It had a national, even a world-wide interest, but to us in Westchester County it has the additional importance of showing that our farmers, in the

1 Silas Brundage, son of the then owner, says he was "born and brought up on the farm where the fight occurred" and describes the location as "Immediately west of the field of action you descend a hill." As this is the only "hill" on the farm and is just south of Harrison Avenue along which the Refugees rode, this description fixes the location quite definitely. Interview with McDonald, October 30th 1848.

66 THE McDONALD PAPERS

five years of war which preceded this affair, had learned to fight, so that they became more than a match, even for the British horsemen, from whom they would have fled in panic when that war began. On this occasion the British came on one of the many similar raids that so nearly depopulated our county, but the fight that resulted was of an unusual kind and it had an unexpected ending for the band of cowboys, who rode all the night only to return crestfallen and empty handed to their camp twenty miles below, in the morning. But to understand the fight some explanation is necessary. First let us get the lay of the land on which the parties met and then examine the conditions under which the pursuit and final fight took place. To the east, where the road here before us crossed the one that goes to Purchase, were "Merritts Corners" around which was gathered a small settlement of farm houses. The fine road over which we came was then a farm lane, none too straight, that ran east from "The Corners," passing Colonel Thomas' house 1 about half a mile to the right of us, then crossed Blind Brook where his mill stood a few hundred feet from here--and continued on to King Street, then and now an important highway.