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 iCopy 1 
 
 MAJOR JOHN ANDRE 
 
 AS A 
 
 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 AT 
 
 LANCASTER, PA., 1775-6 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A HISTORIC HOUSE AND FAMILY 
 
 A SKEi iiV 
 
 W. D. HENSEL 
 
 Read Befohe Donegal Chapter, Daughi 'rs of the Amekican Revolution, 
 Lancaster, Pa., on Apri;. 13, 1904 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE NEW ERA 
 LANCASTER, PA. 
 
Qass_ 
 Book_ 
 
 Aa 
 
MAJOR JOHN ANDRE 
 
 AS A 
 
 PRISONER OE WAR 
 
 AT 
 
 LANCASTER, PA., 1775-(> 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A HISTORIC HOUSE AND FAMILY 
 
 A SKETCH BY 
 
 W. U. HENSEL 
 
 Read Before Donegal Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 
 Lancaster, Pa., on April 13, 1904 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE NEW ERA 
 LANCASTER, PA. 
 
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Major John Andre's Residence 
 in Lancaster. 
 
 In a notable passage of one of the 
 finest outbursts of modern oratory, a 
 great man, on a great occasion, stand- 
 ing in a great place, suggested that 
 while it recked little what he and his 
 colleagues said, where they then stood, 
 the world could never forget what had 
 been done there. This linking of event 
 with locality is one of the fine traits 
 of human thought. Nothing has con- 
 tributed more to history in its best 
 and broadest significance than the 
 reverent tendency to associate the 
 thing done with the place where It 
 happened. Hawthorne somewhere 
 points out that it is not only the 
 physical perfection of the English 
 landscape "rolled and combed," fin- 
 ished "with a pencil rather than a 
 plow," but the wealth of its historical 
 and personal associations that so 
 charms the tourist on that sacred soil. 
 In fact, very much of the pleasure, if 
 not the profit, of travel lies in the con- 
 stant suggestiveness of historical as- 
 sociation; and over and over again 
 places in themselves altogether com- 
 mon, if not mean, take on a signifi- 
 cance and importance that challenge 
 the interest and charm the memory of 
 the beholder because of the deeds long 
 done or the persons long dead with 
 which or with whom they are somehow 
 related. 
 
 Wandering one day through West- 
 minster Abbey, that Valhalla of the 
 English-speaking people, which for 
 six hundred years has enshrined fhe 
 bones and perpetuated the memory of 
 illustrious men and women of our 
 race, I had passed St. Edward's shrine 
 and the tomb of Henry III., and that 
 sacred chair "where kings and queens 
 are crowned;" I had laid one hand 
 upon the tomb of Queen Elizabeth — 
 
(4) 
 
 patron of Spenser and Shakespeare — 
 and one upon that of her royal victim, 
 martyr or traitress, as you choose, 
 Mary Queen of Scots; I had stood on* 
 foot upon the grave of Herschel and 
 one on Darwin's, and had seen how 
 a tear, dropped upon the tomb of Fox, 
 "trickled to the bier" of his great 
 rival, Pitt; I had heard in the "poet's 
 corner" whispering echoes of Words- 
 worth, Tennyson and Browning — if 
 notof Lord Byron — when my attention 
 was arrested by the proud memorial 
 raised within those venerable walls to 
 a boy, who, for a brief period of our 
 Revolutionary history, was a resident, 
 if not a citizen, of Lancaster and dwelt 
 across the street from my own home. 
 
 In an Illustrious Group. 
 
 I forgot for a time the monarchs and 
 statesmen, soldiers and seamen, seers 
 and sages, poets and philosophers, 
 whose tombs and tablets mark that 
 shrine; and my mind ran back to a 
 modest mansion on the east side of 
 North Lime street, midway between 
 East King and Orange. The tomb 
 that had arrested my attention was 
 designed by Robert Adam, a famous 
 architect of his day; and it was 
 wrought in exquisite statuary marble 
 by Van Gelder. It is comprised with- 
 in one of the many groups of na- 
 tional memorials; all about it are un- 
 inhabited monuments — as it was once 
 — which Addison says "have been 
 erected to the memory of persons 
 whose bodies were perhaps buried on 
 the plains of Blenheim, or in the 
 bosom of the ocean." There lies 
 Beauclerk, royal scion of Nell Gwynn, 
 who fought, with both legs shot off, 
 at Coca-Chica, and, 
 
 "Dying, heard Brittania's thunder roar. 
 And Spain still felt him when he 
 breathed no more." 
 
 Here is that old sea lion — Sir John 
 Balchen — who, fighting for England's 
 supremacy on the wave from the age 
 of fifteen to seventy-four, went down 
 to death and up to glory in a wreck 
 on "the Casket Rocks," where eleven 
 hundred souls perished "in the sad 
 
(5) 
 
 sequel to his noble career." On one 
 hand are the tablets of those who 
 fleshed their maiden swords under 
 Marlborough and Argyll on the plains 
 of Flanders; and, on the other, the 
 tombs of jaunty cavaliers who fell in 
 the second Jacobite rebellion when 
 the Highlands of Scotland burst into 
 a flame of loyalty for Charles Edward, 
 the Young Pretender. "Wolfe's huge 
 cenotaph recalls glorious death on 
 the Heights of Abraham, sealing the 
 victory which established English 
 domination in this western world; 
 and, in a vault nearby, is the coffin of 
 Admiral Charles Saunders — name now 
 almost forgotten — who bore scarcely 
 a second part in the great Canadian 
 Conquest, and whose merit, Pitt said 
 in Parliament, "equalled that of those 
 who had beaten Armadas." Not far 
 from Burgoyne, to whom the Colonies 
 largely owe British collapse, nor from 
 Enoch Markham, who bravely upbore 
 a distinguished name throughout all 
 England's struggle, is the tomb before 
 which I left you standing to make 
 this digression. Even in this com- 
 pany and among these memorials 
 neither the marble nor its subject is 
 inconspicuous. Elevated upon a 
 pedestal is a sarcophagus surmounted 
 by a reclining figure of Brittania, 
 leaning upon the national shield, 
 lamenting the loss of an officer whom, 
 his panegyrist said, "fell more uni- 
 versally lamented by adversaries and 
 by friends than any figure in ancient 
 or modern history" — ^"an irrefragable 
 proof of unsullied honor and superior 
 merit." At the foot of the female 
 figure the British lion seems to mourn 
 the untimely death of the hero. Upon 
 the panel is engraved this inscription: 
 
 Sacred to the memory 
 
 of 
 
 MAJOR JOHN ANDRE, 
 
 Who, raised by his Merit, at an early 
 
 Period of his Life, to the Rank of 
 ADJUTANT-GENERAL OF THE 
 
 BRITISH FORCES IN AMERICA, 
 
 and, employed in an important but 
 
 hazardous Enterprise, fell a 
 
 sacrifice to his 
 
(6) 
 
 Zeal for his King and Country, 
 
 on the 2d of October, 1780, aged 29. 
 
 universally beloved and esteemed 
 
 by the Army in which he 
 
 served, and lamented even 
 
 by his Foes. 
 
 His gracious Sovereign, 
 
 King George III., 
 
 has caused this Monument to be 
 
 erected. 
 
 With his life and tragic end history 
 and romance have been busy. Even 
 if it were contended that his career and 
 talents were only of an average order 
 — and that his death was deservedly 
 ignoble — those who might have become 
 interested in him have had the proud 
 satisfaction of knowing that, apart 
 from a few great names on either side 
 of the Revolutionary War, none has 
 been gilded with more lustre than that 
 of John Andre, who lived as a gallant 
 and soldier, and who died as a spy. 
 
 Were I even disposed, as I surely 
 am not, to resent his fate, this were 
 not the occasion to question the jus- 
 tice of the judgment that sent him to 
 the gallows. Mine is the simple task 
 to awaken and refresh — by striking a 
 single chord — some of the memories of 
 our local history that take deep root 
 in the Revolutionary period; and to 
 point out some remarkable coinci- 
 dences arising from the circumstance 
 that Andre resided for a time as a 
 paroled prisoner of war in the Town 
 of Lancaster. 
 
