It is but fair to say, however, that the American commanders on the lines were usually men of good personal antecedents, and it does not appear that any very notorious person on our side was ever intrusted with authority in Westchester County. But while the American commanders were well-intentioned as a rule, they generally allowed their subordinates and men much license. Burr's stern administration in this particular was exceptional. The circumstance of the continued existence during the Revolution of the quasi-patriot organization of " Skinners," who were fully as merciless and rapacious as the British "Cowboys," is conclusive proof of a studied disinclination on the part of the American

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

es for the protection of the inofficers . specially exert themselv habitantsto The chief British authorities in New York have left various documentary evidences of their express sanction of the most unlicensed practices of their partisans in the Neutral Ground. The spirit by which they were actuated is very candidly expressed in a remarkable Tryon, dated " Kingsbridge Camp, Nov. 23, 1777." letter by Governor The American General Samuel II. Parsons, commanding at the time at Mamaronee.lv, had written to Governor Tryon quite indignantly about the conduct of some British soldiers-- entirely unprovoked-- in burning the dwelling of a Westchester County committeeman on Philipseburg]•oh Manor; also intimating that such outrageous deeds, if continued, might provoke retaliation. Governor Tryon, in his reply, said: "I have candor enough to assure yon -- as much as I abhor every principle of inhumanity or ungenerous conduct -- I should, were I in more authority, burn every committeeman's house within my reach, as I deem those agents the wicked instruments of the continued calamities of this country; and in order sooner to purge the country of them, I am willing to give twenty-five dollars for every active committeeman who shall be delivered up to the King's troops." l^sx/h &r<hS^y That popular romance, Cooper's " Spy " (the earliest of its author's novels of American life), is, as its title states, a " Tale of the Neutral Ground." Cooper's hero, who goes in the novel by the name of Harvey Birch, was a real personage, whose true name was Enoch Crosby, and who became a respected citizen of our county after the Revolution, dying at Golden's Bridge in 1835.