History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 5

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 5

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-; and Samuel Lawrence, 300.

2 This lot, or glebe, already referred to in the history of the Philipses, is spoken of in existing documents of the last century as consisting of two hundred and even of two hundred and fifty acres. Here it is put down at one hundred and seven acres. Upon inquiry and study of proof, we think it could never have been more.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Among the names of tenants and purchasers of 1785 we recognize the following as still perpetuated in Yonkers, viz .: Archer, Baker, Barker, Bowne, Bre- voort, Brown, Burnett, Crawford, Devoe, Dyckman, Farrington, Fowler, Forshee, Hammond, Hart, Hunt, Husted, Ilyatt, Johnson, Lamb, Lawrence, Lent, Oak- ley, Odell, Post, Reid, Reynolds, Rich, Sherwood, Smith, Taylor, Underhill. Valentine, Van Cortlandt, Vermilyen, Warner and Williams. To these, of our own knowledge, we can add Garrison, Kniffin, Lefurgy, Merrill and Nodine, all here a century ago, and here still. They are not on the map, because not repre- sented just then among the tenants or buyers of the real estate. Among all these names we detect five only as Huguenot, viz., Devoe, Forshee, Lefurgy, Nodine and Vermilyea. It is remarkable that so few persons from the Huguenot settlement at New Rochelle, started one hundred and four years before 1785, had found their way over here. But so it was, and the earliest new Huguenot name we can find on Yonkers records after this is "Guion." We have "Guion's Mills " on our map of 1813. Later years have brought to Yonkers more of these names, but the five given above are the only Huguenot names now in our directory that have been represented here a hundred years, and of these, Lefurgy aud Nodine are not on the map of the tenants or buyers of 1785.

Such is a general statement of the disposition of all the manor property that lay within the limits of the present city of Yonkers. We come now to the special disposition and history of that object of deepest in- terest, the manor-house. This was put up by the commissioners and sold on the 9th of September, with three hundred and twenty aeres of land, to Cornelius P. Low, a New York merchant, for fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty pounds.1 Mr. Low never occupied it, but conveyed it on the 12th of May, 1786, to William Constable, also a New York merchant.

1 The following is from the records of the sale of this land by Isaac Stouteuburgh and Philip Van Cortlaudt, counmissioners of forfeitures :

"Sold to Cornelins P. Low, of New York, Gentleman, for fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty pounds, all that certain mansion house, mills, stables and farm or parcel of land, situate, lying, and being in the Manor of Philipsburgh, County of Westchester and State of New York, known und distinguished heretofore as the place of resi- ilence of the late Frederick Philipse, Esq., being bounded westerly by Hudson's River, southerly by laud in possession of the widow Rich, easterly by land sold to David Hnut and the run of water called the Saw-Mill River, and a hd of land in the possession of Archer, and northerly by land sold to Robert Johnston,-containing within said limite three hnudred nud twenty neres, -reserving und excepting out of the same two acres whereon the church stands, twoucres whereon Thoms Sherwood, the gardener, lives, and about two ucres of meadow adjoining to saw-Mill River uud the roud, it being part of the glebe land ; also two lots of woodland, Nos. 12 und 13, containing each thirty-three ucres, bounded southerly by land sold to Andrew Bostwick, rasterly by lots Nos. 16 and 17, northerly by lot No. H, and westerly by the Post Road."

This passage describes the manor boner and with it the three hundred and twenty acres of latul sold to Cornelin- P'. Low, September 9, 1785, und which, in ISI, fell into the hands of Lemmel Wells, and sale quently became the practical rentre, first of the village and then of the city of Yonkers. Miejs furnished further ou will take this property mend its relations more clear.

