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. Rail fences lined both sides of the lane to keep in the cattle, while the stones, after-ward gathered into fences, lay thickly scattered over half-tilled corn and grazing fields. Farms and farming conditions were primitive then; the daily life of the people who occupied the farms was simple and they knew but few social distinctions, although negro slavery existed. The slaves they owned were more like free family servants and took part in most of the affairs and duties of their masters, --so that when fighting

1 Erskine, who was "Geographer" to Washington's army, in a map dated 1778-9, shows three Thomas' Houses in this vicinity. That of Judge John Thomas, who was taken prisoner in March 1777 and died and was buried in New York a few months later, on King Street a mile or so north of the present Harrison Avenue; that of Colonel Thomas Thomas of the 2nd Westchester Militia on Harrison Avenue with his mill close by at Blind Brook and another of the "Widow Thomas" about a quarter of a mile north of the latter in the fields, probably near the still existing Thomas Cemetery.