USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 18
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daughters.1 Of these children Stephanus, the eldest (born May 7, 1643), and Jacobus, the youngest (born July 7, 1658), were the pro- geuitors of all the Van Cortlandts of subsequent generations; Steph- anus being the founder of the so-called elder Van Cortlandt branch,
1 Stephanus, whose history is given in the text; Maria, married Jeremlas Van Rensselaer; Johannes, died a bachelor; Sophla, marrled Andries Teller: Catherina, married, first, John
Dervall, and, second, Frederick Philipse the first; Cornelin, married Brandt Schuyler; and Jacobus, noticed in the text.
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of Cortlandt Manor, and Jacobus (who married Eva, stepdaughter of the first Frederick Philipse) the founder of the younger or Yonkers branch.
Stephanus, a native-born Dutch-American, received an excellent education under the direction of the scholarly Dutch clergymen of New Amsterdam. He had just become of age when the English fleet, in 1664, in the name of the British king and of James, Duke of York, demanded and received the submission of New Netherland. His first public employment was therefore under English rule. He was a member of the original Court of Assizes created by the duke's laws, and thereafter was constantly engaged in official service, hold- ing practically every position of importance in the province except that of governor. His career was probably the most conspicuous and creditable of that of any inhabitant of New York in the seven- teenth century, and " undoubtedly the first brilliant career that any native of New York ever ran." In 1677, at the age of thirty-four, he was appointed mayor of New York, being the first native Amer- ican to hold that office, in which he continued with hardly an in- terruption until his death. He was, with Philipse, one of the orig- inal members of the governor's council, and served in that body without any intermission to the end of his life. At the time of the Leisler régime, the responsibility for the government of the province was temporarily committed to him and Philipse by the de- parting lieutenant-governor, Nicholson, and, although a kinsman of Leisler's, he firmly resisted the latter's assumption of authority, an act which for a time endangered his life, so that he was obliged to flee from the city. He was later one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the province, and for several months previously to his death was its chief justice. " He was prominent in all the treaties and conferences with the Indians as a member of the council, and was noted for his influence with them. His letters and dispatches to Governor Andros, and to the different boards and officers in Eng- land charged with the care of the colonies and the management of their affairs, remain to show his capacity, clear-headedness, and courage. Equally esteemed and confided in by the governments of James as duke and king, and by William and Mary in the troublous times in which he lived, and sustained by all the governors, even though, as in Bellomont's case, they did not like him personally, no greater proof could be adduced of his ability, skill, and integrity." He died on the 25th of November, 1700.
Under date of November 16, 1677, Van Cortlandt received from Governor Andros a license authorizing him to acquire such lands " on the east side of Hudson's River " as " have not yet been pur-
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
chased of the Indyan proprietors," "payment whereof to be made publicly at the Fort or City Hall." He did not begin to avail him- self of this privilege, however, until six years later, when (August 24, 1683) he bought from seven Indians, "in consideration of the sum of twelve pounds and several other merchandises," what is known as Verplanck's Point (called by the Indians Meanagh, whence the present local name of Meahagh), together with an adjacent tract running eastward, called Appamapogh. The general situation of the purchase thus made is described in the deed as follows: " Being on the east side of the Hudson River, at the entering in of the Highlands, just over against Haverstraw."
Earlier in the same year (July 13, 1683) Van Cortlandt purchased from the Haverstraw Indians a tract of about fifteen hundred acres on the west side of the Hudson, "directly opposite to the promon- tory of Anthony's Nose and north of the Dunderberg Mountain, forming the depression or valley through the upper part of which, in the Revolutionary War, Sir Henry Clinton came down and cap- tured Forts Clinton and Montgomery."
The territory below Verplanck's Point, extending to the mouth of the Croton River, was originally bought from the Indians in part by one Cornelius Van Bursum, of New York City, and in part by Governor Dongan. Van Bursum was the first white owner of the peninsula of Croton Point, which in the Indian language was called by the pleasing name of Senasqua, and, before receiving its present name, had long been known as Teller's Point (also Sarah's Point), from William and Sarah Teller, who were early settlers upon it. Governor Dongan's lands (purchased from the Indians in 1685) em- braced all the river shore, excepting Croton Point, from the mouth of the Croton to Van Cortlandt's property, and in the interior reached to the Cedar Ponds. Both Van Bursmn's and Dongan's holdings were later sold to Van Cortlandt. To him was conveyed also a tract owned by " Hew MacGregor, Gentleman, of the City of New York," lying above Verplanck's Point.
