USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 19
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Although the deed of sale specified the Bronx River as the western- most boundary of the tract, its bounds as finally established stopped at Hutchinson's River or creek. The six thousand acres comprised the whole northern section of the manor, Pell retaining the southern portion, a wedge-shaped territory, about one-half less in area than the part conveyed to Leisler.
Shortly after the consummation of the purchase. Leisler began to release the lands to the Huguenots, and the place was settled with reasonable rapidity. It was called New Rochelle in honor of La Rochelle in France, a community prominentiy identified with the
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
Huguenot cause in the religious wars. From the first the French refugees proved themselves most desirable additions to the popu- lation of our county, and the entire history of New Rochelle is a gratifying record of progress.
It will be remembered that John Richbell's original purchase from the Indians of what is now the Township of Mamaroneck-a purchase confirmed to him at the time by the Dutch anthorities, and later by the English governor, Lovelace -- comprised three necks on the Sound between the Mamaroneck River and Thomas Pell's lands, and that the interior extension of the purchase was twenty miles northward " into the woods." Of the three necks, called the East, Middle, and West Necks, the first was deeded by Richbell to his mother-in-law, Margery Parsons, and by her immediately conveyed to his wife, Ann; but the latter two were mortgaged and finally lost to Richbell's estate. These Middle and West Necks, with their prolongation into the interior, formed a tri- angular tract of land owned by several persons, which lay wedge-shaped between the Manor of Pelham, at the south- west, and what later became the Manor of Scarsdale, at the northeast. The East Neck, ter- minating at the mouth of the OLD GUION PLACE, NEW ROCHELLE. Mamaroneck River, continued to be the property of Mrs. Rich- bell until its sale by her to Caleb Heathcote, in 1697. It formed the nucleus of Scarsdale Manor, erected in 1701. It is of interest, before coming to the period of Heathcote's proprietorship, to glance at the origin of the village of Mamaroneck, which we have omitted to do in our account of Richbell's connection with this section.
Soon after procuring his English patent (1668), John Richbell and his wife set apart for the purpose of allotments, or house lots, a strip of land running from the Mamaroneck River westward along the harbor shore, and fronting on the old Westchester path. These lots were eight in number: one he reserved for himself, one he deeded as a gift to John Basset (1669), and the others he leased or sold. Among the purchasers was Henry Disbrough, or Disbrow, in 1676, who the next year erected on his lot the famous Dishrow house. Travelers along the Boston Post Road may still see, on the western outskirts of Mamaroneck, a stone chimney, all that remains of this structure. The ruin is remarkable for its great size, giving an idea
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SETTLEMENT OF MAMARONECK
of the enormous fireplaces in use at the time when the house was built. It is said that the Disbrow house is one of the landmarks described by James Fenimore Cooper (who lived in Mamaroneck) in the "Spy," and that a secret cupboard in the chimney served as a hiding place for Harvey Birch, the hero of that story. The strip devoted by Richbell to the Mamaroneck house lots was called " Rich- hell's two-mile bounds," from the fact that each lot ran two miles " northwards into the woods." Such was the beginning of the ven- erable village of Mamaroneck. For many years, however, only a very few settlers lived there, and in an instrument drawn as late as 1707, by " the freeholders of Mamaroneck " in common, the names of only eight persons appear as signers.
Just before his death John Richbell was engaged in a controversy with the townspeople of Rye concerning the ownership of a tract called by the Indians Quarop- pas, which had already become known among the whites as "the White Plains." This land was unquestionably embraced within the limits of Richbell's original purchase, described as running northward twenty miles into the woods; but in 1683 the people of Rye bought the same White Plains district from the Indians claiming its proprietorship. At that time the New York and Connecticut ANCIENT DISBROW HOUSE, MAMARONECK. boundary agreement of 1664 was still in force, whereby the dividing line between the two provinces started at the mouth of the Mamaroneck River and ran north-north- west. Under the then existing boundary division, therefore, Rye was still a part of Connecticut, and, moreover, the White Plains tract also fell on the Connecticut side. This circumstance, strengthened by the incorporating of it within the Rye limits while the old bound- ary understanding still prevailed, enabled the Rye men to advance plansible pretensions to it when, very soon afterward (in fart, only six days subsequently), a new boundary line was fixed, beginning at the mouth of the Byram River, which gave both the White Plains and Rye to New York. The claim set up by Rye to the White Plains caused Richbell's title in the upward reaches of his twenty- mile patent to assume a decidedly cloudy aspect; and to the confu- sion thus brought about was due the comparatively limited range of
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the bounds of the Manor of Scarsdale, which otherwise would have run twenty miles north from the month of the Mamaroneck River, instead of stopping short at the White Plains.