 Some Local History— 1744-1765. 
 
 You must indulge me in another 
 digression if I recall the fact, too often 
 overlooked, of the relative im- 
 portance of this city at that time. In 
 the realm of the blind it has been 
 facetiously said "the one-eyed man is 
 king;" and may we not unblushingly 
 recall that when there was no "Har- 
 risburg, Altoona, Pittsburg and the 
 West," there was already here a proud 
 shire-town, destined to be for a time 
 the capital of the State and of the 
 nation, and, when they had passed 
 hence, never to forget its ancient and 
 honorable eminence. 
 
(7) 
 
 If you will carefully read an account 
 of that Treaty of the Six Nations, by 
 far the most interesting, and certainly 
 among the most important, ever con- 
 cluded on Pennsylvania soil, which 
 was held here as early as June, 1744, 
 you will realize, even one hundred and 
 sixty years after the event, the geo- 
 graphical, ethnological and political 
 importance of a place that, scaixely 
 then fifteen years old, invited the as- 
 semblage of red men and white, chiefs 
 of savage tribes and Governors of 
 settled States, in peaceful concourse 
 to settle not only the disputes of 
 centuries between contending bands of 
 aborigines, the Delawares and Min- 
 quas, the Susquehannocks and Mo- 
 hawks, but also the conquest rights 
 of embryonic Commonwealths. In 
 journeying hither from Maryland 
 Whitman Marshe's way led through 
 Quaker settlements in Chester county, 
 but he soon joined the Commissioners 
 of his State and journeyed hither, 
 maybe by the Buck, the Valley and 
 Willow Street to Lancaster. That the 
 traveler of that time fared scarcely 
 less worthily than those who picnic by 
 the wayside in these later days, we 
 may gather from his diary, wherein 
 Marshe narrates that "good neat's 
 tongue, cold ham and Madeira wine" 
 broke their fast at noonday. That 
 our county was then as now the 
 garden spot is attested by his record 
 that here, in Pequea, Manor and the 
 Lampeters, "are large and fine farms 
 settled by the Germans. They sow all 
 kinds of grain and have very plenty 
 harvests. Their houses are chiefly 
 built of stone and generally seated 
 near some brook or stream of water. 
 They have very large meadows, which 
 produce a great deal of hay and feed 
 therewith a variety of cattle." 
 
 Albeit he was not so well impressed 
 with the city, or its inhabitants, whom 
 he describes as "chiefly High Dutch, 
 Scotch-Irish, some few English fami- 
 lies and unbelieving Israelites, who 
 dealt very considerably in this 
 place." These Southern gentlemen 
 stopped at the Cross Keys, on West 
 
(8) 
 
 King street, kept by Peter Worral, a 
 thrifty Quaker, who had succeeded to 
 Samuel Bethel's trade and tavern by 
 marrying his buxom widow in 1740. 
 
 The First Court House. 
 
 Thirty years before the event to 
 which I shall shortly draw your notice 
 this chronicler narrates that there 
 stood in the Centre Square of old 
 Lancaster a Court House, built of 
 brick, two stories high, with a hand- 
 some bench and a chair "filled," he 
 says, by the Judge, leaving us in some 
 doubt, however, as to whether the 
 seat was scant or the justice portly. 
 Around the half oval table below the 
 Bench sat the clerk and counsel; and 
 fronting them all were raised steps or 
 stairs where eight hundred auditors 
 and spectators could stand without 
 crowding. The space overhead was 
 mostly in one large room, with a 
 spacious chimney place, and here the 
 Court was held in cold weather, and 
 public functions at all seasons. Ad- 
 joining it was a smaller chamber, 
 where juries were penned until they 
 agreed, without food or candles; and 
 from the cupola on top of the building, 
 Marshe declares, one could see for 
 miles around, including vistas of the 
 Susquehanna river — which last 1 do 
 not ask you to believe, because they 
 are not now in sight even from the 
 far loftier summits of the Woolworth 
 structure. 
 
 It was in this Court House that Rev. 
 Craddock preached and conducted 
 divine services according to the Church 
 of England on Sunday, June 24, 1744. 
 It is gravely recorded that "he preached 
 a very good sermon, which met the ap- 
 probation of the several gentlemen 
 present" — then, as now, presumably, 
 the male sex iDeing the sole judge of 
 the quality of sermons. Between one 
 and two o'clock of that day the Com- 
 missioners of Maryland and Virginia 
 dined in the Court House, while the 
 Governor of Pennsylvania, then George 
 Thomas, gave the preacher a hearty 
 welcome and good dinner, and in the 
 afternoon, the office of the day was 
 
(9) 
 
 again performed by another minister 
 of the established church. Notwith- 
 standing two sermons in one day the 
 traditional good cheer and hospitality 
 of Lancaster seemed to date quite as 
 far back as this period. "Pleasant 
 company, good wine and lime punch" 
 were manifestly not then considered 
 "vices;" and while Commissioners and 
 Indians, then seriously engaged in 
 treaty making, were "sober" men and 
 even at times "refused drinking in a 
 moderate way" and prudently took 
 "great care to abstain from that in- 
 toxicating drink from fear of being 
 overreached," when they had finished 
 their business some of them did "drink 
 without measure," and nobody ap- 
 peared to have been scandalized. 
 
 Entertaining the Big Chiefs. 
 
 When the visitors came to be enter- 
 tained with a grand ball in the Court 
 House, and James Hamilton, the pro- 
 prietor, danced the minuet to "wilder 
 music" than even the Indians made; 
 and the Jewesses, "not long since come 
 from New York," "made a tolerable ap- 
 pearance" and the "large and elegant 
 supper" was served in such manner 
 "that the female dancers first ate," I 
 can well understand why my chronicler 
 and informant, with several others of 
 the younger sort, stayed until after one 
 in the morning. So it happens that we 
 never grow old, and the boy is forever 
 father to the man. 
 
 I should delight to take you with me 
 through those days of treaty-making, 
 more than a century and a-half ago, to 
 depict to you Jennings making his 
 speech and giving his belts of wam- 
 pum to the Cannasategos, their 
 "johas" and "wohs" quite as forcible 
 and significant, I doubt not, as the 
 college yells of to-day; to bid you to 
 that great dinner given in the Court 
 House by the Maryland Commissioners, 
 when twenty-five chiefs of the Six Na- 
 tions were entertained, and, with a cir- 
 cumspection that the Clover Club, the 
 Five O'clockers, or the Fellowship 
 might well emulate, Mr. Thomas Cook- 
 son, Prothonotary of Lancaster county. 
 
(10) 
 
 Wm. Logan and Nathaniel Kigbie, of 
 Maryland, "carved the meat for them, 
 served them with cider and wine, 
 mixed with ivater, and regulated the 
 economy of the two tables. The chiefs 
 seemed prodigiously pleased with their 
 feast, for they fed lustily, drank 
 heartily, and were very greasy before 
 they finished their dinner, for. by-the- 
 bye, they made no use of their forks. 
 The interpreter, Mr. Weiser, stood be- 
 twixt the tables, where the Governor 
 sat, and that at which the sachems 
 were placed, who, by order of his 
 Honour, was desired to inform the In- 
 dians he drank their healths, which he 
 did; whereupon they gave the usual 
 cry of approbation, and returned the 
 compliment by drinking health to his 
 Honour and the several Commis- 
 sioners." 
 
 All of this, however interesting as it 
 is in itself,is quite outside my immediate 
 subject and only collateral and inci- 
 dental — or rather antecedent — to the 
 main purpose of this narration, and 
 must, therefore, for the time be dis- 
 missed from further consideration. If 
 Lancaster during the next twenty 
 years made no great strides, it at least 
 presented such a respectable presence 
 to an intelligent stranger that Major 
 Robert Rogers, in his concise account 
 of North America, 1765, the most in- 
 teresting description of English pos- 
 sessions in America up to that time, 
 declares that Lancaster, sixty miles 
 from Philadelphia, on the way to Fort 
 Duquesne, was "near as large as the 
 City of New York." 
 
 A Lancastrian at Quebec. 
 
