USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 60
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The gifted Joseph Rodman Drake, known equally as the poet of the American flag and the poet of the Bronx, lived in our Town of West Farms and lies buried in the ancient family cemetery of the Leggetts, Willetts, and Hunts, on Hunt's Point. Many of his poems were written while musing by the side of the Bronx. His career was ent short by consumption at the early age of twenty-five. He died on the 21st of September, 1820. His grave and the simple mon- ment which marks it long ago fell into extreme neglect. In the present march of city improvements in the Borough of the Bronx the plans adopted for street extensions involve the complete ex- tinetion of the old graveyard. Efforts have been made by the Society of American Authors to preserve the spot where Drake lies buried and to have a substantial monument raised upon it.
568
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
The residence of Washington Irving at Sunnyside began in the year 1836. Irving was born in New York City, April 3, 1783. He " first came to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow when a lad of fourteen or fifteen. lle spent some of his holidays here, and formed an attach- ment for the spot which never left him." At frequent intervals in his literary career he visited Tarrytown, sometimes as a guest of his nephew. Oscar Irving. In a letter to his sister in 1832 he wrote: "I am more and more in the notion of having that little cottage below Oscar's house, and wish you to tell him to endeavor to get it for me." This cottage was a small stone Dutch dwelling, the iden- tical " Wolfert's Roost" of his well-known sketch, built in early times by a member of the Acker family, and at the period of the Revolution occupied by JJacob Van Tassel as a tenant of Frederick Philipse. Irving purchased it, with about fifteen acres of land, in June, 1835. During that year and 1836 he had extensive alterations made, giving the name of Sunnyside to the place as then remodeled. Over the south entrance he placed a Dutch tablet, whose translation is as follows : " Erected in the year 1656.1 Reconstructed by Washing- ton Irving in the year 1835. Geo. Harvey, Architect." In October, 1836, he moved in.
Ever afterward Sunnyside was his home. There he wrote his " Life of Washington." He was constantly visited by men of distinction. During the first year of his residence he entertained Prince Louis Napoleon, afterward Napoleon III. Interesting reminiscences of his Sunnyside years appear in Scharf's History.2 He was "a regular worshipper at Christ's Church, Tarrytown. Mr. Irving was rarely absent from his pew at the morning service. He was
1 This date was purely presumptive. There are sufficient reasons for believing that the house was not built until many years later. Irving always Inclined to the opinion that Tarrytown was settled previously to 1650, and he even concluded that some of the graves in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery went back to that yonr. But Irving was entirely unacquainted with the early chronology of Westehester County. His historieal studies, confined mostly to the immediate purposes of his own profitable writings on subjects of universal Interest, did nut descend to such local minutia .. His pub- lished writings having reference to Tarrytown and vicinity are exclusively of the " quaint " variety. In 1835 Bolton had not yet be- yun his indefatigable researches into the early history of Westchester County; and indeed Irving, cogitating about the probable antiquity of his acquisition, must have had no other means of calculation than that of tradi- tlon, assisted by his gentle Imagination. The
original Wolfert Acker (the supposed bullder of the house, and the first known Acker In this monty) was certainly not a resident of Phil- ipseburgh Manor until about 1680. This Wolfert Acker (or Ecker) was married March 4, 1680, to Maritje Sibouts, The record of the mar- riage, preserved in the register of the old Dutch Church of New York. describes him as "a young man of Midwont " [Long Island]. and adds that both he and his spouse were at the time "on Frederick Philips land," and were " married on Frederick Philips land." (See Raymond's " Sonvenir of the Revolutionary Soldiers' Monument Dedication at Tarrytown," p. 101.) This is conclusive evidence that Acker could not have built the house at the period conjectured by Irving. Manifestly Irving's Sunnyside inscription belongs to the all too numerous list of ill-authenticated graven his- torical remembrancers in Westchester County. 2 ii., 235-241.
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WASHINGTON IRVING.