Thus Stephanus Van Cortlandt became the proprietor of nearly the whole of Westchester County along the Hudson from Croton Bay to the Highlands. In the interior his bounds, both at the north and the south, ran due east twenty miles to the Connecticut border (which border was, by the interprovincial agreement between Con- neetieut and New York, considered to be at a distance of twenty miles from the Hudson). But there were two strips of land above Verplanck's Point of which neither Van Cortlandt nor his heirs ever obtained the ownership. One was the so-called Ryke's patent, a tract called by the Indians Sachus or Sackhoes, embracing about
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THE PHILIPSES AND VAN CORTLANDTS
eighteen hundred acres between Verplanck's and Peekskill Creek, whereon a large portion of the village of Peekskill has been built. This traet was bought from the Indians, April 21, 1685, by Richard AAbramsen, Jacob Abramsen, Tennis Dekey (or DeKay), Seba, Jacob, and John Harxse, and soon afterward was patented to them for a quit-rent of " ten bushels of good winter merchantable wheat year- ly." The name of Ryke's patent is Dutch for Richard's patent, so called after Richard Abramsen, the principal patentee, who later assumed the English name of Lent. Substantially the whole tract passed to Hercules Lent, Richard's son, about 1730. The second of the two strips on the Hudson which always remained independent of the Van Cortlandt estate was a three-hundred-acre parcel front- ing on the inner and upper part of Peekskill Bay, which was deeded. on April 25, 1685, to Jacobus DeKay " for the value of four hun- dred guilders, seawant," and which ultimately became the property of John Krankhyte (ancestor of the Cronkhites). Upon this strip is the Peekskill State Camp of Military Instruction.
The area of the Van Cortlandt estate in Westchester County, omit- ting the two Peekskill strips just noticed, was 86,203 acres, and, adding that of the tract on the opposite side of the Hudson, aggre- gated 87,713 acres. Van Cortlandt, as a man of large business cou- cerns and important official interests in New York, continued to live in the city, or at least to spend most of his time there, notwith- standing his extensive landed acquisitions and his ultimate design of procuring for them manorial dignity. But it was probably as early as 1683 that the historic mansion of the family at the mouth of the Croton River, which is still standing in a good state of preser- vation, had its beginning. This house was originally intended as a trading place and a fort, and was built with very thick stone walls, pierced with loopholes for musketry, all of which have been filled in save one, in what is now the sitting-room, which is preserved as a memento of olden times and of the antiquity of the dwelling. Sit- nated just where the road from Sing Sing to Croton Landing crosses the wide mouth of the Croton River, where that stream empties into the Hudson, it commands a magnificent view of the broad Tappan Sea. In former times the ferry across the Croton River mouth, which was the only means of reaching the country above withont making a wide detour, had its northern terminus near the mansion. During the first ten years after its construction the house was prob- ably occupied by the proprietor only as a temporary residence when visiting his lands; but later it was enlarged and improved to be- come suitable for the purpose of a manor house and the accommo- dation of the numerous family of its wealthy owner. It has lo-
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
mained in the possession of the Van Cortlandts continuously since the time of Stephanus, and has always been used as a habitation by some member of the family. Near it is the Van Cortlandt burial ground, a small, square inclosure, where a number of the most emi- nent descendants of Stephanus, including the noted General and Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt of the Revolution, are in- terred.
Apart from the erection of this dwelling, and of mills for the benefit of his existing and prospective tenants, Van Cortlandt ac- complished little in the way of developing his estate. On the 17th of June, 1697, the whole was established as the Lordship and Manor of Cortlandt, by royal letters patent from Governor Fletcher, a quit- rent of " forty shillings current money " to be paid annually to the governor "on the feast day of Annunciation of our Blessed Virgin Mary," " in lien and stead of all other rents, services, dues, duties, and demands whatsoever." Van Cortlandt died at the early age of fifty-seven, three years and one-half after the issuance of this manor grant. Judging from the well-known character of the man, it may readily be believed, in the words of the historian of the " Manors of Westchester County," that " had he lived to be seventy-five or eighty years old, like so very many of his descendants in every generation, instead of dying at fifty-seven, leaving a large family, mostly minors, it is probable that he would have left his manor as flourishing and as populous in proportion as that of Rensselaerswyck at the same date." The great distance of Cortlandt Manor from New York City and its surrounding settlements, as well as its difficulty of access from the country immediately below on account of the obstruction pre- sented by the Croton, delayed for many years the occupation of its lands; and so meagre was its population that it was not until 1734 that the Manor of Cortlandt availed itself of the privilege conferred in the grant of sending a representative to the general assembly. The first settlements were in the neighborhood of Croton and Peekskill. The Indians continued numerous, though for the most part peaceable, until an advanced period in the eighteenth century.
