Burgoyne Is Taken!

HENRY P. HEDGES

Excerpted from Judge Hedges's 250th anniversary commemorative address to the people of East Hampton, Aug. 24, 1899. (The town marked the bicentquinquagenary a year too late, subsequent to a historian's error earlier in the century.) The house where the conversation he relates took place is, of course, the Mulford House, now owned by the East Hampton Historical Society.

I remember an evening 68 years ago in the east room of the dwelling then owned by my father, now the home of John M. Mulford, son of Samuel G.

Huntting Mil ler was visiting my father, and both were born subjects of King George III. Miller was over 75 years of age, of a ruddy countenance, with long hair white as snow, a ready talker, a genial companion, repository of a vast fund of legend and tradition. Dressed in his blue surtout, marching up the north aisle of the old church he seemed a venerable relic of a generation long gone by. I see him now as I saw him then, intensely alive, practical, just, in patriotism ardent, in righteousness a Gibraltar.

He spoke of the sufferings of this old town in the war of the Revolution, of the British soldiers quartered on our citizens, of their lawless depredations, their unprovoked abuse, their wanton insults, their vulgar insolence, their assault on Capt. John Dayton, the historic incident on Pudding Hill, the inhumanity of the ruffian Major Cochran, the great care taken by the British to suppress news of the battles of Bennington and Saratoga.

Animated with the theme, the old man acted his part to the life. The stage may simulate nature, but no feigned character can equal the living reality of his narration of memorable events, and when he told of the vain attempt of the British to conceal the triumph of American arms his exultation knew no bounds. The glad news could not be suppressed. In that night of deepest darkness, the day-star of victory illuminated the gloom of despondency and despair.

To hear Huntting Miller describe the effect of the news from Saratoga and tell how, in low, suppressed accents, the citizens of East Hampton spoke one to another: "Burgoyne is taken! Burgoyne is taken!" was to hear that which in thrilling interest, in magnitude of extent, in enduring results to the nation and to humanity, no narration of Homer, of Euripides, of Shakespeare can exceed.

The genius of American patriotism, the memory of undying self-denial, the magnanimity of immeasurable love of freedom dilated and filled and fired the soul of this old resident and typical citizen of East Hampton and eyewitness of the Revolution, with power be-yond expression. May his devotion to his country be unforgotten.

"Be thy vir-tues with the living

And thy spirit ours."

On this same memorable even ing my father asked, "How old is this house?" Huntting Miller said, "My father told me this house was at least 75 years old when he first knew it, and that must have been 75 years ago."

To which add the 68 last years and we find its age over two centuries.