States Dyckman American Loyalist Author:James Thomas Flexner "The spotlight of historical record first struck directly on States Morris Dyckman when at Cartwright's Inn at Albany, New York, he raised his glass to drink a toast. The occasion was a celebration of George III's birthday: the date was June 4, 1776; the celebrants, the conservative leaders and royal officials of New York's second city. Dyc... more »kman was twenty-two years old. The toast: 'Damnation to the enemies of the King.'" So begins James THomas Flexner's biography of States Morris Dyckman, a common man who led an extraordinary life during the Revolutionary period. The son of a failed inkeeper with few political convictions, Dyckman was not an archetypal Tory, yet he remained loyal to the Crown and suffered the persecution and exile brought on by the execution. as a Quartermaster in the British Army in British-occupied Ne York, Dyckman became involved in the wholesale divergance of funds for his own fortune- a common breach which typified English aristocratic establishment and was also a major contributor to their defeat at the hands of American rebels. Later, upon his return to Britain, he was instrumental in fending off a twenty-four-year effort by British Parliament to seek restitution from himself and many of The Crown's more self-serving officials. In so doing, Dyckman gained for himself two fortunes. Trying to assimilate himself into the British society from which he had so long been dinstance, Dyckman assumed upper class extravagances and tastes. His personal life reflected the unbalance of his public affairs: he had an illegitimate son, devoted himself to a drug-addicted sister, and then married a beautiful teenage girl in his middle ages much against her family's wishes. Finally, skritig on the edge of Madness, Dyckman turned against the aristocratic society to whom he had devoted his life. He returned to America and began building Boscobel, a resplendent mansion on the banks of the Hudson River. The mansion still stands today - a paradigm of early nineteenth-century architecture. It was during a restoration of the mansion that Flexner was first introduced to his fascinating subject through the biographical records Dyckman kept of h is extraordinary history.« less