Stephanus had fourteen children,1 of whom eleven were living at
11. Johannes, married Anne Sophia Van Schaack, and left one child, Gertrude, who married Philip Verplanck, grandson of Abra- ham Isaacsen Verplanck, the first of that name in America. 2. Margaret, married Colonel Samuel Bayard, only son of Nicholas Bayard, the youngest of the three nephews of Gov- ernor Stuyvesant. 3. Ann, married Etionue (Stephen) de Lancey, founder of the de Lancey family of New York City and Westchester County. 4. Oliver, died a bachelor. 5. Maria
(Mary). married, first, Kilaen Van Rensselaer, fourth patroon and first manorial lord of Rens- selaerswyck. 6. Gertrude. died unmarried. 7. Philip, married Catherine de l'eyster, daughter of the first Abraham; from this couple sprang the eldest line of Van Cortlandts, now British subjects. S. Stephen, married Catalina Staats; these were the ancestors of the " Van Cort- landts of Second River " (the Passaic), N. J., now extinct in the males. 9. Gertrude, mar- ried Colonel Henry Beekman; no Issne. 10.
& LONGBRANCH_
LOOKING ACROSS THE RIVER FROM ABOVE PEEKSKILL.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
the time of the father's death; and he devised the manor lands to them in equal shares, excepting that the eldest, Johannes, received, in addition to his equal portion, the whole of the peninsula of Ver- planck's Point. (This peninsula was so called for Philip Verplanck, grandson of Johannes, who inherited it, and in whose family it con- tinned until sold to a New York syndicate in the first half of the present century.) One of the eleven children, Oliver Van Cort- landt, dying withont issue in 1706, bequeathed his share equally among his brothers and sisters and their heirs. The ten remaining · heirs kept the property intact and undivided until 1730, when a divi- sion was determined upon, which followed in due course. Cort- landt Manor remained a separate political division (embracing also, for purposes of representation in the assembly, the Ryke and the Krankhyte patents) until divided into townships by the New York State act of 1788. The original townships carved out of it were Cortlandt, Yorktown, Stephentown (now Somers), Salem (now North Salem and Lewisboro), and about a third of Poundridge. In area it was the largest of the six Westchester County manors, consider- ably exceeding in this respect the Manor of Philipseburgh, which in its turn was several times larger than the four other manors (Pel- ham, Scarsdale, Ford- ham, and Morrisania) combined. Its eastern boundary was fixed in the governor's grant at a distance twenty miles from the IIndson, and coincid- od at the time with the boundary line be- tween New York and Connecticut; but the ultimate State line, as adjusted by com- VAN CORTLANDT MANSION, NEAR KINGSBRIDGE. promise under the " Oblong " arrangement, ran somewhat to the east of it; so that the extreme northeastern portion of the county, as well as a part of the extreme northwestern section, was never included in this manor. Jacobus Van Cortlandt, younger brother of Stephanns and an-
Gyshert. died young. 11. Elizabeth, died young. 12. Elizabeth, 2d, married Rev. William Skinner, of Perth Amboy. N. J. 13. Catharine. married Andrew Johnston, of New Jersey. 14. Cornelia, married John Schuyler, of Albany;
these were the progenitors of the Schuylers descended from General Philip, who was thelr son, and from his brothers and sisters. (The above is taken from Edward Floyd de Lancey's Ilistory of the Manors.)
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THE PINLAPSES AND VAN CORTLANDTS
cestor of the so-called Yonkers branch of the Van Cortlandt family, was born on the 7th of July, 1658, and on the 7th of May, 169], married Eva Philipse, adopted daughter of the first Frederick Phil- ipse. In 1699 he purchased from his father-in-law fifty acres of choice land in the " Lower Youkers," a property which he increased to several hundred acres by subsequent purchases. Ont of this land was erected the historic Van Cortiandi estate, about a mile above Kingsbridge. He left the property to his son, Frederick, who mar- ried a daughter of Augustus Jay (ancestor of Chief Justice John Jay). Frederick built in 1748 the fine Van Cortlandt mansion, which, together with the then existing residue of the estate, was purchased by the City of New York in 1889, the land being con- verted into a public park (Van Cortlandt Park) and the mansion placed in the custody of the Colonial Dames of the State of New York, and by them utilized for the purposes of a historical museum.
