USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 17
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Lewis Morris became the manor-lord and continued so until after the Revolution. Upon the breaking out of hostilities he became a brigadier- general in the American army, but, early in the war, he resigned his position to become a member of the Continental Congress; and as such his name is affixed as a signer of the Declaration, as a delegate from New York. His brother, Staats Long, refused to perform service in America against his countrymen and remained in England during the whole war, notwithstanding which he rose to high rank in the British service before his death. The manor-house of Lewis Morris, west of the Mill Brook, stood until about 1891, when it was demolished by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad in making improvements
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for the suburban branch along the Harlem River and Bronx Kills. It stood west of Brook Avenue, and was known as "Christ's Hotel."
Gouverneur Morris-The most conspicuous member of the Morris family was Gouverneur Morris, who was born at Morrisania, January 31, 1752. As a boy he went for instruction to Dominie Tetard from whom he acquired a thorough knowledge and control of the French language, as well as of other matters. In accordance with his father's directions he received the best education to be obtained in America, and was graduated from King's College in 1768 at the age of sixteen. Subsequently he studied law and became one of the ablest and most brilliant lawyers in America. Upon the approach of hostilities he be- came a member of the Provincial Congress, and on July 8, 1775, a mem- ber of the Committee of Safety of Westchester County. During the whole of the struggle with Great Britain he was in the active service of his country, serving it in a political capacity. He was a close friend and confidant of Washington; and between him and Hamilton there existed the strongest friendship until the tragic death of the latter. The oration over the body of Hamilton, an oration famous for its power and pathos, was pronounced by Gouverneur Morris. Morris was a member of Congress during the war, and he was also a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. As a member of the latter body he framed the final draft of the Constitution as submitted to the States for ratification ; and the beautiful, clear and forceful English of that instrument is almost entirely his work. He was a Federalist in politics, and assisted Jay and Hamilton with tongue and pen, until his departure for Europe, in striving for the ratification of the Consti- tution by the several States. As a statesman, Morris ranked with these two famous Federalists, in the judgment of some; as a financier, he ranked after the financier of the Revolution, Robert Morris, whose assistant he had been, and after Alexander Hamilton, the first great Secretary of the Treasury.
Gouverneur Morris was a man of brilliant parts, with a rough, caustic tongue and pen which made him many enemies. Washington esteemed his patriotism highly and admired his directness and good judgment, but declined to appoint him on some diplomatic misson for fear his manner would defeat the object of the mission by arousing the ire of those whom he would meet and whom it would be his duty to conciliate. He believed in calling a spade a spade. Even in that time of easy morals Morris was conspicuous for his disregard of the opinions of the respectable portion of. the community and liked to shock people with his vagaries. One of his fads was to drive a pair of spirited horses without reins. Though repeatedly warned by his friends of the danger
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of doing so he continued to laugh at their misgivings until one day in May, 1780, when his team ran away with him in the streets of Phil- adelphia and one leg was crushed so badly that the surgeons thought it necessary to amputate it; in consequence for the rest of his life Morris was obliged to hobble around on a wooden leg. A religious friend called upon him one day to sympathize with him on the loss of his leg, and to tell him it was all for the best, as it was an act of divine wisdom; to whom Morris replied : "My good sir, you argue the matter so handsomely, and point out so clearly the advantages of being without legs, that I am almost tempted to part with the other." During the war his mother remained a loyalist and occupied the manor-house in New York. He did not see her for seven years; but during that time, both he and his half-brother, Lewis, corresponded with her whenever opportunity offered, an act which called forth the denunciations of their enemies, who even impugned their loyalty to the cause for which they were both doing so much. In 1788 Morris left for an extended tour of Europe, and was in Paris during the events preceding the French Revolution. His advice was sought by Louis XVI and his ministers, and he drew up for the French king an address from the throne.
Morris was at last made minister to the Court of Versailles, and he remained in Paris during the period of the Reign of Terror, being the only foreign representative that did so. After his supersession as , minister by Monroe in August, 1794, at the request of the Directory as a set-off to Genet's recall, Morris made an extended tour of Europe. In Austria he tried to secure the release of Lafayette; but though unsuccessful, he procured for the marquis many privileges that tended to mitigate the tedium of confinement. He was United States Senator from the State of New York from 1799 to 1803, but upon the defeat of the Federalists by the Democratic-Republicans under Jefferson, he withdrew from politics taking a pessimistic view of the future of the country. Morris was probably the first to advance the idea of connect- ing the harbor of New York with the great inland seas by means of an artificial waterway, and he foresaw in part the immense trade that would accrue to the city as a result. Morris was opposed to Governor George Clinton politically, but the governor appointed Morris one of the members of the first commission to inquire into the feasibility of the Erie Canal and to superintend its construction. The Gouverneur Morris house, to which many additions had been made by the builder's successors, commanded a magnificent view of the East River to the south, overlooking Bronx Kills and Randall's Island. The rooms were large and lofty, and upon the floors were the marks made by Morris's wooden leg. Some weak efforts were made at one time to preserve
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the house as a museum and the grounds in which it was situated as a public park; but about 1905 the property was secured by the railroad and the historic mansion was demolished.
Manor of Fordham-The manor grant of Fordham was made in 1671 when Francis Lovelace was governor of New York and bears his sig- nature. The manor never constituted a township by itself, having first been incorporated in the township of Westchester by the Act of 1788, and later, within the township of West Farms when it was formed in 1846. It lies so close to Kingsbridge it is sometimes difficult to differentiate in describing the two. On the Harlem River, Fordham extends as far south as Highbridge, and on the Bronx, it lies between West Farms and Williamsbridge. Within this area there grew up a number of villages, Fordham, South Fordham, Tremont, East Tremont, Belmont, South Belmont, Mount Hope, Mount Eden, Monterey, Ford- ham Heights, Bedford Park, and Williamsbridge. The Harlem Railroad traverses it to its northeast corner and the Central Railroad passes along its western boundary, the Harlem River. Trolley lines radiate from its different bridges. From Kingsbridge we may gain the top of the Ford- ham ridge by means of the old Boston Road, which passed through the northern edge of the manor for the greater part of its length to Williamsbridge, thence to Eastchester, or we may take Bailey Avenue. running parallel to the railroad tracks, and ascend to Sedgwick Avenue by means of the Kingsbridge Road, or by means of Bailey Avenue itself to Fordham Road.
South of Fort Independence is Tetard's Hill, which gets its name from Dominie Tetard, who bought a farm of sixty acres lying south of the Boston Road from Peter Vermilye, in 1763, and who went to live there about three years later. He served through the Revolution. and after its conclusion became professor of French in the reorganized King's College, which became Columbia in 1784. He held this position until his death, in 1787, at the age of sixty-five. Trace of the dominie has disappeared apart from the name of the hill; though, until the cutting through of some new streets some years ago, there stood an old stone archway the real purpose of which was unknown but which was called "Dominie Tetard's Wine Cellar." Under the edge of the hill, probably on the line of Bailey Avenue, there is the site of the ancient village of Fordham. Just a mile south of Fort Independence are the remains of Fort Number Five, a few rods east of Sedgwick Avenue at the southwest corner of the reservoir. Its position was well selected, as it is within plain view of Number Four, besides commanding the Farmers' Bridge, which crossed the Harlem River at West Kingsbridge Road, Bronx, and West 225th Street, Manhattan.
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The Fordham grant goes back to within a few years following the fall of New Amsterdam. Some time before 1666 the widow of Adriaen Van Der Donck married Hugh O'Neale, of Patuxent, Maryland, and went there to live. On September 21, 1666,
"Came Hugh O'Neale and Mary his wife (who in right of her former husband laid claime to a certn parcele of land upon the Maine, not farre from Westchester, commonly called the Younckers land), who bro't severall Indyans before the govr to acknowledge the purchase of said lands by van der Donck commonly called ye Youncker .... Tackarack, Claes, .... received satisfactn of Van Der Donck. All the rest of the Indyans present being seven or eight acknowledged to have recd full satisfaction."
The evidence of possession by Indian title being thus before Governor Nicolls he issued to Hugh and Mary O'Neale as joint patentees, under date of October 8, 1666, a confirmatory grant of Nepperhaem. As the descriptions of the bounds of the grant are the same in the Indian's acknowledgement, in the confirmatory patent and in the original Dutch grant of 1646, we must conclude that the property was intact as Van Der Donck bought it and was as he left it at his death. On October 30 of the same year, the two patentees transferred their right, title, and interest in the grant to Elias Doughty of Long Island, a brother of Mrs. O'Neale, and then returned to Maryland. Doughty began to sell the land in parcels to different purchasers in fee. The first sale was made March 1, 1667, to Jan Arcer, or John Archer, of eighty acres of upland and thirty acres of meadow, "betwixt Broncx river & ye watering place at ye end of ye Island of Manhattans." June 7, 1668, Doughty sold 320 acres to John Heddy, or Hadden -- this is now a part of Van Cortlandt Park. On July 6, 1668, Doughty sold to George Tippett (also spelt Tippit and Tibbett) and also William Betts
"a parcel of land and meadow . . . formerly owned by old Youncker (sic) van der Donck, which runs west of Hudson's river & east to Broncks River, with all the upland from Broncks River south to West- chester Path, & so runs due east, and north beginning at the boggy swamp within the liberty of the said Patent & the southernmost bound to run by the path that runneth and lyeth by the north end of the aforesaid swamp, and so run due east to Bronckes River, & due west to the meadow which cometh to the wading place."
On December 1, 1670, a third parcel of Colen Donck was sold to Francis French and Ebenezer Jones of Ann Hook's Neck and John Westcott of Jamaica, Long Island-this is the tract known as the Mile Square in the city of Yonkers, famous in Revolutionary annals. Later Doughty sold the northern portions of the patent to Dame Margaret
Bronx-10
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Philipse and Dirk Smith. Finally, September 29, 1672, he sold the remainder of the tract, consisting of 7,708 acres, to Frederick Philipse, Thomas Delavall, and Thomas Lewis. Jan Archer, the first purchaser from Doughty, was probably an inhabitant of Westchester, as the name appears in the records of that town. He was probably of Dutch extrac- tion, though Bolton gives an elaborate genealogy from Fulbert L'Archer, one of the companions of William the Conqueror. He married an Eng- lish wife and later his name was Anglicised into Archer. In addition to the Doughty tract he acquired other lands from the Indians to the westward of the Bronx; and was such a land-grabber that the Dutch nicknamed him Koopall or "Buy All." On the question of land he might appropriately be termed the Astor of the seventeenth century. He established a dorp, or village, in the northwest corner of his land, opposite the eastern entrance of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, about where the Kingsbridge station of the Putnam Railroad is now located. It consisted of one street running north and south on the line of the old Boston Road and Bailey Avenue leading to Fordham Heights. As on May 3, 1669, Governor Lovelace gave Archer leave to settle sixteen families on the mainland, "near the wading place," it must have become a village of several houses, though there has remained no vestige of them. The lessees of the farms were principally from Harlem; and it would appear from the contemporary court records that Archer was almost continuously in trouble with his tenants and neighbors. Thus, on one date, September 8, 1671, no fewer than four cases were brought against him-his offenses including the mowing of grass on another man's plantation, the breaking down of some one else's fences, the throwing the furniture of a third out-of-doors, and other incidents of tres- pass and interference. Archer was thus apparently a rather obstreperous individual and a hard driving business man. The Harlem records show that he gave three mortgages to Cornelius Steenwyck, who appears from the records of Westchester County to have advanced money to other landowners of the county. Finally, to escape the interference of the Harlem magistrates and the better to secure his purchases from Doughty and the Indians, he procured from Governor Lovelace a manor grant under date of November 13, 1671. The manor was to be held upon the payment of an annual quit-rent of "twenty bushels of good peas, upon the first day of March, when it shall be demanded." The name given to the manor was Fordham; the ford or wading place being at "ye passage commonly called Spiting Devil."
