Home / Dawson, Henry B. Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution. Morrisania, NY: (privately printed by the author), 1886. / Passage

Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution

Dawson, Henry B. Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution. Morrisania, NY: (privately printed by the author), 1886. 388 words

" Francis's Long-room," iu which this Caucus was held, subsequently became more famous than it had previously been, because it was the room in which the Officers of the Army of the Revolution assembled, on Thursday, the fourth of December, 1783, after the enemy had evacuated the City and the Peace had been entirely established, to take their final leave of their illustrious Chief ; and from which, accompanied by his sorrowful friends -- " a solemn, mute, and mournful procession, with "heads hanging down and dejected countenances " -- he walked, directly, to Whitehall-slip, and was rowed, thence, to Powle's Hook, now Jersey City, on his way to Annapolis, to which place the Congress had adjourned, to resign the Command of the Army, with which he had been invested, in 177.5.-- (Gordon's History of the War of the Revolution, iv., 383, 384; Marshall's Life of Washington, (Phila. Edit.) iv., 619, 620 ; etc.)

It is proper to be said, in that connection, that Samuel Francis was " a man of dark complexion," probably a mulatto; that he was known, ordinarily, as "Black Sam ; " and that, when General Washington entered the City, on the twenty- fifth of November, " he took up his head- " quarters at the Tavern " of that dttsky landlord. -- (Dunlap's History of New York, ii., 233, the author of which related these circumstances lr in his own personal knowledge of them.)

rence from any one. There was no appearance of deception in the "Advertisement" through which the Caucus had been invited, in the instance under consideration; and, subsequently, when the Caucus assembled, no attempt appears to have been made to do anything more than the "Advertisement" had ■ authorized, notwithstanding those who had been specifically invited and were present, so largely outnumbered those uninvited intruders who opposed them, that any change from the terms of the " Advertisement " which they were inclined to make, could have been made -- indeed, it appears to have been intended, by the Merchants, only for consultation and for the orderly preparation of measures to be submitted to the body of the inhabitants of the City, at a Meeting to be called for that purpose, for their approval or disapproval, without losing sight, however, of what was the real, substantial purpose of the movement.