Odell, Jackson
John M. McDonald interview — 1847-09-01
Jackson Odell (1792-1849) was the son of John Odell, one of the Westchester. He tells John Macdonald that “Mr. Vermille,” presumably Isaac Vermillya, “recollects a good deal more than he chooses to tell,” and recounts a story that the latter told him regarding the time when he was forced to guide the British expedition to Youngs’ House. Odell explains the capture of Loyalist Major Mansfield Bearmore and the skirmish near Lent’s Hill on the Tuckeyhoe Road in Yonkers where American forces defeated Captain Joshua Barnes. Odell also recalls John Champenois, a Loyalist who was captured during an American raid into present-day Bronx County on December 24, 1778. The following day Champenois was accidentally killed when a party led by Major Mansfield Bearmore attacked an American force at Youngs’ House in Mount Pleasant. Odell also indicates that when American soldiers fired at a ball taking place at the home of the Rich family at Mile Square in Yonkers it was done in retaliation for Bearmore’s raid. He concludes by mentioning the capture of Isaac Odell at the Vermille house in Yonkers in 1781.
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Transcription
- Hufeland Index Page 488 -
Septr. 1st Jackson Odell: “Mr. Vermille recollects a good deal more than he chooses to tell. He admitted to me lately that at the storming of Young’s House, Emmerick took his father at night, and compelled him to go with them as a guide, and that the British advanced by the Saw Mill river road. Mr. Vermille had a brother who held the commission of Captain in the American service, and whose widow has lately recovered a pension with arrears &c. amounting to $ . Mr. Vermille thinks it must have been a Major who commanded the party that Ca captured Bearmore, as the detachment amounting to 150 or 200 men were too large for a captain. They got below Barnes’ on the Tuckeyho road and cut off his retreat. Barnes’ third officer was Ensign Eagleson who came from Hart’s Corner. Noah’s paper of the 4th of July last contains a story which Capt. Romer pronounced false, upon the ground that it
- Hufeland Index Page 489 -
mentions a Valentine family residing at Sing Sing, but I have since ascertained that there was such a family there. – Champanois is represented as having plundered above to such an extent that Captain Williams from Peekskill got up a party for the express purpose of retaliating and taking Champanois a prisoner. He succeeded and Champanois when killed at Young’s was guarded by a negro. Firing in at the windows was commenced at Youngs house, Dec. 25, 1778, and retaliated very soon after at a house at Miles’ Square, at a ball, by a party commanded by Williams, &c. Brom. Dyckman was along. (?) Was it at Frederick Riche’s? When Isaac (Uck) Odell was taken at Jacob Vermille’s, in June 1781, by a party of Delancey’s the British for the most part pushed on in pursuit of the rest of the Americans – that is, Guides and volunteers – leaving a small guard over the prisoners, most of whom escaped.”