History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 169

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I > Part 169

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Major Popham left six children-Richard, Wil- liam S., John, Charles W., Sarah, wife of Leonard Bleecker, and Elizabeth.

William Sherbrook Popham, the second child of this family, was born at Scarsdale, May 9, 1793. In 1815 he entered the Bank of America as clerk, hav- ing previously served as a soldier in the War of 1812. In 1832 he established himself in the coal business in New York City, continuing the same till 1857, when he retired to the ancestral farm in Scarsdale. Here he led the life of a retiring and respected cit- izen. To his efforts was mainly due the organization of the Episcopal Church of St. James the Less, of which he was senior warden at the time of his death. He married Eliza, danghter of William Hill, of East Chester, and after her decease was nnited to her sister Jane.

Mr. Popham closed a long life of quiet usefulness Jnne 18, 1885, in the same room in which he was born more than ninety years before. His nnassumed humility and his simplicity of manner charmed all with whom he came into contact, and made his loss both to his family and to the county in which he lived an irreparable one.

He had eight children ; William Hill, Mary Morris, wife of Charles W. Carmer ; Alethia Hill, wife of Augustus Bleecker; Laura Sherbrook, wife of Lewis C. Platt, Esq., of White Plains; Gertrude, wife of Allen S. Campbell ; Richard Morris, Robert C. and Lewis C. Two of these, William Hill and Richard M., he survived.

William Hill Popham, oldest child of William Sherbrook Popham, was born at Scarsdale, Octo- ber 7, 1817. His educa- tion was partly obtained in the old town school of his native place and partly in New York City.

His inclination led him at an early age to enter as a clerk the office of a firm in New York which was heavily interested in the iron trade. In 1857, however, upon his father's retirement, he took his business in charge and for some years. conducted it successfully. He was finally induced by his father-in-law to enter the oil business with him, and in this he was en- gaged at the time of his death, June 27, 1880.

While in the oil trade he was also associated with William C. Haxton, now vice-president of the Washington Life Insur- ance Company.

Mr. Popham was a gentleman of peculiarly cordial disposition, and his genial manner made him many warm and enthusiastic friendships both in business and social life.

He was a member and for the last ten years warden of the Episcopal Church of St. James the Less at Scarsdale, for which he gave the ground. At the time of his death he was a property holder in New York City and a director of the Mutual Life Insurance Company. He had also been a member of the Produce Exchange from its organization. Mr. Popham married Miss Sarah Spencer, danghter of Mark Spencer, of New York.

Their children are Harriet Spencer, Mark Spencer,

RESIDENCE OF THE LATE WM. H. POPHAM, SCARSDALE, N. Y.

Man. Tophan

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SCARSDALE.

Eliza Hill, William H. Jr., George Morris, Lewis T., Sallie and James Leuox.

Lewis C. Popham, youngest child of Wm. Sher- brook Popham and brother of the preceding, was born iu the old homestead at Scarsdale, April 15, 1833. Receiving his education at the well-known school of Rev. Dr. Harris, at White Plains, he joined his father in business, and in due time succeeded to it and the family estate. Beside carrying on his large business interests in New York City, he has been for the last sixteen years justice of the peace of the town of Scarsdale. Like his brother, William H., Mr. Popham is of an exceedingly social disposition, aud he is justly reckoned among the most popular citizens of Westchester County. He married Annie J., daughter of Alexander Flemming, of Bellows Falls, Vermont. Their children are Emma A., (wife of Cornelius B. Fish), Alice H., Annie F., Alexander F. and Louise C.

Mr. Popham still resides in the old homestead, which was built by his grandfather Major Popham, in 1783. It adjoins the Morris property and is rich in its collection of antiques, bric-a-brac and old paint- ings. A portion of the tea-set presented to Major Popham by General Washington is still in possession of the family.

Another distinguished citizen of the town in the early days was the Hon. Richard Morris, son of the Hon. Lewis Morris, and father-in-law of Major Pop- ham, whom we have mentioned. He resided at the Morris homestead, now occupied by Mrs. William F. Popham, and owned considerable land in the vicinity, in which was included the former mill-seat on the Bronx River near Scarsdale Station. Mr. Morris was commissary or judge of the Court of Admiralty, as well as at one time chief justice of the State, and filled both these offices with much distinction. The Morris house stands on the eastern slope of the ridge, running parallel to the post-road on the west, and is a few hundred yards to the south of the Popham man- sion. Although more than a century and a half old, the house shows few signs of age, for though old-fash- ioued in appearauce and construction, it still stands firmer and stancher than many a more modern build- ing.

The mansion was constructed about the middle of the last century by a man named Crawford, the ma- terial used being prepared at the old saw-mill hereto- fore mentioned. The frame is composed of oak and locust, with oaken joists, and is covered with cedar shingles put on with wrought-iron clinched nails. The mansion presents a very picturesque appearance with its low slanting roof and broad veranda run- uing along the eastern and southern sides. Being on the side of the hill, the house presents three full stories on the east and two on the west, and, with the lawns and flower-beds which surround it makes a most pleasing picture. It is stated that liere General Washington halted and lunched on the march to | Cottage" just north of the Popham estate.

White Plains, some days previous to the engagement with the British at that place. Prominent among the families of the eastern side of the town in foriner years were the Secors, the Angevines, the Griffins and the Palmers. The first-named family has always figured prominently in the town's history. In 1809 and for the next two years James Secor held the office of supervisor, while Francis Secor, lately de- ceased, of a generation later, held the same offiee at different periods for a term of twenty-nine years and extending from 1849 to 1878. Chauncey T. Secor, the present incumbent, son of the preceding, is now serving his third term in the same office. The family is supposed to be of French origin, and probably set- tled in the town somne time prior to the Revolution, for the name "Secord " appears in documents re- lating to that period. The old Secor homestead, known as the " Hickories" is in the far eastern side of the town. The Angevines, originally tenants under Colonel Heathcote, have almost disappeared from the town, and the Griffins, who formerly were scattered throughout the township, are almost en- tirely confined to the eastern part. Of the Palmner family, Richard served as supervisor of the town for thirteen years, between 1831 and 1837 and again from 1839 to 1844, and James F. Palmer, besides holding other offices, was town clerk in 1860. In the house of the latter, on the Mamaroneck road and in a ceutral location, town-meetings and elections were held for a number of years until the erection of the new school- house, and the occupation of its basement for town purposes.

The Drakes, whose name has been associated with Scarsdale for over a century, are of English descent, and the first to emigrate to this country, aceording to Bolton's account, was John Drake, who came to this continent early in the seventeenth century. On his death, he left several sons, one of whom, Samuel, settled in East Chester, and a grandson of the latter, also Samuel, was probably the first to settle in Scars- dale. The only record in connection with Scarsdale pertaining to this member of the family is that of his death, showing that Samuel Drake, son of Jo- seph Drake, of East Chester, "died at the Fox Mead- ows in 1774, aged seventy-five years." The present head of the family in Scarsdale is the venerable Elias G. Drake, now in his eighty-sixth year, hav- ing been born just before the close of the last century, December 9, 1799. Mr. Drake is the great-grandson of Benjamin Drake, a brother of the Samuel just mentioned, and settled within the town about thirty years ago. Although of late years not taking all active part in town politics, he has figured in many of the older records as the holder of various offices in the town.

Another of the prominent families of the town ill former days were the Varians, of Huguenot descent, who occupied the house now known as the " Wayside Of this

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

family, the first of the name in this country was Isaac Varian, who " appears as a butcher in the city of New York in the year 1720, located in the 'Old Slip ' market." He was admitted as a " freeman " of the city of New York January 23, 1733. In 1737-38 he was a member of the military company of Cap- tain Cornelius Van Horne. He accumulated consid- erable property and died at his residence in Bowery Lane, abont the year 1800. He left five sons, of whom three-James, Richard and Michael-were ardent patriots and warmly esponsed the Revolutionary cause. Of these, however, only James and Michael appear to have been identified with Scarsdale. In the " Book of the Varian Family " the following record is given of these members: "James Varian, second son of Isaac, born in New York City, January 10, 1734; died Scarsdale, N. Y., December 11, 1800; was a butcher in New York until the capture of that city by the British during the War of the Revolution, at which time, in company with other patriots, he removed. He withdrew to a farm at Scarsdale, in the Neutral Ground, where he remained until his decease." Both he and his family were subsequently driven from their farm by the British, and took refuge in Danbnry, Conn., whence they returned after the peace was pro- claimed. He married, February 25, 1759, Deborah Dibble, of Connecticut, by whom he had seven chil- dren, five of whom were born in Scarsdale. " Michael Varian, butcher, born in New York City, December 9, 1738, and was in that vocation for many years at that place. At the time of the Revolution (1775) he moved to Scarsdale, Westchester County, N. Y., bnt returned at the close of the struggle, in which he took an active part on the patriot side." He left two sons, but neither they nor their descendants were con- nected with this town.

Of the family of James Varian, Jonathan, the eldest, was born in New York, November 13, 1763, and died February 14, 1824, being by occupation a drover. In 1811 he married into the Angevine family, and had four children, of whom one, Andrew J. Va- rian, served during the Rebellion as sergeant in the New York Volunteer Engineers. Jonathan Varian appears to have kept the old homestead as a tavern and inn from very early in the century nntil his death. His brother James was born in Scarsdale, Novem- ber 22, 1765, shortly after his parents settled in the town, and died December 26, 1841. He was engaged in transporting the Boston mail on the first stage of the ronte,-from New York to New Milford, Conn. This was performed in the old-fashioned four-horse mail-coaches, and a stop was made at the old Varian tavern. He married a danghter of John Cornell, by whom he had nine children. On the death of Jona- than, in 1824, the estate in Scarsdale appears to have been occupied by James, and after his death, in 1841, by his son, James, from whom it passed into the hands of Charles Butler in 1853. Another son, William A. Varian, is now living at Kings' Bridge, being a practic-

ing surgeon, and in his possession is the old family Bible mentioned below. Of the remaining children of the original James Varian, three left descendants, one of them, Deborah, having married Caleb Tomp- kins, brother of Governor Tompkins, and for forty years county judge of Westchester County.

Six of the ten town officers chosen at the first election after the Revolution in the Manor of Scars- dale bore the name of Cornell1-then the most numer- ons and one of the most respectable families in the manor; and some record should be made of them here. The Cornells of Scarsdale and vicinity were descended from Richard Cornell, a member of the Society of Friends, who came from Hempstead, in Queens Connty, to Scarsdale in 1727. Bnt Richard Cornell's grandfather, Thomas Cornell, more than eighty years before that date, had a plantation, long called Cornell's Neck, in what is now the town of Westchester. Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck, was also an ancestor of the Westchester Willets, once a prominent family in the connty and in the province -and also of the Woolseys, of Bedford and elsewhere, and therefore should be named here. Cornell's Neck was sitnated on the East River and was granted to Thomas Cornell in June, 1646, by the Dutch Governor, Kieft, who described it as running "from the Kill of Broncks land, east southeast along the River." 2

1 Prepared and inserted by the publishers.

2 Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck, was from Essex, England, born about 1595, and emigrated to Boston about 1636. In interesting illustra- tions of the rigorous self-watchfulness of the infant Boston Colony, then only eight years old, it was voted at town-meeting on the 20th of Au- gust, 1638, that "Thomas Cornell may huy brother William Balstone's house and become an inhabitant." He was in Rhode Island iu 1641, with Roger Williams, and came to New Amsterdam in 1642, with John Throckmorton, seeking shelter among the Dutch from the rigors of Mass- achusetts orthodoxy. Throckmuortou, for himself and thirty five associ- ates, obtained in 1643, from Governor Kieft, the original grant of what is now, in abbreviation of his name, called Throgg's Neck, and he and Cornell, and some of their associates, immediately hegan settlements, for the Dutch records relate that in the massacre of October, 1643, the In- dians " killed several persons belonging to the families of Mr. Throck- morton and of Mr. Cornell." Probably the slain were servants, and Thomas Cornell and his family were then in New Amsterdam, where his eldest daughter, Sara, married, on the 1st of September, 1643, Thomas Willett, of Bristol, England, the ancestor of a distinguished family. William Willett, the eldest son of Thomas Willett and Sarah Cornell, was haptized in New Amsterdam on the 6th of July, 1644, and their secoud son, Thomas, on the 26th of November, 1645. Thomas Willett, the father, died about the time of the birth of his second son, and his widow, Sara Cornell, iu 1647, married Charles Bridges, well known in New Amsterdam, where the Dutch translated his uame into Carel Ver Brugge, and the Willett children were brought up in their stepfather's house. William, the elder, inherited Cornell's Neck through his mother after the death of his grandfather, Thomas Cornell, but ultimately died without issue. Thomas, the younger son, became the distinguished Col- onel Thomas Willett, of Flushing-long prominent in colonial affairs, and member of the Governor's Council from 1690 to 1698, where he sat with Colonel Caleb Heathcote, Frederick Philips, Colonel Van Cortlandt and other magnates of the province. He was colonel of the Queens County militia, then the most numerous regiment in the province, and was publicly thanked by the Governor, Lord Cornbury, in November, 1704, that, on au alarm of an invasion by a French fleet, he had in ten hours brought a thousand men to within an hour's march of New York. Colonel Thomas Willett's cousin, Colonel Jolin Cornell, of Rockaway, subsequently commanded the Queens County militia until his deatlı, in 1745. After his brother's death, Colonel Thomas Willett, of Flushing inherited his grandfather's plantation of Cornell's Neck, and in 1709

Levis @ Cophano

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SCARSDALE.

