The British on New York Island did not seem to know what was going on. While the troops kept the enemy in check, Washington and Kochambeau, accompanied by the engineers of their staffs and with an escort of dragoons, reconnoitred the British position. A map prepared by ^^'ashingtou's engineer, now at the Historical Society Library in Second Avenue, with its pencil-marks and memoranda, brings the whole movement down almost to an eye-witness standpoint. They rode across country from the Hudson to the Sound. The British shelled them from several points, but the cortege proceeded leisurely on their business.'

Nothing more of much moment seems to have occurred in Revolutionary times within the bounds of Westchester township. Soon the surrender at Yorktown and the treaty of peace with Great Britain enabled the sturdy yeomen of Westchester to behold the last scene in this drama of war, when Washington, with his escort, crossed Harlem River to witness the evacuation of New Y'ork by the British.

HARLEM RIVER.

The conveniences afforded by the Harlem River for navigation had much to do with the early settlement of the west side of Westchester County. It is an estuary of East River, which is itself an arm of the sea, and its southerly or main outlet and its communication eastwardly with Bronx Kills afforded the Dutch and English pioneers easy routes of water communication with New York and between the plantations and inchoate towns on the water front. As very many of the subjects both of the King and the Prince of Orange came from the coast towns of England and Holland, there were among them plenty of men who knew how to build, equip and sail a boat, and so they were scarcely warm in their new homes before their sloops and periaugers stemmed the Harlem, and their white wings amazed the Indian aborigines.