History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 179

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 179

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" In his last sickness the young man was most kindly attended hy Dr. Rogers, through whose influence or advico hic hequcathed the sum of twelve hundred dollars, appropriated to the erection of a town house, 'for the use and convenience' of the people of New Rochelle. With the recognition of this gift the townspeople of our time generally asso- ciate the name of the owner of the Island llome; it is, however, the East India yonth's memorial.

"Henderson's Island, hcautiful for situation, distinguished by its homestead, so greatly enriched by the best of home librarics iu Pelham, became well known as llunter's Island, more distinguished than ever by its new palatial mansion, with the hest private art gallery in the United States. The propriety of this characterization by the use of the superlative degree was, probably, undisputed by any rival during the first two decades of this century. We may safely say that no one of the earlier generations of the Pells, or of the Huguenots, however aspiring, would have dreamed of such a possibility for a family home within the bounds of the manorial grant so recently chartered by an English king in tronblons times, and then so thoroughly impoverished hy the Rev- olutionary War. Under what conditions could it have seemed possible that some of the choicest treasures of ancient Italian galleries could be transferred to a secluded little island, fifteen miles from the city of New York, the purchase of a young American ?

"The explanation, as received from Mr. Hunter personally, was this : At the the time of his graduating from Columbia College, twenty- one years of age, it so happened that he came into full possession of his property. A friend and fellow-student, traveling in Enrope while Napoleon was campaigning in Italy, wrote earnestly, reminding him that, on account of insecurity, art treasures were offered for sale at great sacrifice, and that an opportunity to indulge cherished tastes had now arrived, the liko of which had not been known before and might never come again. 'My answer was prompt,' said Mr. Hunter, 'availing myself of his service, with faith in his judgment and dis- cretion.'

" llere, at this point of writing, I have arrested muy peu in order to read aloud to a friendly caller what, as it happens, I have just now written, and have thus drawn forth this critical questioning : Surely, the Italian art dealers must have seen their opportunity in negotiating with a young commissioned American, and might have been quite equal to the occasion. Ilow have the claims of these choice treasures been verified ? llowever fair and apt that questioning may be, suffice it here for me to say that it is not within the scope of my purpose to deter- mine the origin of the pictures, and that with a youth's faith in the keen insight and critical judgment of so highly educated an amateur as the

Hon. John Hunter, it was my fortnne to realize, amid our surroundings in the gallery, all possible delight and mental quickcning, limited only hy the measure of receptivity. Outside of the family circle, Mr. Hunter, who, in his spirit and style of manners, represented a high ideal of the typal gentleman, the courteous and accomplished State Senator, re- appears to the cye of memory as the first personality that I can recall as associated with my carly life in Pelham. Ere long, after the death of his son, Des Brosses Hunter, Esq., the gallery was sold, the island passed into other ownership ; yet, whatsoever may be its fortunes in the future, its relations to old Pelham and New Rochelle as a source of intellectual and æsthetic culture to several suggestive generations will hrighten the record of its past and render its name a cherished memory in the annals of local history.1

"The mention of these names pertaining to the island's history, in connection with that of the manor and town, carries us hack in thought to the Anglo-French life of old Pelham, as pictured out sixty or more years ago in our family talks, and illumined now hy onr memories of those who represented the remoter past. Fortunately for us our dear grandparents, uncles and aunts were lovingly communicative, rehears- ing to us of the third generation the local annals of the manor and the familiar facts of the revolutionary era ; little episodes as lively as any that Fenimore Cooper has woven into his romance of the 'Spy.' These incidental stories of the home life that followed the establislı- ment of Independence and the 'Union' were equally winning, making us acquainted with our kindred and neighbors, with our parents, as- sociates in their early days throughout rural and snhurhan surround- ings.

" Prominent among these was Dr. Richard Bayley, the only brother of my grandfather, whose mother was a Huguenot, nee Susanne Leconte, and whosc eminently distinguished danghter, Eliza Ann Bayley Seton, has been historically recognized as the presiding genius of the Roman Catholic academic institute at Emmetsburg, Md., and the fonnder of the order of the Sisters of Charity in the United States. Dr. Bayley, him- self, a favorite student of the celebrated Hunter, of London, the first professor in the medical department of Columbia College, an accepted authority as a professional writer in England and France,2 though living within an environment of churchly influences at home, acknowledged no connection with any ecclesiastical organism. Hence, the position of his accomplished daughter, hiographically commemorated as ' Mother Seton,' the gifted educator, as well as the founder, of the most eminent sisterhood (and we may add here, parenthetically, the more recent posi- tions of his grandson, James Roosevelt Bayley, as having been, at first, rector of the Episcopal Church, at Harlem, and then, at last, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, Primate of America) seems the more particularly noteworthy. In a widening circle of relationships thus made up there could be evidently no lack of conversational topics adapted to keep us all mentally alive and wide-awake to note the driftings of thought throughout the whole community, so recently set free from the regime of a colonial church establishment, whose ideal ain had heen, of course, the legal maintenance of religious uniformity.

"Touching the first of the ecclesiastical transmutations here men- tioned, profoundly kad, indeed, was the tone of amazement discernible in the exclamation of Mrs. Seton's elder sister, Mrs. Dr. Wright Post, of Throgg's Neck, addressed to my mother and by her repeated to me regarding the talented Ann Eliza, 'She has gone over to the church that persecuted her ancestors.' As we now look hack over the seven decades that have gone by since that day, we may safely say that no change of ecclesiastical relations on the part of an individual has stirred 'so- ciety' at the time with questions so keenly conducting or has been ef- fective of influences more widely felt in the homes of the country.

" To many, even personal friends, the change seemed inexplicable; a mystery, a fact untraceable to any adequate cause. Numerous and ear- nest were the questionings as to what influences had heen secretly work- ing at the starting-point of this new career. By some, especially those who had heen associated with her from childhood in the communion of ' dear old Trinity,' the explanation was found in the sensibility of her

1 When first penning the closing lines of this paragraph, the writer supposed that there was still occasion in allnding to the designa- tion of the island, to use the phrase, its former name. Since then we have welcomed the intelligence that since the estate has passed into the hands of Mr. C. Oliver Iselin, the old familiar name, "Hunter's Island," whereby our sires and grandsires knew the place, has been restored and chiselled upon the granite pillars of the causeway, -a work of good taste in which we all have a common interest.

2 Thacher's " Medical Biography," Art. Bayley.

713

PELHAM.

emotivo nature, under the stress of sorrow, to loving appeals during her stay in Italy, whore, in the your 1804, her honored hnsband, William Seton, Esq., died after a lingering illness, and where her depressed spirit found relief in the ministrations of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in the hospitable home of the noble-souled Felichi. The truth is, how- ever, that the trond of her steps toward the Roman Catholic Church, strengthened by her asthetic tastes, was noticed in her earlier days before sho had left her nativo land ; and after her return from Italy to Now York she was still a communicant of Trinity Church, for weeks, as she said, 'in an agony of suspense,' engaged in discussions, oral and written, with the Rov. John Henry Hobart, then rector of Trinity, af- terward Bishop of the Diocese of New York, and Archbishop Carroll, of Baltimore, in regard to the main principlos of Protestantism. At that earlier poriod, her consin, Ann Bayley, of Pelham, only eight years younger than herself, was living in the environment of the same relig- ions atmosphere, keenly sympathetic, constantly interchanging senti- ments as well as visits.

" The leading idea that then engaged the thoughts of those two cous- ins pertained not so much to the emotive nature as to the intellectual ; for a main subject of discussion emphasized in the chief pulpits of New York ut that day, was the relation of the sacraments to personal salva- tion. At that point the life course of tho two cousins diverged. The affirmation, sometimes eloquontly argued, that the sacraments, adminis- tered through a regular priestly succession, are the divinely appointed channels through which saving grace flows forth from the fountain of lifo into the human soul, took the strongest possible hold upon the spirit nature of the elder consin, calling forth, even then, painful doubts over a suggested question, namely this: 'As the Anglican church recognizes the perfect validity of the Roman Catholic sacraments, while on the other hand, tho ohler Roman church has never recognized the validity of the Anglican administration, am I not required, by a proper regard for my own soul's peace and safety, to place myself upon the ground that re mains to both sides undisputed ?' Strange as it may seem to many that her early faith should have faltered before such a question, from that starting point of thought she advanced in due time, after her return from Italy, through 'an agony of suspense' to the positions taken in her printed correspondenco with Bishop Hobart and the Primate of Balti- more. At the same time her younger cousin, then residing at the pater- mał homo in Pelham, equally interested in the new inquiry, as to them it seemed, having been attracted as a listener to tho teachings of the emi- nent preacher of tho Presbyterian Church in Murray Strect, Rev. Dr. lohn Mitchell Mason, who occasionally delivered a discourse in New Rochello, she embraced, with a responsive spirit, the formulated state- ment of pure protestantism, 'justification by faith alone,' so eloquently put forth by him as ' the truo spirit union with Christ, embracing within it character und condition.' Thenceforward her favorite characteriza- tion of Christianity was ' the religion of the New Testament,' emphasi- zing thins, as she thought, by this short phrase, the two distinguishing qualities of the primitivo church teachings, simplicity and catholicity.1

