History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 77

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 77

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On the ridge east of the Harlem Railroad are two earthworks, or temporary forts, that were thrown up during the Revolution. They were once at the out- posts of the American army, and are even yet in a good state of preservation. The Flykill Brook, run- ning through Unionville, and in front of the old forts, was dammed up in order to throw back the water, and thus retard the march of the British troops. The dam is even now quite dis- ernible, and is to the pre- sent day known as "the Yankee Dam."

PLEASANTVILLE .- The most northerly village in the township of Mount Pleasant is Pleasantville, on the line of the Harlem Railroad, about two and a half miles north of Union- ville, and thirty-one miles from the Grand Central Depot, in New York City. The place was formerly known as "Clark's Cor- ners." It is about equid- istant from Bedford, White Plains and Tarrytown, be- ing about eight miles from each. The situation is de- sirable, and the village, which is surrounded by a pleasant agricultural dis- triet, has a population of not far from sixteen hundred. The village eon- tains some of the oldest and most prominent eitizens in the county. Among these was Moses Pieree whose ancestry dated back over one hundred years.

Mr. Pierce was born Mareh 9, 1816, on the Pierce homestead, just north of Pleasantville. The farm on which he was born has been in the family for more than one hundred years, and is at present oceupied by the fifth generation of the name. It formed a part of the Philipse Manor, and was rented early in. the last century by James Pierce, who was born in 1700, and with Elizabeth Cock, his wife, came from Long Island, settling upon and occupying it for many years. One of their numerous children, James Pieree, who

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MOUNT PLEASANT.

married Martha Leggett, of Mount Pleasant, eon- tinued to rent it until after the Revolutionary War, when it fell into the family possession by purchase.

A son of the last-named couple, Joseph, married Hannah Sutton, of New Castle, and, in turn, settled upon the homestead. Their son, Moses, who mar- ried Esther Carpenter, of New Rochelle, is the sub- ject of this sketeh. Early in life he achieved for himself the reputation of a fearless upholder of just and right principles, even though those principles were unpopular and their championship fraught with danger both to life and property. Fifty years ago he was secretary of the first temperance organization formed in his neighborhood, and continued to ear- nestly support that cause till his death. He was also violently opposed to the system of human slavery formerly existing in the South.

Early convinced, with his entire family, of the injustiee and wrong of slave-holding, he cheer- fully met the odium and danger attendant upon such a course at the time, and, together with his son, he speeded many fugitive slaves along the mythical track of the "Underground Railroad" to the next station, at the Jay homestead, en route for Canada. In later years the subject of peace, and the settlement of all civil and domestic difficulties by arbitration, interested Mr. Pierce deeply.

Stephen Palmer

In the religious meeting -that of the Society of Friends, held at the old meeting-house at Chappaqua, in his neighborhood-he held high positions by right, for he was thoughtful, public-spirited and warm- hearted. Full of kind attentions for the aged, good counsel for the young and an open hand for the needy, a patron of education to the extent of his means, and himself inclined by taste to intellectual things, such a man must ever be a great loss to fam- ily, church and county. He died, universally respected and beloved, April 30, 1886.

Pleasantville is a place of considerable business activity, and has four shoe-factories, one shirt-factory, and a marble quarry and lime-works a little out of the village.

Of the shoe-factories, Mr. Slagle's is probably the

largest, doing a business of about thirty thousand dollars per year, employing about seventy-five hands, and turning out at times one thousand pairs of infants' shoes per week, besides other varieties.

Mr. Win. Bell, with a plant of five thousand dollars, employs seventy hands, male and female. The pro- duet consists of children's, misses' and women's shoes.

Messrs. Israel & Zarr do a business not very differ- ent in amount, but consisting, for the most part, of hand-made work of good quality.

Mr. Rufus Hadley also docs probably a higher class of work, manufacturing superior goods, but less in quantity. The amount of capital invested in the shoe , manufactory is from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand dollars per year, and the number of hands em- ployed is from two hun- dred and fifty to three hundred.

The shirt-factory owned by Mr. Charles Quimby, represents a capital of about five thousand dol- lars, and from it there are put out every weck about three hundred dozen shirts. This establish- ment provides work for a large number of persons, either in the factory itself or at their homes.

From the extensive marble quarry, near the village, many prominent buildings in New York City have received, either for walls or trimmings, their glistening "snow- flake marble." Improved modern machinery and methods are used for get- ting out and dressing the marble for monumental, ornamental and general building purposes.

