History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 155

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 155

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A small stone building in the rcar of the house now the residence of Mrs. E. P. Cowles was a place of con- finement for refractory slavcs. It was torn down only some fifteen years ago. In 1712 the people of Rye were alarmed by a supposed plot among the slaves of New York to burn that city. In 1714 Isaac Denham, of Rye, petitioned the Court of General Sessions, at Westchester, " to raise the sum of twenty-five pounds for satisfaction for One Negro Man called Primus, who was executed for his misdemeanours." And in 1719 Isaac Denham and Charles Forster applied " to be allowed the value of two negro men lately belonging to them and Executed for crimes committed in this county." The men were appraised at twenty pounds and payment was ordered. About the year 1698 some negroes, brought from the coast of Guinea, were landed at Rye and there delivered to the son of Mr. Frederick Philipse, of Philipsburg. It was charged that the parties concerned in this transac- tion had dealings with pirates, and this intimation must have caused some alarm to the inhabitants of Rye. Captain Kidd was then at the height of his carcer, and the shores of Long Island Sound had fre- quently been visited by him and by other freebooters.

But little effort was made to educate the slaves. In 1708 the Rev. Mr. Muirson writes,-" There are only a few negroes in this parish, save what are in Colonel Heathcote's family, where I think there are more than in all the parish besides. However, so many as we have, I shall not be wanting in my endeavors for their good." In 1724 the Rev. Mr. Jenny re- ports,-"There are a few negroes and Indian slaves, but no free infidels [heathen] in my parish. The catechist, a schoolmaster from the Honourable So- ciety [for the Propagation of the Gospel], has often proposed to teach them the Catechism, but we cannot prevail on their masters to spare them from their la- bour for that good work." In 1728 the Rev. Mr. Wetmore writes that the number of negroes in his parish was about one hundred. "Since Mr. Cleator has been blind and unable to teach school," adds Mr.

Wetmore, "he has taken pains with the negroes, so many as their masters would allow to come; but of late they have left off coming altogether. Those that belong to Quaker masters, they will allow them no instruction. Some Presbyterians will allow their servants to be taught, but are unwilling they should be baptized. And those of the Church are not much better. so that there is but one negro in the parish bap- tized."

For several years following the period of the Revo- lution the pages of the town records of Rye are occu- pied with certificates relating to the manumission of slaves. These declarations were made in accordance with the terms of an act of the Legislature, February 22, 1788, and of another act, March 29, 1799. The latter act provided for the gradual abolition of slav- ery. In 1817 another act was passed, declaring all slaves to be free on the 4th of July, 1827.

In 1798 the town contained one hundred and twenty-three slaves. In 1820 there were in Rye four- teen slaves and one hundred and twenty-six free blacks; in White Plains eight slaves and sixty- three free blacks. Seven years later slavery expired in the State of New York. At that time there was a considerable negro population in Rye, but in recent years there have been very few black inhabitants. The European laborer has almost completely sup- planted the African, and, whether by death or re- moval to other places, they have been reduced to a mere handful.

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE INDIANS .- The Indian inhabitants of Rye have long since faded away, leav- ing but few and faint traces of their mournful his- tory. Before the New England settlers came they had been in subjection to the Five Nations, to whom they paid an annual tribute. The fullest account of the condition of the Indians of Rye is that of Rev. Mr. Muirson, already quoted with reference to the negroes. "As to the Indiaus, the natives of the country," he says, in a letter to the Gospel Propaga- tion Society in January, 1708, " they are a decaying people. We have not now in all this parish twenty families, whereas not many years ago there were scv- cral hundreds. I have taken some pains to teach some of them, but to no purpose, for they seem regardless of instruction." Long after the settlement of the town there were Indians living within its bounds, some of them quite near the village, but the greater number back in the "wilderness " that still overspread the northern part of Rye. This was the case in most of the Connecticut towns, the laws oblig- ing the inhabitants to reserve to the natives a sufli- cient quantity of planting-ground, and protecting the latter from insult, fraud and violence. The twenty families, of whom Mr. Muirson speaks, were reduced by the year 1720 to four or five " families of Indians," writes Mr. Bridge, " that often abide in this parish, but are frequently removing, almost every month or six weeks." After this date we hear little more of

6G8

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Indians at Rye, except as slaves. Tradition states that in old times a band of Indians used to visit Rye once a year, resorting to the beach, where they had a frolic which lasted several days. Another place which they frequented as late, certainly, as the middle of the last century, was a spot on Grace Church Street, at the corner of the road now called. Kirby Avenue. Here a troop of Indians would come every year and spend the night in a " pow-wow," during which their cries and yells would keep the whole neighborhood awake.