"It is a curiously suggestive study, this tracing of mental histories. From the same starting-points of intellectual, emotive, or spiritual devel- opment, even of congenial minds, how strangely far apart the issnes ! Some timo before her departure for Italy, the elder cousin visited her younger, sisterly cousin at I'elham ; at the moment of taking leave, bid. ding hier good-bye while presenting ber an article of skilfully wrought needle-work as a love tokon, she kissed her and said, 'I hope we will meet in heaven.' They never met on earth again. Both lived, however, to an advanced age. The elder, having wept for the last time over the grave of her husband in Italy,-the English burial ground at Pisa, -and having returned to New York, welcomed ere long, the comparative seclu- sion of a conventual life in Maryland ; the younger, having been joined in marriage, by Rev. Theodosius Bartow, rector of New Rochelle, at her father's house in Pelham, to Captain James llague, commander of a ship in the East India trade, lived happily, the life of her family circle, until nearly 'fourscore years' of age ; and then, after fourteen years of wid- owhood, died at the house of her only daughter, Mrs. Dr. Alexander W. Rogers, Patterson, New Jersey, amid the benedictions of her children, who, in accordance with the old scripture's voicing of filial love, 'rise up and call her blessed.'

" The contrasted issues of two lives thus realized hy two friends of Huguenot descont imparts significance to a saying noted at Paris in a

tourist's journal, that the trend of the French nature is toward intellect- ual freedom, and that where there is French blood it will assert itself in individuality of character, tempered and toned by inherited tastes and manners into social and civil concord. Tho fortunes of Pelhamu and New Rochelle illustrate this view. In this connection it seems a noteworthy fact that the English monarch who gave to Pelham its first manorial charter, was himself the sole, self-determined donor of the charter of Rhodo Island to Roger Williams, openly declaring the reason of lis ac- tion to be his sovereign will to 'exporiment whether civil government could consist with such liberty of conscionce.' It may seem strange that a notably careless, pleasure-loving king, like Charles II., should riso to the height of the grandly exceptional opportunity presented to him as a means of solving a great problem for the world through all time. The thought has beon naturally suggested that ho had no higher aim than a provision for unlimited freedom of the Roman Catholics. In that com- bination of events, however, the founder of Rhode Island recognized a divine ruling or overruling, when he said, ' the father of spirits has im- pressed his royal spirit,' and added, iu his letter to Major Mason, 'this, his majesty's grant, was startled at by his majesty's high officers of stato, who wero to view it in course before the sealing, but fearing the lion's roaring, they couched against their wills in obedience to his majesty's pleasure.' Major Mason's Letter Mass. Ilist. Coll. vol. i., 3 note. Ax here we repeat this marvellous testimony, we are tempted to wish that the experiment king who gave to Pelham, as well as to Rhode Island, a charter of self-government, could have lived long enough to hear from the whole area of the old manor, after embracing within its limits the town of New Rochelle, the experimental response of a thriving popula - tion with all its diversities of age, taste and traditions, a live civil unity ; their homes all vocal with the ancient song of the Ilebrews, ' tho border- lines have falleu to us in pleasant places ; we have a goodly heritage.'

"In his retrospective monograph, I have had occasion to refer by name to women of the Hugenot family. Now last of all, our thoughts are drawn to a late suggestive event in the annals of New Rochelle, attract- ing the attention of the nation at large to ono funeral scene : namely, the death of a lady in whose veins flowed the blood of an Anglican and a French ancostry.