Mr. Constable sold it April 29, 1796, for thirteen thou- sand five hundred pounds, to Jacob Stout of New York, and Mr. Stout, in his turu, conveyed it, April 1, 1802, to Joseph Howland of Norwich, Conn. Mr. Howland became involved in financial difficulties, and, after struggling with the property for ten years, petitioned for the discharge of his debts. The results of the legal course upon his petition were an action in Chancery, and an issue, February 20, 1813, of a de- cree of sale. The premises were thereupon offered at auction and sold, April 20, 1813, to Lemuel Wells, a merchaut of New York, for fifty-six thousand dollars. This tract of three hundred and twenty acres beeame a eentre of population and business life, from which has been developed the Yonkers of the present, whose antecedents and history it is the aim of this narra- tive to give.

When Mr. Low had bought his three hundred and twenty acres, in 1785, there stood upon these aeres, of course, that old landmark, the manor-house ; the flour-mill a little south of it, on the north side of the Nepperhan ; a saw-mill on the opposite side of the stream, near the point where the Post road erossed it; Hunt's tavern (in 1813 kuown as the Indian Queen Inn, and later still as the Nappeckamaek House), on the site of the present Getty House; St. John's Church (on the same site as now). with two acres of ground ; a fish-house on the river-bank half a mile to the north, and a school-house a mile and a half to the south of the central point. These were at that time the institutions of Yonkers. At Tuek- ahoe, three miles or more northeast from the Manor- House, there were then a school-house, a blacksmith- shop, a race-ground, a tavern and sixteen dwellings. The locality kuown as " Mile Square " had not be- longed to the Philipsburgh Manor and had not been been confiscated. It had upon it thirteen houses, which, with their lands, were owned and some of them occupied, by S. Bertine, J. Farrington, T. Rich, Reynolds' Tavern. A. Archer, Eliza Rich, J. Garnou, Benjamin Hunt and D. Oakley. Altogether, on the whole territory now covered by the city of Yonkers, there were then about sixty houses. This was in 1785.

During the period from the year just named to 1813, transfers of property within the limits of the present city were frequently made and occasional improve- ments followed. But little progress, however, was made in the direction of population. The churches upon the whole ground were three only (this eontin- ued to be so in fact till 1828), viz. : St. John's ( Epis- copal), whose edifice had been built in 1752-53, but whose ecclesiastical organization had not been effected till 1787 ; the Methodist Episcopal at Tuek- ahoe, regularly organized in 1797; and St. John's ( Episcopal) at Tuckahoe, whose building was erected in 1797, but whose organization wns reserved to July 18, 1853. The history of all these churches will be given further on.

YONKERS.

SECTION V. The Town of Yonkers.

Soon after the confiseation sales, viz. : on the 7th of March, 1788, the town of Yonkers, one of the twenty original towns of Westchester County, was set apart. We have before shown that up to this time the region had been called, not " Yonkers," but "The Yonkers."1 In this year (1886) the town is

1 There will be no period of our history at which better than here we can introduce some fragments relating to " The Yonkers" from the records of early Westchester supervisors. They are curiosities in their way, and they throw side-lights on the usages that had prevailed in this region before " The Yonkers " became " Yonkers," in 1788.

In the year 1722 an act was passed by the Colonial Legislature, by which the freeholders and inhabitants of any town, manor, liberty and precinct in the connty of Westchester were authorized to choose super- visors, the election of whom should be held on the first Tuesday of April in each year. llow soon this privilege was embraced by the peo- ple of " The Yonkers," or how continuously they availed themselves of it after having once embraced it, we do not know, but we first find them exercising it in 1772. From that date forward, with some irregularities, till 1788, when the town was set apart, we have two sets of supervisors connected with this region-one for the Manor of Philipsburgh and the other for the precinct of "The Yonkers."

The supervisors for the manor were as follows: 1772-74, Justice William Davis ; 1775-77, none ; 1778, Joseph Paulding ; 1779-82, none ; 1783-84, William Paulding ; 1785, William Davis ; 1786, Jonathan Hor- ton ; 1787, Isaac Requa. This closed the manor period.

The supervisors for the precinct were as follows: 1772-74, Colonel James Van Cortlandt ; 1775-82, none ; 1783-84, Israel Honeywell ; 1786, William Hadley ; 1787, David Hunt. This closed the precinct period.

