Two hotels for the accommodation of guests and travelers were opened, and the first country store was built and stocked by Doctor Graham. This store stood opposite the courthouse, and here the people, for more than half a century, gathered to discuss politics and to sell their surplus produce.

The old French War, which terminated in 1760, had drawn heavily on the town of Rye, both for men and money. A list of twenty-four names is given by Dr.

Baird in his " History of the Town of Rye" (p. 213), many of them members of families then living in White Plains, and most of them young men under thirty years of age: as for example, Ezekiel Brundage, aged twenty-seven ; Joseph ]\Ierritt, twentyfour; Abraham Lyon, twenty-two; Joseph Merritt, twenty-three ; Ezekiel IMerritt, twenty-three ; Samuel Lane, twenty-two; John Lounsbury, twenty; Val. Lounsbury, twenty-one; John Budd, twenty-seven; Abraham Haight, seventeen ; Reuben Lane, sixteen ; Nathaniel Haight, seventeen ; Caleb Sherwood, nineteen ; Josepii Haight, twenty ; Elisha ]\Ierritt, eighteen ; Peter Merritt, nineteen. For many years the stories of that French and Indian War furnished entertainment for many households, as they spent the long winter evenings gathered about the great open fire-places. This war brought with it a heavy debt, the payment of which, while it severely taxed the resources of the people, proved valuable as teaching them how great was their strength in emergencies, a knowledge that was of inestimable benefit to them in the conflict with the mother country that soon followed. The mother country, also seeing, from the payment of this debt, that the colonists were capable of meeting such heavy liabilities, was leil to impose the burdens from which her colonies revolted.