USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 22
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This unprecedented and peculiar régime lasted for a little more than a year after Leisler's elevation to the executive office, or nearly two years from the time of Nicholson's deposition. Born of a pop- ular uprising, it was in its entire character, spirit, and conduct a people's government. This was one of the principal charges brought against it by the opposing aristocratic party, who, however, did not vouchsafe it so reputable a name, but styled it an organization of " the rabble." The leading members of Nicholson's council-Bay- ard, Philipse, and Van Cortlandt-not only lent no countenance to the training band captains, the committee of safety, or the popularly chosen lieutenant-governor, but boldly opposed each step in the new order of things. Bayard, the most active of the three, was arrested by Leisler's order in January, 1690, tried, and condemned to death for treason on the ground of his opposition to the king's representative; but sning for pardon, he received a commutation of his sentence. Philipse, at the beginning of the troubles, left the city, but returned, and, conducting himself with tolerable prudence, was not molested. Van Cortlandt, who was not only one of Nicholson's councilors, but mayor of New York. at first remained at his post, and after the choice of his successor by the elective process declined to recognize the act as legal and refused to deliver up his books and seals. At the time of Bayard's arrest, fearing a like fate, he saved himself by hasty flight. It is an interesting fact that Leisler was related by marriage to both Van Cortlandt and Bavard; and Philipse also became of kin to Leisler's family by marrying Van Cortlandt's sister. Yet so in- tense were the passions of the times that these ties of relationship counted for nothing, and Leisler's own kinsmen were the most bitter and unrelenting of the enemies who resisted him during the days of his authority and pursued him to ignominious death after his down- fall.
Late in 1690 King William appointed Colonel Henry Sloughter as
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FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM LEISLER.
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GENERAL HISTORICAL REVIEW TO 1700
his royal governor for New York, with Major Richard Ingoldsby as lieutenant-governor. Ingoldsby was the first to arrive, and demanded the transfer of the government to himself, a demand with which Leisler refused to comply, because Ingoldsby was unable to show proper credentials.
This misunderstanding was followed by an unfortunate attack upon the royal troops by Leisler's followers, and, although he dis- avowed responsibility for the manifestation, it was charged up to him as one of his offenses. Upon the arrival of Governor Sloughter, in March, 1691, he was imprisoned, and then, by swift proceedings, sentenced to die the death of a traitor. On May 17, less than two months after giving up the reins of government, he was hanged, to- gether with his son-in-law, Jacob Milbourne. No appeal of his case to England was permitted, a melancholy circumstance in view of the action of Parliament four years later in formally reversing his attainder of treason after a dispassionate review of all the facts.
The name of Jacob Leisler is conspicuously and honorably iden- tified with the early history of West- chester County through his purchase and sale to the Huguenots, already no- ticed, of about two-thirds of the old Manor of Pelham, a tract of some six thousand acres. There is no doubt that in making this purchase and in disposing of the lands to the French religions refugees he was animated en- tirely by unselfish and sympathetic considerations. A German Protest- ant by birth, and, moreover, the son of a clergyman of the Reformed Church, LEISLER'S TOMB. he became known in New York as a zealous supporter and promoter of the Protestant religion. It was in consequence of the reputation which he thus enjoyed that the Huguenots, before emigrating to New York, applied to him to select and secure a suitable locality for their
contemplated settlement. As a few individual Huguenots had al- ready built homes on Pelham Manor, that quarter was already indi- cated as the one to be chosen. In the original purchase from JJohn and Rachel Pell, September 20, 1689, " Jacob Leisler, of the City of New York, merchant," was the sole person interested; and his con- scientions spirit in the transaction is indicated by the significant provision of the deed that, besides the six thousand acres conveyed to him, a parcel of one hundred acres should be set apart from Poll's property as a free gift to the French church. Moreover, he gave for
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
the lands the large sum of " sixteen hundred and seventy-five shillings sterling, current silver money of this province," paying the entire amount on the day of purchase-a sum whose comparative magni- tude will be appreciated when it is remembered that eight years Jater Caleb Heathcote, in buying from Mrs. Richbell her title to most of the present Township of Mamaroneck and other lands (having an aggregate area much larger than the New Rochelle tract), paid for his acquisition only £600. Leisler rapidly transferred his whole pur- chase to the Huguenots, and before his exeention they were in full possession of it.
