Body of André Disinterred.
The year that Napoleon died the body of Major John André was taken back to England. André had been buried in a field close to the spot where he had been hanged as a spy, and the grave was marked by two small cedars and by a peach-tree planted at its head. Some of the newspapers had declared that “any honor paid Major André’s remains was casting an imputation on General Washington and the officers who tried him.” Such logic as this had so stirred some ultra-patriotic citizens of Tappan that when Mr. Buchanan, the British consul in New York, arrived there to exhume the body quite a crowd was prepared to express its emphatic disapproval.
Argument being obviously of no avail, Buchanan told the little mob that it was an Irish custom to drink spirits before visiting a grave and that this custom he always observed. In a few minutes the crowd was too much occupied with the Irish custom to annoy Buchanan and the consul proceeded with his task.
The lid of the coffin was found to be broken and the roots of the peach-tree had entwined themselves completely around the skull. The bones were taken to a house near by, whence warned of rumors that the body would be flung into the river, Buchanan was obliged to carry off the coffin like a thief in the night, driving twenty-four miles to New York.