From peaceful farmer to rebel leader

A decade before the American Revolution, tenant farmers in the Hudson River valley massed into a revolt against their manor lords. It wasn't the first such rent rebellion but it was the largest, most organized and disciplined revolt. When its 500+ armed rebels moved on New York City, it sent America's third-largest city into a panic. My 5x great grandfather William Prendergast was the leader of this rebellion.

Prendergast prompted British regular troops to be ordered into armed conflict against the colonists for the first time. And more importantly, it came during increasing unrest in the American colonies as British Parliament levied new taxes on the colonies to pay for the American Theater of Seven Years War, here called French & Indian War.

In fact, many confused Prendergast's actions with those of the Sons of Liberty that was growing in strength and violence to combat the new taxes without representation in colonies that had governed themselves for more than a century. The actions of Prendergast and his wife risked orphaning their children.

Two decades before the revolution, 28-year-old William Prendergast married 17-year-old Mehitable Wing in 1755. Protestant Prendergast converted to the Religious Society of Friends to appease Mehitable's orthodox Quaker father, as Quakers were forbidden to marry outside the faith.

In Ireland, Prendergast was a shipwright and reportedly worked in a sawmill in the Hudson Highlands. It's possible he worked for SilasWashburn who ran a sawmill since 1745 on the West Branch of the Croton River in Carmel, NY. Despite owning most of Carmel's Main Street shops, Washburn lived in a house set on a lot leased from the Philipse Patent. Washburn later followed his friend Prendergast into rebellion and paid for it with his life.

A typical colonial American tenant farmer's house.

Prendergast settled down and leased from Lord Philipse 200 acres of wooded land along a tributary of the East Branch Croton River between Pawling and Quaker Hill for 4 pounds, 12 shillings per year, according to the 1939 book “The Hudson” by Carl Cramer. Prendergast cleared the land, used the wood to build himself a house and began farming to feed a family he would create on this side of the Atlantic.

By Christmas 1755, Mehitable was pregnant with their first child. Matthew (born 1756) was followed by Thomas (1758), Mary (1760), Elizabeth (1762), James (1764) with Mehitable pregnant in 1765 with Jedidiah – named after her father who died two years earlier. William's father Thomas had died in 1761 in Clonmel, Ireland. Reportedly, Mehitable's mother and her four youngest children moved in with the Prendergasts. William was having a hard time financially and went to Frederick Philipse III at his manor house in Yonkers to ask for more time to pay his rent.

Not only did Philipse refuse, he threatened to throw Prendergast into prison for nonpayment. Many other tenant farmers had suffered the same fate, and many more were destined to follow. The reason was that the Philipse family went to court in 1765 and successfully enforced a land claim against the Wappinger Indians. Expensive manorial leases were imposed on tenant farmers.

Farmers rallied behind Wappinger Sachem Daniel Nimhan, who appealed the case to the Court of Chancery. No attorney could be found to represent the Sachem and juries were comprised of the landed gentry. When the Court of Chancery rejected the appeal, the Philipse estate brought 15 actions to eject tenant farmers from their holdings.

Sometime in 1765, Prendergast learned that Lord Philipse paid to King George III an annual sum of 4 pounds for tax on his entire manor. That's 12 shillings less than what Prendergast paid to the lord in rent for his small farm. Prendergast was furious at Philipse's greed. William visited farmhouses and taverns to speak to other tenant farmers in the Philipse Patent. He learned each of them paid at least as much to Lord Philipse as William did.

Roadside taverns were the social networks in colonial times.

When the farmers learned how little Philipse paid to the king, and knowing how unforgiving Philipse was to those with debts, they demanded action. In the fall of 1765, the local farmers met and agreed to reinstate the dispossessed tenants by force, if necessary. They were known as "levelers" because they believed that their equitable claim to the land should be recognized and their leases converted into fee-simple titles.

Prendergast recruited James Secord, Elisha Cole, Isaac Perry, Michael Veal, Samuel Munro and his friend Silas Washburn to help him lead the army. Carl Cramer wrote in his book “Tavern Lights Are Burning” that Prendergast enforced a code of behavior within his army to not take retribution against farmers who didn't join the fight. And when combatants were captured and jailed, they would not be left behind. The army would free them by the real or threatened use of overwhelming force.