1
1
569
GENERAL COUNTY HISTORY TO 1842
a devoni and real believer. lle accepted freely and gladly the great truths of the Bible, and guided his life by them. His gentle ways, his simplicity and kindness of manner, his courtesy to all, and his frequent mingling with the neighbors, who made up all sorts and conditions of men, women, and children, made him very popular and much loved." He died at Sunnyside suddenly and peacefully on the 28th of November, 1859. His funeral was an event never to be for- gotten by the people of Tarrytown. The whole village was in mourn- ing, and all conditions of men came from far and wide to pay the last tributes of honor to the great and good man. He was buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, beside his mother, where his remains still repose. Over them is a perfectly plain stone, inscribed as follows:
Washington Irving, Born April 3, 1783, Died Nov. 28, 1859.
The Fordham residence of Edgar Allan Poe, that gloomy and peculiar but resplendent and immortal genius-our American Mar- lowe,-dates from the year 1846, a period slightly later than the one selected for the termination of the present chapter; yet our mention of Poe may more appropriately occur here than in a subsequent con- nection.
Poe became a resident of New York City in 1844, having removed there from Philadelphia. At that time most of his magnificent tales had been written, and indeed he was at the zenith of his fame. But those were days of very slight recompense, and also of very uncer- tain employment, for authors not blessed with an acquisitive tem- perament and discreet character and habits. Though his genius was recognized and he had many sincere friends, he did not attain sub- stantial success in New York City. It is related that his principal regular employment after coming there was as a writer for the Erening Mirror, on a salary of ten dollars a week. While living in New York he wrote the " Raven." In the spring of 1846 he removed to Fordham, renting for a hundred dollars a year a little frame cot- tage. The house was " pleasantly situated, with cherry trees about it, but was of the humble description and contained in all but three small rooms and a kind of a closet. It was furnished with only the necessary articles and a few keepsakes, among them presentation copies of the works of Mrs. Browning, to whom Poe had dedicated his poems, and from whom he had received the kindest acknowledg- ments." It is said that he procured the means to take the Fordham cottage and maintain existence there for a time from the proceeds of a libel suit, which yielded him several hundreds of dollars.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
With him he brought to Fordham his wife Virginia-his " Annabel Lee "-and her mother, the tender, devoted Mrs. Clemm. Virginia Clemm was his cousin, whom he had married in her girlhood. A professional singer, she had ruptured a blood vessel some four years previously, and had ever since been in declining health. Even while they were living in Philadelphia she " could not bear the slightest exposure, and needed the utmost care; and all those conveniences as to apartments and surroundings which are so important in the case of an invalid were almost matters of life and death to her. And yet the room where she lay for weeks [ in Philadelphia], hardly able to breathe, except as she was fanned, was a little place with the ceiling so low over the nar- row bed that her head almost touched it. But no one dared to speak, Mr. Poe was so sen- sitive and irritable, 'quick as steel and flint,' said one who knew him in those days. And he would not allow a word about the danger of her dying: the mention of it drove him wild." At the time of the re- moval to Fordham shewas but a shadow of her former self, and was plainly doomed to an early death. A recent writer in a New York newspaper re- lates that in 1846 he was sent EDGAR ALLAN POE. twice, as a messenger boy, to the Fordham cottage, to de- liver proofs to Poe and wait for the reading of them. "On both occasions I saw Mrs. Poe, then an invalid. On the first visit she was sitting in the sun on the little porch of the cottage, wrapped in what appeared to be a counterpane, her husband on one side of her and her mother on the other. At the next visit she was on a couch covered with a man's overcoat, for the weather was chilly and the house was cold. The recollection of her appear- ance is still vivid as of a picture of a saint seen long ago in a receding light. Probably in full health she was a beautiful girl, but at this time whatever vital beauty she had was already mystie if not spec- tral. Iler face was thin and white, the kind of pallor that Carlyle calls ' the herald of the pale repose,' and her large dark eyes were
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571
GENERAL COUNTY HISTORY TO 1812
strangely and wonderingly obtrusive by contrast. I remember that they affected me with something like a searching omnipresente while i was waiting. I remember that while I was waiting for him, his wife, who had gone into another room, conghed once or twice, and I saw him wince at the sound." During his first year at Ford- ham Poe also was in delicate health, and probably for much of that time he was held in powerful bonds by his besetting sin. He accom- plished little literary work of importance, and when the winter of 1847 came on the family was in great destitution. " Mrs. Gove, hear- ing of this, visited the family, and found the dying wife with only sheets and a coverlet on the bed, wrapped in her husband's coat.
