History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 151

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898,
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1286

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. II > Part 151

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649

RYE.

as " The Old Town." The road leading to the beach was aneiently known as " ye highway that goeth to ye Old Town Plat."

One of the first buildings ereeted on the highway was the mill, which stood at the head of the ereek or at the mouth of Blind Brook, on the opposite side of Peningo Neek, and within half a mile of the beaeli. John Bndd was the proprietor. The spot where the mill stood, on the west side of Blind Brook Creek, on the south side of the bridge, over which the cross- road from Milton to the post road passes, is still pointed out. Traces of the mill were to be seen within the memory of persons now living, and part of the dam still remains and forms the road-bed.

By the year 1665, therefore, two infant settlements had sprung np within "the bonnds of Hastings,"- one on the island, the other on the shore of Peningo Neck, stretehing aeross to Blind Brook. The latter had already begun to be known by the name of Rye, given presumably in honor of Thomas and Hachaliah Browne. They were the sons of Mr. Thomas Browne, a gentleman of good family from Rye, in Sussex County, Eng- land, who settled at Cambridge, Mass., in 1632. It is worthy of note that the names of two neigliboring seaports on the English coast, Rye and Hastings, should have been bestowed upon the Peningo settle- ment.

On the 11th of May, 1665, the General Court of Connecticut passed an act merging these settlements under the name which the town has borne ever sinee. The aet is as fol- lows:

" It is ordered that the Villages of Hastings and Rye shall be for the future conioy ned and make one Plantation, and that it shall be called by the appellation of Rye."

At the following session of the General Court Mr. Lawes and Lieutenant Richard Olmsted were ap- pointed to view the lands appertaining to Hastings and Rye, "to see what there is that may be sutable for a plantation and to make returne to the Conrt at the next session." There is no record of any such "returne," but it was probably favorable, for Rye was now enrolled as a town, bearing its portion of the public charge.

Within the next five or six years the village on Mannssing Island became extinet. The location on the mainland was more favorable, and the settlers, with a single exception, removed to Rye. Philip Galpin alone objected to this change. He did not wish to leave the island and felt sorely aggrieved that his neighbors should do so. He accordingly petitioned the General Conrt at Hartford that they be restrained from departing. On the 11th of May,

1671, the magistrates decided that Galpin was not "oppressed " by the removal, as alleged, and advised him to comply with his neighbors and remove witlı them. A few planters besides Galpin remained, not- withstanding the general migration. As late as the year 1720 the island had a population sufficiently large to claim the right to ereet a pound. The Coes, Sherwoods and Vowles were the principal owners in 1707, and about the middle of the same eentury the families of Fowler, Carpenter, Dusenberry and Haviland appear as the owners.

The new town-plot lay at the npper end of the Neek, along the eastern bank of Blind Brook. The present Milton road was the village street, on either side of which the home-lots of the settlers were laid out. The Field Fenee was the northern bonndary of the vil- lage. This inelosure began where Graee Church Street now begins and stretehed aeross the Neck from Blind Brook to the late residenee of Mr. James H. Titns.

Del

RYE, IN SUSSEX COUNTY, ENGLAND.

Somewhere, probably in the neighborhood of the spot where the distriet sehool-house long stood, north of the Episcopal Church, was the Field Gate. The home-lots, which commenced here, were gener- ally of two or three acres each. Some are repre- sented as to size and position by the grounds of Messrs. Bell, Ennis, Budd and others, near the Episcopal Chureli. They extended down the street as far as the road leading to the beach. The lots on the west side ran across to Blind Brook ; those on the east side reached baek to the "town-field." The town field was the traet in the rear of the home-lots on the east side of the Milton road. It comprised the whole space between Graee Church Street on the north and Milton on the south. This area is now covered by the lands of Messrs. Greacen, Anderson, Downing and others. Here was the common pasture- ground of the early inhabitants. Some of the set- tlers, however, had their meadow lots within this traet ; and in after-years the whole of the town-field

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

was by degrees apportioned among the proprietors till nothing remained of the " commons." A part of the town-plot was known in early times as "The Plains." This name belonged to the level grounds bordering on Blind Brook, at the upper end of the village, and extending from the present stone bridge to the neighborhood of the railway station. It is not unlikely that this tract may have been originally cleared and improved by the Indians, thus offering a favorable spot for the site of a new plantation. The home-lots on The Plains appear to have been held as the choicest part of the village grounds. They fronted on the street, or Milton road, and baek to the brook, the post road, which now passes through the village, not having been opened as yet.

. The houses ereeted were not mere temporary structures, as on Manussing Island, but solid build- ings of wood or stone, some of which have lasted until our own day. They were long, narrow structures, entered from the side, and stood with gable end close upon the road and huge chimney projecting at the rear. Each dwelling generally contained two rooms on the ground floor-a kitchen and a " best room"- with sleeping apartments in the loft.

From the town records and a few remaining ves- tiges of oldlen tine we are enabled to form some idea of the village as it was constituted two centuries ago. The mill stood a little way back from the lower end of the street. John Budd was now dead, but his son- in-law, Lieutenant Joseph Horton, was the proprietor. llis house stood near by the mill. In the same vicin- ity were the houses of George Lane, Jacob Pearce, Robert Bloomer and others. Higher up the street, on the left hand, along the bank of the brook or creek, lived William Odell, John Ogden, Jonathan Vowles, John Budd, Jr., and George Kniffin. Traees of some of these houses have been seen by persons still living. On the corner of the road leading to the beach was the house of Timothy Knap. Beyond, on a knoll di- rectly south of the residence of Mrs. Edward P. Cowles, stood the homestead of the Purdy family. The late residenee of Hachaliah Brown, now owned by the estate of C. V. Anderson, occupies, it is believed, the spot where his ancestor, of the same name, settled. Opposite the Episcopal Church, on the site of the old house now owned by Mr. Daniel Budd, was the dwell- ing of John Boyd. The church itself stands on the southeast corner of " Mr. Collier's lot." The old stone tavern, removed some fourteen or fifteen years ago, and known as "Van Sicklen's," was undoubtedly built at a very early day. It is thought to have been for a time the home of Peter Disbrow. Here Mr. Isaac Denham, son of the first minister of Rye, lived afterwards.

For several years the settlers did not venture into the wilderness beyond the Field Fence. In the course of time a few houses were built a little way beyond this boundary. Where the Penfield House, as it was for- merly called (owned lately by Mr. D. H. Mead), stands

now, Peter Brown, a son of the first Hachaliah Brown, lived. On the opposite corner, and where the Roman Catholic Church now stands, was "George Lane's old house-lot." Above this, in the block bounded by the post road and Purchase Street, were the home-lots of John Banks, John Brondige, Joseph Purdy and others. Nearly opposite Park Institute stood the homestead of Thomas Merritt, Sr., mentioned as early as 1688. The parsonage, or minister's house, occupied the southeast corner of the "parsonage lot," a tract of land including between three or four aeres, on Blind Brook, south of the house owned by the family of the late David H. Mead. Here resided Mr. Thomas Denham at the time of which we speak. There was no meeting-house, and the little congregation met in private dwellings, notably in that of Timothy Knap, to whom the town awarded forty shillings in 1682, "for the liberty of his house to meet in, and for beating of the drum for the time past."

Serious differences as to the tenure of lands appear to have arisen among the people of Rye at an early day. In the act by which the town was constituted, May 11, 1665, it is stated that "Mr. Gold, Mr. Lawes and John Banks, or any two of them, are desired and appointed to take paines to goe down to settle and issue such differences as may be disturbeing to ye in- habitants of those Villages of Hastings and Rye." The differences, however, continued unhealed, and, in 1668, the inhabitants of Rye and one Richard Bullard . petitioned the General Court to interpose. On the 8th of October the court appointed Lieutenant Rich- ard Olmsted, Thomas Fitch and John Holly to go to Rye speedily and endeavor to compose the differences "respecting land or other matters." The dispute arose from the fact that the title to the lands in Budd's Neck was held by John Budd, who assumed the right to settle people upon them " Extreamely prejuditiall to the towne, without the towne's appro- bation," to quote the language of the petition. The petitioners therefore prayed that the neck of the land be delivered to the town upon payment to Budd "by Indian purchases, with interest, he abating for what land he hath sold if not prejuditiall to the towne." The signers of the petition were Peter Disbrow, Rich- ard Vowles, Timothy Knapp, William Woodhull, Jolin Broudig, Thomas Browne, Robert Bloomer. Stephen Sherwood, George Lane. The effort to " com- pose " the differences, made by the appointment of a committee on the part of the General Court, was evi- dently a failure ; for, in May, 1671, a larger committee (Captain Nathan Gold, Mr. Thomas Fitch, Mr. Holly, Lieutenant Richard Olmstead and Mr. John Barr) was appointed for the same purpose and also to secure a minister to settle among the people of Rye. This mission also seems to have been without result ; for, on the 14th of October, 1672, the court "order that Mr. Bird ( Budd) and those of Rye that have impro- priated the lands of Rye to themselves, shall appeare at the Generall Court in May next, to make appeare

