a change immediately. After the war with England was over, and three years after the adoption of the state constitution, the legislature of Massachusetts enacted by statute of 1783, chapter 36, paragraph 1, “ that land should descend equally among children, and such as legally represent them, except that the eldest son should have two shares." So that the Puritan birthright was re-enacted by the commonwealth of Massachusetts. This exception was abrogated by statute of 1789, chapter 2, which went into operation on the first of January, 1790; and from and after that time all children took in equal shares without regard to sex or primogeniture.

In the vacation months of each year numerous family reunions take place throughout New England. They are occasions of much enjoyment. People from far and near flock to the old homestead, and they talk genealogy, even as the Israelites did of old. It is rank heresy to so much as question the declaration that all men are born free and equal, but God's chosen people of the Scriptures and our Puritan ancestors did not believe in it at all. May we not ask if, in spite of all the vast benefits that have come to our race by the American revolution, we did not lose something of the sacredness of home and family ties when we abandoned the patriarchal headship and adopted the Procrustean scheme for making all men equal? Would not more of these old homesteads have been retained, would not more ancestral hearth-fires have been kept burning, had the Puritan idea been allowed to prevail instead of the carving and levelingdown scheme?

The decadence of the hill towns and the abandonment of the old homesteads that were their crowning glory afford themes for much discussion. Not until after the abrogation of the Puritan family headship did attachment to the soil fail or the number of children in native families begin to grow less. So long as the family looked forward to a chosen one as the presumptive care-taker of the old home, all went well. The one whom nature and custom had selected to maintain the family honor and guard the accumulating heirlooms had an incentive to make the place really a family centre, an attractive object for an annual pilgrimage. The younger brethren were taught early the necessity for learning useful trades, and as the country grew they went into business. They were imbued with reverence for the old home, and all knew that its best chamber, the fattest turkey, the choicest products of the yeoman master, were reserved for those who wandered into town life, but whose feet homeward turned for the annual Thanksgiving, the New England family festival.

It is just one hundred years since the Puritan first-born lost (by statute) his birthright his first claim upon the home of his fathers. At about the

same time he took to trade and commerce and then to manufactures. His children are now the merchant princes of the land. With all the material success which has attended the diversion from the patriarchal system there is a shadow. Where are the homely homes of the fathers? Why are strangers sitting in their gates, who know not the children of the men who built them on the verdant hillsides and gave the healthful impetus which sent forth into the world so many with strong brains to win in every field of endeavor?

With wealth and refinement the longings to tread in the footprints of the fathers are not lost. There is much lamentation over the abandoned farms of New England, but there will be found sentiment enough in the men in whose veins runs the blood of the pioneers to restore to them their ancient homelikeness, without calling upon aliens to come and possess.

We cannot in this radical age re-enact the Puritan birthright. We may be permitted to allude to it as a system under which the race thrived. Under the apparent materialism of the well-to-do descendants of the Puritans there is an ingrained attachment to the soil and to family, which will yet recover every one of those dear old homesteads. There may not be in the future a legal birthright, yet the birthright of memory, tradition, and reverence will not be sold like Esau's, but tenderly guarded with the fathers' blessing.

Nathan M. Hawkes

LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS.

THE ACTION AT TARRYTOWN, 1781

HEROISM OF CAPTAIN GEORGE HURLBUT

Greatness of reputation does not guarantee a corresponding degree of merit, neither does lack of reputation prove that merit is wanting. Accidents of fortune may bestow honor where it is undeserved, or they may deprive men of honor when it is due. The fame of Paulding and his associates so completely obscures that of all other patriots whose names belong to the history of Tarrytown during the Revolution, that the latter are seldom mentioned in connection with the time or the place. Yet the captors of André are famed not so much on account of what they personally accomplished as because of the importance of the event in which they participated. The merit of their performance did not consist in wisely laid or in bravely executed pians, for their exploit was a mere accident, and they risked neither life nor limb in the prosecution of it; but in the fact that they possessed enough common honesty and common sense to refuse to release the British spy who had fallen into their hands, when they were tempted to do so by an offer of gold.

The captors were generously rewarded; for, in addition to the honor they received, they were publicly thanked for their fidelity, pensioned, presented with farms, and decorated with medals while they lived, and awarded monuments at public expense when they died. They were justly entitled to the material part of their reward, but the reputation they acquired far exceeded their merit. They unwittingly thwarted a dangerous plot and were thus made famous by good fortune, while men of greater worth, whom fortune did not favor, died without reward and have been forgotten. Among the latter is Captain George Hurlbut, who specially distinguished himself in the engagement known as " the action at Tarrytown." It is the purpose of this sketch to briefly outline his interesting career.