" The quiet departure of Mrs. Caroline Leroy Wobster, on Sunday, February 26th, at the Leroy Mansion, was announced generally by the press, and awakened many slumbering memories of her life, associated with New York, Boston and Washington, as well as with Pelham and New Rochelle. Born at the house of her father, Jacob Leroy, Esq., New York, 1797, a considerable proportion of her early remembrances were associated with scenes of rural lifo pertaining both to the manor and the town.

" Mr. Webster having met Miss Leroy at her city residence, recognized at once the rare qualities of her intellectual culture, her graceful man- ners, her conversational gifts and her queenly power as a leader of so- ciety. In the year 1829 she became his second wifo, and in tho more extonded sphere of social and public life that she thus entered was, from first to last, perfectly at home.

"The storm that raged on Wednesday, March Ist, was at its height when the funeral service was ministored in Trinity Church, New Ro- chelle, by the rector, Rev. Mr. Canedy and Rev. Mr. Higgins, rector of Christ Church, Pelham, and as the attendance of ladies was nocessarily limited, the large gathering of gentlemen, from homes far and near, was remarkable, indicating the profoundly cherished memories relating to the career of the great statesman, the completed close of whose home- life on earth seemed as if now emphasized by the funeral dirge within the temple and the majestic voice of the tempest without.

" Not long after the death of Mr. Webster, as we well remember, one hundred citizens of Boston contributed one thousand dollars each to a fund of ono hundred thousand dollars, which was invested for Mrs. Webster's benefit, and the interest of this she duly received at her home in New Rochelle, a timoly and welcome contribution to the cheer of her tranquil life evening.

" Thus it may be truly said that the men of Boston, in our own time, have given back a fitting response to the munificence of a Huguenot native of New Rochelle, expressed in the gift of Faneuil Ilall to their honored city moro than a century and a quarter ago, exemplifying the perfect fusion of Anglican and French elements into a vital nnity, to endure throughout centuries to come.

MAagua

I Dr. Mason's physiquo, his figure and manner, were majestic and cont- manding. Ou one occasion, after listening to him at New Rochelle, Hon. John llunter said to my mother, " That man was born to command, not to persuade ; he has mistaken his calling ; he ought to have been a ma- jor-general in the United States Army."

714

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

BIOGRAPHY.

JAMES HYATT.

Mr. James Hyatt, former supervisor of the town of Pelham, was a son of James H. Hyatt, who married Eliza Balcom, and resided in New York City. He was born there December 1, 1830, and was educated in the district school, which he left at the age of fifteen to engage in the buteher business.

He first entered as a elerk the shop of James Kent, in Tompkins' Market, at the corner of Sixth Street and the Bowery, New York. Here he remained dur- ing four years, at the expiration of which he removed to Mott Haven, and was engaged in the business with his unele there for five years. He then left Mott Haven for the town of Westchester, and en- tered the butcher store of William Cooper, which he left after five years to open a market for him- self in the same town.

One year afterward he removed the eoneern to City Island, where he still remains.

He is well known throughout Westchester, espe- cially in its political life. Hc is an earnest Demoerat and has held several politieal positions, both elective and by appointment. In 1863 he was appointed board elerk of the town of Pelham, and one year later was elected to the position, being re-elected to it for seven terms. In 1873 he was elected supervisor and re-elected to the office elcven times successively. He was also town constable for one year, and at one time was collector of school taxes.

Mr. Hyatt's consistent politieal life, and his earnest advocaey of correct principles in the government of his town and county, entitle him to the respect and cstccm of the citizens of Westchester, wherever found.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHITE PLAINS.

BY JOSIAH S. MITCHELL.

WHITE PLAINS, the shire-town of Westchester County, was described in an act of the Legislature of the State of New York, passed in 1788,1 as " All that part of the county of Westehester bounded casterly by Mamaroneck River, northerly by North Castle, westerly by Bronx River and southerly by the town of Scarsdale," and by this act was ereeted into a town, containing four thousand four hundred and thirty-five aeres.

As late as the year 1683 this territory was still in the possession of its aboriginal owners. The chiefs were sachems of the Weckquaskech tribe, a portion of the powerful Mohican nation, whose territory lay between the Connecticut River and the Hudson, the

Weekquaskeeh family occupying the more limited region between the Byram River and the Hudson. No woodman's axe had yet invaded the quietude of its forests ; but amid the leafy hedges, and beneath the sheltering branches of overhanging trees, the tawny savage and his tawny mate, rearing their black-eyed little ones in the primitive simplicity of their remotest ancestors, remaincd the sole human inhabitants of the soil.

