gion was to be employed, and poor Champe, who had enlisted in it to carry out his plans, was in a sad dilemma. Instead of crossing the Hudson that night, with the traitor his prisoner, he found himself on board of a British transport, and that traitor his commander! December 16, 1780 The expedition sailed, and Champe was landed on the shores of Virginia. He sought opportunities to escape, but found none, until after the junction with Cornwallis at Petersburg, where he deserted. He passed up toward the mountains, and into the friendly districts of North Carolina. Finally, he joined the legion of Major Lee, just after it had passed the Congarec in pursuit of Lord Rawdon. Great was the surprise of his old comrades when they saw him, and it was increased at the cordial reception which the deserter received at the hands of Lee. His story was soon told, and four-fold greater than before his desertion was the love and admiration of his corps for him. They felt proud of him, and his promotion would have been hailed by general acclamation. Knowing that he would immediately be hanged if caught by the enemy, he was discharged from service. The commander-in-chief munificently rewarded him; and seventeen years afterward, when President Adams appointed Washington to the chief command of the armies of the United States, then preparing to defend the country from the threatened hostility of the French, the chief sent to Colonel Lee for information concerning Champe, being determined to bring him forward in the capacity of a captain of infantry. But the gallant soldier had removed to Kentucky, and was asleep in the soil. *
A few months after my visit to Tappan, I made another tour to the vicinity.. I passed two days in the romantic valley of the Ramapo, through which the New York and Erie rail-way courses. Every rocky nook, sparkling water-course, and shaded glen in that wild valley has a legendary charm. It is a ravine sixteen miles in extent, opening wide toward the fertile fields of Orange county. It was a region peculiarly distinguished by wild and daring adventure during the Revolution, and, at times, as important military ground. There the marauding Cow-boys made their rendezvous; and from its dark coverts, Claudius Smith, the merciless freebooter, and his three sons, with their followers, sallied out and plundered the surrounding country. ** Along the sinuous Ramapo Creek, before the war of the Revolution broke out, and while the ancient tribe of the Ramapaughs yet chased the deer on the rugged hills which skirt the valley, iron-forges were established, and the hammer-peal of spreading civilization echoed from the neighboring crags. Not far distant from its waters the great chain which was stretched across the Hudson at West Point was wrought; *** and the remains of one of the Ramapo forges, built at the close of the war, now form a picturesque ruin on the margin of the rail-way. **** A few miles below it, Ramapo village, with its extensive machinery, sends up a per-
* See Lee's Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, from page 270 to 284 The reader, by observing the dates of his correspondence with Washington, will perceive that Lee has con founded the effort of Ogden to save André by having Arnold given up, and the desertion of his sergeant, with the expedition of Sergeant Champe. In his account of Champe's maneuver, he makes the salvation of André a leading incentive to efforts to capture Arnold; but André was executed on the 2d of October, whereas Champe did not desert until the 20th of the same month.
** Claudius Smith was a large, fine-looking man, of strong mind, and a desperado of the darkest dye. Himself and gang were a terror to Orange county for a long time, and tempting rewards were offered for his apprehension. He was finally captured near Oyster Bay, on Long Island, and taken to Goshen, where he was chained to the jail floor, and a strong guard placed over him. He was hung in the village on the 22d of January, 1779, with Gordon and De la Mar—the former convicted of horse-stealing, and the latter of burglary. Smith's residence was in the lower part of the present village of Monroe, on the Erie railway. Several murders were afterward committed by Smith's son Richard, in revenge for the hanging of his father; and for a while the Whigs in that region suffered more from the desperate Cow-boys than before the death of their great leader. For a detailed account of transactions connected with Claudius Smith, see Eager's History of Orange County, p. 550-564.
*** See page 700.
**** This ruin is situated about half way between the Sloatsburgh station and Monroe works. The forge was built in 1783—4. by Solomon Townshend, of New York, to make bar-iron and anchors, and was named the Augusta Works. A sketch of the ruin forms a pretty frontispiece to The Salamander (or Hugo, as it is now called), a legend of the Ramapo Valley, by Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith. The historic anecdote related in the introduction to this charming legend. I also heard from the lips of the "venerable Mr. P———— through whose kindness I was enabled to visit the "Hopper House." The relics of the Revolution are pleasingly grouped in the introduction referred to.
Ramapo Village. Mr. Pierson.—Movements of the two Armies in 1777.—Washington's Perplexities.