After Richbell's death (July 26, 1684), his widow continued in quiet possession of the estate, making no efforts to further develop or improve it, and, with the exception of a renewed protest against the intrusion of the Rye men in the White Plains tract, doing nothing in the way of asserting her proprietary rights outside of the East Neck, where, of course, they were unquestioned. In 1696 she gave to Caleb Heathcote, of the Town of Westchester, her written consent to his procuring from the Indians deeds of confirmation of the old Richbell patent; and in the same year Governor Fletcher granted to Colonel Heathcote a license authorizing him to buy vacant and nn- appropriated lands in Westchester County and to extinguish the title of the natives. On December 23, 1697, Heathcole bought from Mrs. Richbell her entire landed estate for £600, New York currency. Avail- ing himself of the rights and privileges thus acquired, he not only became the founder and lord of an organized manor, but embarked in comprehensive original purchases of the interior lands of West- chester County, which ultimately gave him, in association with others, the title to most of the county between the Manors of Cort- landt on the north, Philipseburgh on the west, Scarsdale on the south, and the Connectient line on the east. These latter purchases, made under Governor Fletcher's license of 1696, were entirely dis- connected from his manor grant of Scarsdale, and resulted in ex- tensive new patents, which are known in the history of the county as the " Three Great Patents of Central Westchester," named re- spectively the West, Middle, and East Patents, and having an aggre- gate area of some seventy thousand acres. The history of the Three Patents belongs, however, with our account of Colonel Heathcote as one of the great early proprietors, and will receive brief notice after the story of Scarsdale Manor has been told.
Caleb Heathcote was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, in 1665, and was the sixth of the seven sons of Gilbert Heathcote, gentleman, of that place. "The family was an ancient one, the first of whom there is authoritative mention having been a master of the Mint under Richard II." His father, Gilbert, was a Round- head and stanch adherent of the Parliament in the civil wars, sery- ing creditably in the Parliamentary army. lle held the office of mayor of Chesterfield. All of the seven sons became successful merchants. The eldest, Sir Gilbert, was "Lord Mayor of London, member of Parliament, one of the founders and the first governor of the Bank of England, knighted by Queen Anne, and created a baronet
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in 1732 by George II." His descendants have ever since belonged to the British aristocracy, and his grandson, the third Sir Gilbert, was raised to the peerage as Baron Aveland. Another son, Samuel, was the progenitor of the Baronets Heathcote, of Harsley Park, County of Hampshire.
Caleb came to America about 1691, making his home in New York and pursuing trade there. It is said that his removal to this country was occasioned by an unfortunate love affair, his bride- elect having broken off her engagement with him to marry his brother Gilbert. He immediately became a prominent man in the city and province, and served at various times in a number of im- portant offices, among them being those of surveyor-general of His Majesty's customs for the eastern district of North America. judge of the Court of Admiralty for the provinces of New York, New Jer- sey, and Connecticut, member of the governor's council, mayor of New York City, judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Westchester County, colonel of the Westchester County militia, and mayor of the borough Town of Westchester. It was from his connection with the military that he obtained his title of " Colonel," by which he was always known. He was mayor of New York at the same time CALEB HEATHCOTE. that his brother Gilbert was Lord Mayor of London. He was firmly attached to the Church of England, and probably did more than any other man of his times to promote its dominance in New York, being one of the founders of the parish of Trinity Church in New York City, and the leading person in establishing the parishes of West- chester, Eastchester, and Rye in Westchester County. As lord of Scarsdale Manor he caused that manor to be constituted one of the precinets of the parish of Rye, of which he was chosen warden and vestryman. He is described by a contemporary writer as "a gen- tleman of rare qualities, excellent temper, and virtuons life and conversation."
At an early period of his residence in New York, Heathcote began to take a decided interest in the advantages offered by this county,
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and bought property both in the Town of Westchester and East- chester patent. In 1696, through his influence, Westchester was created a "borough town," patterned in all particulars after the old English borongh towns. It is noteworthy that only two borough towns were ever established in New York Province, one being West- chester and the other Schenectady. Westchester's town charter, dated April 16, 1696, conferred the " municipal privileges of a mayor and aldermen and assistants, and the additional one of a repre- sentative of its own in the assembly of the province "; and Colonel Heathcote was appointed its first mayor. It was in this same year, as we have seen, that he took the steps which led to the creation of the Manor of Scarsdale and to the great purchases by him and asso- ciates of the vacant and unappropriated lands in the central part of Westchester County which comprised the "Three Patents."
