Churchill, Mrs.
John M. McDonald interview — 1845-10-03
John Macdonald does not identify Mrs. Churchill by her first name, although he notes that her maiden name was Taylor. Mrs. Churchill indicates that she was 15 or 16 years old in 1781 when the house of Gilbert Bates (now known as the Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters) on Ridge Road in Hartsdale served as French General Rochambeau’s headquarters. She notes that Rochambeau gave several large dinner parties in a barn northwest of the house.
Manuscript page facsimiles
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Transcription
- Hufeland Index Page 187 -
1845
Friday, October 3rd. Mrs. . . . . . . Churchill born Taylor, living on the Tuckeyhoe road near Hart’s corner. “I was a girl 15 or 16 years of age in 1781, when the French army lay south of the Bates House now occupied by Jackson Odell. This house was the Head Quarters of General Rochambeau during all the time the French army was encamped on the high ground between the Allaire road and Sprain Brook on the south side of the Dobbs Ferry Road. – While there General Rochambeau gave four or five large dinner parties to the French and American officers in the old barn northwest of the house which was then owned by Mr . . . Bates, afterwards by Colonel John Odell, and is now owned by Jackson Odell.