We find the following proceedings of the supervisors with their dates : October 7, 1772, William Stivers, a petit constable of Philipsburgh, was allowed £1 1s. 1d. for transporting John Horton ; Peter Brunt, another constable, £1 9s. 6d. for transporting Nancy Bolton ; Horromy Davis, a third constable of the same place, £4 for transporting Mary Golden and her children ; and Peter Martling, another constable of the same place, for transporting Nancy Manning.

In the same year the assessment upon Philipsburgh for county ex- penses was €13 1Is. Gd., being much more than that of any other town, precinct or manor in the county. To this was added : "Extra to Phil- ipsburgh warrant for the poor, and the money to be paid to Justice Deen, £134 17s. Gd .- the collection is included." In the same apportion- ment the amount set down for the precinct of Yonkers (which probably included Mile Square and part, at least, of Lower Yonkers, not owned by the proprietor of Philipsburgh) was €5 178. 3d., to which is added- " Extra to Yonkers warrant, 408. 2d. to be paid into the hands of Fred- erick Fowler for building a stocks and whipping-post."

In 1778 the supervisor of Philipsburgh refused to deliver to the Board of Supervisors "an assessment of leased lands on the tenant or person in possession to the full value of such lands," and the super- visors submitted the mattor, with other delinquencies, to the Senate and Assembly, with what results, however, we do not know.

In February, 1779, the supervisors determined to tax the Quakers. Under this decision the levy upon the Quakers of Philipsburgh was £660, that for the class throughout the county being £2220. The whole tax at that time apportioned to the manor of Philipsburgh was 62401 118. In December of the same year, the Senate and Assembly having di- rected a military tax of $60 upon each person of the Quakers, tho amount of tax falling upon this class in the manor of Philipsburgh was found to be £1680. The Quakers seem, in a few years after this, to have disappeared from Youkers, for in 1802, while taxes appear against them iu the county, none are found against them in this town. The tax upon Quakers to which these acts point was laid upon them as a con- mintation for military duty which they refused to pertorm.

In the contingent expenses for 1784 occurs the following item : " To Thomas Sherwood, Constable of The Yonkers, for committing Richard Barrack and Nathaniel Palmer, prisoners in criminal process, to the jail of the city and county of New York, ť4 14s."

In 1786 the amount apportioned to the support of the poor for the Manor of Philipsburgh was £115 10s., and for the precinct of Yonkers. £14 10s. Richard Garrison that year received €2 &s. for numbering the ii-2

of course ninety-eight years old. Its limits on the north, east and west have never been changed. From the south end of it, however, a portion has been given up. By an act of the county supervisors, December 16, 1872, the terms of which were ratified and con- firmed by the Legislature, February 28, 1873, all of the old town lying south of an east and west line, eo- inciding with the north boundary of the Mount St. Vincent property, was set off as a new town under the name of Kingsbridge. And the last-named town, on the 1st of January, 1874, became by annexation, a corporate part of the county and city of New York. The town of Yonkers, as distinguished from the city, ceased from that date.

The early records of the town-meetings from 1788 to 1820 we have not found. The meetings were most commonly held at the old tavern on the site of the Getty House, which has been already mentioned. The earliest minutes we find, beginning with 1820, are loosely kept, sometimes being even destitute of dates. The town clerks from 1820 to the organiza- tion of the city (for later clerks, see under " The City of Yonkers ") were as follows : 1820-24, Caleb Smith ; 1825-34, John Williams ; 1835-45, John Bashford ; 1846, George B. Rockwell; 1847-49, James L. Valentine ; 1850, George B. Rockwell; 1851, Henry V. Bashford; 1852-53, Samuel W. Chambers ; 1854-56, Anson B. Hoyt; 1857-58, William H. Post ; 1859-60, Lyman Cobb, Jr .; 1861, Charles W. Starr ; 1862, Abraham R. Van Houten; 1863-65, Charles W. Starr ; 1866, John G. P. Holden; 1867, Edmund T. Morris ; 1868, John J. Pendergrast ; 1869, Henry V. Clark ; 1870-71, James W. Mitchell.

