With rare exceptions, these Westchester-county farmers were intelligent men, sufficiently educated for all the purposes of their business and of their recreation--even among the earlier of the several Towns, those farmers included, in their Westchester-county homes, men and women of culture, whose names, and characters, and abilities, as scholars and statesmen, in several instances, are matters of history, known throughout the world ; 6 while the intelligence of those of later Colonial periods is seen in the multitude of ecclesiastical and political papers, signed by large numbers of them, and rarely disfigured by the "marks" of those signers which have always been apologetic of the illiteracy of those who have thus used them. There were very few among them, during the latter days of the Colony, who were not temperate, industrious, and prudent in the management of their farms and their business affairs; they were commonly very mindful of their duties to their families and of those to their neighbors; and they were generally diligent in the discharge of at least their outward duties to God. During the period last referred to, not many among them were not in comfortable circumstances : many of them were what is called " well- " to-do : " some of them, particularly those who were members of the older families, in those days of simple habits, were considered wealthy. All of them were

" distances his neighbor from him. "--.Rec. Thomas Stannard to the Venerable Society, " Westchester, Nov. 5, 1729."

°Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, of Pelham, Adriacn Van der Donck of Tonkers, and Colonel Caleb Heathcote, of Mamaroneck, may be referred to, iu this connection.