Rundle, Sarah Lyon, c.1789-1863
John M. McDonald interview — 1847-09-18
Sally Randall is Sarah Lyon Rundle (c.1789-1863). She was the niece of Mary Sniffen, a young woman who was killed in Rye Neck while traveling south on the Boston Post Road en route to New York City. Mrs. Rundle recounts the circumstances surrounding her aunt’s murder.
Manuscript page facsimiles
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Transcription
- Hufeland Index Page 507 -
Septr. 18th Mrs. Sally Randall: “I am the daughter of Andrew Lyon and Eunice Sniffen, sister of Mary Sniffen killed near Bloomer’s at Rye Neck. Her father, and my grandfather, Jonathan Sniffen, was a royalist, and was below at or near New York, and wrote to his daughter to bring down a fat creature (?). She accordingly started of a beautiful moonlight night accompanied by two men – Partelow and my father. Mary was anxious to go, and paraded the floor in excitement. Partelow and father wished to wait her longer. They started about 12 of a Saturday night. Her mother foreboded evil from her extreme anxiety. At Rye Neck, near the brook by Bloomer’s, a party of about seven rose from behind a stone wall and fired. – Mary fell from her horse and her attendants fled. They heard her say – “Oh, don’t!” They plundered her of her rings and pockets; and Maynard who commanded
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- Hufeland Index Page 508 -
the party carried her pockets on the point of his bayonet, and boasted he had killed a tory. Mary was engaged at the time to marry Jacob Tier, but her family had not consented to the marriage. The creature was a bull, and notified their approach by bellowing. Maynard was from the Purchase. I never heard that money was concealed in her hair and saved. It was, I believe, taken from her body.”