Dean Stanley preached in Calvary Church on Sunday evening, October 7, 1878. He came to Mr. Field's home at Irvington the following morning. Soon after breakfast on Tuesday the family realized that their guest was more familiar with the history of this part of the country than they were. It was just above Tarrytown that Major André had been captured; he was executed across the river. That was enough to excite the curiosity of the visitors, and at dinner on Tuesday evening it was proposed to the dean that the next morning he should cross the river to Tappan and find the spot. This was not easily done; no one knew the exact place. There was Washington's headquarters, and he had closed his shutters so as not to see André hanged, so that the scene of the execution must have been near that house. At last an old man of over ninety came and said that in 1821, when André's body was removed to England, he had stood by and had seen the grave opened; and that the roots of an apple-tree, which he pointed out, were twisted about the head of the coffin. The drive had been so long that it was past three o'clock before the party returned; and not until dinner did they tell that their search had been successful. It was then that Mr. Field said: "Mr. Dean, if you will write an inscription I will buy the land and put up a stone, and then the place will be known." His idea was simply to mark an event in the history of the country; but a part of the press insisted that an American had erected a monument to a British spy, and this was reiterated far and wide, and flew from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Dean Stanley felt this keenly, and wrote: "If you find that there is really a feeling against it, pray do not think of it. The game is not worth the candle. Poor Major André, engaging as he was, is not worth the rekindling forgotten animosities." The monument was twice injured by explosion of dynamite. After the second of these, on November 3, 1885, Mr. Field refused to replace the stone. He said that the spot was now sufficiently marked. On the stone were these words: