History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 175

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 175

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On the whole, it may be safely pronounced to be

1 Mr. Miller's gift of one thousand eight hundred dollars for education should not be forgotten.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

one of the finest institutions of the kind in the United States, and it is hoped and believed that it will be practically free for the physical training and education of the people.

The donor of these important gifts is one who does not covet notoriety. He is too modest to approve of any extended eulogy on account of the good he has done. Let him, therefore, enjoy the consciousness of having tried to benefit his fellow-men; and let these two solid and useful structures stand in the midst of our village as the enduring memorials of his benev- olence.

Statistics of professions, trades and occupations in the town of New Rochelle:

Agents (insurance and real estate)

Bakers

Banks

Blacksmiths 1

Barbers 5

Book-stores

Butchers

Carriage makers 4

Master carpenters and builders 8

Cabinet-makers 5

Clothiers 3

Churches

Average Sabbath attendance :

Catholic (1) .

700

Protestant (8)

750

Total . 1450

Average death rate, five years (1880-85) pr. cent 2.0024

Druggists

Dry-goods 2

Engineers (civil)

Fred stores

Grocers 10

Hardware

Harness

Jewelers

Livery stables

Liquors and beer (licensed) (unlicensed)

Lawyers

Masons and stone-cutters 20

Millinery and mantua-makers 12

Ministers 11

Newspapers . 2

Painters, house, sign and carriage

Printers

-1

Population about 5500

Physicians and surgeons

Shoemakers . 10

Stoves and tinware 13

Undertakers 3

Veterinary surgeons

A number of substantial brick buildings have been erected in the village during the past few years. The addition of any more structures of wood, as the popu- lation increases, is to be deplored and dreaded as a source of danger from fire. The town hall, which stands on the corner of Main and Mechanic Streets, no doubt fulfils to a certain extent the purposes for which it was erected. But it is totally destitute of all pretensions to architectural beauty. A much bet- ter and more convenient public building might have been erected for the same amount of money. The

absence of a clock that strikes the hours upon its tower was an absurd blunder, and it is to be hoped that, at no distant day, the demands of the public will compel the erection of something more orna- mental and more suitable to the spirit of the age.

Charles Of Licdaled.

BIOGRAPHY.

SIMEON LESTER.

In the northwestern portion of New Rochelle, and upon the old road leading to White Plains, stands the tasteful house of Mr. Simeon Lester. He is in his ninetieth year, but enjoys the best of health and the possession of a stroug active mind. The family is of English origin, and descended from Sir Nicholas Leicester, a knight of the thirteenth century. Upon their emigration to New England early in the eighteenth century, the spelling of the name seems to have been changed from Leicester to Lester, and William, Mr. Lester's grandfather, who served under Colonel Ledyard at Croton Fort, wrote his name in this way.

Though they had but lately left the mother country and were still bouud to it by ties of noble blood, the Lesters did not hesitate to embark both their property and their lives in the struggle for American freedom. From fifteen to twenty of the family perished at the capture of Groton Fort. Their martial spirit de- scended upon the father of Mr. Simeon Lester, and though not in active service he was captain of the Grenadier Company of Norwich, Conn., where the subject of this sketch was born, April 16, 1796.

He spent the early part of his life on his father's place, and became captain of the Norwich Light In- fantry Company. In 1820 he married Hannah Maria Brewster, who was born at Preston, Conn., February 6, 1795, and died at her home in New Rochelle June 12, 1865. She was a descendant in the seventh gene- ration of Elder Brewster, who came to this country in the "Mayflower."

Five years after his marriage Mr. Lester, at the suggestion of his brother-in-law, moved with his family from Norwich to New Rochelle, where he purchased the extensive farm, upon which he now resides. The place has become famous as the previous home and property of Thomas Paine, it having been presented to him by the United States government. His grave, the house iu which he lived, and the monument raised to his memory are still standing upon it, and have not only, not been mutilated by Mr. Lester, as

Simeon Lester.

RESIDENCE OF SIMEON LESTER, NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y.

EMG

RESIDENCE OF JONATHAN CARPENTER, NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y.

Jonathan Carpenter

" SANS-SOUCI." RESIDENCE OF W. W. EVANS, NEW ROCHELLE, N, Y.

uitle

M.M. Evans

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NEW ROCHELLE.

was charged by the daily papers, but have been pre- served by him with special care.

When Mr. Lester took possession of the property it was merely a rolling plain, thickly strewn with boulders. By unremitting toil he converted it into the highly fertile and splendidly improved property, whose appearance enchants the eye of the spectator. For many years Mr. Lester was obliged to rise front his bed at midnight, collect the produce which he had forced the stony soil to yield and depart by one o'clock in the morning for No. 22 Bowcry, and other stands in New York City, where he would await pur. chasers.

It was his habit of industry and perseverance which made Mr. Lester the successful man he is, and now that he has attained financial prosperity, he rests in the consciousness of a life well spent. In 1825, upon his removal to New Rochelle, he presented his letter of membership, and was admitted to the Presbyterian Church, of which he has been an elder for sixty years, and superintendent of the Sabbath-school for thirty years. He has deeply interested himself in young men, and several who have attained sucess in business life attribute the habits which have gained it for them to the educating influence of their old friend. His only surviving child, David Brainard Lester, of the firm of Joseph Lester & Co., hatters at No. Broad- way, New York, is a resident of Brooklyn, and is a inember of the Congregational Church.

Some years ago Mr. Lester transferred his property to his sou, Joseph W. Lester (deceased), and it is now in the possession of his daughter-in-law, with whon he resides.

In proportion, as one differs from his fellows, so does he become famous. In such proportion only as his life benefits others, does he attain true greatness. Judged by these cousiderations Mr. Lester, whose Christian life has been wide in its influence, may look from his window in pity upon the monument of the man whose genius dazzled the world, rejoicing in his own possession of the milder quality.

JONATHAN CARPENTER.

Mr. Carpenter is of Welsh origin. Jonathan Car- penter, his grandfather, born September 7, 1749, was a son of Benedict Carpenter, who died June 22, 1791, and, because of British persecution during the Revo- lution, was forced to remove from Scarsdale to Long Island, where he married, on April 18, 1782, Miss Esther Coles. After peace was declared, he returned to Scarsdale, and took up his trade of a blacksmith. Jonathan Carpenter, Sr., had five children, the fourth of whom, Joseph Carpenter. was the father of the Jonathan who is the subject of this sketch. Joseph Carpenter, even before the War of the Rebellion, attained to wide celebrity because of his opposition to slavery. He was born at Scarsdale September 3, 1793, and on September 15, 1814, he married Marga- ret W. Cornell, who was of French descent.

There were two children,-the oldest Esther and the second Jonathan, who was born at Scarsdale, September 11, 1816. While he was yet in infancy, his parents removed from Scarsdale to New Rochelle, and until his eighteenth year he was engaged in farming. At that time his poor health obliged him to give up the active work to which he had accus- toured himself, and he did not resume it again till he was thirty.

Mr. Carpenter's father then retired, and the whole working of the farm fell into his hands. For nearly forty years he has continued perseveringly at his labor, till at last, by dint of hard work and strict integrity, he has amassed a fortune. Since the place came into his possession he has added to it the Hav- iland property, containing seventy-seven acres of good farming land, with a saw-mill upon it, which he continues to operate at this time.

He married January 11, 1862, Miss Phila Jane Benedict at Scarsdale. There are no children. He is a member of the Society of Friends, and is a strong temperance advocate. In politics he was formerly a Whig, but is now a Republican. He lives at present in his newly-erected residence at New Rochelle, from which he continues to direct his large interests.

W. W. EVANS.

Walton White Evans of "Sans-Souci " near New Rochelle was born in 1817, at Sunderland, on the Raritan, N. J. He is descended from many of the leading colonial families of New York, New Jersey, Virginia and South Carolina. After spending, or as he says, wasting six of the most important years of his life in classic studies, he was invited by his old and much honored friend General Stephen Van Rensselaer, the patroon of Albauy, to come to the polytechnic

school the latter had founded at Troy. This suited his inclinations, as his tastes were for natural sciences and technical studies. Graduating from that school in 1836 and sharing the first honors with a friend, nephew of the patroon, he was again favored by Gen- eral Van Rensellacr, who as president of the canal board placed him in the engineer corps of the State canals, and so influenced and cared for his promotion that iu three months he was elevated to a position, that under ordinary circumstances, he would have spent two years of hard work in reaching. Remain- ing on the State canals (that severe school of hydrau- lic engineering) for seven years, and there getting disciplined to industrious habits and love for work he left that service, entered on railway engineering and was actively employed in railway construction for some years. In 1850 he went to Chili, South America, to take a leading part in directing the con- struction of the first railway ever built south of the equator, remaining there for most of the next ten years. He directed the construction of several pub- lic works, among which were two railways for English companies of London, returning to the United States

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

in 1860. He has during a quarter of a century de- voted most of his time to professional labors as con- sulting and advising engineer to government work in Cuba and Peru, and to other public works in the Argentine Republic, Mexico, Central America, Aus- tralia, New Zealand and Russia.

His zeal and energy have been devoted with much success to promoting American interests in foreign countries. In the early part of 1886 he was appointed on a commission with several English engineers to sit in London, and determine some engineering questions of great importance in connection with extensive aud costly bridges to be built in Australia, but was unable to accept the honor.

His aim has been to so elevate national character that Americans can with pride say when traveling, I am an American citizen, and find it all sufficient, as he says, he found it in Russia, as his trunks were never opened when he presented his passport and the officials saw the name of Wm. H. Seward on the docu- inent.

GEORGE FERGUSON.

The life of Mr. Ferguson strikingly illustrates the working out of a great principle, namely, that strict attention to business, accompanied by industrious habits, thorough integrity, and a true appreciation of the smaller matters of life, will give its result, just what it has given ns in his case-a sound financial success.

Mr. Ferguson was born December 15, 1831, at Esopus, Ulster County, N. Y., where his father, James Ferguson, was engaged in building. For a short period he enjoyed the privilege of the public school in his native place, and when the family re- moved to Fairfax Court House, Va., he attended · its local school. The circumstances of the family early compelled him to contribute his share toward the general support, which lic did by helping his father in the building trade.

At the age of ninctecn he was visiting with a friend at New Rochelle, N. Y .. when he was offered a position as clerk in the store of Samuel Underhill, and it is frou the small beginning thus obtained that he has succeeded in developing the extensive bnsi- ness interests which to-day command his attention.

For three years he remained with Mr. Underhill aud then was induced by Mr. Vanderburg, of the firm of Geo. E. Vanderburg & Co., wholesale notion dealers in New York City, to enter their establish- ment as a salesman.

But Mr. Underhill, trading in a small way behind his country counter, missed the active and energetic young clerk who had left him and finally, after two years had elapsed, offered him a partnership. Mr. Ferguson accepted the offer, and the firm began busi- ness in 1857, under the name of Underhill and Ferguson. The partnership expired by limitatiou in the spring of 1861. He then lcased a property

npon the Main Street, opposite the old store, and re- sumed business under the firm-name of Geo. Fergu- son & Co. After three years his partner retiring on account of ill health left Mr. Ferguson the sole pro- prietor.

He finally purchased the leased property, improved and enlarged his store, and continned the business alone till the spring of 1875, when he formed a part- nership with a friend doing business in New York City. A fire in a ueighboring building one night in the autumn of 1875, consumed his store and about seventy-five thousand dollars worth of property, but with characteristic promptness he hired a vacant store, set men cleaning and scrubbing, and by sun- rise the next moruing had a large sign posted up and his clerks ready, books in hand, to take orders for immediate delivery.

His prompt actiou at this time not only saved him much money but enabled him to hold his trade till he could replace the destroyed building by the elegant brick one, which is at present devoted, with the ex- ception of a public hall occupying a portiou of the second floor, to the purposes of his business. The property has a frontage of eighty-two feet on Main and one hundred and forty upon Centre Street, and is probably the largest establishment of its kind in Westchester County.

Ever since he started in business Mr. Ferguson has been gradually adding to his financial strength and is now in possession of a large amount of prop- erty in and about the village which has been the scene of his success.

He married, February 3, 1856, Miss Julia F. Hud- son, and has one son aud three daughters, two of whom are married. In politics he is a Republican, and has been since the organization of the party. Formerly he was village clerk and afterward was also town clerk of New Rochelle. At present he is a use- ful member of the board of education, for the duties of which office he continues to find time, even amid the press of private business.

JOSEPH B. BREWSTER.

Mr. Brewster is descended from Elder William Brewster, who came to this country with the Puritans in the "Mayflower." His father was the celebrated phy- sician, Dr. Elisha Brewster, who moved from Norwich, Conn., to White Plains, N. Y., early in the century. Dr. Brewster married Mary Burling, of a family fam- ous in the Revolutionary history of Westchester County, aud Joseph B. is the second of their nine children. He was sent at the age of thirteen to a boarding-school at Jamaica, Long Island, and among his earliest recollections is that of crossing the East River in a sail ferry-boat. After spending one year at school he was obliged by the death of his father to return to New York. He entered the hat-store of his cousin, Joseph Brewster, where he continued as a clerk for nearly ten years, when he engaged in the

701

PELHAM.

business on his own account at No. 57 Bowery, New York City.