“Prendergast's Army” as it came to be known had expanded north into Columbia County and east into Connecticut. They declared their rents invalid and emptied jails of tenant farmers imprisoned for their debts. The rebellion spread west into the Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, near Scranton. William's warriors would soon head south.

After the Stamp Act was repealed in March 1766 and news of the repeal reached the colonies two months later, Prendergast led a march of at least 500 armed men, with rumors of as many as 2,000 southward along the Hudson River toward New York City to free tenant farmers imprisoned for their debts. The armed advance caused great panic in the colonies' third-largest city, home to 20,000 people. The New York Gazette reported residents stood guard all night outside their own doors, gun in hand. New York City Council members offered a reward of 10 pounds for Prendergast's capture.

On May 1, 1766, Prendergast stopped his army north of Manhattan Island at the Harlem River and sent six riders south to meet with Gov. Henry Moore in Fort George at the Battery. Moore promised he would not interfere in their disputes with the landlords. Satisfied, Prendergast turned his army north, away from the city.

In stark contrast, the patroons were not satisfied. They furiously petitioned Gov. Moore to intervene. At first, he refused. After repeated petitions by the landlords, he finally relented. Prendergast's Army revealed how weak the governors had become.

Warrants of arrest were issued June 7 by the New York Provincial Council against Prendergast, Washburn, Secord, Cole, Perry and Veal. The provincial council applied June 19 for military assistance from Major-General Thomas Gage, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America. He activated the stronger of two regiments left from the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War. Under the command of Major Richard Browne, 300 British regulars from the 28th Grenadiers boarded sloops-of-war at Albany and went south to Poughkeepsie to restore order in Dutchess County.

British regulars were summoned instead of the provincial militia for two reasons. First the size of Prendergast's army demanded a strong show of force to restore order. Second the 1760s was a time of growing territorial disputes between New York and Massachusetts Bay. So activating a large military force that was not beholden to either colony was deemed an impartial act.

July 2, 1766 was the first time that British troops were ordered to move against the American colonists under a threat of force. What had been a rewarding, sometimes joyous campaign suddenly turned into a very serious prospect for Prendergast and his followers. Many scattered and returned to their farms in fear.

Prendergast's remaining army split into two groups. Prendergast led a group of 50 rebels more than 20 miles east from Poughkeepsie to the Oblong Meeting House atop Quaker Hill. Prendergast was hid separately nearby in a farmhouse.

The diversionary second group of about 50 strong was led by Robert Noble, a retired captain, a tenant of the Rensselaerswick Manor and leader of antilandlordism movements for 15 years. Sheriff Harmanus Schuyler brought 105 militamen in a siege against Noble's fortified house.

After several sorties against the house, one militiaman lay dead and seven of his comrades were wounded. The rebels sustained greater loss – three died and countless were injured. Yet the rebels did not concede and fought on. Sheriff Schuyler left for Poughkeepsie to seek assistance from Major Browne.

An eyewitness picture of an anti-rent uprising in New York.

Browne refused to take the bait. Instead he commanded his 300 troops to march east toward Quaker Hill to capture or kill Prendergast and his rebels. At the foot of the hill and at dusk, they were happened upon by 30 armed rebels riding to rendezvous with their brethren atop the hill and strengthen their forces against the Grenadiers.

The rebels hid amid the cornstalks and fired muskets, killing two redcoats. Browne's men advanced on the field the next morning but the rebels had already fled. The regiment marched up the hill to the Friends meeting house where Prendergast's men surrendered under a white flag, Cramer wrote.

Mehitable, mother of six children and wife of a farmer turned fugitive from the most powerful army in the world, learned her husband was not among the dead, wounded or imprisoned. She searched for and found the man she had loved since she was a girl, then convinced him to give himself up.

William joined Mehitable riding proudly side-by-side into Major Browne's camp where William was promptly taken into custody on July 28, 1766.

Until the trial, William Prendergast could not be safely held in the Dutchess County Jail in Poughkeepsie as he had proven it was little defense from his rioters. They had previously freed from it imprisoned debtors with great ease. And hundreds of his followers were left scattered in the surrounding lands waiting to learn of Prendergast's fate.

So Prendergast was marched right past the jail and to the shores of the Hudson River where he was placed under heavy guard aboard sloops bound for New York City. Mehitable surely sobbed as her husband's boat sailed away. If convicted of high treason, Prendergast would be publicly hanged and his entrails burned while he was still alive.

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