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SING-SING is famous for its marble, of which there is an extensive
quarry near by; for its State-prison, of which the discipline is of the
most salutary character; and for its academy, which has a high
reputation. It may be said, altogether, to do the State some service.
The county of West Chester, of which this is the principal town on the
Hudson, has been made the scene of perhaps the best historical novel of
our country, and more than any other part of the United States suffered
from the evils of war during the Revolution. The character and
depredations of the “cow-boys” and “skinners,” whose fields of action
were on the skirts of this neutral ground, are familiar to all who have
read “the Essay” of Mr. Cooper. A distinguished clergyman gives the
following very graphic picture of West Chester County in Revolutionary
days:—
“In the autumn of 1777 I resided for some time in this county. The lines
of the British were then in the neighborhood of Kingsbridge, and those
of the Americans at Byram River. The unhappy inhabitants were therefore
exposed to the depredations of both. Often they were actually plundered,
and always were liable to this calamity. They feared everybody whom they
saw, and loved nobody. It was a curious fact to a philosopher, and a
melancholy one, to hear their conversation. To every question they gave
such an answer as would please the inquirer; or if they despaired of
pleasing, such a one as would not provoke him. Fear was apparently the
only passion by which they were animated. The power of volition seemed
to have deserted them. They were not civil, but obsequious; not
obliging, but subservient. They yielded with a kind of apathy, and very
quietly, what you asked, and what they supposed it impossible for them
to retain. If you treated them kindly they received it coldly; not as a
kindness, but as a compensation for injuries done them by others. When
you spoke to them, they answered you without either good or ill nature,
and without any appearance of reluctance or hesitation; but they
subjoined neither questions nor remarks of their own,—proving to your
full conviction that they felt no interest either in the conversation or
yourself. Both their countenances and their motions had lost every trace
of animation and of feeling. Their features were smoothed, not into
serenity, but apathy; and instead of being settled in the attitude of
quiet thinking, strongly indicated that all thought beyond what was
merely instinctive had fled their minds forever.
“Their houses, meantime, were in a great measure scenes of desolation.
Their furniture was extensively plundered or broken to pieces. The
walls, floors, and windows were injured both by violence and decay, and
were not repaired because they had not the means to repair them, and
because they were exposed to the repetition of the same injuries. Their
cattle were gone; their enclosures were burned where they were capable
of becoming fuel, and in many cases thrown down where they were not.
Their fields were covered with a rank growth of weeds and wild grass.
“Amid all this appearance of desolation, nothing struck my eye more
forcibly than the sight of the high road. Where I had heretofore seen a
continual succession of horses and carriages, life and bustle lending a
sprightliness to all the environing objects, not a single solitary
traveller was seen, from week to week or from month to month. The world
was motionless and silent, except when one of these unhappy people
ventured upon a rare and lonely excursion to the house of a neighbor no
less unhappy, or a scouting party, traversing the country in quest of
enemies, alarmed the inhabitants with expectations of new injuries and
sufferings. The very tracks of the carriages were grown over and
obliterated; and where they were discernible resembled the faint
impressions of chariot wheels, said to be left on the pavements of
Herculaneum. The grass was of full height for the scythe, and strongly
realized to my own mind, for the first time, the proper import of that
picturesque declaration in the Song of Deborah: ‘In the days of Shamgar,
the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and
the travellers walked through by-paths. The inhabitants of the villages
ceased: they ceased in Israel.’”
West Chester is a rough county in natural surface; but since the days
when the above description was true, its vicinity to New York, and the
ready market for produce have changed its character to a thriving
agricultural district. It is better watered with springs, brooks, and
mill-streams, than many other parts of New York, and among other
advantages enjoys along the Hudson a succession of brilliant and noble
scenery.
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