The masterspirit of the assembled farmers, whether many or few in number, was John Thomas, Junior, one of a family of officeholders under the Home and the Colonial Governments,^ and, himself, an anxious office-seeker.
1 Ollicial report of the proceedings of the Meeting-- Holt's \ew-York Journal, Xo. 1G50, New-Yokk, Thursday, August 18, 1774.
See, also, Gaiue's Xew-York Gazette, and the WeeMij Mercury, No. 1192, New-York, Monday, August 15, 1774, and liicmgloii's Xew-York Gazelleer, No. 70, New-York, Thui-sday, August 1><, 1774.
2 The Grandfather of John Thomas, Junior, waa the Rev. John Thomas, Rector of St. George's C'liurch, Hempstead, Long Island, who.
from the revolutionary party ;^ and the well-considered and well-worded Resolutions, as well-adapted for the protection of the father's official positions as for the construction of others for the son's advancement, and evidently the work of a master-hand which was not seen in the Committee nor in the Meeting, promote a suspicion that that Meeting of "the Free- " holders and Inhabitants of the Township of Rye," the first indication of Westchester-county's inclination to enter the area of political strife, was nothing more nor less than a movement iu the Thomas family, and for its particular benefit. Subsequent events, in connection with the doings of those who were present, at that particular Meeting, serve to strengtlien that suspicion, if not to confirm it.*
While the politicians, in Rye, were discussing, with more or less satisfaction, the result of their doings, to which reference has been made, those in the Borfroni his Ordination, iu 1704, until his death, in 1727, was a Missionary in the employ of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in London. The father of John Thomas, Junior, was Uon. John Thomas, who, from 1743 until the dissolution of the Colonial Government, in 1776, was a Member of the General Assembly of the Colony, representing the County of Westchester ; and, from May, 175.j, until the dissolution of the Colonial Government, in 177(5, he was the First Judge