Smith, in his " History of New York," gives the following inter- esting item: "Leisler's party was strengthened on the 3d of June, 1689, by the addition of six captains and four hundred men in New York, and a company of seventy men from Eastchester, who had all subscribed on that day a solemn declaration to preserve the Protestant religion and the Port of New York for the Prince of Orange and the governor whom the prince might appoint as their protector." The action of the seventy volunteers of our Town of Eastchester in marching down to New York to give their support to Leisler is highly significant. The men of Eastchester were dem- ocrats of democrats in all their antecedents, but at the same time were godly and sober citizens, who would not have lightly, or for mere emotional or adventurous reasons, esponsed a factional canse. They evidently believed, most completely and ardently, in the righteousness and also the sufficiency of the improvised govern- ment. It is indeed impossible to question the sincere and virtuous animus of Leisler's followers.
Leisler, raised to authority by the people, fully recognized the people as the source of power. Notwithstanding the previous aboli- tion of the provincial assembly, he promptly appealed to the repre- sentatives of the people when a grave public emergency arose soon after he became acting governor. In February, 1690, the settlement of Schenectady was burned and its inhabitants were massacred by the Indians at the instigation of the French. Leisler at once sum- moned a general assembly for the purpose of providing means and supplies for retributive measures. In that body Thomas Browne was the delegate from Westchester County.
The influence of Leisler as a plain citizen, before by the stress of events placed in the control of affairs, was uniformly on the side of the public welfare, of intelligence, and progress; and the history of his personal career is that of a vigorous, successful, and honest man, who eminently deserved the position he won. He came to New York in 1660, while the city was still known as New Amsterdam,
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being one of a company of fifteen soldiers for the re-enforcement of the garrison. Afterward he traded with the Indians and acquired considerable means. He served under Dongan as one of the com- missioners of the Admiralty Court. In 1667 he was one of the jurors in a case of witchcraft tried at Brookhaven, Long Island, against Ralph Hall and his wife, which resulted in acquittal. As one of the captains of the training bands he enjoyed the unusual confidence of the citizen soldiers-a confidence which, because of his reputation in the community, was shared by the public in general when the necessities of the situation constrained them to assume the tempo- rary direction of the government. He was, moreover, sustained throughout his administration by some of the best and most substan- tial citizens, notwithstanding the opposition and intrigues of the former governing class; and the persistent continuance of a per- feetly respectable " Leislerian party " for many years after his trag- ical end is convincing tribute to the excellence of both his private and civie character. His descendants at this day are very numer. ons, and have representatives in many of the old and highly re. spectable families of New York and Westchester County. Included among them are those of the Gouverneur Morris and Wilkins branches of the Morrises of Morrisania. For the pedigree of the Westchester County descendants of Leisler, we refer our readers to Bolton's " History of Westchester County," rev. ed., i., 585.
When at last, in March, 1691, the government of the province was resumed by a direct appointee of the king, Colonel Henry Sloughter, it was ordered that the provincial assembly should be re-established. No time was lost by Governor Sloughter in bringing this to pass; and on April 9, 1691, the second regularly constituted assembly of New York came together, with John Pell, of the Manor of Pelham, and Joseph Theale, of the Town of Rye, sitting as representatives from Westchester County. The assembly " consisted of seventeen members, but was afterwards increased to twenty-seven. By the act of May 8, 1699, the representatives were elected by the frecholders of £40 in valne, who were residents of the electoral dis- triet at least three months prior to the issue of the act. The elections were held by the sheriff at one place in each county, and voting was riva roce. The act of November 25, 1751, directed the sheriff to hold his court of election near the Presbyterian meeting-house at White Plains. Previously it had been held in the southern part of the county, doubtless at Westchester. Catholics could neither vote nor hold office, and at one time the Quakers and Moravians were also virtually disqualified by their unwillingness to take the oath." 1
1 Scharf, I., 647.
THE LAWS & ACTS OF THE General Allembly FOR Their Majefties Province
NEW-YORK,
As they were Enacted in divers Soffions, the firft of which began April, the 9th, Annog; Domini, 1 691.