George Hurlbut was born at New London, Connecticut, about 1756. His parents were Joseph and Elizabeth Hurlbut, the former being a descendant of Thomas Hurlbut, who crossed the Atlantic in 1635 with Lion Gardener, the builder and commander of the first fort at Saybrook, Connecticut, while the latter was the daughter of George Buttolph of Salem,

Massachusetts.* No particulars are known concerning the events of Hurlbut's childhood. The first account we have of him is when, in April, 1775, immediately after intelligence was received of the skirmish at Lexington, he shouldered his musket, and with others of his townsmen hastened to join the American army near Boston.† At this time he was nineteen years of age, a young man of good presence, more than ordinary intelligence, quick to think and act; in brief, a typical New England youth with New England spirit back of him. The command to which he attached himself was an independent company formed in New London by Captain William Coit, who afterward attained some distinction as an officer in the navy. The organization was made up, for the most part, of young men of Hurlbut's stamp, and the first active service they saw was at the battle of Bunker Hill. It does not appear that Hurlbut's connection with Captain Coit's company was of the nature of a regular enlistment, for we find that soon after the battle he was mustered into what was known as "the Light Horse troop." It is very evident that his first experience of the terrors of war did not quench his patriotic fervor, otherwise his army life would have ended at Bunker Hill, where it began. When his first term of enlistment expired he became a member of "the Washington Life Guards," and in 1778 he was promoted to a captaincy in Colonel Sheldon's regiment of dragoons. This organization saw much of its service in Westchester county, and it -was while connected with it and doing duty in this place that Hurlbut chiefly won his fame and ended his military career.

"The action at Tarrytown" was not an affair of sufficient importance to merit mention in works upon general history, and accounts of it must be sought in out of the way sources, such as diaries, journals, newspapers of the time, etc. It occurred on the evening of July 15, 1781, and it is a strange coincidence, that without forethought on the part of any one the regular meeting of the Tarrytown Historical Society and the reading of this paper should have fallen upon the same day of the month.

Dr. Thatcher in his Military Journal briefly refers to the action as follows: "July 15 two of the British frigates and several smaller vessels passed up the North river as far as Tarrytown, in defiance of our cannon, which were continually playing on them. Their object appears to be to seize some of our small vessels which are passing down the river

The Hurlbut Genealogy, by Henry H. Hurlbut.

+ History of New London, by E. M. Caulkins, New London, 1852, p. 537.

This paper was read before the Tarrytown Historical Society by its president on the 15th of July, 1890.

with supplies for our army. One small sloop loaded with bread for the French army has fallen into their hands." Count William de Deux Ponts, who was with the French allies at Dobbs' Ferry, makes the following mention of the action:* "On the 15th of July, at half past ten o'clock in the evening, we heard several reports of cannon and musketry, and a moment after they beat the general. The whole army rushed to arms and was formed in an instant. After having remained in line of battle for half or three quarters of an hour, we received orders to return to our tents. On the morning of the 16th of July I learned that the guns heard yesterday had been fired at Tarrytown, a small place on the banks of the Hudson river, where they have been in the habit of unloading flour, which comes to us from the Jerseys, by two English frigates which wanted to support the attack made by three English schooners with the intention of seizing and burning five small vessels laden with flour. The attack was unsuccessful; indeed they succeeded in setting fire to one of these vessels, but it was put out and the cargo saved."

The only full and satisfactory account of the action is to be found in Moore's Diary of the American Revolution, where it is copied from the New Jersey Gazette of August 8, 1781: “July 20, 1781. On Sunday evening, the 15th inst., two sloops of war, two tenders, and one galley, all British, came up the Hudson river, with intention, it is supposed, to destroy the stores then moving from West Point to the army. There were at that time two sloops going down the river laden with cannon and powder. As soon as they discovered the enemy they put about and stood in for Tarrytown, where they run aground. The enemy, having a fair wind and tide, came up the river so fast that it was impossible to march the infantry down in time to unload or protect the stores, as there were no troops at Tarrytown, except a sergeant's guard of French infantry. Colonel Sheldon (whose regiment lay at Dobb's Ferry) immediately marched his mounted dragoons to the place, where he ordered his men to dismount and assist in unloading the stores, which they did with great dispatch. By this time, the enemy having come to anchor off Tarrytown began a heavy cannonade, under cover of which they sent two gunboats and four barges to destroy the vessels.

Captain Hurlbut of the second regiment of light dragoons was stationed on board of one of these with twelve men, armed only with pistols and swords; he kept his men concealed until the enemy were alongside, when he gave them a fire, which they returned and killed one of

*

My Campaigns in America." Count William de Deux Ponts, 1786-87. Translated by Samuel Abbott Green, Boston, 1868, p. 118.