The Pelham Manor-Pelham is situated to the southeast of New Rochelle. It has for its southern boundary Long Island Sound. A small stream called by the Indians the Aqueanouncke, and by the
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English, Hutchinson's River, separates it from East Chester. It appears to have been purchased from the Indians some time previous to the year 1666 by Thomas Pell, and by him called Pelham. By Governor Nicholls it was granted and confirmed in 1666, "To Thomas Pell, Esq., of Fairfield in Connecticut, together with the island adjacent and all its privileges," and erected into "an enfranchised township or manor," and secured to him and his heirs. Thomas Pell, the first proprietor of the township, appears to have been an adherent of the popular party in the great struggle between the Parliament and the crown. Having been identified with the Puritans under the protectorship of Cromwell, after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, he fled from the venge- ance of the royalists in France. He afterwards removed to Oncka- way, or Fairfield, in Connecticut, and from thence went to Pelham, where he purchased from the Indians the right to the soil. After his death which took place about 1680 the manorial proprietorship de- scended to John Pell, his nephew, son of the famous Dr. Pell, ambas- sador of Oliver Cromwell to the Swiss Cantons. In 1691 the name of John Pell is found on the list of members returned by the sheriff to represent the county of Westchester, New York.
The region within the limits of Pelham was claimed both by the Dutch of New Amsterdam and the colony of Connecticut. In the year of 1634 Thomas Pell bought from the Indians, so stating in his testi- mony before a Court of Assize, held in New York, September 29, 1665-the title to the lands afterwards known as Pelham, Westchester, and New Rochelle. This whole tract of land was originally included in the grant made by the Indians to the Dutch West India Company in the year 1640. What Pell paid to the Indians for it does not clearly appear. Probably not so much as the Dutch paid them twenty years before for the whole of Manhattan Island. "A valuable consideration" are Pell's own words. In the year 1666 Pell's title was confirmed by royal grant, issued by Governor Nicholls, in part as follows :
Governor Nicholls, Esq.,
Governor under His Royal Highness the Duke of York, of all his Territories in America. To all to whom these presents shall come, sendeth greeting: Whereas, there is a certain Tract of Land, within this Government upon the Main situate, lying and being to the Eastward of West Chester bounds, bounded to the West- ward with the river, called by the Indians "Aqueanouncke," commonly known by the English by the name of Hutchinson's River, which runneth into the Bay lying between Throgmorton's Neck and Ann Hook's Neck, commonly called Hutchinson's Bay, bounded on the East by a brook called the Cedar Tree Brook, or Gravelly Brook, on the South by the Sound which lieth between Long Island and the mainland, with all the islands in the Sound not already granted or other- wise disputed of, lying before that tract of land so bounded, as is before expressed, and Northward to run into the woods about eight English miles in breadth, as
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the bounds to the Sound, which said tract of land hath heretofore been purchased of the Indian proprietors, and ample satisfaction given for the same.
This grant to Thomas Pell was confirmed to his successor and heir, John Pell, on October 20, 1687, by the then governor of New York, Thomas Dongan.
In the year 1689, John Pell sold to the Huguenots of New Rochelle through the agency of Governor Leisler, a tract of land consisting of six thousand one hundred acres, from the Manor of Pelham, for the sum of about one dollar per acre. The one hundred acres was a free gift to the French Huguenot Church, erected or to be erected by the inhabitants. The Manor of Pelham had originally contained nine thou- sand one hundred and sixty-six acres so that nearly two-thirds of it constitute the town of New Rochelle. The islands in the Sound oppo- site Pelham belong to the town. These are Minneford's, now City Island, containing about two hundred and fifty acres; and Hart Island, with eighty-five acres. The death of John Pell, nephew and heir of Thomas Pell, occurred in 1700, according to the inscription on his monument. He is said to have lost his life by the upsetting of a boat off City Island in the autumn of that year. His eldest son, Thomas, succeeded to the inheritance, and died in 1739, at the Manor House. In October, 1776, the British forces landed on Pelham Neck, ten days prior to the battle of White Plains. They came from Throgmorton's. now Throgg's Neck. They were met by the Americans and a heavy skirmish resulted. After some loss the Americans fell back, and the British advanced towards New Rochelle. Though largely outnumbered the retreat of the Americans was orderly and their resistance obstinate. The loss would appear to have been about equal. The owners of the islands along the Pelham shore suffered more severely from this in- vasion than the people in the interior, because a portion of the British fleet was always anchored in the Sound, and boats were constantly landing to obtain supplies, which they often and probably uninten- tionally forgot to pay for. One Benjamin Palmer, who lived on City Island, after the war was over sent a petition to Governor Clinton, complaining of his grievances. He declared that he had been driven off the Island, his stock destroyed, his effects plundered, his family taken prisoners, and, as a last indignity, the commander of the guard- ship, "Scorpion," ordered him to cut his wood in a certain place and no place else, "upon penalty of having his house burned down." Palmer's case was not a peculiar one. These acts of petty oppression were universal during the occupancy by the British of all parts of the country. But in his case there was a special reason for the enemy's retaliation. He had ventured to write to General Howe a letter in
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vindication of the Americans. But inasmuch as the sufferer afterwards removed to New York City with his family and had besides abundance of good company in his sufferings, and since his oppressors were ulti- mately defeated and driven from the country and he, if present, might have witnessed the hauling down of their flag on the Battery, in New York, in 1783, it would appear that he might well have been content to call it square and withdraw his petition. A hundred years made a great change in the value of the plantation held by him and from which he was then driven on City Island. The oyster business was greatly de- veloped there. The building of vessels, mostly pleasure yachts, led to the establishment of a dock-yard, in which a considerable number of men were employed, and where some of the speediest yachts in the country were built.
