His original education had been such only as the ordinary country schools of that day afforded, but careful self improvement in after years, enabled him to write and speak readily and correctly. Upon the great questions which agi-tated the public mind, he invariably formed opinions for him-self, sometimes reducing them to writing. In disposition, he was sanguine, kind and sociable, and blameless in all the domestic relations: although having occupied stations of authority in early life, there was sometimes a seeming sever-ity in his manners, and where he had a right to command, he always exacted a prompt obedience. During the latter years of his life, his constitution had become much impaired, in consequence of the great exposures to which he was sub-jected while in the public service. He died at Whiteplains, on the 29th of January 1805, on the paternal farm, where he

96 THE MCDONALD PAPERS first saw the light, and left six children (of whom four are still living). A stranger, traversing in these days, what was once the "Neutral Ground," and hearing for the first time recounted, the adventures of the "Three Great Guides," some of which in hardihood and success, approach the fictions of knight-errantry, might be moved to seek for their tombs, and might natural say to those around him: "Where shall I find the monuments that have been erected by the gratitude of the age to indicate the sepulchers of such men, and to commemo-rate their lives, services and virtues?" Vain would be the inquiry, unsatisfactory the research. The remains of Dyck-man were deposited in the obscure corner of a sequestered church yard at Crompond, where they repose forgotten, with-out a letter or a stone, to mark the last resting place of one of the bravest men that ever drew his sword in a just and noble cause.