"Richard Brown-John King and Christopher Tuthill, Surities 
Joseph Booth-David and Thomas Vail, Surities
Tim Hudson John Corwin and John Alborson, Surs. 
David Terreye-Nathan Tuthill and Nat Griffng, Surities 
Israel Moore-Sam'll Brown and Benajah Edwards, Surities 
John Griffing-James Murrison and Benajah Edwards, Surities 
James Havens-Ned Penne and Jonathan Conklin, Juner, Bondsmen
David Gardiner*-Tom Wines and James Reeve, Son of Jo Reeves, Bondsmen
Robert Hinksman-John Griffing and his son James, Bondsmen 
John Hubbard-Daniel Osban and Capt. Halliock, Bondsmen 
Joseph Peck-John Hubbard and Daniel Osbond, Bondsmen 
Ruphas Tuthill-Peter and Jonathan Tuthill, Bondsmen 
Abram Cory
Sam'll Griffing
*David Gardiner, Dr for ye excise for ye said year (1776) 1 pound. Which I paid out of my own pocket"

     The above area list for the years 1775-1776, and the subjoined are retailers. In cases of repetition, the holders conducted both a tavern and a store. The retailers were not supposed to sell in less than gallon lots. An examination of several hundred accounts for a period of years shows that this minimum was strictly adhered to. Once there is an entry of a "bottil of rumme", but the great majority lugged it off' by the jugful. One widow in Mattituck bought four gallons of rum of John Hubbard every Saturday for fourteen years.

Oringe Webb-He was a ship captain and kept a small chandlery Tom Webb
Amon Taber-A master builder of the day, specialized in windmills and was a cabinet maker of distinction. He built the pews  in the second church that stood on Barnabas Horton's second or east home lot.
"Cash received, of John Hubbard, 5 shillings"
"Deacon Wells at ye millers, and his son, a hogshead." This entry would indicate that Freegift Wells and his son Giles bought a hogshead of rum and divided it among the neighbors. The last pages of Joseph Cleveland's account book chronicle a similar transaction at Hackabacke (Aquebogue) when Capt. Thomas Goldsmith tapped a hogshead and divided it among 79 of his neighbors. These transactions were not confined to gallons since we find that Jerediah Cleaves bought only a gill. The amount was so small that he was not required to pay for his dram, where-as the gallon customers were assessed four shillings, six pence. 
James Wells 
Joshua Salmon 
Gustas Pack (Peck) 
Gamalie Bayley (He was the town clerk) 
Ben King, Juner
James Macklure (An Irishman who had dwelt at Shelter Island with the Hudsons. This is contrary to the evidence adduced by Mather, but it is attested by the books of Samuel and Jared Landon. )
Richard Brown (already mentioned as a tavern keeper) 
Samuel Griffing and Ruphas Tuthill (also)
John Rackit 
Sylvester Lester 
John Pack (Peck), where the Cahoon Memorial Library now is. 
Simon Moore, (one time host to Alexander Hamilton) 
Willmut Goldsmith
David Gardiner (who has been mentioned before)
Tom Conkling, Fraderick Hudson and James Havens complete the list.

     These thirty-one men were licensed to sell ruin to 3100 people. If there is any merit in the Kittredge theory of taverns as news depots, surely Southold of 1776 could not have been either thirsty or ignorant.
     It should not be predicated that the Southold we are considering on the eve of the Revolution was a drunken and disorderly place. Rum fitted into the scheme of things precisely as coffee does today. There was a certain amount of drunkenness and `training day' that came every Monday saw not a little of it; but Tuesday morning saw the men going about their business as usual. Southold had not abandoned the whipping post, and those who were persistent in their cups found themselves bare of back undergoing the lash at the hands of the sheriff. Persistence brought the stocks and here the youth of the day found one of his sports. A person confined was subject to a bombardment of over-ripe eggs and such vegetables as seemed more suitable for quick handling than for home consumption. When Tryon invested the town, one of the first things the riff-raff did was to uproot the stocks and the pillory and make way with the ducking stool. The latter was saved and for many years was in the possession of the late Hubbard Payne. Like many another thing, it has been lost.
     The Southold of 1776, and now I speak of the village proper, was a prosperous capital. Holding the town meeting had served to retain the ascendancy of the parent village, which in earlier days had been threatened by Oysterponds and its tobacco plantations. The Booth family had specialized in fast horses, and the town's first racetrack ex-tended from the cattle pound in front of the Braddick house, once the mansion of John Budd, cousin to the Royal house of Warwick and great-grandson of Henry VII. It is now the residence of Daniel Halsel Norton, owner of the Barnabas Horton Cask. It extended to the run at the foot of what had come to be known as Mill Hill. Here the center of the road was reserved for fast horses of the town and the oxen had to keep to the sides of the road. So great was the Booth prestige in things sporting that we find as matter of common knowledge that the house on the shores of Dickerson's Creek was called the jockey House. The presumption is that they had imported a jockey of skill to handle their 
horses. The youth of the town found plenty to do, and the long summer evenings found them throwing the iron bar, wrestling, lifting weights, a feat in which none had ever been able to excel Isaac Overton, the strong man of Southold, or Lymas Reeve, of 1Vlattituck, who held the champion-ship at the western end of the town. These two were not contemporary, but the tales of their prodigious strength served the youth of the entire town for many generations.
     Quoits and a form of bowls called `Duck on the Rock' were ever popular. Cards were played in the taverns and in the homes of some of the rich. The town records carry the information that apprentices must not play dice, but nothing was said in regard to attending cocking mains. By 1774, this form of sport had been forbidden by the Continental Congress, but we find Gideon Salmon making a pair of `cokrel spirrs' for young Tom Conkling after this date. The remains of the cocking main may still be seen in the hollow at the lower end of the George H. Wells farm. This spot, where once the Harvest Home Festival was held, had been the cock-pit of the Booth family who held these acres for many years.  Perhaps the outstanding sport of that day was shooting at the mark. 
     Early in the town's history the bloods had betaken themselves to Oyster pond and had shot wild turkeys. After these were exterminated, battues became a thing of the past. Shooting at the mark was considered  a rather expensive proceeding, but the tavern keepers offered mugs of rum for the best shots, so that the element of gambling entered and the practice continued.
     Although the women of the town did the spinning and much of the weaving, and all of the barnyard chores, their influence in the town was completely minus. Southold, and for that matter every other town in the new world, was a man's paradise. So great was the prestige of the male that when a town wished to punish a man for beating his wife, they did not bring a direct complaint, but trumped up a charge of Sabbath breaking. The man in his appeal to the Governor's Council at New York openly makes the charge and presumably he should have known as to its truth, which he was at no pains' to deny.
     It was to such a town as I have tried to picture in the last few paragraphs that the news of impending invasion came. As I have told, they had been circularized on behalf of the Continental Congress and the Association, as it was called, found many signers. The feudal atmosphere of the town is well shown by the fact that three of the richest men 
of the plantation were their leaders. Let the richest men in Southold town attempt to lead us anywhere today and you will get the point I am making. Thomas Dering of Shelter Island was one of the group of nabobs that made that place a replica of the James River Plantations. Ezra L'Hommedieu of Southold, by far her most distinguished citizen, was 
a man of great wealth and kept an establishment commensurate with his position. The third member of this triumvirate, Jared Landon, was the son of judge Samuel, and a man of independent means. He paid his father 250 pounds in gold for the home place, approximately where S. Lester Albertson now resides. This sum in specie was an added burden to Cyrus, personal attendant to judge Samuel. Cyrus had been a slave in the Osborne family and had been given to the judge because, as Lawyer Osborne said, when he wanted Cyrus he was always hanging around 
judge Landon's kitchen engaged in making love to Zipporah, who presided over the judge's cuisine. Cyrus lugged aboard the Polley eight bags of silver and gold, doubloons, pistoles, Louis Tor, guineas, Spanish dollars, and so on to the amount of X24,000.
     Before the judge went aboard the lugger he rendered an account of the powder and shot in his keeping.

Decr ye 1776, Pouder and Ball of the Town 
John Franks 13 lb
David Landon 3 lb
Jonathan Vaill 3 lb 
Samuell Landon 4 lb 
Samuell Landon 45 lb of Ball at 7p pr Pound Lawful money 
John Pain 1 lb

     On the margin he wrote `Guilford', and a duplicate account appears among the papers of Doctor David Conkling, who had been commissioned by Col. Livingston to render a report on the stock of munitions on hand.

