Romer, John
John M. McDonald interview — 1850-10-17
John Romer (1764-1855) was the son of Jacob Romer and Frena Haerlager. The family resided near the present Tarrytown Reservoir during the Revolutionary War. He recounts the entrapment of a force of American cavalry under Captain David Hopkins by British cavalry in Greenburgh on July 30, 1779, and Hopkins’ efforts to extricate his command. Romer notes that the southernmost American guard post in Westchester in 1777 and earlier was at the home of Cornelius Van Tassel in Greenburgh. He concludes by discussing a “Captain Buchanan of the water guard,” who was frequently at Tarrytown and skirmished with the Refugees.
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Transcription
- Hufeland Index Page 1024 -
October 17th Jon Romer, aged : “In Captain Hopkins’s affair on the 30th of July, 1779, with Emmerick and the Yagers, Hopkins attempted to retreat both by the road to Twitchings’s corner and by the Bedford road, both of which he found in possession of the enemy, the former being held by Simcoe’s or Emmerick’s forces and the latter by the Yagers. Both of these roads were in existence and used long anterior to the Revolution, but at that time there was no house standing upon either of Twitching’s four corners. The lowest of the American guards was kept at Cornelius Van Tassell’s house at the time it was burnt in 1777, and for a long time previously, but I do not know where the main-guard was then posted. Capt. Buchanan of the water guard was often over about Tarrytown where he had several skirmishes with the Refugees from below. I don’t know anything about his having been wounded on the 3d of January, 1778.