Rowell, Daniel, b.c.1775
John M. McDonald interview — 1850-10-16
Daniel Rowell Sr. recounts a raid led by Loyalist Major Mansfield Bearmore to the Quaker Ridge neighborhood of Greenwich, Connecticut. When this force reached the home of Benjamin Mead, his 15-year-old son Obadiah attempted to flee, and was shot dead. Bearmore claimed that his soldiers mistook Obadiah for a man whom they had hoped to capture. Rowell also describes a rocky location on the Byram River Road that was guarded by American militiamen who fired on an expedition led by Loyalist Major Thomas Huggeford. He concludes by describing an attack made against an American guard at Sherwood’s Bridge by a force guided by Davis Peck, and mentions the route taken by a party of Refugee cavalry when it captured Colonel Levi Wells in December 1780.
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Transcription
- Hufeland Index Page 1014 -
October 16th Daniel Rowell, Senior, of White Plains: “Upon one occasion, during the Revolutionary war, Bearmore, at the head of a party of horse and foot made an excursion into Connecticut as far as the house of Benjamin Mead, situate on the southern extremity of Quakers ridge, at the north west corner formed by the intersection of the Quaker Ridge and Sherwood’s Bridge, or Byram road, and the road from White Plains to Round Hill, and being about a mile easterly from
- Hufeland Index Page 1015 -
King street. Obadiah Mead, the only son of Benjamin Mead, was at a barn on his father’s farm on the east side of the Byram road, and about one hundred yards south of the house. The troops pushed for the barn to capture those who were there. As they approached Obadiah fled easterly across the fields pursued by the Refugees who after calling repeatedly upon him to stop and surrender, fired, by Bearmore’s orders and shot him dead at a spot about a quarter of a mile east of the barn. The poor youth who was only about 15 years old was brought home to his mother a corpse. The untimely fate of young Mead was much lamented, and among others by Bearmore himself who said that he (Mead) was mistaken for another person whom the Refugees were extremely desirous of taking prisoner. About two miles and a half north of Sherwoods Bridge, the Byram River road
- Hufeland Index Page 1016 -
ascends a hill where it passes an opening through a ledge of uncommonly high rocks nearly perpendicular and quite inaccessible. The rocks east of the road are thirty or forty, and those on the west from 15 ^10 to 20 ^20? feet high. Once, in the latter part of the war, Huggeford told me that he was going up to Round hill and North Street, at the head of a strong party of Refugees intending to sweep off all the cattle of the country, and was fearful of this pass. He had reason to be. It was guarded by forty or fifty militia who lay upon the top of their faces, and when the Refugees advanced near enough rose up and poured upon them a sheet of fire. They instantly faced to the right about and retreated. It was cold and the ground frozen. The advance of the Refugees was expected and the sentry in advance put his ear to the ground and heard the approach of the enemy a mile off. Two miles north of Sherwood’s Bridge
- Hufeland Index Page 1017 -
a branch of the Byram comes in from the East. When the guard at Sherwood’s Bridge was cut off by Bermore or Emmerick (?) the enemy crossed Jabez Sherwood’s log bridge and guided by Davis Peck made a circuit and so gained the White Plains and Horseneck road half a mile east of Sherwood’s Bridge where there is now a pair *pr.* of bars. Here Davis Peck left them. It was always said the British gave him $50. for piloting them. The guard was then attacked in front and rear at the same time. When Colonel Wells was taken off the Refugees also crossed the Jabez Sherwood log bridge which was half a mile above Sherwood’s Bridge.