     With so much mention of war and its rumors, we may stop and consider the military aspects of the town. From the beginning there had been a military force called the Train Band, modeled after a similar force in England. Membership was obligatory, and the ages were from 16 to 60. Nothing but absolute decrepitude could excuse a settler from this duty. They met at eight o'clock every Monday morning and drilled for two hours, with time out for visits to the tavern and then back for another hour of drilling. The church was the armory, and as late as 1803 provisions were made in the new church for storing the arms of the militia, which had succeeded to the duties of the early Train Band.
     This matter of weekly training is established by the books of Jonathan Horton, 3rd, who was a storekeeper and surveyor from 1694 to 1742. He sold innumerable half pounds of powder on Mondays and often on the margin of the ledger he would write `trainin day'. Another evidence of weekly training is offered by judge Samuel Landon in his 
account with a certain Luke, who had engaged to serve him for 24 pounds a year. Weekly for several years the Judge makes this entry, "to one day's training and two days drunk."
     I have mentioned the weekly training because this was not the common custom in the other towns making up the County. The first Monday in the month was the accepted day for training, but the early Southolder was so enamored of arms that they gave four days a month to this while their neighbors were only giving one. The ease with which Captain Thomas Terry raised a company of seventy-five men to serve in the Mohawk Valley campaign of 1760 plainly tells of the attitude of the Town toward war.
     Southold had a company of Minute Men even as the parent colony. When the Militia began to bear this title is unknown. So much of the New York data has been lost, but we have this list of the South old company and Captain Thomas Terry has risen to a colonelcy. I append the complete list of 57 names that all may know with the least effort the names of those who cast their lot with the Continental Congress and decided, to paraphrase Franklin, to hang together rather than separately.
 
 

     Four of these men had served under Terry in the Mohawk Valley campaign. John Corwin, Constant Havens, Joshua Corwin and Samuel Hudson were the veterans. These lists do not exhaust the roster of those who served in the War of Independence. There were scores of impatient who were already at the camps in Roxbury and Cambridge. In order that those who had staid at home might keep in touch with those at the front, an enterprising man, Nathan Bushnell, Jr., offered in the pages of the Connecticut Gazette to deliver mail to the soldiers en-
camped at Roxbury and Cambridge. This paper was read in Southold and of course circulated among the shore towns of Connecticut where the Refugees from Southold were being maintained by the Patriot authorities. Lyme, Killingworth, Guilford and several other towns received the first delegations. Illustrative of the Southold attitude toward New York was the protest against being quartered in the same towns with Refugees from New York!
     To return to the Minute Men who were drilling in the various villages their collective hearts were gladdened by the arrival of a messenger from Colonel Smith bringing Col. Thomas Terry their bounty money. Each man who had enlisted received the "summe of five, dollers." This money had been supplied by Thomas Dering.

     Already the British were requisitioning the cattle that were left in the town. From the Diary of Colonel Josiah Smith we learn of the first efforts to offset these depredations. The Colonel's spelling leaves a great deal to be desired; but he was in good company as his commander to-be, George Washington, always showed a complete indifference to 
spelling books and dictionaries.
     "August ye 7-1776 1 sot oute Eastward to South hold and gave Capt (Paul) Reves orders & Ingaged Magor Wick-
ham to secure the Stock on Robings Island from the Enemy.
     "August ye 8-I spente my time along to Oyster pond & Order Leutenant (Joshua) Youngs to take the Stock of Plume Island and I staid with Coll (Thomas) Terry all nighte."
     Parlous times were the lot of the citizens of Southold. Parker Wickham held the reins of government. The Wickham family had split. Thomas was heart and soul for the patriot cause and found time from his regular duties as a committee man, handling the affairs of the Refugees to equip as sloop and do some active privateering. Mattituck 
became the seat of the government and remained as such for several years (1777-1781). Dr. Craven in his History of Mattituck has written an interesting chapter on Mattituck during the Revolution. I cannot go the whole way with him in some of his conclusions. And until our public squares are cluttered up with the statues of failures I cannot accept the conventional attitude toward the Tories. They guessed wrong and there exists no reason why there should be any especial tenderness in judging them. To be exact I cannot agree with his judgment on Capt. Peter Hallock who raided Col. Phineas Fanning's cow pen. Trumbull in his letter of rebuke was mindful of the fact that Fanning had given his parole to remain inactive against the patriots and until there existed evidence that he had broken it his property was inviolate. So too in the matter of Parnel Wickham's sorrel mare with the white face. Miss Wickham was entitled to consideration as the niece of Capt. or Maj. Wickham.
     For the better information of the reader I will cite from Onderdonk's Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island, (1846). These are cited as set down in this volume and some of them will overrun events that are to be treated as having arisen from these happenings.

