Time has swept away the broad lawns and drooping trees that
.once made the famous Melrose Abbey picturesque. It even in later 
years moved the Abbey itself from the lovely lane that led up to it; 
for, when the late Dr. Homer L. BARTLETT purchased the property, 
he removed the house from the east side of the lane to a spot east 
of Bedford Avenue, where it remained until its destruction
several years ago.

	In the days of the Revolution this old colonial place, built many years 
before, was the home of Colonel William AXTELL, a Tory; who purchased 
it from Mr. LANE, an Englishman; and it was called far and near Melrose Hall, 
famous for its broad lawns and flower-beds, its wide halls, gilded drawing-rooms, 
and elaborate parties. For LANE himself, who about 1749 had built this house, 
so different from and of a white-faced young girl who flitted from 
room to room and peered from the upper windows down the avenue of pines, 
sobbing with the pines and restlessly pacing through the night. 
Years after all these things the bones of a woman were found in the, 
dungeon in the cellar where so many brave Patriots, brought to the 
me???ess AXTELL, had died. 
She may have been the white-faced girlfriend who travellers say, watched 
during the night, and cried out in her loneliness from the upper rooms.

	Early in the war, when the subtle AXTELL was entertaining the, British 
within his house, there were many gay functions at the Hall, 
brilliant balls, brilliant suppers,-such gayety as modest Flatbush had 
never known. And into these scenes of music and romance walked young Aquila 
GILES, who met and loved Eliza SHIPTON, niece, of the mistress of the Hall. 
Affairs went smoothly for a time, and, under the white pines walked in 
serene happiness the lovers, the broad lawns and misty fountains making 
their way pleasant as they strolled. What might have happened had Aquila GILES 
kept from Colonel AXTELL his regard for the lovely girl and his sympathy 
for the Patriot cause cannot be surmised. He declared both. The sumptuous 
gatherings at Melrose Hall went on, but without Aquila GILES; for in wrath 
the stern old adherent of the king had forbidden him to enter its doors again.

	A party of British officers were being entertained by Colonel AXTELL a few days 
previous to the battle of Brooklyn, and from the Heights an American gunner 
threw a shell into the house, causing damage. Ater the battle of Long Island 
until the close of the war Flatbush was in the hands of the British, who, 
invariably insolent, were a veritable thorn to the people of the town. 
It was Captain Williain MARRENER, an American, who among others was paroled 
in Flatbush, and. who after his release resolved to be avenged for the
treatment given by the enemy. In a whale-boat, with a picked crew, he sailed 
by night into Gravesend Bay from Jersey, and thence led his men to Flatbush, 
where, having made four parties, four houses of the town, were assailed, 
among them Colonel AXTELL's. The doors of Melrose Hall were battered down, 
but the colonel was not there, having previously gone to New York. It is said 
by an authority that the capture would have been difficult, for the old Hall 
had many a secret stairway, closet, and vault, which none knew better than the 
man who planned them "for the glory of God and the king."

	Aquila GILES, who had joined the American army and risen to the rank of colonel, 
returned to Flatbush at the end of the war, to make Eliza SHIPTON his wife. 
Melrose Hall was confiscated by the government and advertised to be sold by 
public auction. It was purchased on October 21, 1784, by Colonel Aquila GILES, 
who led his bride over the threshold from which he had been turned away, into 
the Hall where she when a girl, his betrothed, waited for him during the weary 
days of the war.



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