The Snow-Flake Lime-Works, in the same neigh- borhood, were established about 1865, by A. Wild & Son, who manufactured lime in an old-fashioned kiln. For several years past patent perpetual kilns have been used, in which the fires are kept burning continually, and the stone is put in at the top of the kilns as fast as the lime is drawn out at the bottom. The stone used for this purpose is an almost absolutely pure and white dolomite, its analysis showing :

Carbonate of Lime .

54.62

" Magnesia 45.04

" Iron

.16

Alumina

.07

Silica

.10

99 99 per cent.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

The quarry is about two hundred feet north of the body, and is greatly respected by his brethren for his consistent Christian life. He married, November 15, 1848, Miss Sarah Hobby, daughter of Wright Hobby. H. C. and Wright H. works, and apparently contains sufficient stone for many years. The drilling is done by a steam rock drill, and the broken stone is elevated to the top of , He has four children-Ambrose E., Jennie L., Henry the kiln by steam-power. The works are now owned and operated by Mr. S. Wood Cornell, of Pleasantville. The capacity of the works is upward of fifty thousand bushels per year, the manufacture of which eon- sumes about three thousand cords of wood.

Mr. Cornell is also proprietor of the lumber and coal-yard at this place, formerly owned by R. S. Haviland & Co., of which firm he was a member for thirteen years previous to his purchase of the busi- ness on January 1, 1886.

Pleasantville contains a number of stores, and also various mechanie shops. There are persons resid- ing here who do business in New York City, going down by the Harlem Rail- road in the morning and returning at night.

There are four churches in the village, the Metho- dist, the Presbyterian, the Episcopal and the Roman Catholie.

The origin of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church dates back at least to 1818, when Henry Clark and Rachel Clark, his wife, conveyed by deed to the trustees of the church, James Fish, Harvey Pal- mer and Henry Clark, land for the erection of a church. The pastor at the time was the Rev. Samuel Bushnell. The member- ship at the beginning was very small, but now nuni- bers two hundred and forty. The present pastor is the Rev. William Colden.

ALEXANDER VAN WART.

The ancestors of the Palmer family in America were three brothers, of whom Abijah was the great-grand- father of Stephen Palmer. Mr. Palmer's grandfather was Stephen Palmer, who owned and occupied a por- tion of the Philipse Manor, and his father was Harvey Pahner, who also inherited this ground and occupied it through life, leaving it to his son John, in whose possession it still remains. Stephen Palmer was born on the old homestead, near Pleasantville, March 4, 1825. He spent his early days in the district school of his neighborhood, and afterward became engaged in farming, which he has since conducted.

He is active in the religious cireles of Pleasantville, is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has been since his eighteenth year. He has from time to time held the office of steward and trustee in that

The Presbyterian Church is of more recent date, having been organized with thirteen members on January 19, 1880. The present house of worship was built the first year after the organization. The cor- ner-stone was laid November 2, 1880, and the edifiee was first used for publie worship on July 17, 1881, although it was not dedicated until November 21, 1882. It has received forty members since its organi- zation, so that it now numbers in full communion . fifty-three. The church has before it an important and promising field, and is doing its work with en- eouraging success. Its first and only pastor is the Rev. Manfred P. Welcher.

The public schools of Pleasantville are large and flourishing. There are three practicing phy- sieians in the place, Drs. Fowler, Swift and De Hart.

The village is distin- gnished as being the resi- denee of the Rev. Alexan- der Van Wart, the only surviving son of Isaae Van Wart, one of the cap- tors of Major Andre.

He is the youngest of five children, and was born September 28, 1799, at Mount Pleasant, on a farm which was purchased from the proceeds of the sale of the property con- ferred upon his father by the State, in consideration of the valiable services which he had rendered the country. He received his education in the distriet school in Mount Pleasant, leaving it for the activities of farm-life, in which he continued during his business earcer. He has always been an active Christian. He first connected himself with the Methodist Episcopal Church at White Plains, in which he remained about sixty years, when he re- moved to Pleasantville and became a member of the church there. He has served as a local preacher for many years, and has been exceedingly active in re- ligions work. He married Esther Fowler, daughter of Moses Fowler, of Mount Pleasant, and has three children-Fannie M., Esther and Hannah E. His great age and his consistent Christian example render his residence in Mount Pleasant a continual agency for good.