New London, Nov. 8, '76.
     A number of troops from R. I. and East end of L. I. landed at Setauket and in a skirmish killed 10 Tories and captured 23.

New London, Jan. 3, 1777.
     Several transports are loading wood at the east end of L. I, under guard of some men of war. 'Tis said the inhabitants suffered much from the soldiers, who rob them of their effects.

New London, March 14, 1777.
     Fisher's Island raided and cattle taken. 20 ships at anchor in Gardiner's Bay.

New London, May 2, 1777.
     Levi Allen (brother of Ethan) posted at Mrs. Hubbard's in Mattituck, some counterfeit bills (as a warning to the public) gave one to Rufus Tuthill at Oyster Pond and one to John Brown of Fisher's Island.

     This item call for explanation. The counterfeit bills were replicas of British Money and military notes and the Province was being flooded with them at the instance of the Revolutionary authorities. By this means those who might be prompted to accept pay from the Britons were to be discouraged. This form of boring from within is almost as old as the practice of warfare.
     On December 24, '77 the Connecticut Gazette relates of the attack on Capt. Ayscough at Southold. The officer was here superintending the loading of wood. They were bivouacking in Moore's tap-room when they were apprised of the coming of Captain Hart and a body of patriot soldiers. Hastening to their ship they were overtaken and in a running fight the British forces lost 7 prisoners and the rest of the little group were either killed or wounded.
     Wood was in great demand and the invading force added insult to injury by burning the stump ground after they had stripped it of wood.
     The next citation is from Rivington's Gazette. This paper found no good in the patriot cause as the wording will indicate.

Feb. 26, '78.
     "Last Friday evening a small party of rebels, came from the Main to Mattituck, rapaciously seized and carried off into Conn. a quantity of goods, landed from one of the vessels driven ashore in the late storm. Next day a gang ofruffians (sic) (John Clive Symes his daughter married William Henry Harrison), Peter Griffen, Wilmot Goldsmith, and Tuthill late residents of Southold) brought wagons from the east end of the Island, stripped the schooner Clio, Capt. Simmons, of her sails, rigging, &c, which they carried off, and have no doubt sent across the Sound.'
     But on the 2nd of January preceding, the shoe had been on the other foot. A company of Tories, 130 in number had raided Oyster Pond and robbed the honest inhabitants of clothing, money, grain and cattle. From one man they took 120 pounds in cash.

     There are many more such incidents, some of which happened before Tryon marched his force out to the East End and made his headquarters at Southold in the house of Peter Vail, son-in-law of judge Samuel Landon. The event that determined Tryon's course has been recounted often. It is the raid of Col. Return Jonathan Meigs on 
Sagg Harbor. Briefly, Meigs with a force of 160 men had rowed across the Sound from Guilford to Southold, pulled their boats across the narrow beach now claimed by the Town, had made their way through Tom's Creek and out into the Bay and thence to Sagg Harbor. There, under the fire of an armed schooner, they burned the British transports 100 tons of hay and grain, and according to one account, destroyed 100 hogsheads of rum and some other West Indian goods, presumably sugar. The New London account numbers the prisoners at 90. Among the vessels destroyed was one with a complement of 6 or 8 guns. The fire of the British ship was ineffective and the raiders were uninjured. The total time of the expedition was 24 hours.
     This raid occurred in 1777. A year or two later Jared Landon was accused of having piloted this raid and was thrust into the Southampton jail by Benjamin Morrison. The paper, which I have copied in full below is a recent discovery. Until this was found there existed no exact knowledge of the spot where Jared Landon had been imprisoned. It was known that he had been held a prisoner for his support of the patriot cause, but his family apparently never knew the place of his incarceration. It had been a family joke for years that Grandfather Jared had learned to like skippers in his cheese from a year's stay in a British prison, thought to have been the notorious prison ships.