Richard Cornell, grandson of Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck, and eldest son of John and Mary (Russell) Cornell, of Cowneek, in Hempstead, was born about 1670, and died at Scarsdale in 1757. He mar-

conveyed it to his eldest son, William Willett, who had removed to the connty of Westchester and made the Neck his home. Ile sat in the Pro- vincial Assembly as one of the representatives of Westchester County, with but brief intermissions, from 1702 to his death, in 1733, und was ap- pointed "Judge of the Common Pleas in the County " in 1721. But this is not the place to pursue the history of the Willetts of Westchester, fur- ther than to show their descent from Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck. The Neck has sometimes been called Willett's Neck.

Rebecca Cornell, a younger daughter of Thomas Cornell, was with her sister Sara, in New Amsterdam, and there married, in 1647, George Woolsey, of Yarmonth, England, said to have been of the family of Car- dinal Woolsey ; and their descendants are numerous in Westchester County and elsewhere, several having obtained eminence, one of them being Theodore Dwight Woolsey, president of Yale College from 1846 to 1871.

Ezra Cornell, the founder of Cornell University, was born at West- chester Landing, between Cornell's Neck and Throgg's Neck, on the 11th of January, 1807, and was doscended from Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck, through his son Samuel and grandson Stephen, who settled in Swansea, Massachusetts, where Elijah Cornell, the father of Ezra, was born in 1771. Elijah Cornell married Ennice Barnard, born in Dutchess County, but of a New Bedford family. Hle, however, had been but a short time in Westchester when his son Ezra was born, and soon after removed to Tarrytown, and thenco in 1819 to De Ruyter, so that neither Ezra Cornell nor his son, Governor Alonzo B. Cornell, can be called West- chester County men.

Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck, had eleven children-six sons (Thomas, Richard of Rockaway, William, Samuel, John of Cowneck and Joshna) and five danghtors (Sarah, Ann, Rebecca, Elizabeth and Mary). Several of his children settled in the Eastern States, and he subsequently returned to Rhode Island and died there about 1657. Two of his sons settled in Queens County. The first, Richard Cornell, was in New Am- sterdam under the Dutch, and was one of the patentees of Flushing, in the first English charter of 1665 and waslong justice of the peace there. Ile had an estate at Little Neck, and subsequently removed to Rockaway, where he died in 1694. lle is hence usually distinguished as Richard Cornell, of Rockaway. He left a widow, Elizabeth, and five sons, -Rich- ard, William, Thomas, Jacob and John. His grandson, Thomas Cornell, long represented Queens County in the Provincial Assembly, sitting from 1739 till his death, in 1764. A little later, Sarah Cornell, daughter of his grandson Samuel, married General Matthew Clarkson, of New York, and her sister Hannah, married Herman Leroy, and their sister, Elizabeth, married William Bayard. One of the grandsons of Thomas Cornell, of the Provincial Assembly, was Whitehead Cornell, who represented Queens County in tho State Assembly in 1788-98, and lived in dignity in the old homestead of his grandfather, while his elder and his younger brothers, who were Royulists in the Revolution and officers in the British Army, were glad, after the war, to take refuge in Nova Scotia. One of Whitehead Cornell's grandsons is John B. Cornell, now for many years the head of the well-known iron-works of New York.

John Cornell, of Cowneck, another son of Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck, and the ancestor of the Scarsdale Cornells, had been in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, perhaps also on the l'enobscot, but came in 1676, with his wife, Mary Russell, and several small children, to Hempstead, under the protection of Governor Andros, having been driven, the records say, from his home in the East by the Indians. This was the date of King Philip's War. Governor Andros granted to John Cornell, in 1677, a tract of land on Manhassett Bay, a couple of miles south of Sand's Point, on which he spent the remainder of his life, and on which some of his de- scendants are still living. In a sheltered valley of his grant, John Cor- hell set apart a burial plot, where are interred the remains of himself and of his wife and of many of their descendants. His children were: 1. Richard of Scarsdale, born 1670; married Ilannah Thorne. 2. Joshua. married Sarah Thorne. 3. Mary, born 1679 ; married James Sands. 4. John. born 1681; married Mary Starr. 5. Caleb, born 1683; married Elizabeth Hagner. 6. Rebecca, married - Starr.