The supervisors, from the organization of the town, have been as follows: 1788, David Hunt; 1789, James Archer ; 1790-94, William Hadley; 1795-96, John Robert; 1797-1800, Garret Dyckman; 1801,

inhabitants in the Manor of Philipsburgh, and Thomas Sherwood re- ceived 12s. for performing the same office in Youkers.

Affairs in this section appear to have been conducted carelessly. At several dates neither Yonkers nor even Philipsburgh seems to have been representert in the Board of Supervisors. And on the 2d of Sep- tember, 1788 (the town having now been created), Yonkers was in ar- rears in its accounts with the county to the amount of €39 48., which amount was added to its apportionment for that year. In the minutes of October the following entry appears :

" A warrant this day issued by order of the supervisors to the Col- lector of Yonkers to collect the sum of £52 108. 7d., for arrears dne from that place, of State taxes, and also of taxes for the contingent charges of this county, and in case the sum of £39 4s. should be col- lected thereon for arrears of State taxes, that then the sum for such arrears, contained and specified in a warrant to that place of the 21 of September last, shall cease to be collected."

That the arrears of Yonkers were not promptly met even after this, however, appears from the supervisor's account for 1789, made June 16th, when there was apportioned to Yonkers $14 3s. 3d., and for the support of the poor, £57 5s. 6d., and in addition, "To Yonkers, for arrears of a tax granted by a law passed the 11th of April, 1787, €145 1s. 6d." In 1790, however, the arrearage had been reduced to $27 128. 9d., which was probably paid that year, as no arrearage subsequently to this appears against Yonkers.

Under the act for the encouragement of schools, passed April 9, 1795, the sum apportioned to Yonkers was £25 78. This was reduced in the I following year.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

William Hadley ; 1802-24, Isaac Vermilyea; 1825-41, | Caleb Smith ; 1842-44, Prinee W. Paddock ; 1845-49, William W. Serugham ; 1850-53, James L. Valentine; 1854-55, William G. Ackerman ; 1856-57, William W. Serngham ; 1858-59, Angustns Van Cortlandt ; 1860, Ethan Flagg ; 1861-62, James L. Valentine ; 1863, Ethan Flagg ; 1864-66, Isaae H. Knox; 1867- 68, Ethan Flagg ; 1869, Edward De Witt ; 1870-71, Ethan Flagg. The city, coming in at this point, has been represented in the Board of Supervisors as fol- lows : 1872-73, Charles R. Dusenberry ; 1874, John Henry Williams; 1875-77, Jaeob Read; 1878-81, James V. Lawrence ; 1882-86, Jacob Read.

The following table shows the growth of the town of Yonkers from 1790. It gives for the years indi- cated the population, the number of taxable persons and the assessed valuation of real and personal estate:

Year.

Population. Taxable Persons.

Property Valuation.

17901

1,12

1,176

1810

1,365

204

1815

954

217

18220

1,586.

210 ..

1×25

1,621

249

1×30

1,761.

264

1×35

1,579

250

1×4+

2,968

269 ..

1×45

2,517.

286

1850

4,160,

448

1,275,809

1855

7,551

.1029

4,200,672

181)

.11,84>

1511

5,173,863

1×65

12,756.

3170.

4,558,189

1870

.18,31

4×90

6,506,164

1,5

17,232

511

20,906,904

18,892

.5920

17,167,178

1.85

18,659,486

SECTION VI.

Period of Lemuel Wells. (1813-1842.)

