A LOST SUNBONNET AND HOW MISTRESS VAN BRUNT 

CONQUERED THE BRITISH IN THE VAN BRUNT HOMESTEAD

	Within gunshot of this old house was fought the first battle of 
the Revolutionary War. Within a good stone's throw of it 15,000
British soldiers and 40 pieces of cannon were landed on August 22, 1776. 
Almost past its very doors surged the stream of red-coated soldiers 
on their way to quell the rebellious colonists. The first VAN BRUNT of 
New Utrecht came from the New Netherlands in the seventeenth century. 
He was a well-known citizen of the town, which he served in various ways; 
and he was one of the hosts when Attorney-General Nicasius De SILLE 
visited the village early in the year of 1660, and this first 
VAN BRUNT with, his neighbors assisted in giving their distinguished 
guest a good dinner and entertainment. 

	This VAN BRUNT house was built nearly two centuries and a half ago. 
It now stands at 1752 84th Street, New Utrecht, in very different 
surroundings from the emerald green of the meadows that bounded it 
in the early days; for a city has crept up to its quaint old door, 
to its trees and shrubbery and rose-bushes.

	One Mistress VAN BRUNT, whose. husband jomed the Patriots in 
Revolutionary days, gathered together her slaves and her children 
when she heard that the British were landing in New Utrecht. 
She was a resourceful woman and quick to act; and, as her slaves 
crowded about her, she bade one of the harness a horse. Into 
the cart she hustled her servants and her children; and without 
stopping to look after her hens or her cows or other live-stock, 
or even to lock up her house, she bade the driver whip up the horse, 
and away the VAN BRUNT family sped toward New Lotts. They were 
driving at a smart trot over the King's Highway; not yet out of sight 
of home, and not so far away but that they could see the redcoats 
emerginig in line up the road, when one little VAN BRUNT girl 
lost her sunbonnet. She set up a terrible ado about it, and was 
far more concerned about its loss than she was about the lengthening 
line of redcoats that were marching close behind the steed that was
drawing her to New Lotts. In the midst of the confusion the slave stopped 
the horse, rescued the sunbonnet, and, concealed in its depths, the 
little VAN BRUNT girl snugly retreated. In the mean time the British 
were swarming over New Utrecht.

	No sooner had Mistress VAN BRUNT arrived in New Lotts than she regretted 
her hasty retreat, and it was not long before she made up her mind to go home. 
She arrived with slaves and children. Soldiers were everywhere, and there 
was an unusual number of them in the VAN BRUNT house. It fairly bristled 
with crimson uniforms. 

	"What are you doing here?" she demanded of one of them as she walked into her 
kitchen.
	"We live here," explained an officer. "This is our house."
	"Indeed it is not," snapped Mistress VAN BRUNT. "This is my house, and I have 
brought my family home. If you must have part of it, you must, but you'll 
have to make room for my family and for  me." 

	So she moved in, and the soldiers allotted her a portion of the house; 
and from all reports, after a formal understanding, they dwelt together 
under the same roof in peace and harmony, as the poets say.

	"Where are my cows?" demanded the lady, pursuing the formal understanding 
to the letter.

	"Your cows, madam? You have no cows," returned the officer. 
"They are our cows, and they have been turned into a common pasture." 

	"Your cows, indeed!" asserted the lady. "How do you think this baby is to be fed? 
Tell me that! I need a cow, and I need it right away."

	The officer may have shrugged his shoulders, but he eventually led the way 
to the cow pasture; and Mistress VAN BRUNT surveyed the herd and carefully 
selected an excellent one of the number, which she drove home - and kept.

	For a long time Mistress VAN BRUNT and her family and the British soldiers 
dwelt in their various portions of the homestead. After the war one of the 
VAN BRUNT girls married a Bzitish soldier, and with him went to live in Maryland. 
When the war-clouds had long passed, Mr VAN BRUNT while visiting his daughter died 
and was buried in Maryland.

	Mistress Van Brunt was one day brushing her husband's coat 
which her daughter had sent back to her, when there fell 
from the pockets several nuts, which she planted in the 
grounds near her house. These nuts grew into trees, and the last 
of their number was standing until recently.

	The Van Brunt homestead is still owned by the Van Brunt family, 
though none of the descendants occupy it. Mrs. Barbara DAWSON lives 
there, and takes great pride in the old kitchen with its quaint 
fireplace, in its low-ceilinged rooms, in the rose garden and 
the picturesque shrubbery that surrounds it, and in the vines that 
clamber to the very eaves. 
	"This house is very old," says Mrs. DAWSON, "and they say 
General Washington once stayed here."


Lady Deborah Moody
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