By the terms of Mrs. Richbell's conveyance to him of the Rich- bell estate in 1697, he succeeded to all of her property rights, both on the East Neck and in the interior region patented to her lins- band by Governor Lovelace, running northward " twenty miles into the woods." This conveyance did not include, however, the " allot- ments " previously made to various persons in the " two-mile bounds " (npon which the foundations of the Village of Mamaroneck had al- ready been begun); and there was also a small tract of thirty acres on what is now de Lancey's Neck, previously deeded by Mrs. Rich- bell to .James Mott, which Colonel Heathcote did not acquire. With these exceptions, he became the absolute owner of all the lands in Westchester County left by John Richbell at his death. Prepara- tory to his application for a manorial grant. he procured Indian con- firmations of his title to various portions of the property thus bought ; and he also extended its limits sonthward to the Eastchester patent by purchasing from the Indians all the country between the head- waters of the Hutchinson River and the Bronx, a strip known as the Fox Meadows.
On the 21st of March. 1701. letters patent for the Manor of Scars- dale were issued to Caleb Heathcote by Lieutenant-Governor Nanfan. Its bounds are not very clearly described in that document. Accord- ing to the spirit of the grant, its northward projection was to be a distance of twenty miles, as in the original Richbell patent; but an express proviso was made that no further title should be given to Heathcote than that which he " already hath to ye lands called yo White Plains, which is in dispute between ye said Caleb Heath- cote and some of the inhabitants of the Town of Rye." In point of faci, Scarsdale Manor was always limited at the north by the White Plains tract, Heathcote never having been able to legally establish
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his ownership of the disputed lands. The northern line of the manor followed the Mamaroneck River from its mouth for abont two miles, and thence proceeded to the Bronx. At the west and east it was bordered, respectively, by the Bronx and the Sound. On the south it was bounded by the wedge-shaped private lands already mentioned, by the extreme northern corner of the old Pelham Manor (included in the New Rochelle purchase of the Unguenots), and by the Eastchester patent. The annual quit-rent fixed in the grant was " five pounds current money of New Yorke, upon the Nativity of our Lord."
The manor was called Scarsdale by its proprietor after that por- tion of Derbyshire in England where he was born-a locality known as " the Hundred of Scarsdale." Although his proprietary interest in the town lots of Mamaroneck was confined to his personal owuer- ship of two of them, he was always regarded by the settlers there as the controlling spirit of the place, and he gave much attention to the promotion of its development and welfare.
Concerning the improvements made by him upon the manor, and his general administration of it, we quote from the account written by his descendant, Edward F. de Lancey :
Colonel Heathcote established a grist mill on the Mamaroneck River near the original bridge crossed by the " Old Westchester Path," and a sawmill high up on that river, now the site of the present Mamaroneck Water Works, upon which site there continued to be a mill of some kind until it was bought two years ago [1884] to establish those works. He made leases at different points throughout the manor, but did not sell in fee many farms, though always ready and willing to do so, the whole number of the deeds for the latter on record being only thirteen during the twenty-three years or thereabout which elapsed between his purchase from Mrs. Riehbell and his death. Some of these farms, however, were of great extent. Ile did not establish, as far as now known, any manor courts under his right to do SO. The population was so seant, and the manor, like all others in the county, being subject to the judicial provisions of the provincial legislative acts, there was really no occasion for them. He personally attended to all duties and matters connected with his manor and his tenants, never having appointed any steward of the manor. Papers still in existence show that his tenants were in the habit of coming to him for aid and counsel in their most private affairs, especially in the settlement of family disputes, and he was often called upon to draw their wills.
Upon the eminence at the head of the [Mamaroneck] Harbor, still ealled Heathcote Ilill, he built a large double briek manor house in the style of that day in England, with all the accompanying oftiees and outbuildings, including the American addition of negro quarters in accordance with the laws, habits, and customs of the period. Here he lived during the remainder of his life, which terminated on the 28th of February, 1720-1, in his fifty-sixth year. The house stood till some six or seven years before the American Revolt- tion, occupied, however, only by tenants after the death of his widow in 1736. Later it was accidentally destroyed by fire. The present double frame buikling standing on a portion of the old site was built in 1792 by the late John Peter de Lancey, a grandson of Colonel Ileatheote, who had succeeded to the property.