Mr. Brewster remained in this pursuit for forty- three years, steadily maintaining the while an integ- rity and fixedness of purpose which formed the ground-work of his financial success. He was at one time a large property-holder in New York, and the spot upon which the Oriental Bank stands was for- merly in his possession. In 1869 he retired from business, having meanwhile purchased from Charles Van Benscoten the beautiful residence at New Ro- chelle which he now occupies.

Mr. Brewster is a director in the Westchester Fire Insurance Company. In politics he was formerly a Whig, but is now a stanch Republican. He was a member of the Lafayette Guards, and was with them at the reception of the distinguished French- man upon his second coming to this country, in 1824, when it was also his pleasure to shake the Marquis by the hand. He married Miss Sarah Ann Hutchinson, of Hugue- not descent, whose moth- er died in the ninety- third year of her age, at the residence of Mr. Brewster. Of their twelve children, five daughters and one son still survive. The son is a lieutenant in the Twenty-second Regi- ment N. G.S. N. Y., aud resides with his parents at New Rochelle.

previous to the year 1666 by Thomas Pell, and by him called Pelham, an old English name composed of Pel (remote) and Ham (mansion). By Governor Nichols it was granted and confirmed, in 1666, “ To Thomas Pell. Esq., of Fairfield in Connecticut, to- gether with the island adjacent and all its privileges," and erected into "an enfranchised township or manor " and secured to him and his heirs.

The Pells are of English origin aud a family of very old stauding in the counties of Norfolk and Lincolnshire. Thomas Pell, commonly known as Lord Pell, the first proprietor of this township, ap- pears to have been an adherent of the popular party in the great struggle bet- ween the Parliament and the crown, called the En- glish Revolution. Hav- ing been identified with the Puritans under the protectorship of Crom- well, after the restoration of the monarchy, in 1660, he fled from the ven- geance of the Royalists into France. He after- wards removed to Onck- away, or Fairfield, in Connecticut, and from thence came to Pelham, where he purchased of the Indians the right to the soil. After his death, which happened about 1680, the manorial pro- prietorship descended to John Pell, his nephew, son of the famous Dr. Pell, ambassador of Oli- . ver Cromwell to the Swiss Cantons.1 In 1691 the

JOSEPH B. BREWSTER.

Mr. Brewster is a Quaker of the Orthodox branch, and though he is now over eighty years of age, he is foremost iu every good word aud work.

CHAPTER XVII.

PELHAM.

BY REV. CHARLES E. LINDSLEY, D.D. Of New Rochelle.

PELHAM is situated to the southeast of New Ro- chelle. It has for its southeru boundary Long Island Sound. A small stream, called by the Indians the Aqueauouncke, and by the English Hutchinson's River, separates it from East Chester. It appears to have been purchased from the Indians some time

name of John Pell is found on the list of members returned by the sheriff to represent the county of Westchester, New York.2

The territory now within the limits of the town of Pelham was claimed both by the Dutch of New Am- sterdam and the colony of Connecticut. There can be no doubt that the Dutch were the first to discover and settle upon the island of Manhattan and the ter- ritory between the North and East Rivers. Both professed to have purchased their title from the Indi- ans. But we know what that meant in those days. The whites took what they wanted and paid the Indi- ans what they pleased. All transactions were with the chiefs, and the chiefs were not usually in a condi- tion, when the land was bought, to look out very carefully for their side of the bargain. So it hap-

" Vaughan's " Protectorate of Cromwell."

2 Smith's " Hist. of New York, " p. 72.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

pened that afterwards, when the Indians came to be dispossessed of all their favorite resorts upon the shore, and driven baek by the tide of white immigra- tion into the interior, and when they found, more- over, that they had received no just equivalent for their homes and hunting and fishing-grounds, there was trouble along the whole line. In all the Indian wars in which the aborigines were involved with the Puritans, the Duteli, and the Virginians, and which cost thousands of lives and an untold amount of suf- fering on both sides, it may fairly be doubted whether the Indians were in a single instance the aggressors. The Quakers of Pennsylvania, under William Penn, had no difficulty with them. The Indians in the British possessions of North America are and for almost a century have been peacefully disposed. But when Hendrick Hudson sailed in the " Half- Moon " up the river which bears his name, one of the very first acts of himself and erew was to make a wanton and unprovoked attaek with firearms upon the inoffensive natives, whom curiosity had brought down to the shore.

