Judge Thomas was a very prominent citizen of Rye, and one of the most consistent and valuable advocates of independence, dying a martyr to the cause in a prison in New York City in 1777. Isaac Wilkins, of Castle Hill Neck, in the Borough of Westchester, was ;i brother-in-law of Lewis and Couverneur Morris, but was on the opposite side politically. He was one of the leaders of the conservative forces in the last provincial assembly, and was suspected of being the author of the noted Tory tracts published over the signature of "A. W. Farmer." He acted as spokesman for the motley adherents of "Great George, our King," at the county meeting at White Plains in April, 1775, and two months later tied to England. After a varied career, which comprehended aprolonged residence (subsequently to the war) among the forlorn refugee Loyalists in Nova Scotia, he returned in 1798 to Westchester and became rector of Saint Peter's Church. In the historic assembly of 1775, when the issues for and against aggressive resistance to England were sharply drawn, Westchester County's representatives were Van Cortlandt, Thomas, Philipse, and Wilkins. It is thus seen that, as concerns representation in the assembly, the opposing parties of liberty and loyalty were exactly balanced in this county. On the one side were Pierre Van Cortlandt ami Judge Thomas; on the other, Frederick Philipse and Isaac Wilkins. Philipse, of course, had at his back the whole of his great manor. Wilkins really represented the de Lancey interest, which controlled the Bor-