WE stated near the close of our fourth section that on the 20th of April, 1813, the old manor house of Philipsburgh, sold by the commissioners of 1785, with three hundred and twenty aeres of land, to Cor- nelius P. Low, came into the possession of Lemuel Wells, a New York merchant, who bought it at ane- tion for the sum of fifty-six thousand dollars. Mr. Wells enjoyed the property for twenty-nine years. His only son and child having died before him, he

himself finally passed away February 11, 1842, at the age of eighty-two years, both childless and intestate. Some people still living in Yonkers remember the purchase of 1813, and very many well remember the commanding form of Mr. Wells, which, down to 1842, continned to be seen upon the streets in his daily walks. He was born in Berlin, Conn. The oldest of his ancestors of whom we are informed was Richard Wells, of the Manor of Wells, Cambridgeshire, Eng- land. The earliest representative of the family in this country was Samuel Wells, who first settled in Wethersfield, Conn., but, itt 1639, removed, with his sous-John, Samnel and Thomas-to Milford, in the same State. Their later history is extensively inter- woven with that of the Congregational Church of New Britain.

A map of the traet bonght by Mr. Wells in 1813 is still preserved, We give a copy of it. The only road marked upon it is the old Post road from Albany to New York, now ealled Broadway. There are, however, two lanes,-one entering from the Post road Bridge, and running round on the present Doek Street and Nepperhan Street only as far as John Copentt's present mahogany-mill, and the other entering also from the Post road, opposite the grounds now oeeu- pied by St. Aloysius' School, and running eastward over the present Gnion Street, and thence ontward to Mr. Copeutt's factory in the "Glen." The latter of these lanes is marked on the map as the " Lane lead- ing to Gaion's Mills." The Saw-Mill River then swept over its entire bed, with nothing to hide any part of it from the eye except the simple Post Road Bridge. Twenty-six buildings only, of all kinds, in- eluding barns, sheds and little shops, stood on the three hundred and twenty aeres of land. Of these, one was St. John's Church, five were mill buildings for grinding grain and plaster and for sawing and fulling, seven were barus and sheds and one is represented as containing "shops." This leaves bnt twelve build- ings that could have been utilized as dwellings. One of these was the celebrated manor-house; another was the farm-house of Mr. Wells, standing on the west side of the Post road. a little north of the pres- ent Wells Avenue; a third was the Indian Queen Inn, on the site of the earlier "Hunt's Tavern," in which the lords of the Manor of Philipsburgh had in the previous century hekl courts-leet and courts-baron ; a fourth was an old stone building in the " Lane lead- ing to Guion's Mills," and perhaps as old as the manor house itself; and a fifth was a structure standing next to St. John's Church on the north, probably looked upon in its day as an imposing edifice. It was subsequently moved into Riverdale Avenne, behind the Reformed Church, where it stands to-day in a dilapidated condition. The building marked on the map of 1813 as the "Indian Queen Inn," and on later maps as the "Nappeckamack llouse," is also still standing, but much enlarged, at the northwest corner of New Main Street and Nepperhan Avenue.

tin Thomas smith's Directory for 1858-59, which we had not seen till we had closed this tifth section, we find the population of Yonkers prit at 129 in 16" I and at bus in 1712. But Mr. Smith reminds his readers that at those dates "Yonkers" was an indefinite term. Bolton, in his "Church in Westchester County," gives the population at -19 in 1701, 250 in 170% and 200 in 1712. Probably no reliance can be placed on uny of these figures as indicating the number of people on the ground now covered by Yonkers. Mr. Smith's chirectory contains a brief but very in- teresting sketch of the vlefulty He lind seen the old town record- book, which we cannot find. lle says of it, -" One hook served the town for aver fifty years, and was then uut filled. It is bound in parchi- mert The paper is linen-strong but rough-of English manufacture. . . . The records are extremely meagre." But he gives the super- vimes of the precinct before 172, viz .. James Van Cortlandt, 1756-51 ; Ho chitry, ITAN-61, James Van Cortland, 1762-72.

YONKERS.

