" Before the troops went into winter quarters, it was necessary that sufficient boards should be procured to hut those who were to remain in the vicinity of King's Bridge, and tlie light troops were of the parties who collected them. Lt. Colonel Simcoe proposed to General Tryon, who commanded the British, to take down Ward's hduse,^ and the buildings in its vicinity; and that, while a covering party .should halt tiiere, he would attempt to surprise Col. Thomas, (a very active partizan of the enemy,) and a

» James Thatcher's Military Journal, Feb. 1777, page 77.

b Tliis gentleman was the last High Sheriff of the county before, and the first appointed after tlie war.

^ General Thomas was elected chairman of Public Safety, in 1776. «J .*»'ee Fast Chester.

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 257

post of dragoons, nearly twenty miles beyond it. General Tryon acquiesced in the proposal, and directed it to be put in execution, but seemed v^ry doubtful, whether so wary a person as Thomas could be circumvented, lit. Col. Simcoe marched all night, with Emmerick's and the (Queen's rangers, and surrounded Thomas' house by daybreak. He never lay at home before that night, and had done so in consequence of the British troops in general being gone into winter quarters, and one of his own spies being deceived, and made to believe that the Queen's rangers were to march to Long Island. One shot was fired from the window, which, unfortunataly killed a man by the side of Lieut. Col. Simcoe. The house was inmiediately forced, and, no resistance being made, the officers shut the doors of the different rooms, to prevent the irritated soldiers from revenging their unfortunate comrade. The man who fired, was the only person killed : but Thomas, after Lt. Col. Simcoe had personally protected him and ensured his safety, jumped out of the window, and, springing over some fences, would have certainly escaped, notwithstanding most of Emmerick's riflamen fired at him, had not an hussar leapt after him and cut at him with his sword, (which he crouched from, and luckily escaped,) when he surrendered.