachten swore out warrants for the “rioters’ arrest.”

Hutchinson and Reid were not alone in the attacks, according to Fitch’s notes: “Other settlers in the lower section of Arlington, Vt. considered themselves as part of N.Y.; Dr. Samuel Adams was a known Yorker, but never took an active role in the controversy beyond expressing his opinion; nevertheless, he was taken by the Bennington people (Hampshire men) & tried at Bennington before the Allens & Warner; tied him in a chair, he was drawn up to hang from a tavern sign for 2 hrs., exposed to the insults & jeers of the rabble assembled there.”

The Yorkers retaliated according to Fitch. Sheriff John Esq. Munro and his “posse attempted to eject settlers and the Bennington people rallied with Ethan Allen & Remember Baker, stationing themselves on a hill at Sancoick [Hoosick Falls] N.Y. , with Munro’s posse at its base.” Believing Allen had a canon, really a hollow log, Munro and his posse left. Sheriff Munro did not give up, however. “On March 22, 1772, Remember Baker was arrested, (probably in Est. Arlington).”

The capture of Baker and his ultimate escape shows the fast change of events between the Vermonters and the Yorkers. Fitch continues:

When 5 others; Munro’s party arrived in a sleigh & found Baker alone with his wife and son; when taken, he [Baker] was slightly wounded, presumably by a cutlass, bound, & kept with a guard in the rear of Munro’s sleigh; his [Baker’s] son Oziah attempted to give alarm, but was also detained. Passing by Mr. Bottom’s house in Shaftsbury, Baker raised a bloodied hand, feigning to wave, & was noticed from a window by Dolly Bottom, who alerted the house; 2 riders were sent to Bennington with news, & a party of 12-15 men were mounted to intercept Munro’s sleigh at N. Hoosick; they arrived behind him & followed his track for several miles when he turned into ‘beaten wood-road’; when the road ended in the forest, Munro’s party had to leave behind the prisoner for fear of their own capture.

As fate would have it, the land dispute soon took a backseat to the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775, at which time the Vermonters joined the rest of the Colonies in opposing British rule, and the Green Mountain Boys made history at Fort Ticonderoga.

After the final battles of the Revolutionary War in 1781, Crisfield Johnson states that the residents of Cambridge, Salem, Granville, and seven other border towns that had been caught up in border skirmishes over property rights, considered joining the State of Vermont. The secession failed when strong threats of war were made by the legislatures of New Hampshire and New York. Furthermore, objections were loudly voiced by those Scottish soldiers and settlers of Upper White Creek [Salem] and Black Creek [Hebron] who “had had their houses burned and had been otherwise ill-treated by Ethan Allen’s mob before the Revolution.”

Despite this setback, Vermont remained independent, forming its own Republic in 1784 until the discord between New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire was put aside. On October 7, 1790, New York State relinquished it claim on the Vermont lands when Vermont paid $30,000 to settle all land claims, and on March 4, 1791, Vermont was recognized as a separate state and admitted to the Union.

However, admittance to the Union did not end the boundary dispute between New York and Vermont. Determining the boundary lines took another 21 years at the end of which time both states passed laws, setting up Commissioners to describe the joint boundary line.

According to the Report of the Regents of the University, “On the boundaries of the state of New York,” Vol. 2, 1874, the New York State legislators on June 8, 1812 passed an official “Act to designate and establish the Boundary Line between this State and the State of Vermont.” New Yorkers Robert Yates, Robert R. Livingston, John Lansing, Jr., Julian C. Verplanck, Simeon DeWitt, Egbert Benson, Richard Sill and Melancthon Smith were commissioned to confirm the joint boundary line. They worked with Vermont appointed commissioners Isaac Tichenor, Stephen R. Bradley, Nathaniel Chipman, Elijah Paine, Ira Allen, Stephen Jacob, and Israel Smith, who verified the boundary survey.

The New York State boundary law preamble spelled out the purpose of the law: “Whereas it is represented to the legislature that the boundary line between this state and the state of Vermont has not been designated by permanent marks of monuments: And whereas it is necessary, in order to prevent litigation between the citizens of the said states, that the said line should be plainly designated and finally established.” The full text of the law further describes in surveyor’s terms the location of surveyor’s markers and monuments on the New York and Vermont state boundary.