"My Intrist hath suffered by the British since the War as Fallows-or those acting under there Command sence the 
Year (blank date).  "Viz: To Cash to Soporte me wile in Prison        39-16-4 
 

To the lose of Clothing as Follows
1 great coat 3-12-0
4 pr of Wosted three Threaded Stockings at 12-0 2-8-0
1 Shirt at 14-0, one vest at 16-0, Shoes at 10-0 2-0-0
The lose of my watch 4-0-0
1 pair Knee buckles at 12-0, one gold ring at 12-0 1-4-0
new saddle and bridle 3-0-0 
three bridls stold by the troops at Other times 12-0 
Capt Kinloch Stold my horse which just before Cost me 25 pounds-never received him untill the cost exceeded ye sum 25-00-00

Trator Arnal Stolid one calf I just paid 4 pounds for 4-00-00 
his or himself stolid four hogs & three geese 20-00-00 
1/2  load of hay taken from me with pay at 6 pounds a tun 3-00-00 
to 5 hundred wait burnt at 6-0 1-10-00 
Capt Hulet Company Stold about 5 shock Oats & Busher 1-12-00 
Benjn Meurrison Imprisoning me at Southampton last time & Expence of horse Riding 10-04-06 
at Other times troops stool from me the value cloathing 14-06 
Decd Fathers watch Stold belonging to the Estate 6-00-00 
Seven Guineas I Expended to Prevent my Place being 
Considered as Reable Place & to save my Reant from the British 13-01-04

(Total) 152-02-04

     After totalling this sum other expenditures occurred to him and he appended the following:
Hire Mr Maps Going to New York to get my discharges 2-0-0 
Cost in Riding to Mr Plat for him to bring my Cloths I left in Prision 2-19-0 
11 months and eight days Confinement being accused of Piliting Coll Maggs to burn the Hay Fleet at Sag Harbor 40-00-00

(New Total) 197-02-04

     Many Articles lost unNotesed beside the Amazing damidge my confinement was to my Intrest."
      The `Trator Arnal' who `stolid' one calf and possibly four hogs and three geese was none other than Benedict. This raid on the barnyard must have happened in Connecticut. It perhaps preceded the storming of Fort Griswold with the attendant murder of Colonel Ledyard by Major Bromfield. For the benefit of one who doubted Fanny 
Ledyard as a Refugee, I will cite from page 235 of Mather's Refugees from Long Island: "A bright picture of the ministering angel is that of Fanny Ledyard, a niece of Col. Ledyard, and herself a Refugee. On the morning after the attack she brought wine, water and chocolate to cheer the wounded who were still within the Fort."
     The matters treated above have taken us ahead of our story. From the fact that Samuel Landon's watch was stolen, it is evident that his son Jared must have been imprisoned, for the second time, after the elder Landon's death, which occurred at Guilford in 1782. The arrest must have been effected in January 1782. Jared brought his father's body from Guilford in a coffin that John Pain had built at a cost of one pound, four shillings. In his neat handwriting one may find the whole account of the funeral and, pinned to the page, is Dr. David Conkling's receipt for attendance on the judge. Dr. Conkling had bought his way out of a British jail a few years before, so he could sympathise with the younger Landon when, on the instigation of Parker Wickham, the British commander seized the well-known sympathizer with the cause that Washington was leading. The hatred of these two men for each other was marked. Once Jared had unburdened himself to his father to the effect that the town was not large enough for him and `P. Wickham' and that `P. Fanning was no better.' When the war was over Jared Landon avenged himself on P. Wickham by having his estates confiscated and bidding them in through the agency of one Norton, who appeared for him in many business matters. His punishment of Phineas Fanning was more subtle. He never failed to insult him whenever they met, and one entry in the great ledger reads as follows: "Finny Phannigan, the dastard Irishman, bought a pair of boots." Having relieved the pent-up anger, our Surrogate, for such he was at this time, filled out the rest of the account without further maiming Fanning's name.