FLis grandfather, Joseph Paulding, owned a large tract of land east of Tarrytown (where John was born), and had four sons, all of whom were patriot soldiers in the Revolution. John received a common school education, and then worked for farmers in different parts of our county. He was a magnificent specimen of manhood, over six feet tall and well proportioned. Espousing the patriot cause like all of his family, he was engaged in various minor enterprises against

HOUSE

NEAR

PEEKSKILL

WHERE

CAPTAIN

HOOGLAND

STOPPED

WITH

ANDRE

the enemy in the Neutral Ground. According to his own testimony, he was taken prisoner three times during the war. On the first occasion he was captured at White Plains, and on the second near Tarrytown, only four days before the arrest of Andre. The common report is that while in New York during his second captivity he exchanged his coat for that of a German yager. It was this habiliment that he wore when he halted Andre, a circumstance to which the latter's supposition that the party were friends is thought to have been due. After the capture of Andre, he says, he was taken a third time, in a wounded condition, and " lay in the hospital in New York, and was discharged on the arrival of the news of peace there." The farm given him by the1 State was located in the Town of

CAPTURE

ANDRE

Cortlandt, and consisted of one hundred and sixty acres and sixteen roods, being the confiscated property of Dr. Peter Huggeford, a Loyalist. He disposed of it after some years, and removed to a farm near Lake Mohegan (Yorktown), where he died on the 18th of February, 1818, He lies buried in the cemetery of Saint Peter's Episcopal Church1 near Peekskill, and oyer his grave is a monument with an elaborate inscription, erected " As a memorial sacred to public gratitude " by the corporation of the City of New York on the 22d of November, 1827.