At New-York,
Printed and Sold by William Bradford, Printer to their Majefties, King William & Queen Mary, 16 94
TITLE-PAGE OF THE EARLIEST VOLUME OF NEW YORK STATUTES.
1
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GENERAL HISTORICAL REVIEW TO 1700
Excepting the representatives in the general assembly, only the strictly local officers-supervisors, collectors, assessors, and consta- bles-were elective. The most important of these, the supervisors, date from an early period.
By the " Duke's Laws," promulgated in 1665, the Courts of Sessions levied the taxes upon the towns. By an act of the general assembly, passed October 18, 1701 (13th William III.), the justices of the peace, in special or general session, were directed to levy once a year the necessary county and town charges and allowances for their representative in the general assembly, to make provision for the poor, and to issue warrants for the election of two assessors and one collector, and for the collection of taxes. These duties were transferred to a board of supervisors by an act of general assembly passed June 19, 1703 (2d Ame ), entitled " An Act for the better explaining and more effectually putting into execution an act of general assembly made in the third year of the reign of their late majesties, King William and Queen Mary, entitled An Act for defraying the publick and necessary charges thro'out this province, and for maintaining the poor and preventing vagabonds." The freeholders and inhabitants of each town were authorized to choose once each year, on the first Tuesday of April ( unless otherwise direeted ), one supervisor, two assessors, and one collector. The supervisors elected were directed to meet in the county town on the first Tuesday of October, ascertain the contingent charges of the county and such sims as were imposed by the laws of the colony, apportion to each town, manor, liberty, jurisdiction, and precinct their respective quotas, and to transmit them to the assessors of the chifferent towns, etc., who should appor- tion them among the inhabitants. The supervisors were authorized to choose annually a treasurer. The court of sessions was thus relieved of that portion of its duties which was legislative and not judicial. Supervisors had been chosen in several of the towns before the passage of the act of 1703 (Eastehester, 1686; Mamaroneck, 1697; New Rochelle, 1700); but what their duties were it is impossible to state. 1
During the ten years following the arrival of the first royal gov- ernor under King William, and the definite erection of representative government in the province, there was a steady expansion of popula- tion, wealth, and enterprise. Sloughter died only two months after Leisler's execution, and was succeeded as governor the next year by Benjamin Fletcher, who was superseded in 1698 by the Earl of Bello- mont, one of the best and most conscientious of New York's early colonial rulers. Philipse and Van Cortlandt, who had been sent into retirement by Leisler, were recalled to the council by Sloughter, and both of them thus resumed their old-time prominence. 11 has already been recorded how Philipse, on account of the notoriety at- taching to his connection with unlawful traffic, was finally forced to resign from the council. This traffic, while vexations to the gov- erument officials and increasingly demoralizing, was far from being regarded with general disapprobation by the commercial commu- nity of New York. Too many were interested in its gains to admit of such hostility, and, indeed, the large private interests concerned in it were mainly responsible for the extensive proportions to which it grew in the closing years of the seventeenth century. It was not confined to the ordinary forms of smuggling-more surreptitious im- portations of taxable European goods. but included relations of more
1 Scharf, 615.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
