[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] ages of the contending forces during the Revolution were those showing the most satisfactory conditions of population. 534 HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY The purely agricultural character of Westchester County at the end of the eighteenth century is perfectly demonstrated by these census returns. In truth, there was at that time no single village displaying circumstances of local activity from which the prospect of any substantial ultimate growth might be deduced. The existence of the foundations of such thriving communities as Yonkers, Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown, Sing Sing, and Peekskill on the Hudson, New Rochelle, Mamaroneck, and Rye on the Sound, and White Plains and various other villages in the central sections of the county, is recog-nizable, with more or less distinctness, at this period; but in each case these foundations were strictly elementary, represented by such instruments of advancing civilization as churches, mills for the grind-ing of grain, small general stores, and inns for the accommodation of ^travelers, with here and there a schoolhouse. The only commer-cial industry that had been inaugurated was that of transmitting market produce to New York, in which a few sloops were engaged, both on the Hudson and the Sound. But most of the farmers pre-ferred to cart their own wares to the city. kk What a sight must have presented itself," says a writer in Scharfs History, describing a