It was at Pleasantville, or near it, that " The West-

321

OSSINING.

chester Temporary Home for Destitute Children" first established itself, and commenced its beneficent eareer. The institution was organized mainly through the indefatigable and self-sacrificing labors of that remarkable woman, the late Mrs. Helen M. Vineent, wife of Frank Vincent, Esq., of Tarrytown, on February 12, 1880, incorporated on February 28, 1880, and re-incorporated on June 29, 1883. The Home was soon secured and provided at Pleasantville, and the practical working of the organization was commenced. The object of it is best expressed by a clause in the certificate of incorporation, whiel says :

"The object of this society is to receive all such children as may be legally committed to its eharge or eare, in a temporary home, in which such ehildren may be maintained, nursed and taken care of, and re- ceive instruction, training and discipline, and be taught to labor in such useful manner as may be most instruetive and eondueive to the future useful- ness of such children, until they shall be, under the eare and direction of the society, placed in proper and suitable families and homes, as may be deemed most advisable, or be otherwise disposed of according to law. And it is the further object of this society to look after and exercise such friendly and parental guardianship over suel children as they may be able and by law entitled to do until they arrive at the age of majority."

The growth of this benevolent enterprise will be indieated by a few simple faets in its history. On April 1, 1880, there were thirty-one children in the Home. On March 31, 1885, there were eighty-two. But during this time the whole number admitted was four hundred and nineteen, and the whole number discharged was three hundred and thirty-three. Of those thus discharged, one hundred and fifty-two were returned to their parents or friends, one hundred and seventy were placed in good homes, one was adopted, ten were sent to other institutions, and three died.

In the management of the institution it was found that more room and better facilities were required in order to secure the best results, and it was seen to be desirable, besides, that the house should be located at some more central point in the county. The want thus felt was generously provided for, and by volun- tary contributions the society was enabled to purchase and to remove into its new quarters on North Street, in the village of White Plains, in the latter part of March, 1885.

To the great grief of her fellow-workers, and to that, indeed, of the whole community, in which her noble qualities eaused her to be so loved and honored, Mrs. Vineent suddenly died, on November 10, 1883. But the work, that owed so much to her broad philanthropy and her remarkable executive ii .- 30

force, has since been carried on by a band of gener- ous-hearted women, who are every way worthy of the honor and the responsibility devolved upon tlem.

Johan A Toda

CHAPTER IV.

OSSINING.1

BY GEORGE JACKSON FISHER, M.D., Of Sing Sing, N. Y.

THE township of Ossining is in the form of an irregular rhomb, being about five miles in length (from north to southi) and about two miles broad. Its area is not far from ten square miles. It is bounded on the north, and partly on the cast, by the town of New Castle ; on the east and south by the town of Mount Pleasant; and on the west by the Hudson River and the mouth of the Croton River. It lies thirty miles north of New York City and nearly ten miles east of the City Hall.

1 The only history of the town of Ossining which has been written and published previous to this, is that by Robert Bolton, Jr., in his " History of the County of Westchester," vol. i. pages 488-512, New York, 1848 ; and the same, with slight alterations and additions, in vol. ii. of the second and last edition, pages 1 to 26, New York, 1881. In bothi editions only twenty-five octavo pages are devoted to this town, several of which are filled with inscriptions from the tombstones in our cemeteries.

There have been published in years past a number of maps of the town of Ossining and of the village of Sing Sing. In 1862 Clark & Wagner, of Philadelphia, published a very accurate " Map of the Town- ships of Ossining and Mount Pleasant, Westchester County, N. Y., from Recent and Actual Survey." The scale was three inches to a mile. At one side was a map of the village of Sing Sing. The borders of this large map were illustrated with a number of engravings of prominent resi- dences, including one of the quaint old "Lockadian Gardens," a spot which will long be remembered by the older citizens of the village. It was the place now occupied by Mr. Charles Klunder, the distinguished florist and floral decorator.

In 1881 G. W. and Walter S. Bromley, of New York City, published a quarto "Atlas of Westchester County, N. Y." The town of Ossining is represented in a map on a scale of two thousand fect to an inch ; Sing Sing on a scale of three hundred and thirty feet to an inch.

In 1884 L. R. Burleigh, of Troy, N. Y., published a lithographic birds- eye view of Sing Sing, twenty by thirty inches square.