Many interesting relies of the Indians have been found along the shores of the Sound in the neighbor- hood of Rye. Heaps of clam-shells mark the sites of their villages. These occur in great abundanee on Manussing Island, on Parsonage Point, in the vicinity of the beach, and near Blind Brook and the creek into which it empties. Indian graves have also frequently

STRANG'S TAVERN, RYE.

been discovered. "The former existence of Indian labitations on the great neck of Poningo," says Mr. Bolton, " is amply proved by the number of hunting and warlike weapons fond in that neighborhood. The site of the principal Mohegan village was on or near Parsonage Point. In the same vieinity is situ ated Burying llill, their place of sepulture. The re- mains of six Indians were discovered on excavating the present foundations for Newberry Halsted's resi- dence. Manussing Island was undoubtedly the site of an Indian village. Another site was in a field on Peningo Neck, about seventy-five rods south of the road to Rye Beach. "Swamp Mortar Rock," near by, is pointed out as the place where the Indian women used to pound their corn in a circular basin eut in the rock, about two feet and a half in diameter and abont as deep. Another Indian mortar is to be soen on the shore of a cove called Ware's Cove.

TAVERNS AND PUBLIC ROADS .- The " public-

house " or tavern at Rye was an important institu- tion, for the town was on the route from New York to Boston, and a halting-place for travelers. Inn- keepers were chosen by the town, and none but per- sons of good character and estate were considered eligible. The earliest notice of such an appointment in the town records states that at a town-meeting in Rye, March 24, 1697-98, Joseph Horton was chosen " to keep a house of entertainment for travelers for the year insuing." Joseph Horton lived on Rye Neck, and the house here referred to is supposed to have stood on the site, or in the neighborhood, of the old mill, which has in recent years been renovated. In the village itself Straing's Tavern was the ancient public-house. A portion of the original building is still standing on the southeast corner of the post road and Rectory Street. The tavern was kept by Daniel Straing, a French Protestant refugee, who had re- moved to this country a few years prior to 1704. He died in 1706, and his widow kept the inn for several years. Straing's Tavern was a place of note long after this. On a map of Budd's Neck of 1720 the bridge over Blind Brook is denoted the King's Bridge, " nere Strange." The justiees and vestry of Rye held their meetings here as early as 1734, and the town-meet- ings may not improbably have been held here at a much earlier day. The old house was still a place of public entertainment some forty years ago, and was kept by a lineal descendant of the first Daniel Straing. It remained un- altered until within a few years ago.

Another noted inn was the old stone house known of late years as Van Sicklin's. In early days this build- ing was a fort or place of defense. Afterwards it beeame the residence of Isaac Denham, son of the first settled minister of Rye. Mr. Denham died in 1723, and his executors sold his house and home-lot in 1728 to Francis Doughty, Jr., of Flush- ing.

In the New York Gazette of June 20, 1748, there is an advertisement announcing that " Francis Doughty, who kept the Kingsbridge, is now removed to the Sign of the Sun in Rye." Like his predecessors, Horton and Straing, Mr. Doughty was a justice of the peace for the town of Rye. The justices and vestry met at his house from 1730 to 1734, and again at the same place from 1770 to 1776, when his son, John Doughty, kept the tavern. Another John Donghty, grandson of Francis, succeeded to the dignities and emoluments of the office which seems to have descended from father to son as a matter of course.

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RYE.

A map of the town in 1797 represents "Doughty's house " as still known by that name.

Penfield's Hotel was a noted hostelry about half a century ago. Fifty years before it had beeu "a noted tavern for many years," and before that it was the residence of one of the leading men of the town. Here Peter Brown lived previous to 1731. The house, which was situated on the post road at Rye, and was known as the "Square House," passed after the death of Brown into the possession of the Rev. James Wet- more, rector of the parish of Rye. It was the resi- dence of his son, Timothy Wetmore, in 1763, about which time, probably, it became an inn. As early as 1770, Dr. Ebenezer Haviland, afterwards a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, kept a tavern here. In 1774 John Adams stopped at " Haviland's, of Rye," on his way from Bostou to New York.

