Mehitable's four sleepless nights

New York City in the 18th century.

William Prendergast's only known week he ever spent in New York City was spent in a jail cell at Fort George at the Battery. While there, courts of oyer and terminer were seated in Albany and Dutchess counties to hear and determine cases against the leaders of Prendergast's rent rebellion.

In that rebellion to give property rights to tenant farmers, seven persons were killed – four soldiers and three rioters. Many more were wounded in several battles. It was perhaps the first time British troops clashed with a large, organized colonial rebellion.

While Prendergast was away in New York he was indicted in absentia. Rebellious tenant farmers continued their violence, including killing a grenadier. A company of the 46th regiment was ordered to Claverack, NY in Columbia County to aid Sheriff Harmanus Schuyler.

On Wednesday, Aug. 6, 1766, the day after an eclipse of the sun was seen in North America, William was returned north to the Dutchess County Courthouse for the case of the Crown v William Prendergast. Presiding was Honorable Daniel Horsmanden, chief justice of the Supreme Court of the province of New York, with associate justices Johns Watts, William Walton, Oliver DeLancey, Joseph Reade, William Smith, Whitehead Hicks and John Morin Scott.

All jurors were among the landed gentry of the colony. Justice Robert R. Livingston, father of a fast-rising New York City lawyer and uncle of Dutchess County Sheriff James Livingston, was present in court although not sitting.

Prendergast was charged with disturbing the peace, levying war against the king, assembling a number of 500 unlawfully for that purpose and did order and levy war. The prosecutor was Provincial Attorney General John Tabor Kempe, assisted by James Duane.

Dutchess County Courthouse at right and the Dutch Reformed
Church at left, Poughkeepsie, NY, c1770s.

The trial against my 5x great grandfather proceeded continuously for 24 hours. It was covered by the Poughkeepsie correspondent of the New York Gazette, which had reported on the Rent Rebellion in the prior months. News of the rent rebellion trials had a tremendous following in the fast-growing port city 80 miles south. Prendergast's was the headline trial.

Although William was not permitted to have legal assistance, his Quaker wife Mehitable rose in the court to his defense. She so capably provided his defense in word and charm that prosecutor Kempe demanded her removal “as her very beauty might influence the jury.” His request was denied.

Despite Mehitable's attempts to assign blame elsewhere, the evidence against William was too great. Even the visible presence of their children failed to solicit an acquittal from the court. The landed gentry of the jury returned a guilty verdict against this leveler who sought to give power to the weak. Justice Horsmanden said the jury's harsh verdict didn't accord with the evidence and ordered them to deliberate further. They returned again, “guilty” but urged mercy.

Justice Horsmanden had no choice but to assign the punishment appropriate for high treason against his Majesty – to be hanged and his entrails burned while still alive on Sept. 26, 1766. The New York Gazette reported William Prendergast sobbed “May God have mercy on my soul.”

Mehitable cried out loud upon hearing the sentence. “No, no, no!” Others in the court room wept. Angry farmers stirred outside the courthouse, according to “The Story of Mehitable Wing” an episode of the 1940 radio series the Calvacade of American History by Yale professor Dr. Frank Monaghan. As Prendergast was led away to the county jail in the courthouse's basement, he looked toward Mehitable and said “Goodbye, my sweet pigeon.”

Mehitable immediately met privately with Justice Horsmanden who advised her that Gov. Moore was the only one who could help. If the governor was not leaving soon on a long journey, he might have had the opportunity to stay the execution while a petition for a pardon was sent to King George III. But the justice said it was too late.

Already exhausted from her efforts in an emotional 24-hour trial, Mehitable was about to undertake an incomprehensible task. First she warned a small crowd of angry farmers outside the courthouse not to take any action involving her husband until they saw her again. Then she departed for the Beekman home of her older, wealthier sister Abigail, borrowed her most elegant dress, packed it away, retrieved a lantern and gathered food before riding off alone into the evening, heading south.

At Fish Kill just before midnight, she picked up the Albany Post Road which was like most of the king's rural highways – fraught with danger. Many travelers encountered beasts of all kinds, be they thieving highwaymen or wild creatures. There were often rocks or fallen trees in the uneven path and could not be seen in the dark. It was only four days after the eclipse, so the night was as black as could be imagined. The moon had barely started waxing.

A proper lady sat sidesaddle but, when others weren't around, she could be excused if she rode with her legs on both sides of the horse. For the next 15 miles after passing Fish Kill, she likely did not pass another living soul until along Sprout Brook north of Peeks Kill. The road was miles from the Hudson River and took her through the darkest, most terrifying forests made more infamous by more than a century of Dutch lore. Those stories included haunted Dutch burying grounds, bridge trolls and other ghouls.

Hudson River valley

She surely considered turning back many times. But if she turned back, her dear husband would soon be dead. By the same token, if she was attacked by an animal or merely fell off her horse from lack of sleep, their six young children risked being orphaned altogether.