She appealed to Mrs. Maria Louise Shaw, who immediately relieved the necessities of the family and raised a subscription of $60." Shortly afterward the plain facts were published in the New York newspapers, and further relief was forthcoming. The poor little lady died on the 30th of January, 1847, and was buried in the churchyard of the old Fordham Dutch Church. There her bones rested until 1878, when they were disinterred by Mr. William Fear- ing Gill, for the purpose of do- positing them beside Poe's remains in Baltimore.
The Fordham cottage continued to be Poe's home for the brief remainder of his life. Mrs. Clemm JAMES K. PAULDING. remained with him, and took loving motherly care of him. His literary productions assignable to the period of his Fordham abode are mostly of the hack variety, although interspersed among them are such gems as " Annabel Lee," " The Bells," the " Cask of Amontillado," the " Domain of Arnheim," and " Landor's Cottage." Also " Eureka " and " Ulahme " were written at Fordham. He died at Baltimore on the 7th of October, 1849, aged thirty-right.
The Poe Cottage at Fordham is still preserved. Originally and until a quite recent period a plot of ground, containing perhaps a quarter of an acre, was attached to it. The writer of this History vividly recalls a visit made to the spot fifteen years ago, when the
572
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
ground was yet intact. Soon afterward it was announced in the press that the property had passed into new hands, and would prob- ably be laid out into city lots. Sympathetic souls protested, and there were practical endeavors to prevent the impending desecration, which had no result. To-day several " modern " houses, of a distinctly indifferent order of architecture, occupy all of the land except the single lot where the cottage stands. We believe that the permanent preservation of the cottage has been provided for, and that it is intended to remove it ultimately to a new city park in the neigh- borhood.
The late J. Thomas Scharf, in his History of Westchester County, devotes a separate chapter to the literati identified by birth, resi- dence, or otherwise with our county. Among the names which we have not previously mentioned, belonging to the first half of the nineteenth century, are those of William Leggett, the able journalist, a descendant of Gabriel Leggett, of West Farms, and a resident of New Rochelle, who died in 1839 at the early age of thirty-seven; Samuel Woodworth, author of the " Old Oaken Bucket," who lived at Westchester; and James K. Paulding, the friend of Irving and a very forcible and esteemed writer, who was of Westchester County extraction and received his education in this county.
CHAPTER XXV
GENERAL HISTORY OF THE COUNTY CONCLUDED
T the time of the introduction of the Croton water into New York, the summer of 1842, trains were running on the New York and Harlem Railroad as far as Williams's Bridge. It took more than two years longer to extend the road to White Plains, and it was not until June, 1847, that the line was opened to Croton Falls on the border of Putnam County. The early operation of this first railway in Westchester County was naturally conducted in very imperfect fashion, but its completion through the whole extent of the county was an event of great importance, not only to the people residing along the route, but to those of all other sections, stage communication with the various stations being imme- diately established from villages east and west as the work pro- gressed.
Before the construction of this central route had been finished, the two other principal railways that now pass through Westchester County had been chartered and put on a basis assuring their early completion.
The New York and Albany division of what is now the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad was originally called the New York and Hudson River Railroad. In the early years of the New York and Harlem enterprise the idea of another line following the river shore had been scouted as both chimerical and inexpedient. In a sober official report it was declared that the chief value of a river route would be its " novelty," whereas the already chartered road "leading from the City of New York through the heart of West- chester County, at nearly equal distances from the waters of the Iludson on the one hand and of the East River and Long Island Sound on the other, and extending from thence through the upper valley of the Croton River near to the eastern border of the State." was the only satisfactory project for bringing the whole country as far as Albany into communication with the commercial metropolis. It was also argued that the same eentral route would serve the purpose of railway intercourse with New England, a road from Boston to
574
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
Albany having previously been built, which, by the way, was a grievous thorn in the side of New York, as that thoroughfare had operated to divert a heavy volume of the Erie Canal commerce to Boston. Capitalists were slow to formulate new plans of railway development centering in New York; but during the first half of the decade 1840-50 both the Hudson River and the New York and Now Haven undertakings began to take shape.
