- Hufeland Index Page 1071 -
October 20th Miss Sarah Oakley, at Mr. Nathaniel Valentine's, Tuckey- -hoe, &c.: "I don't know whether the guides had commissions. There is none among my father's papers. It was at General Washington's Head- -quarters that my father dined when they urged him to go below as a spy.
- Hufeland Index Page 1072 -
Several other officers besides Washington were present upon this occasion. - About a year ago (in 1850) we went to the Quaker burying ground in Purchase Street where we identified the grave of our father. After we had discovered and fixed upon it, Mr. James Carpenter who lives near by, and was present at the interment, joined us, and his recollection of the spot corresponded with ours exactly, so that in all human probability we have ascertained the right grave. We then had a plain stone prepared and put up, such as the Quakers allow. It contains simply the name of Cornelius Oakley, the time of his death, and his age and nothing more. My father frequently visited his relatives and friends, in company with the young French officers about Rochambeau, whose names he and my mother used to mention. [Lameth, Berthier, Dumas, &c.]
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I don't know when he was taken, or how long he remained a prisoner at New York. It was, I believe, in the Sugar House in Liberty Street where he was confined. In jail he went by the name of the Quaker, in consequence, probably, of his father belonging to the Friends. He had many friends in New York who furnished him with provisions. These were always left 'for the Quaker.' By good address he made the jailer his warm friend. When he determined upon an escape, his city friends furnished him with citizens clothes, without which any attempt of the kind would have been fruitless.