John of Cowneck, always wrote his name Cornwell, and many of his descendants still retain that form. The name of Richard of Rockaway was often written Cornhill, and these forms, as well as Cornwall, Cornell and some others, appear on the tombstones in the family burial plot.

ried, in 1701, Hannah Thorne, of Flushing, and brought her and their ten children to Scarsdale in 1727. He early became a Friend, and most of his deseend- ants have been of that faith. Friends had settled early in Scarsdale, and the " Mamaroneck Meeting- house " is now within the Scarsdale borders. Richard Cornell was a diligent and prosperous man, and his will, dated in 1756, divides among his children muel land in Searsdale, Mamaroneck, and New Rochelle, besides other property and slaves. For even Friends then held slaves, although influences were already at work which abolished slavery in the Society before the American declaration of the inalienable right to lib- erty in 1776, and even required Friends to continue to maintain the negroes who had grown old or infirm in their service. Richard Cornell, the patriarch of

Of Searsdale, Æ. 80, born 1761, died 1841.

his family in Scarsdale, like the ancient patriarch, had a special regard for his "youngest son Benjamin," and his will, after providing him a competence, adds the special bequest, "to my son Benjamin, my Clock."

Richard, Jr., the eldest son of the first Richard

The early English name was written Cornewall. Two generations be- fore Thomas, of Cornell's Neck, " Richard Cornewall, Citizen and Skynner of London " (as it stands in his will), who died in 1585, left a portion of the wealth he had made in hides to found and endow "a free grammar Schole in New Woodstock, the town where I was born," and the school stands there yet, near tho handsome church of Woodstock. Some of the English branchos of the family still write the name Cornewall. Burko's "Landed Gentry of Great Britain " gives two branches, the senior one writing Cornewall and the other Cornwall. Burke's " Peerage and Bar- onetage " adds a third brauch, a family of Baronets in Hereford, who retain Cornewall, and Burke traces the lineage of the whole family up through the Barons of Burford to Richard de Cornewall, son of Richard, Earl of Cornewall, second son of King John, younger brother of Richard Cœur de Lion. Richard long remained a family name.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Cornell, of Scarsdale, was born in 1708. He settled near his father and has had many descendants, es- teemed among their neighbors in Scarsdale and else- where. One of them, Thomas Cornell, now of Ron- dont, born in White Plains in 1814, removed to Ulster Connty, where he was elected, in 1866, tothe Fortieth Congress of the United States, and in 1880, to the Forty-seventh Congress, in each case a Republican elected by a large majority in a strongly Democratic district. He is president of the First National Bank of Rondont, of the Cornell Steamboat Company, etc., and has long been prominent in political and finan- cial circles.1

1 The four sons and six daughters of the first Richard Cornell, of Scars- dale, were as follows :

I. Mary, born at Cowneck, 1703, died 1762 ; married Rev. Henry Sands.

II. Deborah, born at Cowneck, 1705, died 1772; married Matthew Franklin, a Quaker preacher.

III. Richard Cornell, Jr., born 1708 ; married Mary Ferris, and had Peter of Mamaroneck, born 1732, died 1765, married 1751. Sarah Haviland, born 1734, died 1787, and had :

First-Mary, born 1753; married Nathan Palmer and had many descendants. .

Second-Thomas of Scarsdale, born 1754, died 1817. His name often appears among the town officers of Scars- dale. He married, 1779, Hannah Lyneb, born 1762, died 1813, and had:

(1.) Peter, named after his grandfather, born 1780; married Margaret Gedney, and had :

(a.) John G., born 1812, died 1834.

(b.) Thomas Cornell, of Rondout, born 1814 ; married Catharine Ann Woodmancie -member of Congress etc., named in above text.

(c.) Hannah, born 1816.

(d.) Nathaniel, born 1818.

(e.) Anthony, bern 1820.

(f.) Elizabeth.

(g.) Mary, born 1824.

(h.) Charlotte, born 1826.

(i.) Margaret, born 1828.

(2.) Saralı, born 1782 ; married John Bates and bad many children.

(3.) Hester, born 1787 ; married Timothy Havilaud.

(4.) Samuel, born 1792, died 1823.

(5.) Thomas Lynchi Cornell, wbochanged his name to Thomas Wildey Cornell, born 1802, died 1884; married Emeline Lawrence, of Tarry- town, and removed to Ulster County, where he acquired wealth and position.

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 169

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1354

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354