428 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



of a later date. Gen. de Lancey was, therefore, the senior loyalist offi- 

 cer in commission during the contest. His command consisted of three 

 battallions, known as " De Lancey 's Battalions" 



" Previous to the Revolution, Gen. de Lancey was a member of the 

 Council, and was-considered to be in office in 1782, though a constitu- 

 tion was formed in New York in 1777, and a government organized under 

 it. By this government he was attainted of treason, and his large prop- 

 erty confiscated." "At the evacuation in 1783, he went to England, 

 and died at Beverly, Yorkshire, in 1785, aged sixty-eight. His body is 

 interred in the choir of the Minster, while a monument standing near 

 the transept records his services." "His son, Oliver de Lancey, Jr., 

 was educated in Europe; put early in the 17th Light Dragoons; was a 

 captain at the commencement of the Revolution ; became Major in 

 177S, a Lieutenant Colonel Oct. 1st, 1781, and succeeded Andre" as 

 Adjutant-General of the British army in America. On his return to 

 Europe, he was made Deputy Adjutant-General of England; as a 

 Major-General, he got the Colonelcy of the 17th Light Dragoons; was 

 subsequently made Barrack Master General of the British empire ; rose 

 through the grade of Lieutenant-General to that of General, and died 

 some six or eight and twenty years since, nearly at the head of the Eng- 

 lish Army list. This branch of the family is now extinct in the male 

 line ; its last man having been killed at Waterloo, in the person of Sir 

 William Heathcote de Lancey, the Quarter-master-General of Welling- 

 ton's army." 



Peter de Lancey, youngest son of the Huguenot, to whom his father 

 devised the mills, was a man of wealth and of considerable influence in 

 the colony. His wife was Alice, daughter of Cadwallader Colden, lieu- 

 tenant governor of the Province of New York, in 1761. His children 

 were John, father of Mrs. Yates, Relict of Governor Yates, and Lt. Col. 

 James de Lancey, a distinguished military officer. "James" was for a 



a The command of the Loyalist Rangers afforded Colonel de Lancey facilities for commn- 

 Dleating with his old associates in this section of the country, and was the means of inducing 

 some of the landed gentry to take an active part in the contest. This was particularly the 

 case with Samael Bap, Esq., of a family, which, from the first settlement by the Dutch, had 

 da grant <»f land at Kip's Bay. and in other parts of New York island. Members of 

 this family were named as officers under the Crown in the royal charter, granted when the 

 British Brst took possession of the colony in 16frt, and in that given thirty years later. Hav- 

 ing been always associated with the government, and from their landed interest, wielding an 

 Innaeno • In its affairs, they were naturally predisposed to espouse the royal cause. In addi- 

 tion to tin-, Mr. Kip's estate was near that of Col. de Lane y. and a close intimacy had always 

 existed between them. He was, therefore, easily induced to accept a captain s commission 

 from th-t royal government, and embark all his interests in this contest He raised a com- 

 pany of cavalry, principally from his own tenants, Joined the British army with the colonel, 

 and from his Intimate knowledge ol the coantry, was enabled to gain the repufatio.i of an 

 • id daring partisan officer, For this reason he was for a tune assigned to the com- 

 mand of the Loyalist Hangers. In one of the severe skirmishes which took place in West- 

 chester county in 1781, rapt. Kip, while charging a body of American troops, had his horse 

 killed nnder him, and received a severe bayonet Wound. He survived, however, several 

 yean after th" war— though, like his friend de Lancey, a heavy pecuniary sufferer from the 

 cause he had espoused. 