or less intimacy with the pirates of the high seas. "The most ap- proved course usually pursued was to load a ship with goods for exchange and sale on the Island of Madagascar. Rum costing two shillings per gallon in New York would fetch fifty to sixty shillings in Madagascar. A pipe of Madeira wine costing nineteen pounds in New York could be sold for three hundred pounds in that distant island. Not that just so much specie would be given for those articles there. But here was the rendezvous of the pirates, or bue- caneers, of the Indian Ocean, and the goods they offered in exchange were extremely costly." 1 Probably the principal reason of Governor Fletcher's recall was his tolerance of such intercourse. Bellomont, who followed him, was charged expressly to deal summarily with it; and in consequence, Frederick Philipse found it expedient to termi- nate his membership in the council, and so avoid disgraceful expul- sion. It was as an incident of Bellomont's vigorous policy in this line that Captain William Kidd, whose name and fame have become immortal in the legendary annals of piracy, was arrested, tried, and hanged (May, 1701). Kidd originally appears in the virtuous and noble character of a pirate hunter. A number of particularly re- spectable and distinguished subscribers (among them King William and Lord Bellomont, at that time not yet governor), having at heart the suppression of piracy, equipped a stanch vessel for Kidd, who was known as a bold and experienced mariner, and sent him forth to search for these evil men wheresoever they might ply their horrid vocation, and scourge them from the seas. As the story runs, he ren- dered valuable services for a time in this chivalric canse, but later fell into degenerate ways, and himself became a most desperate cor- sair. His favorite haunts after returning from his cruises were the inlets and islands of Long Island Sound, where he landed his precious cargoes, and, according to tradition, buried his gold, silver, and jew- els. It is said that when brought to trial he confided to the author- ities the location of a treasure secreted on Gardiner's Island, and that it was duly found and appropriated by them. From the authen- ticated accounts of Captain Kidd's frequentings of the coast of the Sound, it may safely be said that from time to time he must have steered his bark into some of the numerous places of retreat along the Westchester shore. This, however, is only a reasonable infer- ence. There is nothing to show that he ever had a rendezvous within our waters. In the course of time popular imagination, stimulated by the fiction of his buried wealth, even ascribed to him expeditions up the Hudson River as far as the Highlands. Bolion reproduces a Very entertaining account of an attempt during the present century
1 Van Pelt's Hist. of the Greater New York. i., 98.
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to raise a sunken bark off Caldwell's Landing in the Highlands, sup- posed to have been Captain Kidd's private ship. Some $20,000 was spent in the enterprise.1 The pre-eminence which Captain Kidd has always enjoyed in the popular imagination is much out of propor- tion to his achievements. His formal piratical career was af all events very brief. It was in October, 1696, that he was dispatched to hunt down pirates, and at that time he must have had a fairly honest reputation. Less than five years later he met his doom on the gallows. His exceptional popularity as a pirate hero is doubtless due to the fanciful stories of his buried treasures, to which a certain substantial foundation was supposed to have been given by the un- earthing of one of them-in all probability the only one-by the au- thorities.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century Manhattan Island had attained a population of nearly six thousand souls, and abont one thousand houses had been erected upon it. Westchester County, established upon practically the same boundary lines as exist to-day (considering the county in its original integrity), had acquired the elements of serions development in all its parts. Practically all its land had been appropriated by purchase. Means of convenient com- munication with New York had been secured, and a bridge across the Spuyten Duyvil Creek built. All of the six manorial estates had been granted by letters patent, and in part settled by tenants, with here and there the foundations of villages laid. The old settlements on the Sound had made steady advancement and new settlers had generally begun to occupy the non-manorial lands in the interior. The progress of the Sound settlements and of interior occupation outside of the manors remains to be glanced at in order to complete the history of the county to the period at which we have arrived.