Jacobus Van Cortlandt, the ancestor of the Yonkers Van Cort- landts, also owned a large estate in the Town of Bedford, part of which descended to Chief Justice Jolm Jay and is still in the pos- session of the Jay family.
Our narrative, from the period when the active acquisition of the lands of Westchester County began, about the time of the Eng- lish conquest (1664), has naturally followed the course of the pro- gressive new purchases and occupation running from the seat of the already settled localities on the Sound westward and northward along the formerly unpurchased or undeveloped shores of the Har- lem River, Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and the Hudson. Pursuing this natural course, our attention has been mainly claimed by the great land grants of Morrisania, Fordham, Philipseburgh, and Cortlandt Manors, extending consecutively from near the mouth of the Bronx to Anthony's Nose, and covering substantially the whole of the west- ern half and northern section of the county. The reader has, of course, borne in mind that throughout the period we have traversed in tracing the originial land acquisitions under English rule in the western division of the county-that is, a period reaching to the end of the seventeenth century, the more complete settlement of the
already well-occupied eastern division was steadily proceeding, and, besides resulting in the constant upbuilding of the little communities on the Sound, was incidentally bringing all previously neglected dis- triets of the interior, up to the contines of Philipse's and Van Cort- landt's lands, under definite private ownership, and distributing through them an enterprising and energetic element of new settlers. To this onward movement from the east the inhabitants of all the existing patents from Westchester town to Byram Point contributed;
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
and, moreover, the people of the adjoining parts of Connecticut con- tinued to manifest a hearty interest and to share in the work of oc- eupation and development. As will be shown later, much of the most notable enterprise undertaken from the east was by certain communities of settlers, or by individuals having only comparatively small personal interests, as distinguished from large landed proprie- tors. Indeed, notwithstanding the presence of two quite extensive and very solidly founded manor grants on the Sound (Pelham and Scarsdale), the general character of the original settlement and suc- ceeding history of the eastern division of Westchester County differs totally from that of the western, in that the former represents mainly the results of communal and minor individual interest and activity, while the latter sprang essentially from manorial aspira- tion, proprietorship, and patronage.
But in recurring to the history of the eastern portions of the county and of the gradual movement of settlers thence into the interior, we shall first review the progress of events in the two large proprietary estates of that division: the Pell estate, which, when last noticed, had been erected into a manor under the lord- ship of its founder, Thomas Pell; and the estate of John Richbell, of Mamaroneck, transmitted after his death to his wife, Ann, and from her purchased by Caleb Heathcote, who soon afterward pro- cured its erection into the Manor of Scarsdale. So many of our im- mediately preceding pages have been devoted to the origin and early history of Fordham. Morrisania, Philipseburgh, and Cortlandt Man- ors, that similar accounts of the two remaining manors may very fittingly follow here. This, with some general observations, will complete what is necessary to be said about the foundations of the manors of Westchester County.
CHAPTER IX
PELHAM MANOR AND NEW ROCHELLE-CALEB HEATHCOTE AND SCARS- DALE MANOR-GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE MANORS
HOMAS PELL died in the month of September, 1669, three years after obtaining from Governor Nicolls the manorial patent for his magnificent estate on the Sound, stretching from Hutchinson's River to Richbell's Mamaroneck grant. Leaving no issue, he willed all his possessions, excepting certain personal bequests, to his nephew, John Pell, then residing in Eng- land, the only son of his only brother, the Rev. John Pell, D.D. Doctor Pell, Thomas's brother, was a man of brilliant intellectual accomplishments, served as ambassador to Switzerland under Crom- well, and subsequently took orders in the Church of England. But despite his talents he had faults of temperament which prevented him from advancing in the church, and being of an improvident dis- position he wasted his property to such a degree that he was com- mitted to the King's Bench Prison for debt. To his son, John, the golden inheritance from the rich unele in America must have been singularly welcome.
