From the time of their first migration from Holland, their political propensities were strongly republican, and during the agita-tions that characterized the days of Leisler, they were his devoted friends, adhering to him after his fall with the same steadiness with which they had supported him while in power. It is a tradition in the family that a few days before the execu-tion of the unfortunate Lieutenant-Governor, their ancestor, Jacob Dyckman, then a child, accompanied his father, whose baptismal name he bore, to a city prison, where they saw the unhappy leader of faction, then under sentence of death. Leisler took the child in his arms, and on learning his name exclaimed: "In that case we have three Jacobs here." He then put his hand upon the boy's head and added: "God bless you Jacob! May you live long and be a good and pros-perous man." When the British forces in the autumn of 1776 took pos-session of New York, the determined Whigs who stood com-mited to the cause of independence, went for the most part into voluntary exile, seeking new homes in the counties bor-dering upon the Hudson. Among these temporary emigrants were the Dyckmans of Kingsbridge, and the Odells of Green-

70 THE MCDONALD PAPERS burgh most of whom, while the war continued lived upon Courtland's Manor above the Croton. So far as can at this day be ascertained, the attempt made in January 1777, to reduce For Independence, near Kings-bridge, was the earliest occasion that called any of the "Guides of Westchester," (afterwards so celebrated) into the public service. As the time for putting his forces in motion drew nigh, General Heath applied to the Committee of Safety, for some persons minutely acquainted with the country around Kingsbridge, and with the various roads leading to New York, who might both act as guides and assist him in the capacity of aides, and that body appointed Cornelius Oakley, Isaac Oakley, John Pine and David Hunt to accompany the division under General Scott, and John Odell and the two Dyckmans, Abraham and Michael, to go down with the col-umn under General Lincoln.