The New York and Hudson River road was chartered by the legis- lature in May, 1846, and the company was soon after organized, Mr. John B. Jervis, the engineer of the Croton Aqueduct, being em- ployed as chief engineer. Work was begun toward the middle of 1847, the entire line being placed under contract by sections, and the work was prosecuted so diligently that by the 29th of September, 1849, passenger travel was commenced between New York and Peck- skill. " The average number of passengers per day for the first month (October) was 830, and the total number 21,593. At this time it was calculated that the land taken for the roadway in Westchester County had cost the company, exclusive of agencies and other charges, $185,905.02, and also that the grading had involved an expenditure of not far from a million dollars, which was about $300,000 above the cost as estimated by the original lettings in 1847."1
It was a single track road, with " turnonts" where needed. This at once caused the New York and Albany stages to be withdrawn, and it also competed with the steamboats. The following advertisement was published in the New York Herald : "Passenger trains will commence to run between New York and Peekskill on Saturday, the 29th instant (September, 1849), stopping at the following places and at the rate of fare respectively stated, viz .: Manhattanville, twelve and one-half cents ; Yonkers, twenty-five cents, ete. Ommibuses will be provided at the junetion of Chambers Street and Hudson Street to convey passengers who furnish themselves with tickets at the engine-house, at Thirty-first Street, until the rails are laid to that point. Trains will start at 8 a.m., 12 noon, and 4 p.m. N. B .- Stockholders during the present week free of charge." >
Originally the Hudson River road followed the straight line to the foot of West Thirty-first Street.
The New York and New Haven Railroad (now the New York, New Haven, and Hartford) was in full operation nine months before the opening of the Hudson River route to Peekskill. This road was built downward from New Haven through the Towns of Rye, Harrison, Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, Pelham, and Eastchester, to its junction with the New York and Harlem at Washingtonville, a distance in om county of 13.6 miles. The first through train from New York to New Haven, bearing a party of stockholders, was run on Christmas
I Rov. W. S. Coffey, in Scharf's History, I., 450.
" Allison's Hist. of Yonkers, 160.
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575
FROM 1842 TO 1900
Day, 1848, and the next day the road was opened for business. " It was at first a single track road. . . The numerous curves on the road were caused by the restricted financial condition, making it necessary, as far as possible, to avoid cuttings and embankments. The desire had been to build the road in a substantial and permanent manner, but it was found difficult to complete it in any shape. . li is a curious fact that when the trains first commenced to run the passengers were booked as in the old stage-coach times, their names being duly reported by the conductors to the company."
Thus by the dawn of the second half of the nineteenth century the three great railway routes which traverse Westchester County had been completed and put in successful operation. The other two railways now existing-the Harlem River Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford, and the New York and Putnam-were not built until many years later. The former, at first called the Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad, running on its own line from Morris- ania to New Rochelle, and thence over the New Haven track to Port Chester, was undertaken in 1872. and was from the beginning leased by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Company. The present New York and Putnam Railroad at its inception (1871) was designed to run from High Bridge to Brewsters, and there connect with the so-called New York and Boston. This road was not finished until 1881. It was long styled the New York and Northern. Its complete development was effected by the extension of the line from High Bridge to the terminus of the Elevated Railway at One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, and by the building of the branch from Van Cort- landt Station to Yonkers. In common with the New York and Har- lem, the New York and Putnam is now incorporated in the Now York Central and Hudson River system, with which also the New York, New Haven, and Hartford is closely affiliated; so that all the steam railways of Westchester County are substantially under one management.
Aside from the building of the railways, there were not many events of local importance in Westchester County from the completion of the Croton Aqueduet until 1850.
Two new townships were erected-Ossining (1845) and West Farms (1846), and the territorial dimensions of four others were somewhat changed by the annexation of a portion of North Salem to Lewisboro in 1844, and of a portion of Somers to New Castle in 1846.