The general plan of our ancestors in those good old days, with regard to those whom they found in pos- session where they wanted to settle, was robbery and murder first; afterwards war, negotiation and then missionaries. This, too, with the exception of the missionaries, was the course pursued towards them by the redoubtable William Kieft, the Dutch Gov- ernor of New Amsterdam, about the year 1643. The Puritans in their treatment of the aborigines were often harsh and unjust. But they were men governed by certain religious ideas, and never did anything approaching in wanton wickedness the act of Kieft which led to the outbreak, in which Anne Hutehin- son lost her life, in Pelham in 1643.

In the year 1626 the munificent sum of twenty- four dollars had been originally paid to the Indians for the whole of New York Island-(twenty-two thousand acres) ; paid too, in "beads and trinkets," ou which, very likely, there was a large profit to the buyers. No doubt the Indians ought to have been satisfied ; but, strange to say, when they were erowded out, not only from the island, but from Staten Island, Long Island and the shores of the bay, the Hudson River and the Sound by the new settlers, they took it to heart in a way for which neither beads nor trinkets proved a solid con- solation. Henee came troubles and difficulties which, through the insane course of Governor Kieft, culmi- nated in his ordering a general attack to be made upon the neighboring tribes, at the very time when their distress and dissatisfaction had reached the highest point. Not only had the Dutch traders sold whiskey to the Indians in abundance, but firearms and ammunition as well.

In the middle of the winter, when the river (Hud- son) was full of iee, and the savages were collected in their winter eamps, a war-party from the powerful Mohawks at the north came sweeping down upon

them, armed with the guns the Dutch had furnished, and drove before them far greater numbers-whole settlements indeed-of the Algonquins. This was the opportunity chosen by Kieft, to cross the river with his Dutch soldiers from Fort Amsterdam, make an attaek upon the defenseless savages, peacefully sleep- ing in their wigwams, "just at midnight, the winter's night being eold and still." "Eighty Indians were killed at Pavonia, Hoboken, and forty at Corlaer's Hook that night, with horrible barbarities that might have given the savages themselves a lesson in the art of torture." The consequence was, that "all about the lower river and the bay, and on Long Island, the Algonquin people rose furiously against the whites." The terrors of an Indian war broke forth with a sud- denness which appalled the colonists, and every swamp and wood from the country of the Haeken- saeks, New Jersey, to the Connecticut seemed all at onee to be swarming with hostile savages. The out- lying "bouweries" and plantations were laid waste, their men killed and their women and children made prisoners. After this there was a brief respite, from March until midsummer. But the war broke out again in August with renewed fiereeness among the tribes above the Hudson Highlands. By Septem- ber the conflict was raging with full force. In the south a band of savages fell upon the quiet home of Anne Hutchinson, at Anne's Hoeek, Pelham Neek, and she, her son-in-law Collins, her son Franeis and all the other members of her family, with one exeep- tion, were killed.

The youngest daughter, a little girl, was carried into captivity and lived for four years among the Indians. The sad fate of this woman has tinged with romance her whole history. She was not so bad as her enemies have painted her, nor was she, on the other hand, the mild and blameless saint, some recent historians have imagined. But she was a religious enthusiast ; a female theological polemie, armed with a tongue and a temper which made her no unequal mateh even for the stern and unyielding fathers of New England. In fact, the controversies which she raised, engendered such divisions among them as to threaten the safety of both church and State. Where- fore, by a decree of the General Court, she was ban- ished from the colony. She went to Connecticut, and afterwards to New York, where we find her in the summer of 1642, permission having been given to her by the Dutch authorities to settle at Pelham, in connection with other English families. Her portrait is thus drawn by an impartial historian. "She was a woman of superior intelligence, bright, witty, good at a fencing match of tongues, versed in Seripture and theological literature; never so happy as when descanting on her own views. Her temper was resolute; she ruled her weak husband, and had a taste for ruling: To be an influential centre of opinion was her ambition, which she took no trouble to conceal. She elaimed to be "inspired," and that

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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 175

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