In 1778
Katherine Farnham Hay of Newburyport, Massachusetts traveled through the
Westchester Neutral Ground under a flag of truce (a “White Handkerchief, Sew’d upon a Stick”) in order to join her
husband, a British merchant sea captain, in occupied New York City. Her
descriptions of the areas that were home to the 1st and 2nd
Westchester militias, given in two letters and a brief journal, are revealing.
Passing through the Connecticut towns of Lebanon , Wethersfield ,
New Haven , Fairfield
and Stamford Mrs. Hay encountered “fine
Cultivated, Fertile Country” of “very
pretty Towns” with “every
View…agreeable”. Despite almost three years of war the Connecticut families she met were “very agreable” and provided “very good beds” and “entertain’d us, Genteelly, Civilly, &
Polite”. Despite “the bad roads”
Mrs. Hay was “really Charm’d with Connecticut ” proclaiming it “the Garden
of America Manhattan well within the safety of British
lines. Here she had “a most Beautifull
View” of “Elegant Country Seats”
along the Hudson and East Rivers Connecticut , British Manhattan was
“a Fertile Country” and the sight of New York City was “delightfull” though not untouched by
war: Mrs. Hay’s British guide kept her entertained on the trip by “shewing…the Forts…on the way”.
Mrs. Hay’s
journey through the Neutral Ground was very different. Her first stop was White Plains which she described as “all distroy’d” and “a dreary
Wilderness”, the result of the battle in October of 1776 during which the
city was burnt by Massachusetts
troops. Mrs. Hay spent the night not in a private house, but in “the Guard House” a busy military outpost
where in one room “a Tory is taken &
brought here a prisoner” while “in
the Next apartment a poor soldier groaning with his thigh broke to pieces”.
Unlike the carefully tended farms of
Connecticut and Manhattan in Westchester “most
of the inhabitants have left” Those who remained were not infrequently
“robbed of everything he possessed” as Robert Bolton wrote in his 1848 History
of Westchester; those with connections amongst the British garrison sent their
furniture and carriages “to Town” as
Mrs. Hay explained. While meals in Connecticut and Manhattan mentioned, they
are not described; the particular attention paid to the foods she was served in
the Neutral Ground and the context in which she described them reflect her
discomfort with the fare. At a home a mile from Kingsbridge the homeowner could
provide “nothing but Gammon & eggs”
and at a “publick House” near the Van
Cortland estate in Yonkers, Mrs. Hay was offered “some Bohea tea…Sugar Near the Colour of Mollasses…some fried Bacon
& Eggs & Broil’d Mutton”. The setting and service likewise
horrified the traveler who recoiled at the tea being “Boil’d in a porridge pot & laded out” with “pewter Spoons the Colour of led” all served on a “large Square pine table” in a room with
“as much Dirt as you cou’d well Wade thro”.
Where the better provisions could be found is suggested by her narrative. As
her journey approached the British lines, Mrs. Hay came under the protective
watch of Lt. Col. Andrea Emmerick and was a guest of the Delancey and the Van
Cortland families. Emmerick and Lt. Col. James Delancey officered corps of
loyalist refugees infamous for their plundering. Unlike the spartan fare found
in the common homes along her journey through the Neutral Ground, Mrs. Hay was
provided by Emmerick’s light horsemen with “a
fine joint of Mutton & 2 Bottles of Wine”on one occasion and “green tea Loaf Sugar White Wine &
everything to make it agreeable” on another. One cannot help wonder from whom
these had been looted.
Mrs. Hay
felt considerable fear in her travels through Westchester; none of which is
apparent in her entries from Connecticut. Traveling through the war-torn
county, Mrs. Hay feared they “might have
been taken” by, it would seem, the marauding irregulars known as Skinners. Being
amongst regular troops did little to ease her anxiety. Passing from the American
lines to the British Mrs. Hay felt she was “in
the Midst of an Army almost” for the scenes before her eyes made it “seem as if I was in a Camp”. Along the way she was “Stopt by a Hessian regiment & with great difficulty cou’d make him
understand my Business” and was forced “to
convince the World I was not a Spy, for they are very Suspicious of Ladies”.
When brought before the British General Sir John Vaughan she was “receiv’d…in a very rough Manner” as the
general thundered that “he wou’d have no
Damn’d Smuggling work” and “if the
Damn’d Rebels wanted to get Intelligence it should not be by Ladies”.
After many
trials Katherine Hay was taken in by friends of her seafaring husband in New
York City. I think it appropriate to end with a final quote from our
correspondent: “I assure you it is not a
trifle to get to Newyork”
Katherine Farnham Hay. The Journal of the “Rebel Lady”: Katherine
Farnham Hay’s Account of her Trip to New York City, 1778. Ondine E.
LeBlanc, ed. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series,
Vol. 109 (1997) 102-122.