 The first historical coincidence of 
 local note to which I shall ask your 
 attention is that about the time emo- 
 tions were stirring in the breast of 
 John Andre which impelled him to 
 seek fame, if not fortune, in the New 
 World, and unconsciously to start for 
 Lancaster, by way of Canada, the love 
 of venture in a young Lancastrian 
 prompted him to start from Lancaster, 
 by way of Benedict Arnold's desperate 
 and romantic Canadian campaign, for 
 
(11) 
 
 Quebec. No page of all our Revolu- 
 tionary history is more astir with vivid 
 heroism than that which records the 
 joint campaigns of Arnold and Mont- 
 gomery against the strongholds of Brit- 
 ish power in the North. If it was rele- 
 vant to this occasion, and, if time per- 
 mitted, I should delight to recount the 
 gallantry and romantic adventure and 
 the thrilling heroism of both those ex- 
 peditions. It is of notable local interest 
 that no more vivid narrative of the 
 Arnold march has ever been written 
 than that which John Joseph Henry, of 
 Lancaster, dictated to his daughter, 
 Ann Mary, and which his widow gave 
 to the press in 1812, without even the 
 correction of verbal and typographical 
 errors. At the age of fourteen he was 
 taken from Lancaster by his uncle, a 
 gunsmith, to Detroit, and he returned 
 to this city on foot, with a single guide, 
 who died in the intervening wilderness. 
 It was this experience, no doubt, which 
 inspired him to clandestinely join the 
 Arnold expedition when he was only 
 seventeen years old. It was not his 
 fortune to directly encounter Andre, 
 who was delivered into the hands of 
 the Americans upon the surrender of 
 St. John's to Montgomery. But the 
 coincidence is scarcely less remarkable 
 that he should have been proceeding 
 on his way to, and actively and gal- 
 lantly participating in, the campaign 
 against Quebec, under the command of 
 Benedict Arnold, while Montgomery, 
 proceeding toward the same objective 
 point, was accompanied by Aaron Burr 
 as a camp follower, with the Indian 
 girl, whom he picked up by the way, 
 and her dog. 
 
 Thus at the very outset of the story 
 there appears an inter-relation of pic- 
 turesque personal events that can 
 hardly fail to arouse the sentiment of 
 the romancer and historian. 
 
 Andre and His Honora. 
 
 Let me now start at the other end 
 of the line. Though born in London, 
 John Andre was of French extraction, 
 as his name so readily suggests. He 
 originally projected a mercantile rather 
 
 LofC. 
 
(12) 
 
 than a military career. In my inquiry 
 into his family relations when he was 
 scarcely eighteen years of age, I find 
 no trace of his father, nor of the 
 younger brother upon whom there 
 seems to have been conferred high 
 honors by the British Government. In 
 his letters to Anna Seward, who, after 
 the fashion of that gay Eighteenth 
 Century, he addresses as "Dear Julia," 
 he recalls his mother and three sisters, 
 and her "Monody" on his death refers 
 to them as Maria, Anna and Louisa. 
 Throughout this fervid correspondence 
 he tells, with boyish frankness, to the 
 mutual friend of himself and the object 
 of his adoration, of the joy that danced 
 in his beloved's eyes when she first 
 showed him the three spires of Litch- 
 field, which she called the "Ladies of 
 the Valley," well deserving the title by 
 their lightness and elegance. "How I 
 loved them," he says, from the instant 
 "she had named them." That his family 
 fortunes were not abundant may be in- 
 ferred from his allusions to their old 
 coach, drawn by "two long-tailed nags." 
 The poverty of his condition is as 
 frankly avowed as the hopelessness of 
 his affection. In one letter he writes: 
 "My zephyrs are wafted through cracks 
 in the wainscott; for murmuring 
 streams I have dirty kennels; for bleat- 
 ing flocks, grunting pigs; and squall- 
 ing cats for birds that incessantly 
 warble." For the sake of his mistress, 
 however, he was evidently content to 
 sink his artistic and literary aspira- 
 tions, for as late as November 1, 1769, 
 he wrote: "I have now completely 
 subdued my aversion to the profession 
 of a merchant, and hope in time to ac- 
 quire an inclination for it. Yet, God 
 forbid I should ever love what I am to 
 make the object of my attention! that 
 vile trash, which I care not for, but 
 only as it may be the future means of 
 procuring the blessing of my soul. 
 Thus all my mercantile calculations go 
 to the tune of dear Honora. When 
 an impertinent consciousness whispers 
 in my ear, that I am not of the right 
 stuff for a merchant, I draw my 
 Honora's picture from my bosom, and 
 
(13) 
 
 the sight of that dear Talisman so in- 
 spirits my industry, that no toil ap- 
 pears oppressive." 
 
 Not to dwell upon this phase of his 
 career it is enough to recall that the 
 fair Honora either rejected his ad- 
 dresses or yielded to parental objec- 
 tions even after engagement. She 
 married Richard Lovell Edgeworth, 
 content to be his second wife, and be- 
 came stepmother to Maria Edgeworth, 
 the novelist* Andre, in his disappoint- 
 ment or desperation, bought an army 
 commission, but that he was faithful 
 for a time at least to the memory of 
 his heartless Honora is shown by the 
 fact that when he surrendered at St. 
 John's, to Montgomery, with seven 
 other officers and two hundred and 
 forty-two privates of the Seventh 
 Royal Fusileers, and when he was 
 stripped and examined, the locket- 
 miniature of the woman who had dis- 
 appointed him was saved from his cap- 
 tors by himself hiding it in his mouth. 
 It was of his own painting. By the 
 way, she died of consumption four /i^' 
 years before him and while he was a 
 prisoner of war. That she was by no 
 means a commonplace woman I gather 
 from this fact: In 1781 William Hay- 
 ley wrote his poem, "The Triumphs of 
 Temper." It exhausted seven editions 
 at least. The impression of 1793 is 
 in my hand. Thin and dreary the verse 
 appears at this day, and if anybody 
 could be found to read such poetry 
 every real literary centre from Quar- 
 ry ville, Pa., to East Aurora, N. Y., 
 could easily furnish mechanics to write 
 
 *When Edgeworth's matrimonial ex- 
 perience is recalled it is little wonder 
 he proved a successful rival to Andre; 
 for he was married four times — never 
 a widower more than eight months — 
 and he became father of twenty-one 
 children. Maria was his second child, 
 the eldest daughter of his first wife. 
 It is said he was worshipping at 
 Honora Sneyd's shrine when he re- 
 ceived the not unwelcome news of his 
 wife's death; and within four months 
 Miss Sneyd became the step-mother of 
 his children. Before she died she 
 designated her own sister, Elizabeth, as 
 her successor, and eight months later 
 the aunt of her children became their 
 step-mother. 
 
(14) 
 
 it. And yet this slender volume which 
 I submit to your inspection* is of 
 more market value than the whole of 
 some very respectable private libraries 
 in Lancaster, only because the fanciful 
 engraving of its mythical "Serena" on 
 page 5 is a portrait of "Honora Sneyd," 
 the fiance of John Andre. I dolefully 
 confess my own previous ignorance of 
 Hayley, or his ways and works, but 
 the ever helpful encyclopaedia tells me 
 he was educated at Eton and Cam- 
 bridge and studied law; being rich, 
 however, he wisely practiced literature 
 and courted the muses. I am re-in- 
 forced in the conviction that he must 
 have had some special interest in 
 Andre's friends, if not in the lad him- 
 self, by the fact that in this other pre- 
 cious — if not priceless — volume which 
 I now hold before youf he appears with 
 some (of course) "impromptu" lines 
 sandwiched between Anna Seward's 
 "religious enthusiasm" for "a mur- 
 dered saint" and her hysterical poetic 
 outburst to Andre and all his family. 
 This other volume, not utterly beyond 
 the reach of a private purse, has also 
 great market if not literary, value, be- 
 cause its engraving of Andre, from his 
 own portrait of himself, has furnished 
 the model from which all others are 
 drawn or reproduced. 
 
 Major Andre a Prisoner of War. 
 
