To the Westchester manorial families belonged some of the most noted and influential Americans of their times -- men of shining talents, fascinating manners, masterful energy, and splendid achievement; statesmen, orators, judges, and soldiers -- who were among the principal popular leaders and civic officials of the province and who won renown both in the public service and in the held during the Revolution. Alike to the patriot cause and the Tory faction those families contributed powerful and illustrious supporters. As the issues between the colonies and Great Britain became more closely drawn, ami the inevitable struggle approached, the influences of the representative members of the Westchester families were thrown partly on one side and partly on the other. The tenants in each case were controlled largely by the proprietor, and thus an acute division of sentiment ami sympathies was occasioned which, in connection with the unique geographical position of this county in its relations to the contending forces of the Revolution, caused it to be torn by constant broils and to be devastated by innumerable conflicts and depredations. Remembering that the old manorial families of Westchester County rested upon an original foundation of very recognizable aristocratic dignity, which was made possible only by monarchical institutions; that the pride of lineage had, at the time of the Revolution, been nourished for the larger part of a century; and that the disposition of attachment to the king naturally arising from these conditions had been much strengthened by continuous intermarriage with other families of high social pretension and political conservatism, it seems at this day remarkable, or at least a source of peculiar satisfaction, that their preferences and efforts were, on the whole, rather for the popular cause than against it. Even in the formative period of the Revolution, before passions had been stirred by experience and example, and before actual emergency impelled men to put aside caution, it was distinctly apparent that the Tory party was the weaker, both numerically and in point of leadership; and at a very early period of the war, notwithstanding the loss of New York Citv to the American army and the retreat of