John Paulding

And it's not going to end well.

So he speaks first because he sees that John Paulding has a green Hessian coat on and the Hessians, the military auxiliaries to the British.

Andre's had two sleepless nights and he says, oh, I hope we're in the same party.

And Paulding kind of nods and says, yeah, yeah, my bad.

He's traveling under a false name, John Anderson.

There's different stories about why he gets turned around, but he ends up in Tarrytown on September 23rd, where a group of militiamen are stationed in two different parallel roads there.

There's three that are on the Albany Post Road in Tarrytown, John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Ward, who stop him.

And Andre makes a real rookie mistake.

So many of you know that the treason that Benedict Arnold was planning, that had it been successful, would have fell West Point, and we all would have been speaking with British accents right now.

That was thwarted by what happened in Tarrytown when three local militiamen, John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart, captured British spy Major John Andre.

You can see the memorial right in Patriots Park on Route 9, and both the villages of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown are coming together to commemorate Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow's role in the 250th and the founding of our country.

So we start on Sunday morning in Sleepy Hollow.

It was called Clark's Kill.

Three young men stepped in the road, John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams.

These were local militiamen, and one of them was wearing a Hessian coat.

Andre looked at the coat and made the assumption that anybody would make.