 Transported from Canada to Con- 
 necticut, and thence to Lancaster, we 
 must believe that he and his comrades 
 and the sixty or more women and chil- 
 dren who were brought as prisoners of 
 war to this town, in December, 1775, 
 came by way of Philadelphia and were 
 marched up the King's Highway, past 
 the Compass, White Horse, the Hat 
 Tavern and what is now Bird-in-Hand. 
 
 *"The Triumphs of Temper; a Poem 
 in Six Cantos, by Wm. Hayley, Esq. 
 The Seventh edition, corrected, London. 
 Printed for T. Cadel, in The Strand, 
 MDCCXIII." Loaned me for the occa- 
 sion by Capt. J. E. Barr. 
 
 t"An authentic narrative of The 
 Causes which led to the death of Major 
 John Andre, Adjutant General of His 
 Majesty's Forces in North America," 
 by Joshua Hett Smith. London, 1808. 
 
THE COPE HOUSE. 
 
 MAJOR ANDRE'S HOME WHILE IN LANCASTER. 
 
(15) 
 
 Whether he was confined for any time 
 in the old Saw-Buck House, on Middle 
 street, originally erected in 1759 as a 
 barracks for John Forbes' troops on 
 their return from Fort Pitt, or not, is 
 not essentially material to this nar- 
 rative. For he very early signed a 
 parole, drawn by Jasper Yeates, the 
 original now in possession of Simon 
 Gratz, of Philadelphia, which read as 
 follows: 
 
 "I, John Andre, being a prisoner in 
 the United Colonies of America, do, 
 upon the honor of a gentleman.promise 
 that I will not go into or near any 
 seaport town, nor farther than six 
 miles distant from Lancaster without 
 leave of the Continental Congress or 
 the Committee of Safety of Pennsyl- 
 vania, and that I will carry on no po- 
 litical correspondence whatever on the 
 subject of the dispute between Great 
 Britain and the Colonies so long as I 
 remain a prisoner." 
 
 Upon these conditions he became an 
 inmate of the house of Caleb Cope, the 
 identical structure recently made 
 vacant by the death of the venerable 
 Eliza E. Smith, after more than a half 
 century's residence therein.l If, as you 
 saunter home this April afternoon, you 
 will take a look at the gable end of 
 that house, on the north side of Grant 
 street, just off Lime, you will find cut 
 into the bricks, about knee-high to a 
 man, the initials of the boys who 
 played marbles in that alley during the 
 Revolution. Besides others of later 
 date and less distinct you will readily 
 see: 
 
 T. T.— 178 . 
 
 W. M.— 1784. 
 
 T. P. C— 1782. 
 This last inscription was undoubt- 
 edly the work of Thomas P. Cope, son 
 of Caleb Cope, who occupied the house 
 during that period. Tom likely cut it 
 with a knife or scratched it with a nail 
 there more than one hundred and 
 twenty years ago. His father, the elder 
 Cope, was then a man in the prime of 
 
 tHon. A. Herr Smith took title to it 
 about April 12, 1851; and at his death 
 nis sister inherited it. 
 
(16) 
 
 life, having been born in Chester 
 county in 1736; he removed to this 
 city in its youth, to practice the pro- 
 fession of surveyor, became Borough 
 Regulator, and was Burgess about the 
 time of the outbreak of the Revolu- 
 tion. His principles made him a non- 
 resistant, and the patriotic public re- 
 garded him as a Tory. But he outlived 
 this reputation and long before he re- 
 moved with his family to Philadelphia 
 — where he died nearly fifty years after 
 Independence was achieved — he had 
 regained the entire respect of his fel- 
 low citizens. His son, Thomas P. Cope, 
 became a leading citizen and merchant 
 of Philadelphia, one of the chief pat- 
 rons and early Presidents of the Mer- 
 cantile Library Association, and his 
 portrait— as well as a bronze relief — 
 now hangs above the central desk of 
 the librarian of that institution, in its 
 building, on Tenth, above Chestnut 
 street. I raised my eyes from a book 
 there the other day, and thought it a 
 queer coincidence that the first thing 
 they met was that keen, sharp, fresh- 
 complexioned, bespectacled Quaker 
 face; the figure dressed in snuff-colored 
 raiment, with the name inscribed on 
 the frame of the picture— of the same 
 initials as on the bricks of the old 
 house in Lime street. 
 
 For I had been conning over that 
 rare and interesting collection of 
 American antiquities by John Jay 
 Smith, which is kept under lock and 
 key. One of its most interesting fea- 
 tures is the Cope-Andre literature and 
 its illustrations. 
 
 Lancaster In the Revolution. 
 
 Lancaster, by the way, was a noted 
 station for the lodging of prisoners of 
 war, being convenient to the Capitals, 
 and yet, like York, Carlisle and Read- 
 ing, a frontier town, not so close to 
 the' scene of military operations as to 
 be considered unsafe for the detention 
 of military prisoners. At one time, in 
 1777, when as many as 2,000 were gath- 
 ered here, and the farmers were busy 
 harvesting their crops, and the non- 
 resistants were numerous and a power- 
 
(17) 
 
 ful sentiment of loyalty to the crown 
 pervaded the community, grave appre- 
 hensions were felt of danger from a 
 possible outbreak, not unsupported by 
 assurances of local aid. fl never came, 
 however. Poorly enough off the pris- 
 oners were sometimes. The privates 
 came here sorely lacking breeches, 
 shoes and stockings; the Government 
 agent one day cut off the rations from 
 the women and children, and when he 
 would not give them bread or meat 
 they appealed — never in vain — to that 
 bluff patriot, Matthias Slough, for re- 
 lief from starvation. The men were 
 kept at the barracks, surrounded by a 
 stockade; and the British officers 
 lodged at public or private houses. 
 
 Andre not only found shelter under 
 the roof of Cope, but had congenial as- 
 sociations with his family. That it was 
 not a popular thing for the Quaker to 
 give even this semblance of aid and 
 comfort to the enemy, may be judged 
 from the fact that the mob smashed all 
 the windows out of the Cope mansion. 
 The citizens who had tolerated, if not 
 encouraged, such demonstration, re- 
 deemed themselves somewhat.however, 
 by afterwards liberally assisting Cope 
 to reconstruct his house when it had 
 been accidentally damaged by fire. 
 
 Beside Andre there lodged with Cope 
 a British officer prisoner, Lieutenant 
 Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, Irish 
 by birth, whose fate was somewhat co- 
 incident with that of Andre. Being ex- 
 changed, he returned to the army and 
 served in the Revolutionary War until 
 1779, when he was transferred to 
 Jamaica. Despard aided in wresting 
 some possessions on the Mosquito 
 coast from Spain and was invested with 
 considerable executive power in Hon- 
 duras. He seems to have exercised it 
 in such a manner as to create popular 
 dissatisfaction, and in 1790 was re- 
 called to England. He demanded ex- 
 amination and preferred some claim 
 against the Government. It was not 
 heeded; he became seditious, was ar- 
 rested and released, and in his frenzy 
 of rage and disappointment he headed 
 a mad conspiracy to murder his King 
 
(18) 
 
 and seize the bank, the tower and the 
 Government. WitE nine of his crazy 
 associates he perished on the scaffold 
 in 1803. BYom what Cope had seen of 
 his disposition while he lodged in Lan- 
 caster, he had predicted for Despard 
 some dire fate, as the result of his im- 
 petuous, unconciliating temper. But 
 Caleb Cope and none of his family who 
 so loved the gentle, accomplished and 
 genial Andre, ever anticipated that he 
 would perish by the ignominious,unsol- 
 dierly death to which in after years 
 his Lancaster host could never refer 
 without an outburst of tears. 
 
 Artist and Gentleman. 
 