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RYE.

their right, for then the Court intends to setle those lands according to righteousness, that so a plantation may be encouraged, and plantation worke may go for- ward to better sattisfaction than formerly." The per- son thus summoned to Hartford was John Budd, Jr., his father having died in 1670. What was done in his case does not appear from the records, but, at any rate, he was left in undisturbed possession of his lands. Budd's Neck was incorporated into the town of Rye, while the claims of Mr. Budd as proprietor were al- lowed. There is no evidence that a distinct patent for the traet was obtained from Connecticut; and it was not until the year 1720 that Joseph Budd, grand- son of the first purchaser, obtained a patent for his lands from the government of the province of New York.

After the settlement of the dispute concerning Budd's Neck, the jurisdiction of the town appears to have been unques- tioned. Local officers were some- times appointed specifically for thic " east side of Blind Brook " and the " west side."

Early in July, 1675, the settlers at Ryc received intelligence of the Indian outbreak that marked the commencement of the bloody con- flict known as "King Philip's War.' It reached them by a letter from the Governor and Council of the colony, which was read at a meeting called by Joseph Horton, Thomas Browne and John Brondig. Rye was too far removed from the scene of con- flict to be in immediate danger, but great alarm no doubt was felt. The fidelity of the neighboring tribes was doubted, and it was deeined pru- dent to provide against attack from that quarter. Accordingly, on the 5th of March, 1676, Thomas Lyon and Thomas Browne were appointed in town-meeting to choose a house or place to be forti- fied for the safety of the town. It was also resolved that the young men who should come into the fortifi- cation, and remained during the troubles, were to have an equal proportion of the undivided lands, " pro- vided they be such as the town approve." The " for- tified place " was undoubtedly the old stone house known as "Van Sicklin's," which has only disap- peared in recent years. As the Indians of the neigh- borhood did not rise, the townsmen had no occasion to use it for purposes of defense. It was torn down in 1868, the Methodist Episcopal congregation having bought the place for a parsonage. An inner wall was discovered, which had evidently been constructed for defensive purposes. The house itself was a curious specimen of the substantial structures of the olden time. The walls were hollow and of great thickness. The beams supporting the floors measured cight

inches squarc. All the wood used was oak, hewn with the axe; the rafters were "tenoned into plate," without the use of nails, and the timber supporting the mantel in cach of the two rooms on the ground floor was twelve feet and a half long and fourteen by nineteen inches thick. The old fort stood directly south of the present Methodist parsonage, and consid- erably nearer to the road. It measured twenty-four feet in width and forty in length. The main entrance in olden times was at the south side.

Alarm from another quarter was caused, in July, 1673, by the appearance of a fleet of twelve Dutch vessels in New York Bay. England was then at war with Holland, and it was feared the Dutch would at- tempt to recapture their North American possessions. They actually took New York and occupied the greater portion of the colony. Connecticut prepared

HOSIER :CL

THE OLD FORT, RYE.

for war and Rye, as a border town, became a point of excitement and danger. On account of its proximity to the enemy, it was expressly excused from the re- quirement to raise men and arms. The adjoining town, Mamaroneck, submitted to the Dutch. The people of Rye remained firm. One of their leading men, Mr. John Banks, took a prominent part in the events which followed, being selected by the General Court as a messenger to the Dutch commander at New York. In December Rye uuited with Stamford and Greenwich in petitioning the General Court in Boston for help. The war-cloud was finally dispelled by the news of peace between England and the United Provinces, only to reappear again in 1690, when the French, having declared war against Eng- land, attempted to conquer the province of New York.

Among the Connectient volunteers who took part on the English side, were some from Rye. In a " list of soldiers for ye Expedition of Albany," who left

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Fort William on the 2d of April, 1689, occur the names of Jacob Pearce, Richard Walters, Jonas Stevens and John Bassett, all "of Ryc, " together with others that are not so designated, but are recog- nizable as persons from this town : John Boyd, Philip Travis, Philip Galpin.

