Page 14
History of Orange County
Town of New Windsor
Page 14
The reader will observe, that Taylor was sent with dispatches from Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, then at Fort Montgomery, to Burgoyne at the north, near Saratoga. As he proceeded north supposing himself to be with the British, without knowing it, he passed within the American lines and was captured. When challenged by a soldier on duty who asked him he was a friend or foe, replied, “a friend, and that he wanted to see Gen. Clinton.” The soldier said he would conduct him to the General. Taylor all the while supposed, that he was being conducted to Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, but when he was ushered into the presence of Gen. George Clinton he was undeceived, and heard to exclaim, “I am lost.”
The ball was then procured as stated in Gen. Clinton's letter, and he kept safely till the General marched to Esopus, when he was taken along with the army, where he was tried and condemned as a spy. He was executed by being hung on the limb of an apple tree, in or near the village.- John Woodworth, we believe, the father of the late Judge Woodworth of the Supreme Court of this State, acted as Judge Advocate on the trial. Taylor was a Major in the British service at the time.
CLINTON FAMILY.--We claim to make an extended notice of this family in this town, for any town or nation might well take pride in owning this family. It is said to be of Norman origin, and individuals of the name are found in the history of the Crusades, and other national chronicles. We next find the family in England, in the reign of Charles 1, espousing the royal side in the civil war. The cause failed, and we find them next in Scotland, where they had fled for safety, perhaps assisting Charles 2d to re-conquer England with a Scotch army. After the battle of Worcester the family are found in Ireland, where the ancestor died, leaving one infant son. James, the son, when of age, attempted to regain the estate in England which his father lost by espousing the royal cause and failed. There he married Elizabeth Smith, and her fortune enabled him to live respectably. Charles, his son, was a dissenter, and opposed to the ruling party in Ireland. At the Revolution in 1689, and accession of the house of Hanover, Ireland was treated as a vanquished country, and Charles, then 40 years old, resolved to. emigrate to America. In this he was joined by a number of his friends and neighbors. They embarked from Dublin, May 1729, intending to go to Pennsylvania and did not arrive till October, when they landed at Cape Cod. On the passage many died. Clinton lost a son and two daughters. Here they remained till another settlement was formed in the town of New Windsor, and removed there in the spring of 1731, and formed the nucleus of that industrious body of Presbyterians in and about Little Britain, the name of the settlement. At this time this was a frontier post, and Clinton's house was fortified as a security for himself and neighbors against the Indians. Being a man of capacity, he was appointed a Judge of the Common Pleas then in Ulster. He had four sons born at Little Britain, the two eldest were Physicians. James, the third son, born 1736, when the war of 1756 broke out, was appointed Ensign under his father, who was appointed Lieut. Col. in the militia, both of whom were in service and present at the taking of Fort Fontenac in Canada, now Kingston.
The fourth son was called George, after the Colonial Governor of that name, who claimed kindred with the settler at Little Britain. George was Governor of New York and died Vice President of the U. S., and well known in the history of the country.