33 8 The Story of The Bronx 



relics, one man throwing out a shovelful of earth which gave 

 up an English sovereign. All through this section, from time 

 to time, similar relics have been unearthed, including several 

 skeletons, one of which, by means of the regimental buttons 

 and shreds of uniform that remained, was identified as that 

 of a British officer. 



In 1772, Captain Richard Montgomery purchased a farm 

 of seventy-five acres lying north of the Boston Road. He 

 had been an officer in the British army, but, despairing of 

 advancement, resigned his commission and came to America, 

 "where my pride and my poverty would be much more at 

 their ease, " as he himself declared, and where he could follow 

 the pursuit of farming. In 1773, he married Janet Livingston, 

 the daughter of the great and wealthy lord of Livingston Manor 

 and sister of the later celebrated Chancellor Livingston. The 

 young Irishman threw in his lot with the patriots; and as a 

 member of the Provincial Congress was selected with others 

 to examine the Kingsbridge neighborhood with a view to 

 its defensibility. Fort Independence was afterwards located 

 on his farm by Colonel Rufus Putnam, the American engineer 

 officer who first planned the defences of Fort Washington and 

 its vicinity. Montgomery was appointed a brigadier-general 

 by the Continental Congress, and a major-general after his 

 capture of Montreal. Had all the appointments of former 

 British officers been as wise as that of Montgomery, we should 

 not have had the record of the combined arrogance and in- 

 efficiency of Lee, Gates, Conway, and others of like stamp. 



Montgomery had been with Wolfe in his memorable attack 

 on Quebec, and it was probably on account of his knowledge 

 of its approaches and defences that he was selected under 

 Schuyler to command the American expedition against it. 

 When he kissed his young wife good-bye at the home of General 



