There was not, therefore, nor could there have been, any central coterie or clique, with lofty pretentions and extended ambition, to prompt the County, in what should be said or done by its inhabitants, in support of or in opposition to any proposition, whether moral, or ecclesiastical, or political ; nor was there any influence, in any one or in any number, sufficient to associate and organize those farmers, for any purpose whatever. Every one was dej^endent on liis own resources and on his roadside or fireside chats with his neighbors, for whatever information he acquired concerning the passing events of that eventful period; he was dependent, mainly, on iiis own intelligence and his own intellectual powers, for whatever opinions he entertained, on any subject; and, except on some extraordinary occasions, he was

' A personal exaniiuatioii of the Records of the County, preserved iu the office of the Clerk of the County, at tlie While Plains, has revealed, to us, the significant fact that, although the Records of Ciiil Actions iu the Court of Conmiou Pleas, the Records of Roads, and other similar Records, from a very early period, have been carefully made in books provided for the purpose (in one instance, if in no more, one volume, by being reversed, has been made to serve for two distinct lines of Records) and as carefully preserved, the Records of Criminal Actions, in any and all the Courts, within the County, were not thus mailcin books, xintil long after tiie time of wliich we wi'ite -- until long, very long, after the close of the peaceful and juosperous and happy period of the Colonial era -- when the greater number and more important character of the Criminnl Actions -- until then too insignificant, in number and character, to entitle them to .-^uch a distinction, among the County Records -- warranted, the first time, the employment of books in which to keep the Records of them.