Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/284

260 CHAPTER XII.

Introduction of the excitement into Delaware county, 1844 — Roxbury — First public meeting — Description of the costume worn by an Indian — Molest John B. Gould — Second attempt to enforce submission — Tar and feather H. More — Tar and feather T. Corbin — Sheriff's papers taken and destroyed — First equal rights' convention — Legislative proceedings — Passage of an act preventing persons appearing in disguise — Copy of the same — An act of D. W. Squires — Extract from a letter to the Adjutant General — Organization of an armed force by the sheriff — Steele in limbo at Andes — His defence — Letter to the sheriff — His release — Antipathy of anti-renters against Steele — His courage — Their threats — Shacksville battle — Particulars of the same — Names of prisoners — Sale in Andes — Painful death of Steele — His last moments — Extract from the correspondence of the Albany Evening Journal — Funeral services — Indignation meetings at various places — Resolutions passed — Summerset of anti-rentism.

the early part of the summer of 1844, through the cooperation of some leading anti-renters in Schoharie county, where the excitement had taken hold the preceding year, the agitation was introduced into Delaware, first into the town of Roxbury. Before any publicity was given to the proceedings, the articles of association had received the signatures of something more than fifty voters of the town, most of whom had provided themselves "As knights of old, with coats of mail" Report, it is true, with her pliant tongue had diffused her thousand rumors of the characters, manners and customs of the pretended aborigines of the forest; an intense interest had been awakened to learn who, and the "why and wherefore" of the new party; but like the celebrated know-nothings of the latter day, "they knew each other, knew others, but were not known" Soon, however, the excitement assumed a more public form, and the