John Pell, the successor of Thomas in the " lordship " of Pelham Manor, was born on the 3d of February, 1643. He arrived in Amer- ica and entered into his proprietorship in the summer of 1670. On the 25th of October, 1687, a new royal patent of Pelham Manor was issued to him by Governor Dongan, the reason for this proceeding being, as stated in the patent, that he desired " a more full and firme grant and confirmation " of his lands. The bounds of the manor as specified in the new instrument were precisely the same as those pro- seribed in the Nicolls patent to his nele-Hutchinson's River on the south and Cedar Tree or Gravelly Brook on the north, with the neighboring islands; but the dignities attaching to the manorial lord- ship were somewhat more elaborately defined, and instead of pay- ing to the royal governor as quit-rent " one lamb on the first day of May," as had been required of Thomas Pell, he was to pay " twenty shillings, good and lawful money of this province." " on the five and twentyeth day of the month of March." He married (1685) Rachel, daughter of Philip Pinkney, one of the first ten proprietors of East-
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
chester. He resided on his estate, and seems to have taken an active and influential interest in public matters related to Westchester County, having been appointed by Governor Andros (August 25, 1688) the first judge of Westchester County, and serving as delegate from our county in the provincial assembly from 1691 to 1695. He died in 1702. The tradition is that he perished in a gale while upon a pleasure excursion in his yacht off City Island.
The most notable event of John Pell's administration of his manor was the conveyance by him through the celebrated JJacob Leisler of six thousand acres as a place of settlement for the Huguenots-a transaction out of which resulted the erection of the Town of New Rochelle.
The Ediet of Nantes, a decree granting a measure of liberty to the Protestants of France, promulgated in 1598 by King Henry IV., was on the 22d of October, 1685, revoked by Louis XIV., and by that aet of state policy the conditions of life in the French kingdom were made quite intolerable to most persons of steadfast Protestant faith. For some years previously to the revocation numerous French Prot- estants had begun to seek homes in foreign lands, especially America ; and after 1685 the emigration grew to large proportions. A great many of the Huguenots came to New York City. Several of the lead- ers of the seet abroad entered into correspondence with Leisler (known to them as a responsible merchant and influential citizen of New York and, moreover, a man of strong liberal principles), with a view to the purchase by him as agent of eligible land for the estab- lishment of a Huguenot colony. It happened that a number of the Huguenot immigrants in New York City, looking about them for suitable places of residence, had in 1686 and 1687 chosen and secured from John Pell parcels of land in that portion of Pelham Manor now occupied by the present City of New Rochelle. From this circum- stance Leister, as the constituted agent of the Huguenots, was led to locate the settlement at that place. He entered into negotiations with Pell, and on the 20th of September, 1689, " John Pell and Rachel his wife " conveyed to him, "in consideration of the sum of sixteen hundred and seventy-tive pounds sterling, current silver money of this province," " all that tract of land lying and being within said Manor of Pelham, containing six thousand acres of land, and also one hundred acres of land more, which the said John Poll and Rachel his wife do freely give and grant for the French church erected, or to be erected, by the inhabitants of the said tract of land, or by their assignees, being butted and bounded as herein is after expressed, beginning at the west side of a certain white oak tree, marked on all four sides, standing at high water mark at the
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SETTLEMENT OF NEW ROCHELLE
south end of Hog Neck, by shoals, harbour, and runs northwesterly through the great fresh meadow lying between the road and the Sound, and from the north side of the said meadow to run from thence dne north to Bronckes river, which is the west division line between the said John Pell's land and the aforesaid tract, bounded on the southeasterly by the Sound and Salt Water, and to run east- northerly to a certain piece of salt meadow lying at the salt creek which runneth up to Cedar Tree brook, or Gravelly brook, and is the bounds to Southern. Bounded on the east by a line that runs from said meadow northwesterly by marked trees, to a certain black oak tree standing a little below the road, marked on four sides, and from theuce to run due north four miles and a half, more or less, and from the north side of the said west line, ending at Broncke's river, and from thence to run easterly till it meets with the north end of the said eastern most bounds, together with all and singular the islands and the islets before the said tract of land lying and being in the sound and salt water," ete. This was an absolute deed of sale of the property. The sum paid for it, £1,675, was extraordinarily large, in comparison with the usual amounts given in those times for un- improved landed property, and is a demonstration of the entirely substantial character of the settlement of New Rochelle at its very foundation. In addition to the purchase money, " said Jacob Leisler, his heirs and assigns," were to yield and pay " unto the said John Pell, his heirs and assigns, lords of the said Manor of Pelham, io the assigns of them or him, or their or either of them, as an acknow]- edgment to the lords of the said manor, our fat calf on every four and twentieth day of June, yearly and every year forever-if demanded." This proviso was incorporated conformably with the customs of the times, which required the vouchsating of peculiar courtesies to the lords of manors on the part of individuals upon whom they bestowed their lands. The ceremony of the presentation of the fat calf was duly observed for many years, and was always made a festival oc- casion.
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