As an evidence of the extreme degree to which the speculative spirit of 1836 was carried in the matter of growth in cities and villages, we find registered in the county hall of records " a map of three hundred building-lots, eligibly sitnated in the village of Sing Sing, Angust, 1835, by Samuel S. Doughty, of New York City, surveyor." This map is of the farm of fifty-two acres, now owned by Mr. Jolin Kane. It was laid out in plots lying on six parallel streets running north and south, which were crossed by one at right-angles, put down as Hudson Ave- nue. Other sections have been mapped out in village lots in a similar manner, and with equally negative results.

Ton

322

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

The town of Ossining was organized May 2, 1845.1 It was formerly ineluded in the town of Mount Pleas- ant.

The names "Ossin-ing " and "Sing Sing" are of unquestionable Indian origin. The meaning of the term "Ossining" and its derivation were given by Mr. Henry M. Schoolcraft, in 1844, at the request of General Aaron Ward, member of Congress from this distriet at that time. We are told that the word Ossin, in the Chippeway language, signifies " a stone ; " that Ossinee, or Ossincen, is the plural for " stones." 2 This etymology was accepted, and, in May, 1845, when onr town was taken from Mount Pleasant, it received the name of "Ossin-sing." In March, 1846, it was changed (by dropping the third s) and made to read " Ossin-ing," and still later the hyphen was omitted.

The name of the village has a more ancient origin and use. In the early part of the seventeenth een- tury this locality was occupied by a tribe of the Mo-

THE CROTON AQUEDUCT ARCH AT SING SING.

hegan Indians, known as "Sint Sincks." They owned the territory as far north as the Croton River, then called the "Kitehewan," the tribe inhabiting above this stream being the "Kitchawongs." An Indian village occupied the present site of Sing Sing, and bore the name "Sink Sink." The Kill-brook was called " Sint-Sinck," or, at least, it is so written on a map which bears the date of 1609.

In or about the year 1680 a patent was granted by the British erown to one Vredryck Flypsen, or, as afterward written, "Frederick Philipse," permitting him "to freely buy " the district of country extend- ing from Spuyten Duyvel Creek northward to the Croton River. In the course of five or six years he secured the whole region specified. The last pur- chase of land from the Indians was made Angust 24,

1685, being the " traet or pareel of land commonly called Sinck Sinek." Frederick Philipse first spelled the name as two words "Cinque Singte " and afterwards as one word, with the same letters, but without the second capital. Thus it is seen the stream, the tribe and their original village, all were called by a name the sound of which is expressed in the various ren- derings above cited, and which the present name per- petuates. It will be found variously written on ok maps and in ancient documents-Cinque Singte, Cinquesingte, Sink Sink, Sinek Sinck, Sin Sinck, Sint Sinck and Sin-sing. Ours is the only village in the world that bears this musical name.

TOPOGRAPHY .- The town lies on the eastern slope of the Hudson, the rock and land rising more or less abruptly from the river margin, until, at a distance of half a mile back, it reaches an altitude of three hun- dred feet; and still farther from the river the hills are from five hundred to nearly one thousand feet above tide-water. There is but very little level land in the whole township. At different elevations there are beautiful terraces, or small plateaus, which afford delightful sites for building. It contains no lakes or ponds worthy of mention. It is quite free from swamps and marshes. There are no very large streams in the town, though there are several fine brooks, which vary greatly in size at different seasons of the year. The town is separated at the eastern border from Mount Pleasant by the Pocantico River, which is a fine stream of water. The northern extremity of the town, above the railroad, is washed by the Croton River for a distance of over a mile. The Croton Aqueduct traverses the entire length of the town, crossing the Kill-brook, at Sing Sing, by means of a magnificent granite arch, of eighty-eight feet span, and at an elevation above the brook of over one hun- dred feet. "The Croton Arch" is a very striking feature of our village. The new aqueduet, now in course of construction, will pass subterraneously through the whole length of the eastern border of the township.

The prevailing rocks are an imperfect granite, and a gneiss varying much in stratification and solidny. Many boulders are everywhere to be found, some of which are of great size. Most of them are fragments of our own rock-beds, while many are of foreign ina- terial, having found their way here during the drift period, of which they are not the only remaining evidence. The surface of most of our rocks are well polished and furrowed by the same ageney.

