Catherine Van Winkle and her younger sister Maria were very heroic girls whose names should not be forgotten. They often carried messages from Lafayette to Washington at Belleville; on one occasion they walked there in the night to warn Washington of a plot of the English to surround and capture him. To their quick wit an American soldier owned his life. He was at their father's house, an old stone house a little south of Colonel Spier's burying ground, near where Highland and Idaho avenues now cross, when a party of English soldiers surrounded the house in search of him. The girls hid him between the feather and straw beds of their bed, and then retired, and when the English entered the room to search for him were seemingly sound asleep. The English prodded with their bayonets under the bed and searched every closet and corner but failed to find him. Catherine married a Mr. Sheppard and was a well-known and beloved character on the Hill until comparatively recent times; born in June, 1763, she lived to be one hundred years and six months old, and was bright, cheerful and active to the last. Her remains lie in an unmarked grave in the cemetery opposite the Dutch Reformed Church. Washington appreciated the loyalty of the family and was a guest of their father's, sometimes dining there. One branch of the Van Winkle family still have in their possession a handkerchief left by Washington upon an occasion of his staying over night at the Stuyvesant Tavern. EARLY CUSTOMS. It is to be regretted that so much has been forgotten of the early customs and habits of former generations of this locality. For a long time the city grew slowly; in comparatively recent times the farms have been changed into city lots and the occupations and amusements have taken different forms. Even traditions of early customs does not reach much farther back than the beginning of the present century; but, owing to the Dutch tenacity of clinging to inherited customs, it is probable that the manners of eighty and a hundred years ago were not so very different from those of their ancestors, especially as they retained the quiet, simple life of a farming community. The great holiday of the year, looked forward to alike by the old people, young men and maidens and the children, was New Year's Day. Christmas was observed by a service at the church, and not by gifts and friendly reunions; all the jollity was reserved for New Year's day. Then the mother or the grandmother brought out the bag of Spanish silver dollars, and each child was allowed to take out one as a New Year's gift. In every house was a store of "oley koecks" and New Year's cakes, a sort of "jumble" or cookey, in shape either oblong or round, stamped with a design of a vine, or bird, or flower, from a wooden stamp; these were kept ready to give to the bands of visiting children who went from house to house wishing the inmates a "Happy New Year." The young people went for long