Along the whole of the New York-Vermont state line are surveyor’s markers and boundary monuments, originally consisted of marked trees, natural rocks, rock piles and marble tablets. The original marble tablets were engraved with Vermont on one side and New York on the other. Later, granite obelisks were erected. Tyler Resch, research librarian, of the Bennington Museum attributes the granite monuments to Vermont Governor John McCullough who, during his 1902-1904 terms, ordered their placement. The Vermont granite boundary monuments are four feet and eight inches tall and mounted on a rubble stone and mortar base on which the east side is engraved with the word Vermont 1812 and the west side engraved with the word New York 1812 and the inscription “Renewed 1904.” A number, identifying the stone, can also be seen on some of the bases still intact. The Beattie Hollow Road and the Rupert Road monuments are good examples showing all engravings. For example the Beattie Hollow monument is engraved with “No 60.”

The Salem-Vermont markers, seven of which can be seen from the road today, mark the border between State Route 313 and County Route 153. Two monuments exist on Hog Back Ridge but require a good mountain hike. Also, the granite monument found on the way to Egg Mountain can be accessed by Blind Buck Road but also requires a good mountain hike by a private trail. This writer did not attempt either hike, but according to local hunters (most hunters and hikers know of the marker whereabouts since they make good landmarks in the woods) these granite monuments still stand in the general vicinity identified on the topographic map as State Line Ridge and Hog Mountain Ridge, but more locally known as the Tate Hill and Prindle Hill markers.

The location of the Salem markers can be found on the United States Department of the Interior Geological Survey Maps showing the Salem-Rupert and Shushan Quadrants. This writer found them on an old 1946 version. Easily seen by taking a road trip, as this writer did with a car and camera, are the seven roadside monument sites.

Beginning in the southeast corner of the town of Salem and running south to north on the border are markers in the southeast corner of Salem on State Route 313 and Chunks Brook Road. The State Route 313 monument, directly across from the State Line Lunch diner, is gone, and its base deteriorated almost beyond recognition—it is rubble. However, about 25 feet north of the old base and almost hidden, the top of what is left of the granite obelisk sticks up out of a pile of rubble stones. The remains of this monument base and top are easy to find with a brief walk along the north side of the highway.

After a short drive north, the granite monument at the north end of Chunks Brook Road stands, but its base is badly deteriorated. A short drive away, the granite monument on Camden Valley Road-West Sandgate Road is also easily seen from the road. Its base is damaged also, but the engraved words “Renewed 1903” are visible.

The granite monument on Beattie Hollow Road is easily seen from the road. It too has a deteriorating base, but all of the engravings are mostly legible. The granite monument at the end of Chambers Road (leading to Perkins Hollow) is broken off--the top part lies at the feet of the almost completely deteriorated base on which few engravings survive.

The granite monument and marble tablet across the road from each other on County Route 153 (Rupert Road) are both in excellent shape except for a corner broken on the obelisk base. The New York marble tablet found here is the only one this writer found in his search. The marble tablet is inscribed on one side with Vermont and the other with New York and dated 1814. With the exception of one granite obelisk base inscribed with “Renewed 1903,” all other bases that had enough left of them to read were engraved with the words “Renewed 1904.”

To this writer’s knowledge, no repair of the bases or the boundary monuments of either state has taken place recently. Obviously, their deteriorating state signals a need to evaluate the condition of all state boundary monuments.

The wise decision over two hundred years ago to fix the boundaries with boundary monuments began an era of cooperative between our neighboring states and Canada. The monuments remind us of that cooperation.

 

About the author: William “Al” Cormier was born in Massachusetts where he earned his B.A. at the University of Massachusetts. He later earned his M. Ed. at Cornell University. In 1984 he became the Salem, NY town and village historian, writing books of local history and articles for the local newspapers.



Sources

Barden, Merritt Clark. Vermont, Once No Man’s Land. Rutland: The Tuttle Company, 1928.

Daniel J. Pratt, ed., Report of the Regent of the University on the boundaries of the State of New York.
(Albany: The Argus Company Printers, 1874).

James Sullivan, ed., History of New York State, Book 1, Chapter 1, Part 3 (New York: Lewis Historical
Publishing Company, 1927).

Johnson, Crisfield. History of Washington County, New York, 1878. Philadelphia: Everts and Ensign
Publisher, 1878.

Kenneth A. Perry, ed., The Fitch Gazetteer an Annotated Index to The Manuscript History of Washington County, New York, vols. 4 (Bowie: Heritage Books, Inc., 1999).

Tyler Resch, research librarian, The Fourteenth State.

Available from library@benningtonmuseum.org.