Colonel Heathcote married Martha, daughter of the distinguished William Smith ("Tangier" Smith), of Saint George's Manor, Long Island, who was chief justice and president of the council of the
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IHISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
province. They had six children, two sons and four daughters, but both the sons and two of the daughters died in early life. Thus Caleb Heathcote left no descendants in the male line. One of his daughters, Anne, married James de Lancey, afterward royal chief justice and governor of New York, the progenitor of the present de Lanceys of Westchester County. The other surviving daughter, Martha, became the wife of Lewis Johnston, of Perth Amboy, N. J. The descendants of this branch have never been identified with our coun- ty. Mrs. de Lancey and Mrs. Johnston inherited from their father the whole of the manor prop- erty in equal shares. Varions parcels were gradually disposed of by the two heirs, and in 1775 a general partition sale was held, under which both the de Lancey and Johnston interests were " HEATHCOTE HILL." divided up among numer- ous purchasers. Scars- dale Manor, as it existed before the partition, comprehended the pres- ent Towns of Mamaroneck and Scarsdale, with a small part of Har- rison.
The reader will remember that Heathcote, in addition to buying the Richbell estate and some adjacent Indian lands, called the Fox Meadows (the latter being secured in order to extend the limits of his proposed manor southward to the Eastchester boundary), pro- cured from Governor Fletcher a license to purchase vacant and un- appropriated land in Westchester County, and extinguish the title of the natives. Under this license, dated October 12, 1696, he, with a number of associates, bought up practically all of the county that still remained in the possession of its aboriginal owners-that is, all of the previously unpurchased portions bounded on the south by Harrison's Purchase and Scarsdale Manor (or, rather, Harrison's Purchase and the disputed White Plains tract), on the east by Con- neetient, on the north by Cortlandt Manor, and on the west by Phil- ipseburgh Manor. In the aggregate, the purchases thus made em- braced about seventy thousand acres, or some twelve thousand seven hundred acres of so-called " improvable land," and they were
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largely confirmed to Heathcote and his associates in three patents issued by Lieutenant-Governor Nanfan, known as the West, Mid- dle, and East Patents. The West Patent, dated February 14, 1701, to Robert Watter and nine other patentees, included all of the large angle between Philipseburgh and Cortlandt Manors, and stretched eastwardly to the Bryam River and the Town of Bed. ford. It contained five thousand acres of improvable land. The Middle Patent, dated February 17, 1701, to Caleb Heathcote and twelve others, extended from the West Patent to the Mianus River, and had fifteen hundred acres of improvable land. The East Patent, the largest of the three, embracing sixty-two hundred acres of im- provable land, was granted on the 20th of March, 1701, to R. Walter and ten others, and covered much of the northeastern section of the county.
In the purchases consolidated in these three patents Heathcote was the original mover, but had the co-operation of several other active parties, notably Robert Walter and Joseph Horton. Heathcote, with a view to protecting his individual interests already acquired in the deed from Mrs. Richbell (which transferred to him such rights as she and her husband had previously possessed " northward twenty miles into the woods "), had a proviso inserted in each of the new patent deeds reserving to himself any lands possibly included in these purchases whereof he might already be the owner. The first of the purchases leading up to the three patents was made by him personally, October 19, 1696 (seven days after the procurement of his license from Governor Fletcher), from Pathunck, Wampus, Co- hawney, and five other Indians. This is known as " Wampus's Land Deed," or the " North Castle Indian Deed," and was " for and in con- sideration of 100 pounds good and lawful money of New York." Among the names of Indian chiefs participating in the sales of the northern-central Westchester lands to Heathcote and his associates is the familiar one of Katonah. None of the three patents was ever erected into a manor or developed as any recognized separate do- main or sphere of settlement. All the lands comprised in them were gradually disposed of to incoming individual aggregations of settlers wishing to enlarge their limits. As an example of this process, the tract known as the Middle Patent, or Whitefields, was in 1733 sub-divided, by agreement of the surviving patentees, into thirteen lots, having a total estimated value of £1,989, upon which, in 1739, fifteen settlers were living; and in 1765 final settlement with the individual occupants of the lands (at that time twenty-six in num- ber) was effected by the proprietors on the basis of nine shillings per acre.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