The road returned to alongside the Hudson and morning came. The farther south it went, the Albany Post Road improved in its condition and was dotted by more farms and towns – Van Cortlandt Manor, Tappan Bay, Philipsburg Manor House and Tarrytown. She would have passed more people and countless tenant farms throughout the day. 

After dusk and more than 24 hours into her journey, she slipped by the Yonkers mansion of her family's nemesis, Frederick Philipse III. Perhaps she feared being recognized in Yonkers as she did in being attacked by wild animals in the thick forests north of Peeks Kill?

At the Harlem River, she had two bridges to choose from to reach Manhattan. One was the King's Bridge to Marble Hill. The other was the recently built Farmers' Bridge which was without toll.

On the improved road down the length of Manhattan Island, Mehitable's tired horse was able to reach the intersection with The Bowry Lane in only two hours. Homes were passed every few hundred feet, including the farm of former governor James DeLancey whose relative served on William's jury.

In 1766, Liberty Poles were posted along the road by the Sons of Liberty in celebration of the Stamp Act's repeal. On each wooden pole or tree were handbills displaying patriotic American messages.

New York City, 1776. Fort George is at the lower left before
landfill was added into the North River of the Hudson.

A commons was encountered at the intersection with The Broad Way. At the south end of the commons was a brand-new church – St. Paul's Chapel. South of there along The Broad Way were 10 more blocks of crowded port city, bustling with conviviality even at the midnight hour.

The street brought Mehitable to the sight of Fort George at the Battery, where her husband was kept a week earlier. At a nearby tavern, she could have purchased tea to fend off sleep and used a foul latrine to slip into her sister's elegant dress.

Mehitable arrived at the doors of the fortress and was at first told the governor had retired for the night. He could not be disturbed as he needed rest for the long trip tomorrow. She begged for entry and explained why she was there. It was the first news that anyone at the fort had heard about the outcome of Prendergast's trial. She was granted an audience with Sir Henry Moore, Governor of the province of New York.

Despite her lack of sleep, Mehitable told Sir Moore her husband's story coherently and concisely, striding back and forth in front of him in her lovely blue and white striped linen. Her arguments were so convincing that the governor was moved to tears and exclaimed “Your husband shall not suffer.”

Sir Moore granted a reprieve, staying the execution until His Majesty George III’s pleasure was known. He then permitted Mehitable to draw up in her own words the petition for a royal pardon. It was ordered sent to the Earl of Shelburne for presentation forthwith at Whitehall.

Fort George figured prominently in events during and after
Prendergast's Rent War.

With the reprieve in hand and knowing there would be ever-increasing pressure by William Prendergast's supporters to free him from jail and turn him into a fugitive, she mounted her exhausted horse and dashed north out of New York City at greater speed than she arrived.

For the second time, Mehitable traveled by Philipse's Yonkers mansion in the shadows, this time moments before dawn. Throughout the day she and her horse labored northward. Could she remember passing the same landmarks as she had southbound? Did she fear taking a wrong turn in her condition? Did she begin imagining things like feeling rain drops that weren't really there? Mehitable was going on four days without sleep.

In the middle of the night, she left the dark woods south of Fish Kill and would have noticed the familiar Brewers' mill at Wappingers Falls. In the pitch black, she would have heard it more than seen it. The sound probably gave her a rare sense of relief.

Morning glories sang at first light as her horse came up Albany Post Road into Poughkeepsie. According to Carl Cramer's book “The Hudson,” Mehitable arrived the courthouse virtually incoherent. Dozens of men were gathering outside the courthouse on Saturday morning to free Prendergast by force. Monaghan reported that Mehitable pushed past them and went into the jail, handed the stay of execution to Sheriff Livingston and collapsed into her husband's arms he extended through his cell's iron bars.

Now came six months of waiting for three possible outcomes – an outright pardon, a commutation of the sentence to life in prison or affirmation of the death sentence. Sheriff Livingston banked on the latter as he continued to advertise for an executioner. No local hangmen would respond for fear of revenge by Prendergast's many followers. One would have to be brought in from as far away as New York City, depending on the king's reply.

William spent two to three months at sea and that transatlantic ship was probably the most arduous lodging of his life, until now. It would have been broken up by special meals on Thanksgiving and Christmas. He would been allowed out of his cell with an armed escort to spend time with his family upstairs in the courthouse. He probably did not like his children to see him in his cell. Later evidence showed his imprisonment greatly weakened him.

Mehitable surely would have brought him gifts like food and blankets to keep him warm in the stone cell as autumn turn to winter. But her greatest gift came sometime in late January or perhaps February, 1767. A rider arrived the Dutchess County Courthouse from New York City along with Justice Livingston and Sheriff Livingston where a document was processed.

It was a letter written to Governor Moore by the Earl of Shelburne, dated Whitehall, Dec. 1, 1766, ended with these words, “I have laid before the King our letter of the 11th of October, recommending William Prendergast who was sentenced to death for treasonous practices and riots committed in Dutchess County, to the Royal Mercy, and His Majesty has been gratiously pleased to grant him this pardon, relying that this instance of His Royal clemency will have a better effect in recalling these mistaken people to their duty than the most rigorous punishment.”

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