634 HISTORY OF THE CuJNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



in America, had representatives there. The sleighing was good and the 

 weather was mild, and early as two o'clock in the afternoon the guests 

 began to arrive. The Rev. Henry Barclay, rector of Trinity church in 

 New York, with his assistant, Mr. Auctmuty, was there at three o'clock. 

 Half an hour later the marriage was solemnized under a crimson canopy, 

 emblazoned with the golden crest of the family (a crowned demi-lion, 

 rampant, rising from a coronet) in the presence of a brilliant assembly. 

 The bridemaids were Miss Barclay, Miss Van Cortlandt, and Miss 

 DeLancey. The groomsmen were Mr. Heathcote, Captain Kennedy, 

 and Mr. Watts, acting Governor DeLancey (son-in law to Colonel 

 Heathcote, lord of the manor of Scarsdale) assisted at the ceremony. 

 The brother of the bride, the last lord of the manor — decorated with the 

 gold chain and jeweled badge of office of his family as keeper of the 

 deer forests of Bohemia — gave away the bride, for her father had been 

 dead seven years. Her dowry in her own right was a large domain, 

 plate, jewelry and money. 



A grand feast followed the nuptial ceremony, and late on that brilliant 

 moon-lit night most of the guests departed. While they were feasting, 

 a tall Indian, closely wrapped in a scarlet blanket, appeared at the door 

 of the banquet hall, and with measured words said, "your possessions 

 shall pass from you when the eagle shall despoil the lion of his mane." 

 He as suddenly disappeared. This message was as mysterious as the 

 writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. The bride pondered the 

 ominous words for years; and when, because they were royalists in 

 action, the magnificent domain of the Philipses was confiscated by the 

 Americans at the close of the Revolution, the significance of the 

 prophecy and its fulfillment were manifested. Such is the story of the 

 wedding as told by Angevine (son of the favorite colored valet of 

 Philipse), who was sexton of St. John's church at Yonkers for forty-five 

 years."* 



Captain, afterwards Colonel, Roger Morris greatly distinguished him- 

 self during the first American war, and was wounded in the battle of 

 Monongahela river; on which occasion General Braddock was killed 

 with most of his officers. In that engagement George Washington, 

 Robert Orme, and Roger Morris, Esqrs., were aids to Braddock. 6 At 

 the commencement of the Revolution he was a member of the Council 

 of the Colony, and continued in office until the peace, although the 

 Whigs organized a government as early as 1777, under a written and 

 well framed constitution. Col. Roger Morris died in England in 1794, 



a narper'9 Xeic Monthly Mag. " Romance of the Hudson," No. cccxi, April, 1876, vol. llii. 

 p. ML 

 b Burke's Hist, of the Landed Gentry of England, vol. lv. 490. 



