Head Quarters N. York 13th Feb 1776.

Parole Thanet.

Countersign Burk.

A Hundred & Sixty men to parade to Morrow Morning for Fatigue. With the Same Proportion of officers as this day, the men to breakfast Before they Parade, Sixty men to put themselves under the directions of Col Sears—the other Hundred under the directions of Capt. Smith. The Gaurd as usual-one Gill of Rum a day

To be allow'd the Fatiged P! day

Isaac Sears

Deputy Adjt General.

New York 14th Feb 1776.

Regt Orders.

It is ordered that the Several Capts in the Regiment Commanded by Col David Waterbury Make out A Weekly Return this day of their Companys that the State of Regiment may be Known by me

David Waterbury Jun' Col.

It is also Ordered that they turn in to the Quarter Master all the Damaged Cartridges.

Parole Barre

Countersign Stanhope S

Head Quarters N. York 14th Feb 1776.

Evening Orders the Same For Fatigue to morrow as to day. The same Gaurd to Parade as usual, but if it Should Happen the Independant Battallions take the Gaurds, the Corps of Stirling, Waterbury, the Independant Company of Connecticut & General Lee's Party to appear under Arms before Trinity Church at half Past ten in Order that their Arms Accoutriments & ammunition may be Reviewed. The drum Major of Lord Stirling's & Col Waterbury's to take the Command of the Corps of drumers Alternity, if any of the drumers shew any Inclination to be Disobedient the drum Major immediately To Confine them, for the future the Serg! Major of the two Corps and Serg Denmark of the Riflers To attend the town Major with thier Orderly Books

Isaac Sears

Deputy Adj' General.

MINOR TOPICS

MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN MAUNSELL, B. A.

This distinguished British officer of the former century, was a citizen of New York from about 1763 until his death, July 27, 1795.* "He resided at Harlem Heights." Rev. Maunsell Van Rensselaer, D. D., of this city, in his courteous note, giving the above information, also states that General Maunsell "left no descendants here, but had children in Ireland." Burke says he was the son of Richard Maunsell Esq., M. P. of Limerick from 1741 to 1761, and that he was the

fourth son of Thomas, who married a daughter of Sir Theophilas Eaton. The General's mother was Jane, eldest daughter of Richard Waller, Esq., of Castle Waller, County Tipperary. One of his brothers was the Rev. William Maunsell, D.D. His father died in 1773. Of General Maunsell's military career prior to his coming to this city, we are told that "he commanded the 56th regiment at the siege of Havana in 1760, and led the party which stormed the Moro." The British Army Register states that he was created colonel, August 29, 1777, a major-general, Oct. 19, 1781, and was placed on the half-pay list in 1788. The earliest recorded notice of him in New York concerns his second marriage. The Trinity Church Register says: "John Maunsell and Elizabeth Wraxall, June II, 1763." As his marriage was the determining cause of his subsequent liferesidence in New York and the occasion of his name's being found in its honored family nomenclature, even to the present time, it is proper to speak particularly of

* The following obituary notice appeared in Greenleaf's New York Journal and Patriotic Register, August 1, 1795:

"DIED.-On Monday, p. m., of a severe and tedious illness, in his 71st year, Gen. John Maunsell, for many years, a distinguished and meritorious officer in the British Army. He possessed many eminent virtues, and was held in high estimation by a numerous circle of friends and acquaintances. He left an amiable and much respected widow, with attached friends, to regret the loss."

the lady to whom he was united, and of her social connections. It was from the lips of her grand niece, recently deceased, Mrs. Susan Ten Eyck Williamson, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, the venerable widow of Captain Charles Williamson, U. S. N., that we learned many of the facts concerning Mrs. Maunsell. Her maiden name was Stillwell. When she married General Maunsell she was the widow of Peter Wraxall, to whom she was married December 2, 1756, and who is supposed to have been the Captain Peter Wraxall, of the merchant ship Sampson. Lieut. Robert Wraxall of the Foot at New York, in 1754, was probably his brother or near kinsman. The anecdote is related of Capt. Wraxall, that being a friend and correspondent of young Maunsell, afterwards general, then in England, he wrote to him from New York of his intended marriage to Miss Stillwell, and that in his reply, Maunsell said: "Pray don't bring an American squaw to England!"