During the Revolution John Wright kept the inn ; but after the war it appears to have reverted to the widow of Dr. Ebenezer Haviland, Mrs. Tamar Havi- land, who managed it for several years. During her incumbency, Ryc was visited by Gen. Washington, who says, in his diary, under date of Thurs- day, October 15, 1789: "After dinner, through frequent light showers, we proceeded to the Tavern of a Mrs. Haviland, at Rye, who keeps a very neat and decent Inn." The general again stopped at Rye on his way back to New York from New England, November 12th, and spent the night at "the Widow Haviland's." The widow was succeeded by Peter Quin- tard, who was landlord in 1797. The next landlord was Willian Marrener, and in 1801 the Square House passed into the hands of Nathaniel Pen- field, a fine specimen of the ancient landlord-a man of courtly manmers and un- blemished character. After his death, in 1810, the house was kept for a few years by his son, the late Henry L. Penfield, who died in 1867. At Penfield's Hotel the stages on the Boston road stopped until some fifty years ago. Among its dis- tinguished guests was General Lafayette when mak- ing a tour from New York into New Enland in 1824. The general, his suite and the committee dined together at the hotel. The general had been received at Mamaroneck with a salute "fired by the iuhabit- ants," the ringiug of bells and the playing of the national airs by " an excellent band of music." The Square House ceased to be a tavern about 1830. In 1835, Rachel, widow of Nathaniel, and Henry L. Penfield and his wife, Mary, sold the property, with twenty-three acres of land, to David H. Mead.

Doughty was " permitted to sell spiritnous liquors without paying excisc." April 14, 1797, " Samuel Travis was permitted to keep a Tavern in the House which David Doughty formerly occupied, the Town to refund back money ; he shall pay for a permit for the same." Of the drinking habits of the early in- habitants of Rye, there are other traces besides the maintenance of so many public-houses. Even those who brought with them something of the rigidity of Puritan manners had their drinking cups and tank- ards at hand. There is reason to believe, however, that they exercised comparative moderation in the use of spirituous liquors. At a later date drunken- ness was very prevalent in the community. Rev. Mr. Muirson writes in 1707, "Swearing and drinking and Sabbath-breaking" are the vices that are " chiefly predominant." Mr. Wetmore, schoolmaster at Rye, complains in 1765 that "many of our people are too

HAVILAND'S, OR PENFIELD HOUSE, RYE.

much addicted to the taverns." The custom of furnishing liquor at fuuerals prevailed ju Rye a hun- dred years ago, as appears from the following entry in the vestry-book of the parish: "March 13, 1759. To Ebenezer Kniffin, for half a Gallon Rum for ye Burying of Patrick Holoday."

Situated so near the sea-board, and within thirty miles of New York City, Rye has enjoyed from the earliest times whatever facilities existed for public communication. For at least fifty years after the foundation of the town all travel by land was per- formed on horseback. In 1672 a schedule of prices was established, to be paid to persons employed for the conveyance of letters and other missives in the service of the colony of Connecticut. From the Ist of May to the 1st of October the allowance from Rye to Hartford was "the horses hyer twelve shillings, the man and expences twenty shillings; all is one

The earliest reference to the sale of liquor in Ryc occurs under the date of April 17, 1789, when David | pound twelve shillings." From October to April the ii .- 59

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

charge was to be eight-pence more "for every night they lye out." Postal communication between New York and Boston was established in 1672. The mails as late as 1750 were carried by messengers riding on horseback from stage to stage. There was but one mail each- week to Boston and intermediate points. Besides the publie post, there were post-riders in the service of the newspapers. The people of Rye not only read the New York papers, but oeeasionally ad- vertised in them. In 1772 the first stage-coach began to run between New York and Boston. The proprie- tors were Jonathan and Nicholas Brown. In 1787 the stages made three trips every week in summer and two in winter. In the same year there was a stage every other day from New York to Rye, and from the advertisement of its proprietor, Obadiah Wright, who announces that he "now runs the Stage from this to Rye, which Mr. Hall formerly run," it would appear that the people of Rye had been in the enjoy- ment of similar facilities before. They probably de- pended more upon water communication, however, than upon that by land. The earliest mention of a dock, or wharf, occurs under the date of 1679, when the town granted to John Ogden " forty-eight or fifty acres of land by the water-side at the Fishing Rock, for the purpose of building a house and wharf. The inhabitants of Peningo neck to have wharfage free." In 1739 a ferry was established between the town of Rye and Oyster Bay, L. I. John Budd, Ilachaliah Browne and Jonathan Browne were at the head of the enterprise. The list of subscribers toward the expense of obtaining a patent embraced twenty-six names. They obtained the right to "enjoy a share of the priv- ileges and emoluments of the ferry in proportion to the sums" subscribed. The ferry continued in use until the latter part of the century. In 1786 Isaac Brown, of Rye, purchased the rights of the proprie- tors. A map of Rye in 1797 shows the " house at the Ferry," near the mouth of Byram River. This house, about a century ago, was kept by a German, Freder- ick de Weissenfels, who afterwards obtained some dis- tinction as an officer in the Revolutionary army.