But now the hum of civilization is beginning to be heard on their borders. The irrepressible and irre- sistible New Englander, advancing with rapid strides, having in 1666 settled Rye as far as the Mamaroneck River, in 1683 purchased the better country lying between that river and the Bronx, and ealled by the natives, Quarroppas,-by the settlers the White Plains,-the deed of which to the people of Rye is as follows :

"To all Christian peopell to hom these presence shall com greting " Know yee that we Shapliam, Cockenseco, Orewapum, Kewetoahan, " Koawanoh Paatck Shiphatlash, Korehevnvous, panawok, niemishott, " pesekanoh, oromahgah, patthunk, hohoreis, sotonge, wonawaking, " owhorawas nosband have for a valuabell sum of money to us in hand " paid by the town of Rye that are inhabitance bargained covinanted, "ailnated and soulld nnto the Inhabitance of the above said town of " Ry, A sartain tract of land Lying within the town bounds of Rye " Bonded as followeth on the north east with Mamarineck River, and " on the Southwest with a branch of the said River and marked trees " till it comes to brunckes River and then to Runn by Branches River " till it Comes to the head of the whit plaines soe called, and by the "marked trees from theuce till it comes to the upperuiost branch of " marinneck River, which trackt of Land commonly called by the Eng- " lish the whit plaines and called by the Indians Quaroppas which said " tract of Land wce the above said shapham, Cockincecko, orewapuin, " kewetoahan, koawanoli, moahalice and the Rest of the above said " indians have soulled as above said unto the Inhabitance of the said " town of Rye them theire heires execatars administrators or asignes for " ever and Doe hereby bind ourselves our heires Exectars Administratars " and assigns unto the Inhabitance of the above said town of Rye them " theire heires Execatars administratars or asignes that they may at " all times from and after the date hereof peasably and quieatly poses " occupy and enjoy the above said tract of land free from all former " bargaines salles morgages or other incombrances whatso ever and " all soe to warrant and make good the above said salle agaiust any par- " son or parsons whatso ever that shall or will make or lay any claime or

" claimes theare unto and In teastimony thearcof wee have caused " this bill of salle to be made and here unto hane sett our hands and " sealles this two and twentieth of November one thousand six hundred " Eighty three.

" Scaled, signed and delivered in the presents of us "

" Corneilass the marke of

" his marke Shapham

" Joshua Knapp

Cokenseko

Orowapam

" Motepeatelion

Koawanolı

" Jolın Odell

Moahpoatch

" his marke

Patthunk

Hohornis

Sotonge

owhorawas

oramapuah."

" This bill of salle is acknowledged by the granters to be their ackt " and deed before me in Rye the day and yere abone written.

" JOSEPH HORTON

" Commissioneer."

This purchase was immediately followed by the actual occupation of the newly-acquired territory, though not without opposition ; for the Rye people were met by the claims of John Richbell, who, in

1 Greenleaf's Laws, vol. ii. p. 153.

" the marke of

Kewetoham

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WHITE PLAINS.

1660, had purchased from an Indian three necks of land lying between Stony Brook and Mamaroneck River. Richbell's purchase had been confirmed by the Dutch government of New Amsterdam in 1662, and subsequently, in 1668, together " with the land lying north twenty miles into the woods," by the government of New York, so far as the lands were included in the province of New York. Hence his- torians generally have regarded the Rye people as mere squatters, without right or title to the soil of the White Plains, and indebted, finally, to the kindness of Colonel Caleb Heathcote, the grantee of the Rich- bell title, for undisturbed possession of this goodly territory. If we pause here to make a careful exam- ination of the grounds upon which the respective claims to these lands by the rival purchasers, and by New Amsterdam and New England, were based, we shall find that this commonly accepted idea is erroneous.

The Pilgrims, although in exile, counted them- selves Englishmen, and were ever ready to maintain at any sacrifice the clainis of the mother country, based upon the undisputed discovery of the coast of North America, from the Chesapeake Bay to Nova Scotia, in 1497, by the Cabots, sailing under the British flag; no actual occupation of the land was accomplished, however, notwithstanding many at- tempts were made, until the bold and enterprising spirit of Sir Walter Raleigh established the Virginia colony in 1607.

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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 179

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