Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  Taking various back roads and little-used paths which made the journey much longer, André eventually arrived at a spot not far from Philipse Castle. There he ran into three militia men: John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams. They were uneducated men in their early twenties, and far from experienced in such matters as how to question a suspected spy. The three fellows weren’t looking for spies, however, but for cattle thieves which were then plaguing the area. They were on the lookout near the Albany Post Road when Van Wart saw André pass on his horse. They stopped him, and that is where André made his first mistake. Misinterpreting the Hessian coat Paulding wore (he had obtained it four days before when escaping from a New York prison) and thinking that he was among British Loyalists, he immediately identified himself as a British officer and asked them not to detain him. But the three militia men made him dismount and undress, and then the documents were discovered. It has been said that they weren’t suspicious of him at all, but that the elegant boots, something very valuable in those days, tempted them, and that they were more interested in André’s clothing than in what he might have on him. Whatever the motivation, André was brought to Colonel Jameson’s headquarters at Sand’s Mill, which is called Armonk today.

  Jameson sent the prisoner to General Arnold, a strange decision which indicates some sort of private motive. The papers, however, he sent directly to General Washington, who was then at Hartford. Only upon the return of his next-in-command, Major Tallmadge, did the real state of affairs come to light. On Tallmadge’s insistence, the party escorting André to General Arnold was recalled and brought back to Sand’s Mills. But a letter telling General Arnold of André’s capture was permitted to continue on its way to West Point!

  Benedict Arnold received the letter the next morning at breakfast. The General rose from the table, announced that he had to go across the river to West Point immediately, and went to his room in great agitation. His wife followed him, and he informed her that he must leave at once, perhaps forever. Then he mounted his horse and dashed down to the riverside. Jumping into his barge, he ordered his men to row him to the Vulture, some seventeen miles below. He explained to his men that he came on a flag of truce and promised them an extra ration of rum if they made it particularly quickly. When the barge arrived at the British vessel, he jumped aboard and even tried to force the bargemen to enter the King’s service on the threat of making them prisoners. The men refused, and the Vulture sailed on to New York City. On arrival, General Clinton freed the bargemen, a most unusual act of gallantry in those days.

  Meanwhile André was being tried as a spy. Found guilty by a court-martial at Tappan, he was executed by hanging on October 2, 1780. The three militia men who had thus saved the very existence of the new republic were voted special medals by Congress.

  * * *

  The entire area around Tappan and the Tarrytowns is “André” country. At Philipse Castle there is a special exhibit of André memorabilia in a tiny closet under the stairs. There is a persistent rumor that André was trying to escape from his captors. According to Mrs. Cornelia Beekman, who then lived at the van Cortlandt House in Peekskill, there was in her house a suitcase containing an American army uniform and a lot of cash. That suitcase was to be turned over to anyone bringing a written note from André. Joshua Hett Smith, who had helped André escape after his meeting with Arnold, later asked for the suitcase; however, as Smith had nothing in writing, Beekman refused to give it to him. However, this story came to light only many years after the Revolution, perhaps because Mrs. Beekman feared to be drawn into a treason trial or because she had some feelings of her own in the matter.

  Our next stop was to be the van Cortlandt mansion, not more than fifteen minutes away by car. Obviously, Pat Smith was in a good mood this morning. In her little foreign car she preceded us at such a pace that we had great difficulty keeping up with her. It was a sight to behold how this lady eased her way in and out of traffic with an almost serpentine agility that made us wonder how long she could keep it up. Bravely following her, we passed Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and gave it some thought. No, we were not too much concerned with all the illustrious Dutch Americans buried there, nor with Washington Irving and nearby Sunnyside; we were frankly concerned with ourselves. Would we also wind up at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, or would we make it to the van Cortlandt mansion in one piece…?

  The mansion itself is a handsome two-story building, meticulously restored and furnished with furniture and artworks of the eighteenth century, some of it from the original house. Turned into a tourist attraction by the same foundation which looked after Philipsburg Manor, the house, situated on a bluff, is a perfect example of how to run an outdoor museum. Prior to climbing the hill to the mansion itself, however, we visited the ferryboat house at the foot of the hill. In the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century, the river came close to the house, and it was possible for the ships bringing goods to the van Cortlandts to come a considerable distance inland to discharge their merchandise. The Ferryboat Inn seemed a natural outgrowth of having a ferry at that spot: the ferry itself crossed an arm of the Hudson River, not very wide, but wide enough not to be forded on foot or by a small boat. Since so much of these buildings had been restored, I wondered whether Ingrid would pick up anything from the past.

  The inn turned out to be a charming little house. Downstairs we found what must have been the public room, a kitchen, and another room, with a winding staircase leading to the upper story. Frankly, I expected very little from this but did not want to offend Pat Smith, who had suggested the visit.

  “Funny,” Ingrid said, “when I walked into the door, I had the feeling that I had to force my way through a crowd.”

