Merritt, David
John M. McDonald interview — 1846-10-12
David Merritt gives his impressions of captains Samuel Kipp and Gilbert Totten of DeLancey’s Refugees. He then describes the winter skirmish in Ossining in January 1783 when a party of Refugees surprised a group of Westchester Guides and militia cavalry led by Daniel Williams. Westchester Guide John Odell was able to escape capture by using the frozen Hudson River. Merritt concludes by noting that there was no bridge between the mouth of the Croton River and Pines Bridge in Yorktown during the Revolutionary War.
Manuscript page facsimiles
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Transcription
- Hufeland Index Page 440 -
Octr. 12th David Merritt, of Courtland; Captain Kipp was a remarkably fine, fresh complexioned, portly, stout man, and made a very military appearance in regimentals. Kipp had the reputation of being a brave active soldier, but severe. Captain Totten on the other
- Hufeland Index Page 441 -
hand was kind to prisoners and of very pleasing manners. I remember when he returned from Nova Scotia. He seemed to have as many friends as though he had been a whig. Everybody spoke well of him. When the Refugees surprised Williams’s party at Orsers, a party of them went north and cut off their retreat, driving Colonel John Odell, Post the guide, and others upon the ice where Odell fought with two and escaped. In the Revolutionary war there was no bridge between the mouth of the Croton and Pinesbridge until the Continental or New Bridge was built, which was situated about a mile from (that is, above) the present bridge at the wire factory.