To this pleasant protest, the gallant captain, of course, paid no attention, and shortly after took his newly wedded American wife, as compagnon du voyage, to his native shores, and even had the temerity to present her at court, where she is said to have been very much admired. And as the story goes, Maunsell was there on hand standing and talking with several gentlemen in one of the anterooms, as the usher announced Captain Wraxall and lady, and that when they passed all were struck with the remarkable beauty and elegance of Mrs. Wraxall. Captain Wraxall lived but a few years, and in due time she became the wife of his friend Maunsell, whose memory of her personal attractions may possibly have been the magnet that first drew him to colonial New York.

Mrs. Maunsell was the daughter of Richard Stillwell, who died at Shrewsbury, New Jersey, in 1743, æt. 71; and his wife, in 1746, who was the daughter of a clergyman by the name of Ray, once living at Block Island. Her grandfather, Richard Stillwell, Esq., a Cromwellian, married a daughter of Solicitor Cooke, implicated in the execution of Charles I., who with two brothers fled to America after the Restoration, and became a prominent citizen and magistrate; he settled on Staten Island. Her grandmother (née Cooke) is said to have been, until her father's defection, one of the maids of honor to the Queen. The reader is referred to that curious antiquarian work of President Stiles, of Yale College, published at New Haven in 1794, and entitled the "History of the Three Judges" of Charles I. of England, in which he thoroughly investigated the then current belief, as to the number of the so-called "Regicides" who fled to America for refuge after the Restoration. Having heard through a friend, who had learned the fact several years before, that there was a widow lady, named Watkins (the sister of Mrs. Maunsell), who claimed descent from one of them, he addressed a letter of inquiry to her on the subject, and received an answer at considerable length, with full particulars, which is inserted in the volume-now one rarely seen. With regard to its contents and its venerable writer, the learned doctor thus speaks: "I have since seen this very respectable lady, who is still living at Harlem, and in conversation with her received even more ample information on the subject."

This work of President Stiles set at rest the idea of some that Solicitor Cooke was one of the Judges of Charles I., and that he became a refugee to our shores. For it refers to the histories of that time to show, in connection with the testimony of Mrs. Watkins, that Lord Cooke, as Solicitor at the King's "trial and adjudication," was condemned to death and executed in England. Dr. Stiles had also been told of this remarkable woman, that she even "gloried in being a descendant of an ancestor who had suffered for liberty." The Stillwell family history contains biographical sketches of this eminent man, and of his brother, both of whom were condemned to a barbarous death. Letters written by them in prison, shortly before the execution, exhibit such a spirit of heroic trust in the unerring judgment of God, and of joyous faith in Christ, as to leave no room to question the entire inculpability, in foro conscientiæ.

From sources of information already quoted, and possibly needing some correction, we now subjoin genealogically as follows: One of Mrs. Maunsell's sisters, the oldest daughter of Richard Stillwell, married Lord Aflick, and lived and died in a castle built by William the Conqueror. They had no children. The second daughter married Mr. John Watkins, of the Island of St. Nevis, who came to New York long before the Revolution, and became a large landholder in old Harlem, on the North River side, where he lived with his family many years. Portions of his estate there were sold to Dr. Samuel Bradhurst, General Alexander Hamilton and others. The fourth daughter married Col. Clark, B. A.; their daughter married Lord Holland. Our memorandum also states that of the children of John and Lydia Watkins, their second daughter, Lydia, married James Beekman, of New York, whose fine family mansion on the East River side, several miles out of the ancient city limits, stood there for more than a century before its demolition.* On the wall of a lower room in the New York Historical Society building is attached a beautiful relic of this once noted old New York residence, over which is inscribed : "Drawing Room Mantel and Dutch tiles, from Beekman House, Turtle Bay, built 1763, taken down in 1867. Presented by James W. Beekman." To the memory of the thoughtful donor, we would fain pay, in passing, the tribute of respect justly due to a man of rare historical and literary culture, and a most worthy representative, both of his honorable ancestry in this country, and of its ancient Dutch Reformed Church, of which he was a member. At the residence of his son, James