From 1810 until 1845 Mount Pleasant. embracing the village of Sing Sing, had been the most populous township of the county. The federal enumeration of 1840 gave it a population of 7,307. It was also one of the largest townships in area, and chiefly on this account its
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
division was determined upon. By a legislative act passed May 2, 1845, the present Township of Ossining was erected from it. " The meaning of the term ' Ossining ' and its derivation," says Dr. Fisher, " were given by Mr. Henry M. Schoolcraft in 1844, at the request of General Aaron Ward, member of congress from this district at the time. We are told that the word ossin, in the Chippeway language, signifies ' a stone '; that ossince or ossincen is the plural for . stones.' This etymology was accepted, and in May, 1845, when our town was taken from Mount Pleasant, it received the name of 'Ossin-sing.' In March, 1846, it was changed (by dropping the third x) and made to read · Ossin-ing,' and still later the hyphen was omitted." I Including in its limits Sing Sing Village, Ossining natu- rally took a prominent place among the towns of the county from the start.
The Town of West Farms was carved out of West- chester by a law passed May 13. 1846. The new township comprehended all of the ancient patents of Wesi Farms, Morrisania Manor, and Fordham Manor, Westchester Town retaining only the territory east of the Bronx River. WILLIAM W. SCRUGHAM. The three component paris of West Farms Township. being much more accessible to New York City than Westchester proper, had increased far more rapidly in population, and as they were separated from the parent town by a broad line of natural division, the Bronx River, it was esteemed very proper to organize them into a distinet political unit. West Farms Village, as has been noticed in the previous chapter, had become a locality of some manu- facturing importance, on account of the utilization of the water of the Bronx River to turn mill wheels. Mr. John Copeutt and Mr. Alexander Smith, men who became conspicuous in founding the manufacturing industries of Yonkers, originally had their mills at
1 Scharf, il., 322.
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FROM 1842 TO 1900
West Farms. In view of the rapid growth which the Township of West Farms experienced after the opening of the Harlem Railroad, it was found advisable in 1855 to subdivide it and set apart Morris- ania as a separate town.
In 1846 a final radical revision was effected in the State constitution of New York. Judges, district attorneys, and other officers formerly appointive wore made elective. The first county judge elected in Westchester County was JJohn W. Mills, of White Plains (1851-56); the first surrogate, Lewis C. Platt, of White Plains (1848-56); the first district attorney, William W. Serngham,1 of Yonkers (1848-51); the first county treasurer, Elisha Horton, of White Plains (1849-52).
At the State census of 1845-the last enumeration taken before the railways came into operation-Westchester County had 47,394 inhabitants, some 1,300 fewer than the mumber awarded the county by the federal census of 1840. The greater population of 1840 was probably due to the inclusion in the census at that time of the numer- ous workmen employed on the Croton Aquednet. As classified by occupations in 1845, the adult males of the county included 4,369 farmers and agriculturists, 364 manufacturers, 275 merchants, 101 clergymen, 62 physicians and surgeons, and 42 lawyers. There were in that year 142 common schools and 69 select schools.
With the completion of the railways a great change at once trans- pired in local conditions in Westchester County. In the ten years from 1845 to 1855 the population rose from 47,394 to 80,678-a gain of more than G8 per cent. The following table shows the population by towns in 1845 and 1855, with the valuation of real estate and per- sonal property in 1858:
TOWNS
POPULATION, 1845
POPULATION, 1855
VALUATION, REAL ESTATE & PERSONAL, 1858
Bedford .
2,725
3,46-1
$1,602,170
Cortlandt.
6,738
8,468
3,116,750
Eastchester
1,369
4,715
1,460,550
Greenburgh
3,205
6,135
4,538,657
Harrison .
1,039
1,271
865,110
Lewisboro.
1,541
1,775
955,127
Mamaroneck.
780
1,068
629,695
Morrisania 1
2,583,862
Mount Pleasant
2,778
3,677
1,846,745
New Castle.
1,495
1,762
8446,210
New Rochelle.
1,977
3,101
1,780,700
North Castle .
2,010
2,4415
791,358
1 Population for 1515 included In Westchester; for 1855 In West Farms.
: Mr. Serngham also had the honor of being the first citizen of Westchester County elected to the offer of justice of the Supreme Court of
the State. He was chosen to that position In 1\59, and continued in It until his death In 1×67.
578
IHISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
VALUATION,
TOWNS
I'OPULATION, 1845
POPULATION, 1855
REAL ESTATE & PERSONAL 1858
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