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Halsted, Daniel and Halsted, Harriet Hunt

John M. McDonald interview — 1848-12-04

From the Westchester County Historical Society catalog:
Daniel Halsted (1782-1851) and his wife, Harriet Hunt Halsted (1785-1871), discuss Thomas Huggeford. A Loyalist officer who served with DeLancey’s Refugees, Huggeford was married to Charity Halsted, a sister of Daniel’s father. Huggeford became a Quaker after the war and asked that no inscription be placed on his tombstone in the Halsted Family Burial Ground in the rear of the Purchase Friends Meeting House Cemetery. The Halsteds note that Huggeford did not join the British cause until after he was abused by a party of Skinners. Joseph Halsted and William Hunt, the respective fathers of Mr. and Mrs. Halsted, paid black rate when it was enforced by American Colonel Thomas Thomas.

Original findings from this interview

Major Thomas Huggeford's defection driven by Skinner torture

'Isaac Webbers and a party of Skinners came to his house to get a large sum of money which had just been paid him. He refused to give up the money, and they thereupon took him to Hatfield's at White Plains, where they abused and Kicked him under the kitchen table to which they tied and secured him. In the night he managed to get loose and escaped by the window taking part of the sash with him on his head. He then went below and joined the British.' The mechanism by which a Westchester Loyalist officer arrived at the British cause — tortured by American Skinners and escaping with his window sash still around his neck.

→ See 20 Original Research

Huggeford's postwar Quakerism and deathbed regret

After the war Huggeford became a Quaker, requested 'no tombstone inscription,' and expressed deathbed regret over his wartime actions. A named former Refugee officer whose postwar spiritual trajectory is documented in a family interview — rare for the Westchester Loyalist class, most of whom disappear into Nova Scotia.

'Black rate' enforced by Colonel Thomas Thomas

The Halsteds document that both their fathers 'paid black rate often which was enforced by Colonel Thomas' — a war tax levied on Westchester residents to compensate for losses from Refugee raids. A specific mechanism of American-side wartime coercive taxation that published accounts do not name.

Manuscript page facsimiles

High-resolution images served from the Westchester County Historical Society's IIIF endpoint. Click any page to view full size.

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Transcription

Decr. 4th Daniel Halsted, of Harrison, and wife: "Charity, wife of Major Thomas Hungerford was my aunt - her maiden name having been Halsted. She died two or three years before the Major, and the inscription upon her tomb stone in the Halsted burying ground adjacent to Purchase Quaker burying ground will show her age). The Major requested that no inscription might be placed upon his tomb, and none was in consequence. At his funeral, a sermon was preached by some Quaker Speaker. He was inclined to Quakerism in the latter part of his life. At his death bed he grieved very much to think of having been engaged in the war and of many things he had done. He was born in Horseneck (Connecticut) [inter: near] on King St, a little below the village of Glenville, and just east of the State lines. Isaac Webbers and a party of

Skinners came to his house to get a large sum of money which had just been paid him. He refused to give up the money, and they thereupon took him to Hatfield's at White Plains, where they abused and Kicked him under the kitchen table to which they tied and secured him. In the night he managed to get loose and escaped by the window taking part of the sash with him on his head. He then went below and joined the British.

My father Joseph Halsted and mine (Mrs Halsted) William Hunt both paid black rate often which was enforced by Colonel Thomas.

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