 Andre seems to have been a young 
 man of rare talent, personal accom- 
 plishments and graces of manner. In 
 the volume of Smith, to whom refer- 
 ence has been made, there is repro- 
 duced and preserved, in colored litho- 
 graph, a very dainty sketch which 
 Andre made for the Copes of an old 
 place, probably his homestead, in Eng- 
 land. The picture was saved by the 
 elder Cope, "in memory of the artist, 
 and of my affection for that gifted and 
 deceived, that noble-minded and gener- 
 ous man." And in furnishing this 
 plate for Mr. Smith's collection, Mr. 
 Thomas P. Cope writes of his recol- 
 lections of Andre, at his father's house 
 in Lancaster: "I was at that time a 
 small boy, but well remember Andre's 
 bland manners, sporting with us chil- 
 dren as one of us, more particularly at- 
 tached to John." "We often played 
 marbles and other boyish games with 
 him." It is easy to believe that when 
 the Lancaster lads on Lime street, a 
 century ago, cut their names into the 
 bricks they recalled the story of their 
 playmate of a few years earlier and his 
 tragic fate then so recent. 
 
 Young John Cope received every en- 
 couragement and instruction from An- 
 dre in the art of painting, for which 
 he showed great fondness and in which 
 Andre was no mere dabster. Dr. 
 Benjamin T. Barton, too, who became 
 a famous draughtsman, got his first 
 inspiration from the British prisoner 
 of war in Lancaster. 
 
(19) 
 
 Caleb Cope had five sons. Besides 
 John, then aged thirteen, there were 
 Thomas P., Israel, Jasper and William, 
 and it is Herman, the son of Jasper, 
 who, when I last knew, owned the 
 originals of the letters and pictures 
 upon which this sketch is based. If 
 the journey by which Andre was 
 brought a prisoner of war, from the 
 time of his capture, November 3, 1775, 
 to Lancaster, occupied, as I think it 
 did, more than a month, he remained 
 in this city and at Cope's house about 
 four months in all. During that 
 period there are meagre records 
 of his movements and doings,* but it 
 can easily be surmised that to one of 
 his ardent temperament, fascinating 
 personality and rare social accomplish- 
 ments, confined by a tether of six 
 miles, semi-captivity could not have 
 withheld him from mingling freely 
 with the people of this town. 
 
 This appears more probable when it 
 is remembered that in this, as in all 
 other communities of English origin, 
 certainly at that early period of the 
 Revolutionary struggle, loyalists were 
 not infrequently to be found among 
 the people of highest worth and stand- 
 ing. It would be a great mistake for 
 even Daughters-in-Law of the Revolu- 
 tion, surcharged with patriotic rever- 
 ence, to under-estimate the consider- 
 ations which kept many of the 
 worthiest people of that day from 
 
 *A careful examination of "Major 
 Andre's Journal," 1777-78, published in 
 a very limited edition by the Bibliophile 
 Society, Boston, Mass., fails to disclose 
 anything relative to Andre's sojourn in 
 Lancaster. The Introduction, however, 
 by Henry Cabot Lodge, on page 11,' 
 has the following concerning him: 
 "From Boston he made his way to 
 Canada, arriving there early In 1775, 
 and was taken prisoner at St. John's 
 in the following autumn (when that 
 place was captured by Montgomery), 
 and 'stript of everything,' as he wrote, 
 'except the picture of Honora, which I 
 concealed in my mouth.' He remained 
 a prisoner at Lancaster, Pa., where it is 
 to he feared he was not over well treated, 
 until the year 1776, when he was ex- 
 changed." The italics are mine; the 
 statement of the distinguished his- 
 torian is inaccurate in two of its par- 
 ticulars. W. U. H. 
 
(20) 
 
 sympathizing with the incipient and 
 somewhat turbulent Revolution. The 
 clergy of the established church, 
 landowners and substantial business 
 men, the aristocracy of culture, of 
 dignified professions and callings, of 
 oflicial rank and hereditary wealth, 
 were in a large measure found in the 
 Tory party, I can easily believe that 
 on the Lord's day Major Andre, cut- 
 ting across lots, to attend St. James' 
 Church, heard from the eloquent and 
 distinguished Thomas Barton, not only 
 fervid prayers for the King and royal 
 family, but sermon sentiments not un- 
 welcome to the ears of a British army 
 officer. And although that same Bar- 
 ton was obliged toshut up his churches 
 to avoid the fury of the populace, who 
 would not suffer his liturgy to be 
 used, he had the high heroism of con- 
 science which bore the separation of 
 a father from his family and a preacher 
 from his congregation, rather than, 
 as he saw it, degrade his profession by 
 intermeddling in what he deemed an 
 unhappy political contest. Nor does 
 it require much stretch of imagination 
 to fancy that on some of those milder 
 March days, when he played marblos 
 and other boyish games with the Cope 
 boys, young Bob Fulton, then a lad 
 attending, or rather playing truant 
 from, Caleb Johnson's Quaker school, 
 in Lancaster, might occasionally have 
 stopped to take a hand in the sports 
 which went bravely on in that alley. 
 Why may not Andre and his friends, 
 the Cope boys, have gone with Fulton 
 in the early spring days out to the 
 Conestoga, where old Deter Gumpf 
 had a small flat boat padlocked to the 
 trunk of a tree, near Rockford, with 
 which he was wont to take all of the 
 Lancaster bo^"s fishing. 
 
 Removed to Carlisle. 
 
 The removal of the prisoners from 
 Lancaster to Carlisle was largely due 
 to consideration for their own safety. 
 For by the spring of 1776 public senti- 
 ment in Lancaster, agitated by Court 
 House meetings, inspired by men like 
 Edward Shippen, William Atlee, Wil- 
 
(21) 
 
 liam Bausman and Adam Reigart, 
 was making it difficult to withhold not 
 only popular indignation, but personal 
 violence against British officers at 
 large upon the streets of Lancaster, 
 and somewhat feted by a considerable 
 number of its more prominent people. 
 When this sentiment became so strong 
 that a shopkeeper, who had sold tea 
 in prohibition of popular resolution, 
 was compelled to make abject apology, 
 we can well understand what Andre 
 meant when, writing from Carlisle on 
 April 3, 1776, he said: "The people 
 here are no more willing to harbor us 
 than those of Lancaster were at our 
 first coming there." He expresses 
 in that letter, however, great 
 anxiety to have young John 
 Cope sent on to Carlisle, in 
 continuation of a purpose which he 
 had almost consummated in Lancas- 
 ter to sell his army commission, re- 
 turn to England, taking young Cope 
 with him, to perfect his own art 
 studies and to start his boy friend on 
 a great career as a painter. That 
 Andre was a man of much delicacy 
 and refinement.and without coarseness, 
 appears from this nice reference: "I 
 had hoped I could," referring to the 
 Cope lad coming on to Carlisle, "have 
 him with me in some quiet, honest 
 family of friends, or others, where he 
 might have board, as it would not 
 have been proper for him to live with 
 a mess of officers. I have been able 
 to find neither,and am myself still in a 
 tavern. If you resolve to let him come 
 Despard and I can make up a bed in 
 a lodging we have in view, where 
 there will be room enough. He will 
 be the greatest part of the day with 
 us, or employed in the few things I 
 am able to interest him in. In the 
 meanwhile, I may get better acquaint- 
 ed with the town and provide for his 
 board. With regard to expenses, this 
 is to be attended with none to you. 
 A little assiduity and friendship is all 
 I ask from my young friend in return 
 for my good will to be of service to 
 him and my wishes to put him in the 
 way of improving the talents God hath 
 
(22) 
 
 given him. I shall give all my atten- 
 tion to his morals, and, as I believe 
 him well disposed, I trust he will ac- 
 quire no bad habits here." In that let- 
 ter, and in every other which I have 
 had the privilege to read, he is alike 
 polite and grateful in his remem- 
 brance to all of Mr. Cope's family, and 
 his comrade, Despard, who all the 
 while remained with him, constantly 
 joins in these regards. 
 
 The Cope-Andre Correspondence. 
 
