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History of Orange County
Town of Newburgh
Page 34
Of Mr. Burnet we state an interesting fact, which few in this State have witnessed: he has seen seven generations of his own family—his great grandfather, grandfather, father, himself, his children, his grandchildren, and his great grandchildren. We do not remember that we have ever heard a case like this in modern times. This gentleman, we believe, is of Scotch ancestors on the paternal side, and Irish on the maternal. His age is 85, and we see him frequently in the streets of the village, attending to business as if a man of fifty, after riding several miles from his residence in New Windsor. We are gratified in being able to present a witness of such intelligence and worth to establish the fact in question. May he go down to his grave like a shock of corn ripe for the harvest!
There was a parsonage house attached to this little church, according to the English custom, located somewhere in the Old Town, in the vicinity of the church, and worthy a special note of remembrance, from the fact that old Mr. Hutchins, celebrated all over the State for many years, as a maker of Almanacks—lived and kept school in it. This was probably the glebe school, and taught there in the place of the church, which was in a dilapidated condition. This Mr. Hutchins was one of the great and useful men of his day, for no one but a Philosopher or School Master could make the necessary calculations for such a purpose, unless assisted by the old gentleman, or some of his imps duly skilled in the black art. It is with great respect, and he kindest remembrance we them publicly name this aged pedagogue and wise calculating philosopher; for in those days, without his calculations, we could scarcely keep the fast run of time, know the approach of the Sabbath, or when the luminous sun it his annual course would be shorn of his beams, or the full faced moon in her midnight walk put out and obliterated.— We now acknowledge the benefits, kindness and intelligence then received, and though Hutchins sleeps in an honoree grave, unmoved by our grateful remembrance, we still take pride and pleasure in making this late offering to his fame and memory.
The particulars above stated were derived through our friend Mr. McKissock, like ourselves disposed to look into these old matters, from Mr. James Donally, an aged and respectable individual of this town, who has carried them in his iron memory since a small boy, and are uninjured by the uncertainty of tradition. To Mr. Donally we tender our respects for the materials which fill a page of our paper.
Having called the reader’s attention to the “ Newburgh Letters,” and the address made by Washington to arrest their influence with the officers, we think it proper to lay the principal letter, with the address before the reader. What are called the “Newburgh Letters” consisted first of a short notice to the officers of the army, to meet at a certain time and place specified, which meeting never took place; Secondly, a letter dated and published on the same day of the notice, addressed to and circulated among the officers at the Newburgh encampment, along the River, and in the Highlands; and Thirdly, a short one, not exceeding a page or so, written and published after Washington appointed his meeting, calculated to show that the subject on which the writer proposed to call them together, was not only important and proper, but approved of by Washington, inasmuch as he had convoked them for consultation on the same matters. The first is the principal and celebrated letter, and a beautiful specimen of bold, declamatory and indignant eloquence— worthy a better cause, and only equalled by the best productions of Junius—most admirably calculated to stimulate and rouse to action the already excited and chafed feelings of the American officers. The youth of the country ought to be well acquainted with both the productions referred to; for the style and manner of the one, and the calm, dignified, and fatherly sentiments of the other. We would not object against the labor of committing them to memory.
If the letter was eminently calculated to produce the intended effect, the answer by Washington was equally calculated to arrest the poisoned chalice, so artfully drugged;— and coming as it did from the patriot hero, in the solemn accents of fatherly admonition, must have been overwhelming in its effects upon the minds of the officers. We are told by one who heard it that it was truly so, and that all of them who were present, appeared deeply convinced and satisfied by his argument and counsel.