Beacon (or Sentry) Hill was almost a mountain then. The owners lowered it for the sake of gravel for private and public improvements. It filled hollows and lengthened wharves, and at last the beacon gave place to the monument of its usefulness.
In New York beacons were set along the highlands whose tops fired the night sky in times of danger.
These beacons or signals probably suggested the semaphore—a system of signals with shutters and flags used in France during the wars of Napoleon.
Governor Trumbull said one day to Dennis: “We must consider the matter of beacons.”
The two went into the war office to consider.
“I will bring the subject before the Committee,” said the Governor after they had “considered” the matter for a time, “and you may get Peter to point out to you the longest lookouts on the high hills. The sky must be made to speak for the cause in tongues of fire.”
The Tories more and more hated the war Governor.
“I would kill him as I would a rattlesnake,” said one of these.
There were new plots everywhere among Tory people to destroy him and his great influence.
Peter Nimble, though really a guard on secret service, still herded sheep and roamed after his flocks and guided them in the pleasant seasons of pasturage. He went up on the hills of the savins above the cedar swamps. He knew the hills better than many of the people of Lebanon.