On one occasion Colonel James de Lancey, while visiting his aged mother at her home at the Mills, had tied his horse, a valuable imported thoroughbred, to the fence. Some American scouts seeing the horse, and knowing his value, immediately took him and carried him within the American lines at White Plains. There some enterprising Yankee bought him. The horse was known as "True Briton," and is said to be the progenitor of the celebrated stock, now known to horse fanciers as "Morgans."'

On another occasion Colonel Thomas, an American officer, desirous of visiting his family, and learning that the British had gone into winter-quarters at King's Bridge and Morrisania, ventured home. Word of his arrival reached the Queen's Rangers, the house was surrounded and several of Thomas' men were captured. The colonel jumped from the window and had nearly escaped when one of the Rangers caught him. Thomas was sent as a prisoner to New Lots, on Long Island. There he escaped and remained concealed in the woods for several days. He finally got into the city of New York disguised as a wood-chopper. He had let his beard grow. The British employed a negro who knew him very well to act as a detective for his capture. Thomas saw them coming and went to bed, and when his face was uncovered the negro said that was not the man. Through the influence of a friend, he obtained quarters in the house of a widow. One evening, when a search party arrived, she took him down into the cellar, turned a hogshead over him and then threw half a bushel of salt on the head of the hogshead. The cellar was searched, but this simi)le stratagem saved him from capture. He eventually escaped by a canoe, landed at Fort Lee and joined the Americans by crossing the river farther up.-