At the beginning of the present eentury the ordi- nary and favorite mode of traveling from Rye to New York and back was by sloop. Several market-sloops ran regularly between Rye and New York. Some of them started from Saw Pit (now Port Chester); others from Milton, and others still from Rye Neck. There was a dock below Milton, at Kniflin's Cove, and one known as Jonathan Horton's, near the house of the late Captain Bouton. In 1803 nine market sloops ran reg- ularly from Rye to New York, four from Saw Pit and one from Rye Neck. There were also three packet- vessels carrying freight and passengers. In 1812 one sloop ran from Rye Neck to New York and three from Saw Pit.

The post-road from New York to Boston intersects the lower part of the town of Rye, and forms the main street of the village. It did not exist at the time of

the first settlement. The only avenue of communiea- tion by land, as heretofore stated, was the " old West- chester Path." An Indian trail originally, it was never laid out as a publie highway, but was used awhile by the inhabitants of the towns through which it passed, as well as by occasional travelers to New York or Connecticut. 'The "country road," as it was called, appears to have been laid out about the year 1672. In May of that year the General Court of Connecticut appointed Mr. John Holly, Lieutenant Jonathan Bell and John Green to view the township of Rye and to " consider what highways might be requisite and nee- essary for the use of the towne and Colony, and lay them out and see them recorded in the town book." The roads provided for were for the most part neigh- borhood roads simply. As yet there was no publie thoroughfare through Connecticut or New York. The road to Greenwich or Stamford was probably one of the roads laid out under the order of 1672. "The Standford road," "the path commonly called the Stand- ford Road," is mentioned in 1680, eight years after that order. This was probably identical with the present post road leading from Mamaroneck River to Byram River, in the same general course as now. That portion of it which passes through the village of Rye, along the bank of Blind Brook, must have been opened before the year 1676.

The "country roads " leading from one town to another came in time to be considered as the publie highway of the colony and province. The "eoun- try road " is mentioned as already existing in 1699, when a survey of it was ordered by the town, for the purpose probably of widening the road. In 1703 an act was passed for laying out highways throughout the several counties of the province of New York. One of its provisions established the present post road of Rye. A peculiarity of the highway of that day was the presence of a gate aeross the road wherever a side-road entered the main one of the settlement. There was such a gate on the Milton road, near the present cemetery by Blind Brook, in 1719; and an- other on the road leading from the Great Bridge, near the spot where the Presbyterian Church now stands, to Manussing Island. As late as 1779, on the fine road now leading from Harrison Station to North Street, there were " bars " at different points. Many such obstructions doubtless existed in the earlier part of the century, even on the Boston road, where it crossed the town. Until quite recently the Boston road was familiarly known as " the turnpike." It has, in fact, ceased to be a turnpike only in recent years. In 1800 a corporation was formed by act of the Legislature by the name of " The President, Directors and Company of the Westchester Turnpike Road." Philip P'ell, John P. Delaney, Cornelius Rosevelt, Peter J. Monroe and Gabriel Furman were the members of the eor- poration mentioned in the act. The general course of the road coincided with that of the old Beston road established in 1703, just as that road followed

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RYE.