For the first twenty years, 1660-80, the settlers Reem to have confined themselves to Peningo Neck, although the treaties with the Indians had secured to them all the lands between Byram River and Blind Brook, for a distanec of "six or seven miles from the sea." Peningo Neck was also known as " the Purchase of the Eighteen." It was, as we have seen, the tract sonth of Westchester Path, or the mouth of Byram River. These were " the bounds of Hastings, " afterward known as "the first Purchase of Peningo Neck," and within this tract the first di- visions appear to have related to the lands "in the Field." Here, new home-lots of two or three aeres cach, and " new meadow-lots " of ten acres each, were distributed among the proprietors out of the common lands "within the fence" which ran from Blind Brook to the nearest inlet of the Sound, along the present line of Grace Church Street. There was, very early, a division of lands in the Long Swamp, lying back of the town-lots situ- ated on the east side of the "street," or Milton road. It ran OLD FORT, GABLE END. through part of the farms, in recent years, of Messrs. Halsted, Greaeen and Anderson. Its soil was rich, requiring little improvement, and coukl be made to produce the rank meadow grass which was needed for the cattle. With the clearing of forests and decrease of streams, the swamps have greatly dimin- ished, and in most places wholly disappeared. About 1670, there was a division of the lands on "Wolf-pit Ridge " or Plain. This name was afterward changed to Pulpit Plain. It designated the high lands on the road to Port Chester. The lands beyond this re- mained undivided till 1702. In that year there was a division of " building lots lying by the country road below the Steep Hollow." This was the name given to the beautiful glen that lies on the north side of the road to Port Chester. In 1678 the first divi- sion of lands on the north side of what is now Grace Church Street occurred. These were called the Has- sock Meadow lots, and consisted of about ten acres each. In this division, George Knithin received an allotment of land which has continued in the pos-

session of his descendants down to the present day.

The division of lands on " Barton's Neck " began abont 1678. This was an important part of the terri- tory comprehended in the first purchase on Peningo Neck. The name, however, is entirely obsolete. The " Neck " comprised all the lands now bordering on Grace CImrch Street, north of the road leading to Manussing Island, as far as the brook and inlet above Dr. Sands' house, near Port Chester. It inelnded, therefore, the lands owned, of late years, by Messrs. Titus and Brooks, the Provost estate and others, end- ing with what is now Lyon's Point. The western boundary of the traet was Hassock Meadow Brook, which takes its rise in the valley behind the house of Mr. Jonathan Sniffin, The tract was about a mile in length, and lay just outside the " Field Fence," along the shore of the Sound. In the first division (1678) each proprictor of Peningo Neek received a share of the land, about six or eight acres each. New allot- ments were made down to 1723. The first farms in Rye had their origin here, the allotments being so arranged that each proprietor cante in time to have a considerable portion of land, not in scattered par- cels, but in contiguous parts. Gradually, as in the Field, the lands beeame absorbed by purchase, into the hands of a few proprietors. Chief among them was John Merrit, who, by the end of the century, had ac- quired most of the upper part of Bartou's Neck, and from whom this part received the name it bore for perhaps & hundred years, of Merrit's Point. The Sherwoods, Coes and Ogdens also owned large portions of land here. Grace Church Street was not laid out through this tract until the beginning of the next cen- tury. There was a path or " drift-way " leading to the lots before this. But in 1701 the town appointed Jona- than Vowles, John Merrit, Sr., and Deliveranee Brown, Sr., "to mark the road upon Barton's Neck and the highway down unto the salt water." This, undoubtedly, was Grace Church Street, a name, how- ever, which we do not meet with until 1736. The lower part of this street, below the corner of the road leading to Manussing Island, originated in a path along the line of the Field Fencc.

