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threatened with violence and obliged to flee for their lives clad only in the clothes in which they had risen from their sleep, and without either shoes or stockings. Mrs. Cruger tried to reach a British post two miles off to give the alarm, but unfortunately lost her way in consequence of her confusion and terror and the darkness of the night. The frost lay on the ground, and she had well nigh perished when in the morning she found herself near an inn, called "The Dove," seven miles from her father's house on the Kingsbridge Road. Here she was taken in and hospitably entertained by the loyal innkeeper, one Nicholas Staker.

Mrs. Cruger's father, Oliver deLancey, was a prominent citizen of New York who had served in the French war as commander of a body of provincial troops under General Abercrombie.

After the capture of Long Island by the British forces in August, 1776, General Howe appointed Oliver de Lancey brigadier-general with orders to raise three battalions of 500 men each for the defence of the island. The battalions were soon raised. The general himself was colonel of the first battalion, and his son-in-law, John Harris Cruger, lieutenant-colonel. George Brewerton, alderman of New York, and a gentleman who had served with distinction during the French war, commanded the second battalion and had as his lieutenant-colonel Stephen de Lancey, oldest son of the general. Gabriel Ludlow commanded the third battalion, and his lieutenant-colonel was Richard Hewlett, of Hampstead, Long Island.

The de Lancey battalions were organized "for the defence of Long Island and other exigencies." Under their protection Long Island became a secure asylum for the Loyalists, who flocked thither in great numbers from Connecticut and elsewhere, and of whom very many came to New Brunswick at the peace in 1783. The ramparts built by Cruger's men at Huntington, Long Island, are still visible.