across the river to prevent British ships from sailing up. Westward at Little Britain, six miles from Newburgh, is Mrs. Fall's house, the headquarters of George Clinton, and here on the floor is the stain where the spy who swallowed the CLINTON'S HEADQUARTERS AT LITTLE BRITAIN, NEAR NEWBURGH. bullet took the emetic and revealed the proposed treason. The old homestead of the Clinton family was in Little Britain, and hither James Clinton, after the attack on Forts Clinton and Montgomery, returned, his boots filled with blood. One of his great-grandchildren relates that he entered the dining-room where the family were eating breakfast, and requesting his mother and sisters to retire lest they faint from the sight of his wounds, as was the habit of gentlewomen of the last century, told the story of his escape to his father. The statue of his distinguished brother, George,' stands in Newburgh's business centre on the Square which oddly enough bears the name of Colden, the leading family of colonial days. The distinguished Coldens, although not patriots, added a lustre to the town, and the Clintons will not quarrel with their shades. Mad Anthony Wayne, the Rough Rider of his day, had his headquarters on the Glebe near the present corner of Liberty Street and GEORGE CLINTON MEMBIR OF CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 1775-1777 BRIGADIER-GENERAL CONTINENTAL ARMY 1777 GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 1777-85-1801-4 VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 1804 1812 Cara Patria Carior Libertas, Inscription on Clinton Statue in Colden Square, Newburgh. Statue by Henry Kirke Brown. Presented to the city by the His torical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands and other citizens. Unveiled on the 119th anniversary of the battles of Forts Clinton and Montgomery in the Highlands, Broad. Weigand's tavern, with the whippingpost in front of the door, a rendezvous of CLINTON STATUE IN COLDEN SQUARE, AT NEWBURGH. soldiers, stood on Liberty Street interest in Newburgh focuses on the coming of Washington to the Hasbrouck house in March, 1782, although recent research discredits the story pictured on the covers of our copybooks in school days of the disbanding of the whole Continental army on these grounds. In 1779-So Washington had lived in the Ellison house, no longer standing, in New Windsor, a small village to the south on the river, separated from Newburgh proper by the Quassaick Creek, but after the surrender of Yorktown, he and his family with his staff became the guests of Colonel Jonathan Hasbrouck in the stone house, on the corner of Washington and Liberty Streets. Here Washington wrote his reply to the Nicola letter, which in popular parlance offered him the crown. Here is the chair in which he sat when he took his pen in hand and dipped it in ink to put on paper words which after more than a hundred years glow with the fervor of their author's single-hearted purpose. COLONEL LEWIS NICOLA, NEWBURGH, May 22d, 1782. SIR-With a mixture of great surprise and astonishment, I have read with attention the sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no occurrence in the course of the War, has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed, and I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity. For the present the communication of them will rest in my own bosom, unless some further agitation of the matter shall make a disclosure necessary. I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address, which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the |
