There were one or two companies of militia posted to guard the roads east of the village ; a portion of the refugees attempted to reach Middle Patent for the purpose of burning the houses of some Whigs there who were obnoxious to the enemy, but when they came to Mahanus River about half a mile from the village on the Middle Patent road they found the bridges destroyed and the streams too deep and muddy to cross." Oct. 29th, 1846, Silas Sutherland of Middle Patent testifies that when Bedford was burnt they fired on their retreat the following houses : Israel Lyons', John Ferris', Peter Lyons', Andrew Sniffins', and a house occupied by Ichabod Ogden where the militia had quarters, and which was afterwards owned and occupied as a tavern by John Smith.

Nov. 2d, 1846, Mrs. Patty Holmes, aged ninety-four, says: "We were kept in constant state of alarm in Bedford during the Revolutionary war. Frequent reports were abroad that the Refugees were at the village ; when Pound Ridge was burnt, news arrived that the enemy was coming. An old man named Andrew Miller took his gun to bed with him ; the same night the refugees arrived and carried him off, gun and all, to New York -- where for sometime he was kept in the sugarhouse, till finally his daughters went down and procured his discharge. When the enemy returned from Pound Ridge they burned the house

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owned by Col. Holmes, who had gone below to join the British sometime before. I think that the meeting house also was burnt the same day, namely, Friday, July 2nd, when they burnt Bedford nine days afterwards, a widow woman begged them to spare her house, to which they consented -- but finding a brace of pistols up stairs, they fired it.