The Continental Dragoon: A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778Stephens, Robert Neilson
History
The Continental Dragoon: A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778
Stephens, Robert Neilson
New York (State) -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
Allusion has been made, in different chapters of this narrative, to
the Hessians who daily patrolled the roads in the vicinity of the
manor-house. This duty often fell to Pruschank's yagers, the troop to
which belonged Captain Rowe, whose love story is thus told by Bolton:
"Captain Rowe appears to have been in the habit of making a daily tour
from Kingsbridge, round by Miles Square. He was on his last tour of
military duty, having already resigned his commission for the purpose
of marrying the accomplished Elizabeth Fowler, of Harlem, when,
passing with a company of light dragoons, he was suddenly fired upon
by three Americans of the water guard of Captain Pray's company, who
had ambuscaded themselves in the cedars. The captain fell from his
horse, mortally wounded. The yagers instantly made prisoners of the
undisciplined water guards, and a messenger was immediately despatched
to Mrs. Babcock, then living below, in the parsonage, for a vehicle to
remove the wounded officer. The use of her gig and horse was soon
obtained, and a neighbor, Anthony Archer, pressed to drive. In this
they conveyed the dying man to Colonel Van Cortlandt's. They appear to
have taken the route of Tippett's Valley, as the party stopped at
Frederick Post's to obtain a drink of water. In the meantime an
express had been forwarded to Miss Fowler, his affianced bride, to
hasten without delay to the side of her dying lover. On her arrival,
accompanied by her mother, the expiring soldier had just strength
enough left to articulate a few words, when he sank exhausted with the
effort." The room in which he died is in the well-known mansion in Van
Cortlandt Park.
The incident of the horse, related in an early chapter, has a likeness
to an adventure that befell one Thomas Leggett early in the
Revolutionary war. He lived with his father on a farm near Morrisania,
then in Westchester County, and was proud in the possession of a fine
young mare. A party of British refugees took this animal, with other
property. They had gone two miles with it, when, from behind a stone
wall which they were passing, two Continental soldiers rose and fired
at them. The man with the mare was shot dead. The animal immediately
turned round and ran home, followed by the owner, who had dogged her
captors at a distance in the hope of recovering her.
SELECTIONS FROM
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S
LIST OF NEW FICTION.
An Enemy to the King.
From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire. By
ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS. Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry IV., and
on the field with Henry of Navarre.
The Continental Dragoon.
A Romance of Philipse Manor House, in 1778. By ROBERT NEILSON
STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy to the King." Illustrated by H. C.
Edwards.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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