 That the causes which prevented 
 young Cope from joining him did not 
 slacken his interest in the boy's aspi- 
 rations is again witnessed by a letter 
 of September 2, 1776, in which he not 
 only thanks Cope for his kind letter, 
 but for the drawing sent by the son. 
 He congratulates him on the great im- 
 provement in his skill, and predicts 
 for him "very great progress." Upon 
 the whole he is glad that he had not 
 come to Carlisle, for, he says: "We 
 have been submitted to alarms and 
 jealousy, which would have rendered 
 his stay here very disagreeable to him, 
 and I would not willingly see any per- 
 son suffer on our account." He sends 
 renewed regards to "your son, my dis- 
 ciple, to whom I hope the future pos- 
 ture of affairs will give me an oppor- 
 tunity of pointing out the way to pro- 
 ficiency in his favorite study, which 
 may tend so much to his pleasure and 
 advantage. Let him go on copying 
 whatever good models he can meet 
 with, and never suffer himself to ne- 
 glect the proportions, and never to 
 think of finishing his work or omit- 
 ting the fine flowing lines of his copy 
 until every limb, feature, house, tree, 
 or whatever he is drawing, is in its 
 proper place. With a little practice 
 this will be so natural to him that his 
 eye will at first sight guide his pencil 
 in the exact distribution of every part 
 of his work. I wish I may soon see 
 you on our way to our own friends, 
 with whom I hope, by exchange, we 
 may at length be re-united." 
 
 The next letter of this interesting 
 series is without date. That all com- 
 munication at that time was accom- 
 
(23) 
 
 panied with diflBculties appears from 
 a sort of admission that he had re- 
 ceived a letter from Cope surrepti- 
 tiously "by Barrington." "I am sorry," 
 he says, "you should imagine my be- 
 ing absent from Lancaster, or our 
 troubles should make me forget my 
 friends there." Of several letters sent 
 from Cope, only one had reached him, 
 and, by way of explanation, he adds: 
 "I own the difficulties of our corre- 
 spondence had disgusted me from at- 
 tempting to write." Sometime before 
 October 11, the date of his 
 next letter, he had received 
 a letter "by Mrs. Callender," 
 and more of young John Cope's 
 drawings, which leads him to observe 
 that he has much improved, and that 
 his work shows he has not been idle. 
 "He must take particular care in 
 framing the features in faces and in 
 copying hands exactly. He should 
 now and then copy things from life, 
 and then compare the proportions 
 with what prints he may have or 
 what rules he may have remembered. 
 With respect to his shading with In- 
 dian ink, the anatomical figure is tol- 
 erably well done, but he will find his 
 work smoother and safer were he to 
 lay the shades on more gradually, not 
 blacking the darkest at once, but by 
 washing them over repeatedly, and 
 never until the paper is quite dry. 
 The figure is very well drawn." 
 
 The closing paragraph of this letter 
 relates to the exchange of prisoners to 
 take place immediately, and the letter 
 was sent by Captain Campbell, to 
 whom he recommended Cope to speak 
 freely, and, if there is no prospect of 
 an early exchange, he wants John sent 
 on to Carlisle. Despard again courte- 
 ously sends his compliments, "especi- 
 ally to John." Some time between the 
 date of that letter and December 1, 1776, 
 the long anticipated exchange had 
 taken place. Meanwhile events were 
 shaping themselves rapidly. The 
 Declaration of Independence had been 
 proclaimed while Andre was at Car- 
 lisle. Moses Coit Tyler, in his invalu- 
 able and comprehensive work on the 
 "Literary History of the American 
 
(24) 
 
 Revolution," makes the buinder of lo- 
 cating Andre at Burlington, New Jer- 
 sey, where, on the fourth of June, 1776, 
 the British officers, prisoners of war, 
 noisily celebrated the birthday of the 
 English King. The subject of our 
 sketch was certainly not in that party, 
 for it was only on December 2, 1776, 
 having left Carlisle a few days before, 
 he sends to Cope, by Mr. Slough, a let- 
 ter from Reading, taking leave of his 
 Lancaster friends and transmitting to 
 them all his sincere wishes for the 
 future. Confidently he writes: "We 
 are on the road to be exchanged. How- 
 ever happy this prospect may make me, 
 it doth not render me less warm in 
 the fate of those persons in this coun- 
 try for whom I had conceived a regard. 
 I trust on your side you will do me the 
 justice to remember me with some good 
 will, and that you will be persuaded I 
 shall be happy, if the occasion shall 
 offer, of my giving your son some fur- 
 ther hints in the art for which he has 
 so happy a turn. Desire him, if you 
 please, to commit my name and my 
 friendship for him to his memory, and 
 assure him for me that if he only 
 brings diligence to his assistance 
 Nature has opened to him a path to 
 fortune and reputation, and that he 
 may hope in a few years to enjoy the 
 fruits of his labor. Perhaps the face of 
 affairs may so far change that he will 
 once more be within my reach, when 
 it will be a very great pleasure to me 
 to give him what assistance I can." 
 
 That Andre sincerely desired to re- 
 turn to England, and would have been 
 quite willing to sell his army commis- 
 sion and take young Cope with him to 
 pursue and perfect together their art 
 studies, there can be no doubt. And a 
 grandson of the elder Cope has left 
 on record his testimony that the young 
 soldier's "offer was gratefully declined 
 on conscientious grounds after the 
 counsel had been sought of esteemed 
 and reliable friends, a most unfortu- 
 nate decision for both preceptor and 
 pupil." That Andre was mindful to 
 the last of his Lancaster friends and 
 associations appears in a letter written 
 
(25) 
 
 by him when he was Adjutant General 
 of the British army, and only nine days 
 before the capture which led to his ex- 
 ecution. In that he said, with grim 
 prophecy, "To-morrow I expect to meet 
 Sir Harry Clinton and make up for lost 
 time." 
 
 Thomas P. Cope, whose initials you 
 will see cut on the Grant street gable 
 of the Smith house, writing, nearly 
 seventy years later, says: "When 
 Andre lived in my father's family I 
 vvas a small boy, but well remember 
 his bland manner, sporting with us 
 children as one of us. To my brother, 
 John, he was more especially attached, 
 from a nearer approach of age and a 
 congeniality of genius and taste. The 
 colored drawing which is still in the 
 possession of our family, made by him, 
 I think represented the place of his 
 birth, or some place at which he had 
 resided. I have carefully treasured the 
 relic in memory of the artist, that 
 gifted and deceived, that noble-minded 
 and generous man." This drawing is 
 tinted with green. It comprises a 
 church spire in the background, the 
 foliage of trees surrounding a lodge or 
 back-gate, and is rather sketchy and 
 incomplete. 
 
 The "Wolf Memorial" contains a 
 passing reference to Andre, which fits 
 exactly with the dates I have given of 
 his removal from Carlisle and his route 
 to Philadelphia for exchange. The 
 mother of the late Barnard Wolf, Esq., 
 was Anna Maria Krause, a daughter of 
 Jacob Krause, who resided during the 
 Revolution at a place known as 
 "Crooked Hill," three and a-half miles 
 from Pottstown, on the road from 
 Reading. A brother of Krause's wife, 
 named Henry Bering, kept the hotel 
 there; he had a daughter, Kitty, to 
 whom her cousin, Anna M. Krause, was 
 a frequent visitor. 
 
 ■^he happened to be at Crooked Hill 
 tavern in December, 1776, when Major 
 Andre stopped there on his way from 
 Carlisle, via Reading, to be exchanged. 
 Mr. Wolf had a vivid recollection of his 
 mother's description of Andre. She de- 
 scribed him as "rather under the aver- 
 
(26) 
 
 age stature, of a light, agile frame, 
 active in his movements, and of 
 sprightly conversation. He was a fine 
 performer on the flute, with which he 
 beguiled the hours of twilight, and was 
 an excellent vocalist. Whilst at Mr. 
 Bering's house. Major Andre occupied 
 the most of his time in examining and 
 drawing maps and charts of the coun- 
 try. She bore full testimony of his 
 polished manners, and the easy grace 
 and charm of his conversation. His 
 engaging deportment rendered him 
 popular with his fellow officers. Mary 
 always spoke feelingly of Major Andre, 
 and, in after years, often sung his re- 
 membrance, as addressed by him to his 
 'Delia.' Her tender sympathies would 
 have interposed, had she possessed the 
 power, to save the Major from his 
 ignominious and untimely death. It 
 was a matter of remark that Major 
 Andre did not, like the majority of his 
 brother officers, indulge in vituperation 
 against the colonists." 
 