The Rye settlement, which grew out of purchases made by citizens of Greenwich, Conn., on the New York side of the Byram River, be- ginning in 1660, flourished from the start, and gradually expanded over all the adjacent country. Included within the Colony of Con- nectient by the boundary compact of 1664, there never existed any question as to its political status until, under the new boundary ad- justment of 1683, it was detached from Connecticut and incorporated in New York. Even during the aggressive Dutch restoration of 1673-74, although Mamaroneck was summoned to submit and readily vielded, no attempt was made to subdue the people of Rye, who. however, in anticipation of trouble, made preparation for a sturdy resistance, and united with those of Stamford and Greenwich in pe- titioning the general court for help. From the earliest period of
1 Bolton, rev. ed., 1., 161.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
the Rye settlement, even before Rye itself had come into being, and while the founders of the place were still living on Manussing Island in a community known as Hastings, the town had rep- resentation in the Connecticut general court at Hartford, and received due attention and care from that body. It was probably due to the privilege of direct representation thus enjoyed, quite as much as to the circumstance of their Connectient nativity, that the Rye people so stoutly persisted, long after being legally annexed to New York, in holding themselves allegiant to the mother colony, and so bitterly resented the assumption of authority over them by an alien aristocratic government which for a considerable term of years conceded no representative rights whatever to its inhabitants, and even after instituting a general assembly granted no immediate rep- resentation to the individual towns.
In enumerating here the various additional purchases of the Rye people, it is not necessary to go into minute particularization regard- ing the several tracts. In 1662 they bought the territory of the present Town of Harrison-a territory which was subsequently grant- ed by the provincial government of New York to John Harrison and others, and on that account became the bone of contention between the Rye men and the New York authorities, leading to the celebrated revolt. In 1680 and 1681 occurred what were known as " Will 's Purchases " from an Indian chief named Lame Will, or Limping Will, extending into the present Town of North Castle. And finally, in [683, just before the new boundary articles were concluded, the Qua- roppas, or White Plains, tract was bought, another purchase destined to be a source of difficulty because of the claim to previous owner- ship set up by John Richbell and later persevered in by his widow and by her successor in the Richbell estate, Colonel Caleb Heathcote.
It has been mentioned in our account of the boundary revision of 1683 that the aggressive attitude of the Town of Rye in its territorial pretensions as the frontier settlement of Connecticut was one of the principal causes leading to that revision. " May, 1682, John Ogden, of Rye, presented himself before the general court and on behalf of the people complained that sundry persons, and particularly Fred- erick Philipse, had been making improvements of lands within their bounds. Mr. Philipse had been building mills near Hudson River, encroaching thereby upon the town's territory, which was believed to extend in a northwesterly direction from the month of Mamaroneck River to the Hudson, and even beyond. The general court gave Mr. Ogden a letter to the governor of New York, protesting against such proceedings, and reminding him that by the agreement made in 1664 a line running northwest from the mouth of Mamaroneck River to
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the Massachusetts line was to be the dividing line between Con- nectieut and New York."! On the 28th of November of the follow- ing year, by the new boundary articles, Rye was coded to New York, and Governor Treat of Connectient promptly notified the inhabitants of this change. The town, while reluctant to accept the fate ap- pointed for it, desisted from electing deputies to the general court of Connecticut, and did not renew that practice until the " revoli " in 1697. Nevertheless, attempts were made from time to time to secure some sort of official recognition from Connertient, represent- atives being dispatched to deal with the governor and general court as to various special matters. A summons from Governor Dongan of New York, in 1685, commanding the Rye settlers to appear before him and prove their titles to the lands which they occupied, was ignored. On the other hand, Rye had the honor of contributing one of the two representatives from Westchester County to the earliest sessions of the New York provincial assembly held after the organiza- tion of that body on a permanent basis. Joseph Theale, one of the leading men of Rye, was elected to the New York assembly for the years 1691 to 1694, inclusive, and again for 1697. - For ten years," says Dr. Baird, " disaffection smoldered, the authority of the province was ignored, taxes were paid but irregularly to either government, and whenever possible matters in controversy were car- ried up to Hartford, and Hartford magistrates came down to per- form their functions at Rye. Feuds and dissensions among themselves added to the perplexity of the inhabitants. Some of them, it would appear, sided with the province in the controversy, and hence, doubtless, some of the actions for defamation and other proofs of disturbance which we find on record about this time."
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