Next, he was ordered to furnish blankets for the " Rebel soldiers," and, refusing, was sent under guard to the committee, which, failing to persuade him on the same point, gave orders to search his house^and appropriate the desired goods; but happily his wife had Then he was directed to pay - upsafely secreted all they possessed. wards of thirty shillings " to the mortified searching party, refused to obey, and was detained under guard until he produced the money. After that he was escorted before the Westchester County committee, on complaint made by the Cortlandt Manor committee, to be examined as to his political principles. These several unpleasant incidents all occurred in the months of May and June, 1776; and con sidering the respectable ami reverend character of Mr. Townsend, together with the circumstance that all but "three or four" of flu " Church people " of his parishes were Loyalists, the severity and per-

EVENTS

FROM

JULY

9 to

October

12, 1770

tinacity with which he was disciplined are forcibly illustrative of the general spirit of the times in Westchester County. On the .Sunday after the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by the authority of the assembled delegates of the State of New York at White Plains, the Eev. Epenetus Townsend, holding services as usual in his church at Salem, omitted not one jot of the prescribed formularies in relation to the king and the royal family. On the second Sunday he still pursued the even tenor of his duties in this particular; but on the third Sunday, says Bolton, 4k when in the afternoon he was officiating, and had proceeded some length in the service, a company of armed soldiers -- said to have belonged to Colonel Sheldon's regiment, stationed on Keeler's Hill, opposite marched into the church with drums beating and fifes playing, their guns loaded and bayonets fixed, as if going to battle; and as soon as he commenced reading the collects for the king and royal family they rose to their feet, and the officer commanded him npon the peril of his life to desist.