By the year 1680 the number of settlers had in- creased to forty-nine or fifty, and the lands north of the bounds of Hastings, between Blind Brook and Byram River, extending back into the country six or seven miles from the Sound, were beginning to be oc- cupied. In 1678 a distribution of land, in lots of eighteen acres each, was made along the eastern line or Byram River. This region became known as By- ran Ridge. The allotments began apparently at the lower end of King Street, in the present village of Port Chester, and extended along the western side of Byram River. They stretched across the colony line, being bounded on the cast by the river. King Street is first alluded to in 1681, as a road laid out through this tract. New distributions were made from time

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RYE.

to time, until the whole of this beautiful ridge as far as the northern boundary of the town was divided up. About the time of the first allotment a bargain was made with the Indians for the purchase of the adjoining tract on the west. It was really included in the second purchase, but was claimed by an Indian chief, known as Lame Will or Limping Will, whom the settlers found it expedient to satisfy. It now constitutes the northern part of the town of Rye, or all that portion of it which lies above the present vil- lage of Port Chester, and is known as Lame Will's Purchase. The purchase was effected in the fall of 1680 by Robert Bloomer, Hachaliah Browne and Thomas Merritt, on behalf of the proprictors of Peningo Neck. The tract was called by the Indians Eaukecaupacuson, and by the English Hog-Pen Ridge. It commenced at a point where the "branch" of Blind Brook joins the main stream. From thence the southern bound- ary ran eastward to "the old marked trees " at "the Great Swamp." Northward it extended along Blind Brook to certain other marked trees, where the line now divides the town of Rye from that of North Cas- tle. A few weeks after the purchase of this tract the town, November 28, 1680, appointed Peter Disbrow, together with the three men previously sent, "for to go with the Indians to view some land lying between the Blind Brook and Byram River, and to make a thorow bargain with them if they shall see it best." Nearly a year elapsed before the final action was taken. On the 8th of October, 1681, however, Lame Will, for the consideration of " three coats received," sold to the inhabitants of Rye a tract of land " be- tween Byram river and the Blind brook," or "Honge," apparently lying north of the preceding purchase, and within the present limits of North Castle.

The lands comprised in Will's purchases, along Blind Brook, do not appear to have been divided and improved until long after those on Byram Ridge. There was a manifest reluctance still to spread into the interior, and a strong preference for the neighbor- hood of the shore and river, especially in the direc- tion of the older Connecticut settlements. We have good reason to believe that those lands were mostly appropriated, and many of them cleared and partly cultivated, before much advance was made into the forests lying immediately to the north. Twenty years after the first purchase on Byram Ridge, Febru- ary 14, 1699-1700, the town selected Lieutenant Hor- ton, Benjamin Horton, Joseph Purdy, Justice Brown, Sergeant Merritt and John Stoakham to lay out the White Plains Purchase and Lame Will's two pur- chases. But Lame Will's Purchase was not actually laid out until ten years later. In the mean time thic town, at a meeting held in January, 1699-1700, made an offer to all who desired lands, to give them free use of lands for the space of ten years, and appointed Hachaliah Browne and George Lane, Sr., " to make out the lands to any person that shall take them up ii .- 57

as aforesaid." Under this act land was taken by several individuals in the yet undivided tract of Will's Purchase. Robert Bloomer, in 1701, took five acres, "lying on the lower end of the Hog-pen Ridge, being near the lower falls of Blind Brook." Here was located the mill long known by his name. In 1707 " the town granted unto Robert Bloomer, Jr., the stream of Blind brook at the falls of the said brook to erect a mill or mills, with this proviso, that the Said Bloomer does accomplish the said mill within the space of ten years, but if not, the streamn to return unto the town again." On the 11th of April, 1799, "the lots laid out in Will's purchases were drawn for." Each allotment was of thirty-eight acres. On the 18th of February, 1711, " the second division of lots laid out in Lame Will's two purchases" oc- curred. These were situated higher up and on the east side of the colony line. A third draught of seven- acre lots followed. The proprietors of Will's pur- chases numbered thirty-four. The list comprises the names of nearly all the proprietors of Peningo Neck, who were evidently interested in both these acquisi- tions. But the companies were quite distinct ; and there were several of the proprietors of the more re- cent purchases who had no rights among those of the former. Occasionally, it seems, they met together to consult upon matters of common interest. Thus,-

" At a meeting held in Rye by the Proprietors of the Neck of Ape- quamas and Peningo Neck and the purchasers of the White Plaines and Will's purchasers, June the 15th, 1715, Justice Browne, David Ogden, Justice John Hoyt, Richard Ogden, Samuel Purdy, George Lane, Jr., are chosen to take the care and the whole management of surveying the town's bounds of their lands to the best of their discretion, and to call out any person or persons in managing of the same."

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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. II, Part 151

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1286

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898,
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1286