 That same Henry Bering, by the way, 
 soon afterwards removed to Lancaster. 
 He kept a public house, as early as 
 1777, at the west end of what is now 
 Witmer's Bridge; the old stone tavern, 
 at the corner of Conestoga Park, having 
 been destroyed by fire only a few years 
 ago. Bering also managed the ferry at 
 the same place; it was a great 
 thoroughfare for teams and troops dur- 
 ing the Revolution. In order to give 
 Mrs. Krause the larger advantages, 
 social and educational, then afforded by 
 Lancaster, her parents were persuaded 
 to let her accompany the Bering family 
 to their new home, at Conestoga, 
 and her reminiscences of those event- 
 ful days in Lancaster, as perpetuated 
 by her descendants, are of rare interest 
 As in all times of war, no little de- 
 moralization prevailed, and prowling 
 ruffians constantly preyed upon de- 
 fenceless neighbors. Wagonloads of 
 American soldiers, wounded at the 
 massacre of Paoli, were brought to this 
 city, and the Bering house was a hos- 
 pital and the Bering family nurses for 
 them. A Virginia Captain, Vanhorn, 
 confined there for a long time with a 
 
(27) 
 
 shattered limb, was attacked by a 
 marauding band of ruffians, and, to 
 save liis life, leaped from a window 
 and was killed by the fall. Later Mr. 
 Bering became the purchaser of a large 
 and desirable house in the city of Lan- 
 caster, and contracted with Robert 
 Morris to furnish the American army 
 with cattle brought from Virginia; in 
 1788 he was Burgess of the town. Many 
 of the British officers brought here as 
 prisoners of war were accompanied by 
 their wives, and, like Andre, had parole 
 privileges, with the restriction of keep- 
 ing within six miles of the town. Mr. 
 Derng's house was a stopping place for 
 many of them, and Kitty Bering and 
 Mary Krause have left lively remi- 
 niscences of the amusements to which 
 they resorted to make the tediousness 
 of their semi-prison life tolerable. One 
 of these was a series of elaborate 
 dramatic representations in Mr. Ber- 
 ing's brew-house. 
 
 At this point I might, with en- 
 tire propriety (and perhaps much to 
 your relief), close this paper and dis- 
 miss the immediate subject in hand; for 
 here all relations of Andre with Lan- 
 caster are severed. Though his boyish 
 playmates left marks still visible on 
 the walls of the mansion in which 
 they and he dwelt together, any scars 
 his fascinating gallantry may have 
 left on the hearts of our great-grand- 
 mothers were surely not indelible. His 
 residence here, however, was long 
 enough, and his bearing sufficiently 
 agreeable, to have awakened local in- 
 terest in his subsequent romantic ca- 
 reer. 
 
 In the stirring events of the war im- 
 mediately preceding and following the 
 Beclaration he bore no part. When 
 the "Thunderbomb" was throwing 
 shells into Charleston; when the dis- 
 tress of the Continental army sounded 
 the retreat from Canada; when Crown 
 Point was abandoned by the Ameri- 
 cans and Gates was beginning to show 
 his disaffection toward Washington; 
 when disaster and retreat from Long 
 Island caused, as Bancroft says, "care 
 
(28) 
 
 to sit heavily on tlie brow of the 
 younger people;" when the youthful 
 Nathan Hale, in all the halo of patri- 
 otic martyrdom, stepped from the 
 scaffold to the skies, Andre was chaf- 
 ing in the remoteness, if not the soli- 
 tude, of Carlisle. And when he start- 
 ed down the Schuylkill Valley for ex- 
 change Washington was retreating 
 through the Jerseys, with Cornwallis 
 in pursuit. From the time Andre re- 
 joined the army until he figures in the 
 glittering revels of that gay winter of 
 the British in Philadelphia, and all 
 during the year that saw the advance 
 and capitulation of Burgoyne, the oc- 
 cupation of Philadelphia, the contest 
 for the Delaware river, and the win- 
 ter encampment at Valley Forge, thq 
 ordinary histories of that great strug- 
 gle are silent as to any brilliant mil- 
 itary achievement which would render 
 Andre famous or commend him to pro- 
 motion. 
 
 It seems, however, that when he was 
 exchanged Maj. Gen. John Grey made 
 him an aide, and when Grey returned 
 to Europe Andre was transferred to 
 the same post in the military family 
 of Sir Henry Clinton. W^hen Lord 
 Rawden resigned as Adjutant General, 
 Andre was only a Captain, and the 
 rank of Major was necessary to qual- 
 ify him for the succession. It was 
 aslved by Clinton, and refused by the 
 Minister of War on the ground of his 
 youth. Clinton, surprised and dis- 
 pleased, said he could not fix his 
 choice on any other person so suitable 
 for the office, and that he should con- 
 tinue to employ Andre in discharging 
 its duties and forbear for the present 
 to make any other appointment. It 
 was then the rank of Major was con- 
 ferred, and three weeks preceding his 
 capture he was formally commis- 
 sioned; although he had for nearly a 
 year filled the oflBce, the commission 
 had not arrived when he met his 
 death. 
 
 A Beau and Gallant. 
 It was, however, his graceful and 
 handsome person, his accomplish- 
 ments in the fine arts, including pro- 
 ficiency in painting and drawing; his 
 
(29) 
 
 piquant observations of surrounding 
 men and tilings, his love of poetry, his 
 taste for letters, his delicacy of senti- 
 ment, playfulness of imagination and 
 ease of style, betokening native re- 
 finement and high culture, rather than 
 military genius or achievement, 
 which won for him his rank and pop- 
 ularity. When that famous social 
 function, which Howe's oflacers de- 
 signed to mark his departure and to 
 rebuke his recall, was projected, An- 
 dre's talents of another than military 
 culture came into full play, and were 
 given free exercise. At a time when 
 the marches of the American army 
 might be traced through winter snows 
 by prints of bleeding feet, and shiver- 
 ing soldiers shaped the logs from off 
 the hills of Valley Forge into rude 
 cabins, Andre was drawing and cut- 
 ting silhouettes for the Tory belles 
 of Philadelphia society. He was 
 writing album verses to light-headed 
 girls like Becky Redman, who, in 
 words to a German air, he celebrated 
 as "Delia," after the sentimental 
 fashion of a period when literature 
 was rather lackadaisical than mar- 
 tial, and when plain Mary Ann and 
 Sallie Jane were always transformed 
 into Chloe and Phyllis. Listen to 
 him: 
 
 " Return enraptured Hours 
 When Delia's heart was mine 
 When she with wreath of Flowers 
 My Temples would entwine, 
 When Jealousy nor love 
 Corroded in my Brest 
 But Visions light as Air 
 Presided o'er my Rest. 
 Now nightly 'round my Bed 
 No airy visions play 
 No flowers crown my head 
 Each vernal holyday. 
 For far from these sad plains 
 My lovely Delia flies 
 And racked with jealous pains 
 Her wretched Lover dies." 
 
 There is another version of these lines, 
 entitled "Major Andre's Lament," being 
 an adaptation of what I have read, with 
 some interpolations, the whole being 
 made to appear as if written by Andre 
 after his capture and before his execu- 
 tion. This is a manifest misrepresenta- 
 tion, as when he wrote the original 
 lines he had no reason to forebode his 
 later tragic fate. 
 
(30) 
 
 The "Meschianza." 
 