Manor of Philipseburgh -- The manor of Philipseburgh occupied in its southern part the western side of what is now The Bronx, reaching from Spuyten Duyvil to Croton Point and Haverstraw Bay where the manor of Cortlandt had its southern limit, running northward along the eastern shore of the Hudson. Yonkers was an important part of the Philipseburgh manor. Going back to its beginnings it is necessary . to recall that Elias Doughty sold to Frederick Philipse, Delaval, and Lewis, 7,708 acres of Colen Donck. By June 12, 1686, the whole tract had come into the possession of Frederick Philipse by purchase from the heirs of the other two proprietors. In the meanwhile, Philipse had been buying land from the Indians and from later proprietors and patentees, until in 1693, he owned an enormous tract of land extending virtually from Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Harlem River on the south to the Croton River on the north, and between the Bronx and Hudson rivers on the east and west. This tract did not include the Mile Square, nor the tracts sold to Hadden or to Betts and Tippett. On June 12, 1693, by royal charter signed by Benjamin Fletcher, "captain-general and governor-in-chief of our province of New York aforesaid," all of Philipse's purchases were formed into the lordship and manor of Philipseburgh, or Philipseborough, with the regular rights of court- baron and court-leet, "together with the advowson and right of patron- age of all and every the church or churches erected or to be erected or established or hereafter to be erected or established within the said manor of Philipseborough." The quit-rent was an annual payment of four pounds current money of the province upon the feast day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, payable "at our fort of New York." Included in this grant was the island Paparinemo, with the right of building a bridge across the Muscoota, or Spuyten Duyvil Creek. Frederick Philipse - the name was also spelt Flypse, Flypsen,
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Vlypse, and Vlypsen, its meaning being "the son of Philip"- was a native of Friesland in Holland, who came to New Amsterdam before 1653 when he was about twenty-one years of age. He worked at his trade of carpenter, but gradually engaged in mercantile pursuits until he became the richest man in the province and was known among the English as the "Dutch millionaire." He made two advantageous mar- riages, his first wife being Margaret Hardenbroeck, widow of Pietrus Rudolphus De Vries, a wealthy merchant of New Amsterdam, whose business the new Mrs. Philipse continued in her own right with extra- ordinary shrewdness. This was in 1662; she died about 1690. The second Mrs. Philipse was Catherine Van Cortlandt, the sister of Ste- phanus Van Cortlandt and the widow of John Dervall. Philipse was named in the order for Dongan's council and was councillor for upwards of twenty years. His business ventures were in both the East and the West Indies and with the Five Nations of the Mohawk Valley. He was accused of having direct dealings with the island of Madagascar off the African coast, then the most notorious resort of pirates on the face of the earth. His ships supplied the pirates with rum, gun-powder, flour, and other necessities at exorbitant prices, and received in pay- ment merchandise captured from innocent merchantmen. This illicit trade seems to have been considered more or less honorable, or at least not dishonorable, in those days, as we find Livingston and other wealthy lords of the manor and high officials engaged in it, until it became so scandalous that the authorities determined to put a stop to it. New York had become a resort for vessels which, under the guise of privateering, indulged in piratical exploits and sold their spoils in New York.
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