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. 398 words

8 What were then called, sometimes, "The Fields," and, at other times, "The Common," on which has occurred so much of public interest, in later as well as in earlier days, have been called, during more than half a century past, " The Park ;" and by that name it is still known, notwithstanding the greater attractions which, for some years past, have been presented to merely pleasure seekers, in the new pleasure-grounds known as "The Central Park."

* Among the speakers at that Meeting, it has been usual, for some years past, to give a prominent place to Alexander Hamilton, then a mere lad, who had been thrown into this City, a few years previously, by those, in the West IndieB, who, for domestic if not for social reasons, had desired his removal from the place of his nativity. As there is no contemporary authority for such a favor to the previously questionable reputation of that " young West Indian," however, and because the only modern authority for the statement is the young man's Bon, John C. Hamilton, {Life of Alexander Hamilton, by bis son, New York: 1840, i.» 22, 23,) in whose unsupported testimony, in historical subjects, we have no confidence whatever, we prefer to leave that portion of the history of "the "great Meeting," ifitis truly such a portion of it, where those who were present and who recorded the doings of the great assemblage then left it, entirely untold.

WESTCHESTEK COUNTY.

" ony in the general Congress. But that, if the " Counties shall conceive this mode impracticable or " inexpedient, they be requested to give their appro- " bation to the Deputies who shall be chosen for this " City and County, to represent the Colony in Con- " gress ;" and it " instructed " "the City Committee of " Correspondence " " to use their utmost Endeavours " to carry these Resolutions into execution." After ordering the Resolutions to be printed in the public Newspapers of the City, and to be transmitted to the different Counties in the Colony and to the Committees of Correspondence for the neighboring Colonies, the Meeting then adjourned j 1 but its great influence was continued to be felt, long after the circumstances which had caused it to be assembled had passed from the memories of those who were present and who participated in its doings.