Note 6 — Chapter III

The place of Hale's execution has been a subject of conjecture. Some have supposed that it occurred near the Beekman mansion, Howe's headquarters; others, that he was taken from the Provost Prison (now the Hall of Records), in the City Hall Park, to the usual place of execution of state criminals, at the Barracks near Chambers Street; and others, on the farm of Colonel Rutgers, whose country mansion was near the East River—at Pike and Monroe Streets.

In 1849 I visited the venerable Jeremiah Johnson, ex-Mayor of Brooklyn, who was living at his farm-house not far from the Navy-Yard, then between the city of Brooklyn and the village of Williamsburgh. Among other interesting facts concerning the Revolution, of his own experience and observation, which he had treasured in his memory, was that his father was present at the execution of Hale. Like other Long Island farmers at that time, he went to New York occasionally with truck. On the day of the great fire he was there, when himself and his team were pressed into the service of the British. He was with the detachment on Colonel Rutgers's farm at the time of the execution, and saw the martyr hanged upon the limb of an apple-tree in Rutgers's orchard. It was at the west side, not far from the line of (present) East Broadway.