CERTIFICATES OF THE SERVICES OF COL. AARON BURR IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, FROM HIS FELLOW-SOLDIERS: LETTER FROM SAMUEL ROWLAND, TO RICHARD V. MORRIS, ESQ.,..... 898 CERTIFICATE FROM MR. ISAAC JENNINGS AND MR. ANDREW WAKEMAN, 400 LETTER FROM ROBERT HUNTER, ESQ. TO GABRIEL FURMAN, ESQ.,.. LETTER FROM SAMUEL YOUNG, ESQ. TO COм. VALENTINE MORRIS,. INTRODUCTION. In the latter part of the month of May, 1776, the city of New York was garrisoned by about thirteen thousand troops, regulars and militia, under the command of Major-General George Washington, comprising men from every section of the country this side of North Carolina, and as far north as New Hampshire. His head-quarters were established at what was then known as Richmond Hill, and which is more fully described in the succeeding chapters, now familiar to present residents as the country seat of Col. Burr, and after his purchase and occupancy, named Burr's Hill. The second in command was that gallant and tried old soldier, General Putnam, whose feats in the wolf's den have become as household words with every schoolboy in the country. He had established his head-quarters at the house well known as No. 1 Broadway, on the corner of Battery Place, built many years before by Major Kennedy for his private residence, and in later days familiar to New Yorkers as the residence of two mayors. General Putnam's aid at this period was Major Aaron Burr, who had sought the post in preference to a similar position in the military family of the Commander-in-Chief, where he was confined exclusively to the duties of an amanuensis, which did not suit his ardent, active military spirit, and General Putnam was glad to avail himself of the services of one who had proved himself as eminent with the pen, as with the sword. In the month of May, General Washington was summoned to Philadelphia to attend upon Congress, then in session, and General Putnam was left in chief command, with instructions to fortify the city at every point to repel a threatened invasion, as Admiral Howe, with his fleet, and an army of some thirty thousand regulars and Hessians, had left the waters of Virginia under the command of Lord Howe, and it was presumed that the next point of attack would be the city of New Yorkwhich supposition was fully borne out by subsequent events, as recorded in history. On the last day of May, and, of course, during the absence of General Washington, General Put nam was one day the recipient-through a boat from Staten Island (then occupied by the British), bearing a flag of truce-of a letter from Major Moncrieffe of the British army, who with his regiment was encamped on the island, in which he set forth that the chances and hazards of war had compelled him to leave his only child, a daughter just past fifteen, Margaret Moncrieffe, alone and unprotected at the house of a widow lady near the town of Elizabeth, and with entire strangers; and as he could not foresee what the perils of war might bring forth in a day or an hour, and as the locality where she resided might soon become the field of active operations, he was loath to leave her there if it could be possibly avoided. He therefore implored the general, as a soldier and a gentleman, to afford to his child that which he could not—a shelter and a home until such time as he could place her in a position of greater security. General Putnam promptly replied, that the request would be cheerfully granted, and that in in his own home, in the bosom of his family, she would be at least assured of hospitable treatment. The young girl was sent for on the following day (the first of June), and from that time remained an inmate of General Putnam's family, until detected in communicating with the enemy, |