  The curator seemed surprised at this, for she hadn’t expected anything from this particular visit either. “I can’t understand this,” she said plaintively. “This is one of the friendliest buildings we have.”

  “Well,” I said, “ferryboat inns in the old days weren’t exactly like the Hilton.”

  “I feel a lot of activity here,” Ingrid said. “Something happened here, not a hanging, but connected with one.”

  We went upstairs, where I stopped Ingrid in front of a niche that contained a contemporary print of André’s execution. As yet we had not discussed Major André or his connection with the area, and I doubt very much whether Ingrid realized there was a connection. “As you look at this, do you have any idea who it is?” I asked.

  Ingrid, who is very nearsighted, looked at the picture from a distance and said, “I feel that he may have come through this place at one time.” And so he might have.

  As we walked up the hill to the van Cortlandt mansion, the time being just right for a visit as the tourists would be leaving, I questioned Pat Smith about the mansion.

  “My mother used to know the family who owns the house,” Pat Smith began. “Among the last descendants of the van Cortlandts were Mrs. Jean Brown and a Mrs. Mason. This was in the late thirties or the forties, when I lived in New Canaan. Apparently, there were such manifestations at the house that the two ladies called the Archbishop of New York for help. They complained that a spirit was ‘acting up,’ that there were the sound of a coach that no one could see and other inexplicable noises of the usual poltergeist nature.”

  “What did they do about it?”

  “Despite his reluctance to get involved, the Archbishop did go up to the manor, partly because of the prominence of the family. He put on his full regalia and went through a ritual of exorcism. Whether or not it did any good, I don’t know, but a little later a psychic sensitive went through the house also and recorded some of these noises. As far as I know, none of it was ever published, and for all I know, it may still be there—the specter, that is.”

  We now had arrived at the mansion, and we entered the downstairs portion of the house. Two young ladies dressed in colonial costumes received us and offered us some cornmeal tidbits baked in the colonial manner. We went over the house f
rom top to bottom, from bottom to top, but Ingrid felt absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. True, she felt the vibrations of people having lived in the house, having come and gone, but no tragedy, no deep imprint, and, above all, no presence. Pat Smith seemed a little disappointed. She didn’t really believe in ghosts as such, but, having had some ESP experiences at Sunnyside, she wasn’t altogether sure. At that instant she remembered having left her shopping bag at the Ferryboat Inn. The bag contained much literature on the various colonial houses in the area, and she wanted to give it to us. Excusing herself, she dashed madly back down the hill to the Ferryboat Inn. She was back in no time, a little out of breath, which made me wonder whether she had wanted to make her solo visit to the Ferryboat Inn at dusk just as brief as humanly possible.

  * * *

  In a splendid Victorian mansion surmounted by a central tower, the Historical Society of the Tarrytowns functions as an extremely well organized local museum as well as a research center. Too prudent to display items of general interest that might be found elsewhere in greater quantity and better quality, the Historical Society concentrates on items and information pertaining to the immediate area. It is particularly strong on pamphlets, papers, maps, and other literature of the area from 1786 onward. One of the principal rooms in the Society’s museum is the so-called Captors’ Room. In it are displays of a sizable collection of material dealing with the capture of Major André. These include lithographs, engravings, documentary material, letters, and, among other things, a chair. It is the chair André sat in when he was still a free man at the Underhill home, south of Yorktown Heights. Mrs. Adelaide Smith, the curator, was exceptionally helpful to us when we stated the purpose of our visit. Again, as I always do, I prevented Ingrid from hearing my conversation with Mrs. Smith, or with Miss Smith, who had come along now that she had recovered her shopping bag full of literature. As soon as I could get a moment alone with Ingrid, I asked her to touch the chair in question.

  “I get just a slight impression,” she said, seating herself in the chair, then getting up again. “There may have been a meeting in here of some kind, or he may have been sentenced while near or sitting in this chair. I think there was a meeting in this room to determine what would happen.”

  But she could not get anything very strong about the chair. Looking at the memorabilia, she then commented, “I feel he was chased for quite a while before he was captured. I do feel that the chair in this room has something to do with his sentence.”

  “Is the chair authentic?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Now concerning this room, the Captors’ Room, do you feel anything special about it?”

  “Yes, I think this is where it was decided, and I feel there were a lot of men here, men from town and from the government.”

  Had Ingrid wanted to manufacture a likely story to please me, she could not have done worse. Everything about the room and the building would have told her that it was of the nineteenth century, and that the impression she had just described seemed out of place, historically speaking. But those were her feelings, and as a good sensitive she felt obliged to say whatever came into her mind or whatever she was impressed with, not to examine it as to whether it fit in with the situation she found herself in. I turned to the curator and asked, “Mrs. Smith, what was this room used for, and how old is the building itself?”

