CITY ISLAND AND EASTCHESTER 



137 



was considered safe from him and his associates, not even the 

 old bell, the Bible and the prayer-book which had been presented 

 to St. Paul's Church by Queen Anne. To safeguard these from the 

 profaning hands of the marauding soldiery, which held nothing 

 sacred, they were buried in the ground adjoining the edifice, where 

 they remained until the close of the war. The Vincents moved 



St. Paul's Church, Eastchester 



away when the British evacuated New York, and Col. W. S. Smith 

 of the thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment, a distinguished officer 

 of the Revolution and an aide of the staff of Washington, moved 

 into the mansion. 



Col. Smith was a son-in-law of John Adams, and had been 

 secretary of the American legation at London when his father-in- 

 law served there as the first minister accredited to the Court of 

 St. James by the young Republic. Subsequently he was United 

 States Marshal for New York, a member of Congress from this 