The spot on Getty Square now occupied by Mr. Da- vid Hawley's large block (till recently known as "Radford Building") was covered in 1813 with a nest of bushes and briars. It has since been raised several feet by filling. Manor Hall, with its beauti- ful gardens and lawns fronting on the Post road ; St. John's Church, with its immediately surrounding grounds somewhat more extensive than now; the " Inn," with its outbuildings and shed ; the dwellings we have named, and the mills upon the Nep- perhan, with their few operatives gathered into a half-dozen poor tenement-houses, were the only evi- dences of a human settlement that met the eye of a passing traveler. The slope from the Post road to the river, and the hills to the east, were in part laid out in pasture-grounds and orchards, and in part cov- ered with a waste of stone. It is said that the suc- cession of boulders was so continuous that one might

And as families did not multiply upon the territory, of course provisions for families were not rapidly made. This was observable especially in the provi- sion made for the education of children. The two school-houses of the town, already spoken of, both built before the Revolution, had become dilapidated and been abandoned. Major Ebenezer Baldwin 1

1 The history of Yonkers, between 1804 and 1863, is so involved in the life of Major Baldwin that an account of him must be given. We have taken sketches written and printed at the time of his death, and, with some tonches of our own, have adapted what they contain to the illustra- tion of our work.

MAJOR EBENEZER BALDWIN AND HIS TIMES.

Major Baldwin, who died on Tuesday, December 24, 1863, at the ad- vanced age of more than eighty-eight years, was one of but. few men whose life bridged over the whole interval between the American Revolu- tion and the American Civil War. He was born November 26, 1775, at Bozrah, near Norwich, Conn., on a place belonging to his ancestors from the old Indian times. Among his memories were the alarms and excite- ments of the Revolutionary period. He was named after an uncle, a

NEPPERHAN OR

SAW

RIVER.

ESTATE OF

LEMUEL WELLS,

GUION'S MILLS

PURCHASED IN 1813.

BOUNDARY OF ESTATE

· LANE

LEAD

PASTURE

FUILINGE MILL

RIVER

STONY HILL

POST ROAD

AVI MIL

ORCHARD.

BARNS

INDIAN DUES ION

HORSE SHEDS

CHURCHA

SHOPS

MANSION HOUSE

STABLE

MERCHANT MILL

APPLE

ORCHARD

CRAB

ORCHARD.

HUDSON

RIVER

have stepped from Getty Square to the present Glen- wood without setting his foot upon the ground. So unlikely at that time was the surface which since, by the hand of industry and the application of capital, has been turned into a scene of thrift and beauty. Close around the manor-house, of course, the ap- pearance was different. The grounds retained the effect of the money and toil which Colonel Philipse had expended upon them. The trees of his planting were now fully developed, and the lawn was beautiful. Outside of the special grounds of the favored man- sion, however, but small beginning had been made towards bringing the three hundred and twenty acres under cultivation. The scenery of the river and Pal- isades was gorgeons, but few persons had been bold enough to take up any part of the rugged soil and at- tempt the labor of drawing out a livelihood from it.

Presbyterian minister of Danbury, eminent for scholarship and patriot ism, who, on the taking of New York by the British, called upon his people to volunteer in the defense of their country, and himself marching as chaplain with the regiment from his neighborhood, soon afterwards, as a result of exposure, took the disease of which he died. Almost the en- tire population at the time was under military organization. The Major's father, being lame, was ranked among the minnte-men-only called ont to resist immediate invasion. On the 6th of September, 1781, the British, under Arnold, the traitor, attacked and destroyed New Lon- don and assaulted Fort Griswold, on the opposite side of the river. The men of the neighborhood rallied to its defense, but before their arrival the garrison had surrendered and then been massacred in cold blood. The Major at the time was but six years old. All his life he retained a vivid memory of this event. The Fort Griswold garrison consisted of the men of the neighborhood. The women and children knew that their own fathers and husbands had been slaughtered. The Major's father, with his company, arrived too late to take part in the fight, but Ezekiel Bailey, the father of his future first wife, was among the slain, and her mother stood on a rock, within musket-shot of the fort, and saw the whole action.

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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 5

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