In 1780, while visiting his future wife, Sarah Tidd, Paulding was detained by a group of
Loyalists led by his future brother-in-law. He was imprisoned in the
sugar house prisons in New York City, but escaped by jumping from a window. Paulding went to the livery stable of a friend and acquired a coat of a
Hessian soldier, which he wore to evade notice as he made his way north to Patriot territory. On September 23, 1780, Paulding was patrolling the
Albany Post Road (today's
U.S. Route 9) along with two other young militiamen,
David Williams and
Isaac Van Wart. They were part of a scouting party of the Westchester County Militia, commanded by
Sgt. John Dean. A rider on horseback wearing civilian clothes approached, heading south toward New York; Paulding seized the reins of his horse and began to question him. The rider turned out to be British Major
John André, who had left
Benedict Arnold after planning Arnold's defection from the American side, and who was trying to make his way back to British lines. André, seeing Paulding's Hessian coat, may have assumed him to be a member of
De Lancey's Cowboys, a Loyalist military unit which had been raiding Westchester's
Neutral Ground for cattle and supplies, and he identified himself as a Loyalist. Searching through André's clothes, the three militiamen discovered documents of his secret communication with Benedict Arnold. The militiamen, all local yeomen farmers, refused André's attempt to bribe them, and delivered the officer to the rest of their scouting party; and the group decided to take him to the
Continental Army's frontline headquarters in
Sands Mill, a hamlet within
North Castle, New York. Arnold's plans to surrender
West Point to the British were foiled, although he got wind of his exposure and before he was arrested, safely escaped to British territory. André was convicted as a spy. He was hanged on October 2, little more than a week after he was captured. With
George Washington's personal recommendation, the United States Congress awarded Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart the first military decoration of the United States, the silver medal known as the
Fidelity Medallion. Each of the three also received federal pensions of $200 a year.
New York State granted them each lands for farms. The celebrated trio were commemorated far and wide as popular heroes after the patriots won the war. By an
act of Congress, the new state of
Ohio (1803) included the counties named
Paulding,
Van Wert (anglicized spelling), and
Williams. Paulding was held in particularly high regard by early American historians, as the standard 19th-century accounts credited him with the decision-making and initiative at the scene. Though hailed as national heroes, Paulding and the others also received criticism. The divisions in society continued after the war. At his trial André insisted the men were mere
brigands; sympathy for Andre remained among some more elite American quarters, which included some Loyalists. (André's reputation was high in England, where his body was returned and he was buried in
Westminster Abbey). Representative
Benjamin Tallmadge of Connecticut, who had been present as an American officer in Westchester County in 1780 and had a low opinion of the three common militiamen, had accepted André's account of his capture and search. Tallmadge argued in Congress for the rejection of a requested pension increase in 1817 for Paulding. He assailed the credibility and motivations of the three captors. Despite this slight, the men's popular acclaim generally increased throughout the 19th century, although opinion on their motives and actions remained divided. Some modern scholars have interpreted the episode as a major event in early American cultural development, representing the apotheosis of the "common man" in the new democratic society. The site where Paulding and his companions captured Andre is now commemorated as
Patriot's Park on the border of
Tarrytown and
Sleepy Hollow. The stream cutting through the park, that serves as the boundary between the two villages, is known as Andre Brook. ==Personal life==