THE HOMESTEAD OF CAPTAIN CORNELIUS VANDERVEER 

WHO CAME NEAR BEING HANGED BY THE REDCOATS

	Captain Cornelius VANDERVEER and the burghers of 
Flatbush fought the British two days before the battle 
of Long Island, and were repulsed at an old lane where 
fortifications had been thrown-up. Fortunately, this good 
Patriot had taken the precaution of sending his family 
over to Jersey. After the end of the skirmish with the British,
attended by a slave, he returned to his home only to find it 
in the hands of the enemy, and later, still clad in his uniform, he 
ran into a Hessian sentinel. Preparations were made to 
hang him, and a rope was placed about his neck; when 
Captain MILLER, a British officer whom he had met before 
the war, interfered. Captain VANDERVEER was taken before 
Lord Cornwallis, who ordered him sent to New Utrecht.

	In a trial before Captain Cuyler, one of Lord Howe's aides, 
he was asked, 
	"Will you take a 'protection' and go back to your 
farm in Flatbush?" 
	"If you don't ask me to fight against my country," answered
Captain VANDERVEER. "I will never do that."
	"That need not worry you," responded the British officer. "We
have fitting men enough without you. You may go to the rebels or 
to the devil, for all I care."

	The order stating that Captain VANDERVEER was under Lord 
Cornwallis's protection was written, and directions were given that 
he be left undisturbed.

	The VANDERVEER homestead, standing, until late in 1911, on 
Flatbush Avenue between Clarendon Road and Avenue D, dated back to 1747,
and possibly farther. Many aids were given there to the American cause. 
The women of the VANDERVEER household made the suit of clothes which 
Captain LYMAN wore when he got beyond the British lines and joined the 
American army, and Captain VANDERVEER himself loaned Governor Clinton 
money, that New York might be enabled to carry on the war. In this 
house also was made the flag which was raised on the liberty pole in 
Flatbush when the British left Long Island.



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