* This famous old mansion was occupied for a while, soon after the Revolutionary War, by Chief Justice Richard Morris, it having been granted by the State to him in lieu of his own in Morrisania, seized and burnt by special orders of Governor Tryon, in 1775. Mr. Morris was Judge of the Vice-Admiralty under the crown at the commencement of the war of Independence, but promptly espoused the American cause. Governor Tryon urged him to continue in office until more quiet and profitable times. His noble answer was, that he never would sacrifice his principles to his interest, and that his office was at the Governor's disposal. Thenceforward he was a marked man, and the devastation of his fine estate followed, with the destruction of his dwelling-house on the banks of the Harlem, situated near where the elegant mansion of his grandson Lewis G. Morris, Esq., now stands

Beekman, Esq., East 34th St., several old family portraits, life-size, adorn the walls, which for generations graced the Turtle Bay house. Another daughter married a Philadelphian, whose name is not given. One of these, Elizabeth, remembered in Mrs. Maunsell's will probated in 1815,-as also "the daughters of Charles Watkins," is there designated as the widow of Robert H. Dunkin, Esq., of New York. Their daughter married John S. Van Rensselaer, a lawyer of Albany. Mary died single. John, their oldest son, married Judith, youngest daughter of Governor Livingston of New Jersey. Charles, a merchant, married a Miss Marshall of this city, one of whose ancestors was a Ten Eyck of the original New Amsterdam stock. He was the father of the late Mrs. Williamson, previously mentioned, and of Mrs. John Lewis, a surviving sister, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to whose kind pen we have been indebted for material on the subject of this article. Their widowed mother, at her husband's decease, removed to Elizabeth, and for several years occupied the stately old mansion, which subsequently was long the famous residence of Major-General Winfield Scott. Another son, Dr. Samuel Watkins, lived in Jefferson, now Watkins, Schuyler Co., New York, at the head of Seneca Lake. He was an early proprietor of that picturesque region, and married there, late in life.

The first mention of General Maunsell in the New York public prints, as yet noticed by us, occurs in "Holt's Journal and General Advertiser" of October 28, 1773, under the head of "Inward Entries," thus: "Ship Grace, from Bristol, England, Capt. Chambers; Col. Maunsell and Mr. Charles Dunn came passengers with Capt. Chambers." In the same paper, of May 11, 1775, we next find him noticed as follows: “Thursday last, the Harriet Packet sailed with the mail for Falmouth; went out passengers, the Hon. John Watts, and Roger Morris, members of his Majesty's Council for this Province, Isaac Wilkins, member for the Borough of Westchester, Col. Maunsell and others." This unusual leaving for England, by prominent loyalists, at the outset of the Revolution, is mentioned in the "Ellison Documents,"-under about the same date,-printed in this Magazine [VIII. 284], which thus refers to it: "Several of our principal men are going to England immediately," etc., specifying the same names. New York was then a caldron of patriotic furor, so alarming in its ebullitions that pronounced friends of British rule began to tremble even for their personal safety. Thus the eminent Dr. Chandler, rector of St. John's Church, Elizabeth Town, New Jersey, who had come to New York to embark for England at the same time,-early in May, 1775-states in his MS. and still unpublished diary, that he was advised not to spend a night in the city, but to go at once on board his ship, which he did. He also mentions Col. Maunsell as his fellow-voyager to Europe, although not a fellow-passenger, and further on in his journal, viz., "August 22, 1775," speaks of him as being then in England. Relative to the disturbed condition of affairs in this country at the crisis before referred to, Ellison again records, July 20th, 1775 [VIII. 286]: "This day has been observed as a solemn fast, and sermons were preached in all the churches suitably to the times. There never was a time when fasting and

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