Lieutenant Daniel Taylor of Captain Stewart's Company…

Lieutenant Daniel Taylor of Captain Stewart's Company of the 9th Royal Regiment had been captured at Little Britain in southern Ulster County on October 10, carrying an innocuous note from General Henry Clinton to General John Burgoyne.

He is a loyalist junior officer who travels in civilian clothes on horseback carrying messages between various units of the British Army.

As is customary, the note had been concealed in a small silver capsule screwed together in the middle.

Ordinarily, such messengers from either army are not considered spies of such a nature that their conviction would call for the death sentence.

However, Nathan Hale of Connecticut had been captured by the British a year earlier and hanged as a spy.

Lieutenant Taylor had been tried in New Windsor by a Courts Martial composed largely of Connecticut officers and had been condemned to be hanged "at such time and place as the General shall direct." 

American troops, trying to reach and defend Kingston from the British, had set out from New Windsor and taken Taylor with them.

They had reached Hurley on October 17, where Taylor was held in the Dumond House.

On the morning of October 18, Lieutenant Taylor is moved by horse and wagon to the sweet apple tree on the side of Schoolhouse Lane, where he is hanged.