 From the time, New Year, 1777, he 
 composed these lines — which I may 
 not have deciphered with entire accu- 
 racy from a manuscript — until the 
 great festival of the Meschianza, of 
 which he was at once leader, artist and 
 historian, Andre seems to have been 
 rather a carpet knight. To bis elabor- 
 ate letter, written to a friend in Lon- 
 don, and published years after his 
 death, all the histories, notably Ban- 
 croft's and Fiske's, owe their accounts 
 of this gorgeous fete, which was a 
 strange medley of modern parade and 
 mediaeval tournament. The regatta, 
 the procession, the tilting of the silk- 
 clad knights of the Blended Rose and 
 the Burning Mountain, the fireworks, 
 the supper in a room two hundred feet 
 long, forty feet wide and twenty-two 
 feet high, where three hundred wax 
 tapers were reflected in fifty-six pier 
 glasses and four hundred and thirty 
 covers were laid and the guests were 
 served by ebony-colored waiters, robed 
 in Oriental costumes — all formed a be- 
 fitting climax to the demoralizing 
 career of Howe in Philadelphia, mark- 
 ed by every phase of dissipation. That 
 Andre shone with undiminished popu- 
 larity was attested by the Chew girls, 
 and the Shippens, the Whites and 
 Craigs, the Redmans and Burds, who 
 graced that fairy festal day, and one of 
 whom fervently declared that the beau 
 of the occasion next most fascinating 
 to Andre was his own brother, a Brit- 
 ish Lieutenant, nineteen years of age. 
 
 It is a far cry from leading the cotil- 
 lion to dying on the scaffold. Perhaps 
 Andre may have felt that his rise to be 
 the Adjutant General of the Army in 
 North America four ye"ars after his 
 capture in Canada was undeserved; he 
 may have aspired to some bold stroke 
 that would give success to his cause 
 and merited fame to himself; perhaps 
 intimate associations with the Tory 
 families in Philadelphia with whom 
 Arnold was closely related made him 
 the most valuable medium of commu- 
 nication in the development of the ill- 
 
(31) 
 
 fated plot to betray the cause of 
 American liberty. It is not within the 
 scope of this paper to recall how that 
 scheme happily miscarried, nor to re- 
 vive the recriminations which have 
 grown out of the discussion of Andre's 
 conduct, his trial, his sentence and its 
 execution. It need only be noticed that 
 he met his fate with a grace and dig- 
 nity, courtliness and courage that 
 seemed to have never failed him. Of 
 him it might well be said as of the 
 royal English martyr: 
 
 "He nothing common did, or mean. 
 Upon that memorable scene." 
 
 It is almost impossible to realize 
 how one so closely connected with a 
 crime as base as Arnold's and so tre- 
 mendous in its possible consequences 
 could have excited such universal 
 sympathy on both sides of the ocean 
 as were called out for Andre. The 
 Board of High OflBcers that unani- 
 mously condemned him to death show- 
 ed him every mark of indulgence, and 
 required him to answer no interroga- 
 tory which could even embarrass his 
 feelings. He acknowledged their gen- 
 erosity in the strongest terms of manly 
 gratitude, and afterwards remarked to 
 one who visited him, that if there 
 were any remains in his mind of 
 prejudice against the Americans, his 
 present experience must obliterate 
 them. 
 
 Bancroft rightfully says, however, 
 that it was a blemish on his character 
 that he was willing to prostitute a 
 flag, even under the orders of his chief, 
 for the innocence and private nature of 
 his design, and to have made the lives 
 of faultless prisoners hostages for uiS 
 own, and, while his King did right to 
 pension his mother and sisters and 
 bestow rank upon his brother, he was 
 not right "in raising a memorial to his 
 name in "Westminster Abbey. Such 
 honor belongs to other enterprises and 
 deeds. The tablet has no fit place in 
 a sanctuary, dear from its monuments 
 to every friend of genius and man- 
 kind." And in this view not only John 
 Fiske, our own most philosophical 
 historian, but Massey, the considerate 
 English writer, concurs. 
 
(32) 
 
 Met Death With Dignity. 
 
 His execution was conducted with 
 much dignity and deliberation and in 
 full view not only of many of the 
 regiments, but of a great multitude of 
 people, who came to see him die. The 
 officers of the American army, on 
 horseback, with General Greene at 
 their head, were formed in line on the 
 road, Washington, however, delicately 
 absenting himself. To those whom 
 Andre knew, particularly to the Board 
 of Officers who had pronounced on his 
 fate, it is related that he "paid the 
 salute of the hat and received their 
 adleux with ease and complacency." 
 Notwithstanding the patriotic feeling 
 of the people, who would have torn 
 Arnold limb from limb, they were 
 weeping over Andre. General Steuben, 
 who had helped to convict him, said: 
 "Would to God the wretch who has 
 drawn him to his death might be made 
 to suffer In his stead." Some of the 
 doggerel of the day ran: 
 
 "Andre was generous, true and brave, 
 In his room he buys a knave." 
 
 A homely ballad of the day, restored 
 by Professor Tyler, has, he says, "a 
 robust compassion and an unshrinking 
 honesty of praise to be expected only 
 in an utterance so fearless as a genuine 
 street-song:" 
 
 "When he was executed, 
 
 He looked both meek and mild; 
 He looked upon the people, 
 
 And pleasantly he smiled. 
 It moved each eye witli pity, 
 
 Caused every heart to bleed; 
 And every one wished him released — 
 
 And Arnold in his stead. 
 He was a man of honor, 
 
 In Britain he was born; 
 To die upon the gallows 
 
 Most highly ho did scorn." 
 
 When he came in view of the gibbet 
 he involuntarily started backward and 
 made a pause, but, recovering his com- 
 posure, said to the officer by his side: 
 "I am reconciled to my death, but I 
 detest the mode." He stepped quickly 
 into the elevated carriage with prompt- 
 ness, and said: "It will be but a mo- 
 mentary pang." With one handker- 
 
(33) 
 
 chief the Marshal pinioned his arms, 
 and, with the other, Andre, taking off 
 his hat and stock, and, with perfect 
 composure, bandaged his own eyes, 
 which were among the very few in that 
 throng not moistened. He slipped the 
 noose over his own head, adjusted it 
 without the assistance of the execu- 
 tioner, which office, tradition has it, 
 no patriot would fill, and for which 
 there had to be secured one of the 
 half-way loyalist breed, who blackened 
 his face and disguised himself, so that 
 he could never be recognized. Before 
 the end Andre raised the handkerchief 
 from his eyes and said: "I pray you to 
 bear me witness that I meet my fate 
 like a brave man." 
 
 In that moment which elapsed after 
 he had replaced the bandage over his 
 eyes and before the wagon was driven 
 off, I like to think that he had fast 
 fleeting glimpses of the panorama of 
 his short life; and that at the very end 
 of them his thoughts went 
 back and lingered last with 
 that quiet English rural scene 
 — the slender, sloping church 
 spire, and the fragrant hedge rows, 
 and the green garden and the rude 
 rose-covered gate — which he had de- 
 picted on North Lime street for his 
 young friend, John Cope, when he 
 would have wooed him to the sweet 
 shades of the English home where he 
 had lived and which he loved, and now 
 forever lost. 
 
(31) 
 
 Andre's Letter to Washington. 
 The following appeal, to which no 
 reply was ever made, was written by 
 Andre to Washington on the day pre- 
 vious to his execution. Henry Cabot 
 Lodge says: "The fact that no reply 
 was sent is condoned by the statement 
 that Washington, finding it impossible 
 to grant the request, did not wish to 
 wound Andre's feelings by a positive 
 refusal; preferring to leave to him 
 until the last moment the consoling 
 hope that his wish might possibly be 
 granted." 
 
 Taapan, the 1st October, 1780. 
 Sir,— 
 
 Buoy'd above the Terror of Death 
 by the Consciousness of a Life de- 
 voted to honourable pursuits, and 
 stained with no action that can give 
 me Remorse, I trust the request I 
 make to your Excellency at this seri- 
 ous period, and which is to soften my 
 last moments, will not be rejected. 
 
 Sympathy towards a Soldier will 
 surely induce your Excellency and the 
 military Tribunal to adapt the mode 
 of my death to the feelings of a man 
 of honor. 
 
 Let me hope, Sir, that if aught in 
 my character impresses you with es- 
 teem towards me, if aught in my mis- 
 fortunes marks me as the victim of 
 policy, and not of resentment, I shall 
 experience the Operation of these 
 Feelings in your Breast by being in- 
 formed that I am not to die on a 
 Gibbet. 
 
 I have the honour to be 
 Your Excellency's 
 Most obedient and 
 
 Most humble Servant, 
 
 JOHN ANDRE, 
 Adj. Gen. to the British Army. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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