in the main, the course of the country road cstab- lished in 1672. There has been several deviations, however, from the ancient line in the town of Ryc. The first occurred where the turnpike road entered Rye, crossing Mamaroneck River. Here the old road ran about thirty rods north of the line adopted in 1800. The street now called Tompkins Avenue is the ancient highway. In 1811 the commissioners closed a part of " the old Boston Road, beginning at Mama- roueck River and extending eastwardly to the post set in the ground opposite Daniel Gidney's house, and thenee to the land of William Gidney." Another change was made between Dr. Jay's residence and that of the late Mr. George Brown. The old road diverged from the line adopted for the turnpike at a point a little south of the present Bradford mansion. It returned to its present course at the southeast corner of Mr. Browu's lawn, forming a curve about. fifteen rods at its greatest distance from the present

road. Above Mr. Theall's house the road was straightened for a distance of half a mile. The old road is that which passes Mr. Benjamin Mead's house. The stone bridgeacross Blind Brook which has been demolished and re- placed by a larger one, was built by the turnpike company. Before this the road crossed the brook over a wooden bridge, which stood about half-way between the present bridge and the ford. Through the village of Rye the turnpike retained the course of the old road, except at the head of Grace Church Street, where a slight ehange was made. Between Rye and "Saw Pit," or Port Chester, there was no material change. A slight deviation occurred between Rye and Port Chester, at the foot of Regent Street. A more consid- erable change was made in the vil- lage of Saw Pit. Here the turnpike company opened a new road between the old road and the water. This change begins where the road to Lyon's Point intersects Main Street. Beyoud this the back street now ealled Fountain Street repre- sents the course of the old road as far as Mrs. Mose- man's residence. Passing along the north side of that house, it ran about parallel with the present course of the railway, and very near it, to the spot where the turnpike erosses the railway ; thenee, as the turnpike runs, to a place not far from the railway embankment, indicated by bars; and thence along the bank of Byram River to a point very nearly opposite to the bridge.

TAXATION AND EXCISE LAWS .- The revolt of Rye and Bedford from New York in 1697 has been repre- sented as a step taken to avoid the payment of taxes. The loss of their lands, resulting from the action of

the Governor and Council of New York, was the prin- cipal cause; but the dread of excessive taxation may well have quickened the desire of the people to place themselves under the protection of Counectieut, whose publie charges were light. Under the admin- istration of Lord Cornbury, Rye had an experience of the evils she had feared. In 1703 the town was required to raise the sum of £44 for special purposes, besides £25 10s. for the regular county tax. In 1715 the General Assembly passed " an excise bill on strong liquors," which continued in force until the Revolution, aud was said in 1762 to bring into the publie treasury £1000 per annum. Mr. Joseph Budd, of Rye, the patentee of Budd's Neck and grandson of the original purchaser of that tract, was com- missioner of the excise for the county of West- chester.

OLD HOUSES AND NOTABILITIES OF RYE .- On the 1st of April, 1770, the dwelling of Major Hacha- liah Browne, in Rye, took fire and was burned. The

THE HALSTED HOUSE.

family were asleep when the fire broke out, and nar- rowly escaped with their lives. Major Browne's house and furniture had been burned ten years before. The later fire was supposed to be of incendiary origin. The house thus burned stood on the site of the house where his grandson, the late Hachaliah Browne, died in 1861.

The present building is said to have been erected in 1774.

Roger Park was one of the notabilities of Rye a century ago. His farm of two hundred and forty acres lay north of Major Brown's, in the old Town Field. Mrs. Park was a daughter of John Disbrow, and brought her husband a considerable fortuue. She is said to have owned one of the only two car- riages-it was a two-wheeled chaise-that had yet been seen in Rye. Next to these gentlemen, perhaps

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

the largest proprietor on Peningo Neek at this time was Philemon Halsted. He lived in the house which is stillstanding on the corner of the Milton road and the road to the beach, and owned the farin on both sides of the latter road, now the Newberry Halsted estate. His nephew Ezekiel, who had lately sold this property to Philemon, bought, in 1771, the land far- ther south, now Mr. George L. Cornell's and Mr. Un- derhill Halsted's. South of this, the greater part of the Neck was owned by David Brown, third son of Hachaliah. The little village of Milton had not yet sprung up. Lyon's mill had probably ceased to ex- ist, and not more than two or three houses stood along the creek below. Sloops landed on the oppo- site side of the Neck from the present doek, at " Knif- fin's Cove," where there is still a doek, and where formerly there had been a "warehouse" or store. Another large proprietor, Josiah Purdy, had now been dead some years. His son, Seth Purdy, had sneeceded

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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 155

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