All the Three Patents were granted in the same year (1701) that the Manor of Scarsdale was erected. With the purchases upon which this manor and the Three Patents were constructed, the original ac- quisition of great areas of land in Westchester County by individual proprietors came to an end, there being, indeed, no more " vacant and unappropriated " soil to be absorbed. It may therefore be said that with the beginning of the eighteenth century, but not until then, the whole of our county had come under definite tenure -- a period of some seventy-five years after the first organized settlement on Manhattan Island having been required for that eventuality. With the exception of a few localities of quite restricted area-namely, on the Sound the Rye, Harrison, Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, East- chester, and Westchester tracts and settlements; on the upper Hud- son the Ryke and Kranckhyte patents, upon which the village of Peekskill has been built; and in the interior the disputed White Plains lands, the Bedford tract, and some minor strips bought or oc- cupied by men from the older settlements on the Sound,-all of West- chester County, as originally conveyed by the Indians under deeds of sale to the whites, was parceled ont into a small number of great estates or patents representing imposing single proprietorships, as distinguished from ordinary homestead lots or moderate tracts taken up incidentally to the progress of bona fide settlement. These great original proprietorships were, indeed, only nine in number, as fol- lows: (1) Cortlandt Manor, the property of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, which went after his death to his children and was by them pre- served intact for many years; (2) Philipseburgh Manor, founded by Frederick Philipse and retained as a whole by the Philipse family until confiscated in Revolutionary times; (3) Fordham Manor, estab- lished by John Archer, subsequently forfeited for mortgage indebted- ness to Cornelis Steenwyck, and by him and his wife willed to the Nether Dutch Congregation in New York, which continued in sole ownership of it until the middle of the eighteenth century; (4) Morris- ania Manor, the old " Bronxland," built up into a single estate by Colonel Lewis Morris, by him devised to his nephew, Lewis Morris the younger, who had the property erected into a manor, and whose descendants continued to own it entire for generations; (5) Pelham Manor, originally, as established under Thomas Pell, its first lord, an estate of 9,166 acres, but by his nephew John, the second lord, di- vided into two sections, whereof one (the larger division) was sold to the Huguenots, and the other was preserved as a manor until after the death of the third lord; (6) Scarsdale Manor, the estate of Colonel Caleb Heathcote, which for the most part remained the prop- erty of his heirs until sold by partition in 1775; and (7, 8, 9) the
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Three Great Patents of Central Westchester, granted to Heathcote and associates on the basis of purchases from the Indians, and by the patentees gradually subsold, mainly to settlers who in the course of time occupied the lands. In the nine estates and patents thus enumerated were contained, at a rough estimate, about 225,000 of the 300,000 acres belonging to the old County of Westchester.
It will be observed that with the single exception of Pelham the six manors of the county long retained their territorial integrity. A small portion of the Manor of Philipseburgh, it is true, was trans- ferred by the Philipses to the younger branch of the Van Cortlandts, but this was a strictly friendly conveyance, the two families being closely allied by marriage. Even in the three manors where no second lord succeeded to exclusive proprietorship-Cortlandt, Fordham, and Scarsdale-sales of the manorial lands in fee to strangers were ex- tremely rare, and it was an almost invariable rule that persons set- tling upon them, as upon Philipseburgh, Morrisania, and Pelham Manors ( where the ownership devolved upon successive single heirs), did not acquire possession of the soil which they occupied, but merely held it as tenants. The disintegration of the manors, and the substi- tution of small landed proprietorship for tenantry, was therefore a very slow process. Throughout the colonial period tenant farming continued to be the prevailing system of rural economy outside of the few settlements and tracts which from the start were independ- ent of the manor grants-a system which, however, did not operate to the disadvantage of population in the manor lands. Upon this point de Lancey, the historian of the manors, says: " It will give a correct idea of the great extent and thoroughness of the manorial settlement of Westchester County, as well as the satisfactory nature of that method of settlement to its inhabitants, although a surprise, probably, to many readers, when it is stated that in the year 1769 one- third of the population of the county lived on the two manors of Cortlandt and Philipseburgh alone. The manors of Fordham, Mor- risania, Pelham, and Scarsdale, lying nearer to the City of New York than these two, and more accessible than either, save only the lower end of Philipseburgh, were, if anything, much more settled. It is safe to say that upward of five-eighths of the people of West- chester County in 1769 were inhabitants of the six manors."
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