Three of its ten com panics were largely from Westchester County. In the summer of 1775 the provincial congress ordered a complete reorganization of the militia of the colony, and required every member of that body, between the ages of sixteen and fifty, to provide himself with a musket and bayonet, a sword or tomahawk, a cartridgebox to contain twenty-three rounds of cartridges, a knapsack, one pound of gunpowder, and three pounds of balls. There were no regulations as to uniform. Under this order Westchester County thoroughly reconstructed its militia, deposing all officers of unsatisfactory or doubtful antecedents, and electing stanch patriots in their stead. The battle of Bunker Hill, on the 17th of June, had still farther widened the breach, which, indeed, now seemed incapable of beingclosed. Three days previously George Washington had been appointed bythe continental congress commander-in-chief of the American armies. On June 25 he arrived in New York on his way to the seat of war in Massachusetts, having been met at Newark by a deputation of citizens, of whom Gouverneur Morris was one of the principal members. He stopped over night in the city, and the next morning continued his journey, being escorted for some distance by the

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

local militia. His route, of course, lay through our county, along the Boston Post Road. One of the most noteworthy enactments of the provincial congress of 1775 was a series of regulations for preventing and punishing unacceptable acts and language by the Tory element of the province. These regulations were drastic, and, as they were applied with particular severity in Westchester County, a somewhat detailed notice of i hem is called for. The measure embodying them was adopted on the 2(>th of August. It prohibited the furnishing of provisions or other necessaries, kk contrary to the resolutions of the continental or of this congress," to the ministerial army or navy, as well as communicating bycorrespondence or otherwise to the British military or naval officers any information prejudicial to the interests or plans of the colonists.