  “The building is about one hundred twenty-five years old; our records show it was built between 1848 and 1850 by Captain Jacob Odell, the first mayor of Tarrytown. It was built as one house, and since its erection two families have lived here. First, there were the Odells, and later Mr. and Mrs. Aussie Case. Mrs. Case is eighty-seven now and retired. This house was purchased for the Society to become their headquarters. It has been used as our headquarters for over twenty years.”

  “Was there anything on this spot before this house was built?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has anyone ever been tried or judged in this room?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Realizing that a piece of furniture might bring with itself part of the atmosphere in which it stood when some particularly emotional event took place, I questioned Mrs. Smith about the history of the chair.

  “This chair, dated 1725, was presented to us from Yorktown. It was the chair in which Major André sat the morning of his capture, when he and Joshua Smith stopped at the home of Isaac Underhill for breakfast.”

  The thoughts going through André’s head that morning, when he was almost sure of a successful mission, must have been fairly happy ones. He had succeeded in obtaining the papers from General Arnold; he had slept reasonably well, been fed a good breakfast, and was now, presumably, on his way to Manhattan and a reunion with his commanding general, Sir Henry Clinton. If Ingrid felt any meetings around that chair, she might be reaching back beyond André’s short use of the chair, perhaps into the history of the Underhill home itself. Why, then, did she speak of sentence and capture, facts she would know from the well-known historical account of Major André’s mission? I think that the many documents and memorabilia stored in the comparatively small room might have created a common atmosphere in which bits and snatches of past happenings had been reproduced in some fashion. Perhaps Ingrid was able to tune in on this shallow but nevertheless still extant psychic layer.

  Major André became a sort of celebrity in his own time. His stature as a British master spy was exaggerated far out of proportion even during the Revolutionary War. This is understandable when one realizes how close the cause of American independence had come to total defeat. If André had delivered the documents entrusted to him by Major General Arnold to the British, West Point could not have been held. With the fall of the complicated fortifications at the point, the entire North would have soon been occupied by the British. Unquestionably, the capture of Major André was a turning point in the war, which had then reached a stalemate, albeit one in favor of the British. They could afford to wait and sit it out while the Continental troops were starving to death, unable to last another winter.

  General Arnold’s betrayal was by no means a sudden decision; his feelings about the war had changed some time prior to the actual act. The reasons may be seen in his background, his strong Tory leanings, and a certain resentment against the command of the Revolutionary Army. He felt he had not advanced quickly enough; the command at West Point was given him only three months prior to André’s capture. Rather than being grateful for the belated recognition of his talents by the Continental command, Arnold saw it as a godsend to fulfill his own nefarious task. For several months he had been in correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton in New York, and his decision to betray the cause of independence was made long before he became commander of West Point.

  But André wasn’t the master spy later accounts try to make him out: his bumbling response when captured by the three militia men shows that he was far from experienced in such matters. Since he had carried on his person a laissez-passer signed by General Arnold, he needed only to produce this document and the men would have let him go. Instead, he volunteered the information that he was a British officer. All this because one of the militia men wore a Hessian coat. It never occurred to André that the coat might have been stolen or picked up on the battlefield! But there was a certain weakness in André’s character, a certain conceit, and the opportunity of presenting himself as a British officer on important business was too much to pass up when he met the three nondescript militia men. Perhaps his personal vanity played a part in this fateful decision; perhaps he really believed himself to be among troops on his own side. Whatever the cause of his strange behavior, he paid with his life for it. Within weeks after the hanging of Major André, the entire Continental Army knew of the event, the British command was made aware of it, and in a detailed document Sir Henry Clinton explained what he had had in mind in case Arnold would have been able to deliver West Point and its garrison to the British. Thus, the name André became a househol
d word among the troops of both sides.

  * * *

  In 1951 I investigated a case of a haunting at the colonial house belonging to the late New York News columnist Danton Walker. The case was first published, under the title “The Rockland County Ghost,” in Tomorrow magazine and, later, in Ghost Hunter. Various disturbances had occurred at the house between 1941 and 1951 that had led Mr. Walker to believe that he had a poltergeist in his domicile. The late Eileen Garrett offered to serve as medium in the investigation, and Dr. Robert Laidlaw, the eminent psychiatrist, was to meet us at the house to supervise the proceedings along with me. Even before Mrs. Garrett set foot in the house, however, she revealed to us the result of a “traveling clairvoyance” expedition in which she had seen the entity “hung up” in the house. His name, she informed us, was Andreas, and she felt that he was attached to the then owner of the house.

  The visit to the house was one of the most dramatic and perhaps traumatic psychic investigations into haunted houses I have ever conducted. The house, which has since changed ownership owing to Mr. Walker’s death, stands on a hill that was once part of a large farm. During the Revolutionary War, the house served as headquarters for a detachment of troops on the Revolutionary side. General Anthony Wayne, known as “Mad” Anthony, had his headquarters very near this site, and the Battle of Stony Point was fought just a few miles away in 1779. The building served as a fortified roadhouse used for the storage of arms, ammunitions, food, and at times for the safekeeping of prisoners.