There are several places in the town where the dolomitie limestone, which exists in several localities in Westchester County, crops out; but it is only quarried to any considerable extent on the New York State Prison grounds. It is a species of marble, and bears the name of the locality from which it is taken, as the Sing Sing, or Pleasantville, or Eastchester marble. It differs from common marble in being a bibasic mineral. Ordinary marble is a simple car-

1 Session Laws, 1815, Chap. 30, Src. 5.

2 N. Y. IlIst. Soc. Proc., 1844, p. 101. Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., vol. il. p. 70.

"BRIARCLIFF FARM." PROPERTY OF JAMES STILLMAN, SING SING, N. Y.

323

OSSINING.

bonate of lime, while this is a carbonate of lime and a carbonate of magnesium. It is, for the most part, granular and readily disintegrates by exposure to at- mospherie influences. It is this quality that renders it unsuitable as a bnikdling stone for permanent strue- tures. Much of this marble, however, is very com- pact, crystalline and solid, making an excellent build- ing material, and has heretofore been largely employed for this purpose.

The extensive buildings erected by the State, for the prisons and shops at Sing Sing, including the large Dorie structure formerly used as a prison for fe- male convicts, were all made from these quarries. Grace Church on Broadway, the United States Sub- Treasury building in Wall Street, New York, for- inerly the United States Custom-Honse, were also built of Sing Sing marble. To these can be added the city hall and the hall of records in the city of Albany, two very substantial and noble structures. Some of the finest residences of Sing Sing were also built of this material. The "Robinson Mansion," the "Ward Mansion " (now the residence of Mrs. Henry J. Baker), the "Smull Mansion " (the present residenee of Mr. Francis Larkin) and the residence of Mr. L. M. Cobb. The Mount Pleasant Academy and the First National Bank of Sing Sing are also built from the same material from these quarries. There are many beautiful walls, in front of private grounds, "stepping-blocks," hitching-posts, etc., which adorn our village, all of this white marble. Nearly all of these blocks have been quarried and hewn by convict labor.

The marble has also been put to two other import- ant uses. It has been extensively shipped as a flux for the reduction of iron-ore; and thousands of tons have been bnrned in kilns, on the prison grounds, in the manufacture of builders' lime, of which it is said to be an excellent article. Thus the quarries are seen to constitute an important industry at this State insti- tution. It was with a view of developing and utiliz- ing this marble that the State convicts were trans- ferred to Sing Sing in the year 1825.

The result of sixty years of convict labor has been to leave the grounds baek of the prison in a very rough and unsightly condition, with great excavations and enormous heaps of débris.

The treatises of Prof. Dana and others, who have written on mineralogy, attribute many interesting minerals to this locality. The writer of this chapter has resided a third of a century at this place, and, notwithstanding the fact of his personal interest in the subject and his frequent excursions to the quarries, he has failed to find more than a moiety of the minerals credited to this place. If they formerly existed here, the locality is now exhausted. Fine specimens are still found of fibrous and radiated tremolite, cubical and octahedral crystals of iron pyrite, asbestos, calcite and poor specimens of mal- aehite and azurite.

There are two very interesting dykes of granite to be seen in these quarries; one of them is from two to eight feet broad, with sharp, well-defined margins.

THE SILVER AND COPPER-MINES OF SING SING AND SPARTA .- There are several perpendicular and horizontal shafts in and about Sing Sing, which do- serve a fuller deseription than has been given in Bol- ton's "History of the County of Westchester." Less than half a page is devoted to them.1 At page 509 he incidentally mentions Colonel James, "director of the silver-mines in this place," as having command of a regiment, in the year 1774, which was stationed at Sing Sing, which, upon the breaking out of hostilities, was ordered to Boston.

" The silver-mine" is located within a few yards of the north wall of the prison. The shaft remained open until within a few years of the present time, when it was covered by a braneh track of the railroad which passes into the prison-yard. This shaft was about one hundred and twenty feet in extent. The mine was first worked by an English company, as we are told, with considerable suecess. A smelting fur- nace was erected near the outlet of the Sing Sing Kill. There the ore was reduced and the silver made into ingots for exportation to England. The opera- tions of this mining company were suddenly termi- nated by the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, never again to be resumed. There are two references to these mines in the office of the Secretary of State, at Albany, the first of which is as follows: "No. 54. Stephen Lyon, Westchester County, town of Mount Pleasant, about 100 rods south of the discover- er's dock, and abont 80 rods south of the farmers' dock at Sing Sing landing, upon lands of John F. Marsh, (gold and silver). Nov. 14, 1820. 41. 204."

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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 77

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