Читать книгу History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1 - Frederic Shonnard - Страница 10

The destruction by the Indians of the early English settlements in the Vredeland on the Sound was followed by a long period of almost complete abstention from further colonizing enterprises in that portion of Westchester County. It is true that after the definite conclusion of peace between the Dutch and the Indians in 1645, both the Dutch government of New Netherland and the English government of Connecticut began gradually to give serious attention to the question of the boundary between their rival jurisdictions, and that the resulting conflict of interests touching the ownership of those lands gave rise to practical measures on both sides. It will be remembered that the Dutch authorities, while permitting Throckmorton and his associates to settle on Throgg's Neck, and later granting Cornell's Neck to Thomas Cornell, simply received these refugees from New England as persons coming to take up their abodes under the protection of their government and subject to its laws. Indeed, the formal acts of the Dutch director in issuing licenses to the English colonists are sufficient evidences of the merely individual character of the first English settlements on the Sound. But while willing to accommodate separate immigrants from New England with homes, the Dutch had always regarded the presence of the English on the banks of the Connecticut River, and their steady advance westward in an organized way, with apprehension and resentment. To secure the Dutch title to original and exclusive sovereignty over the whole country, Kieft made land purchases from the Indians, in 1639 and 1640, extending as far east as the Norwalk archipelago, purchases which, however, were matched by similar early deeds granted by the natives to the English to much of territory in the eastern part of Westchester County. After the close of the Dutch and Indian wars, the territorial dispute steadily grew in importance, although it was a number of years before the Dutch found any special cause for complaint on the score of actual English encroachment.

On July 14, 1649, Director Stuyvesant, representing the West India Company, confirmed the former Indian deeds of sale by purchasing from the sachems Megtegichkama, Oteyochgue, and Wegtakockken the whole country " betwixt the North and East Rivers." The boundaries of this tract, which in the record of the transaction is called Weckquaesgeek, are not very distinctly defined; but the intent of the purchase was evidently incidental to the general Dutch policy of showing a perfect title to the country. At all events, a very large part of Westchester County was embraced in the sale, the recompense given to the Indians consisting of " six fathom cloth for jackets, six fathom swam [wampum], six kettles, six axes, six addices, ten knives, ten harrow-teeth, ten corals or beads, ten bells, one gun, two lbs. lead, two lbs. powder, and two cloth coats."

The English of Connecticut, on the other hand, do not seem to have attached any peculiar political value to Indian land purchases. There is no record of any purchase of Indian lands extending into Westchester County on the part of the government of Connecticut. The authorities of that colony were evidently satisfied to leave the westward extension of English possessions to the individual enterprise of the settlers, meantime holding themselves in readiness to support such enterprise by their sanction, and regarding all the land occupied by their advancing people as English soil, without reference to the counterclaims of the Dutch.

The purchase made by Nathaniel Turner, for the citizens of New Haven, in 1640, of territory reaching considerably to the west of the present eastern boundary of our county, was confirmed to the inhabitants of Stamford on August 11, 1655, by the Indian chief Ponus and Onox, his eldest son. The tract bought in 1610 ran to a distance sixteen miles north of the Sound. By the wording of the new deed of 1655, its bounds extended " sixteen miles north of the town plot of Stamford, and two miles still further north for the pasture of their [the settlers'] cattle; also eight miles east and west." The Indian owners, upon this occasion, received as satisfaction four coats of English cloth. No settlement of the region was begun during the continuance of Dutch rule in New Netherland, and thus the matter did not come prominently to the notice of Director Stuyvesant.

But in the preceding year a private English purchase from the Indians was made of a district lying nearer the Dutch settlements and within the limits of the already well-established jurisdiction of the New Amsterdam authorities, which became a matter of acute irritation. On the 11th of November, 1654, Thomas Pell, of Fairfield, Conn., bought from the sachems Maminepoe and Ann-Hoock (alias Wampage), and five other Indians, " all that tract of land called Westchester, which is bounded on the east by a brook, called Cedar Tree Brook or Gravelly Brook, and so running northward as the said brook runs into the woods about eight English miles, thence west to Bronck's River to a certain bend in the said river, thence by marked trees south until it reaches the tide waters of the Sound, . together with all the islands lying before that tract." This is the earliest legal record we have of the application of the name Westchester to any section of our county; although there is reason for believing that for several years previously this locality on the sound had been so called by the people of Connecticut, and that some squatters had already made their way thither. The bounds of Pell's purchase overlapped the old Dutch Vredeland and encroached upon the grants formerly made in that region to Throckmorton and Cor nell. Indeed, after the English took possession of New Netherland, the Town of Westchester set up a claim to the whole of Throgg's Neck, and Pell brought suit to recover Cornell's Neck from Thomas Cornell's heir; but as it was a part of the English policy to confirm all legitimate Dutch land grants, both these pretensions were disallowed. Westchester, as originally so styled, covered a much greater extent of country than the township of that name. Gravelly Brook, named in the conveyance from the Indians as its eastern boundary line, is a creek flowing into the Sound in the Township of New Rochelle; so that the territory at first called Westchester included, besides Westchester township proper, the townships (or portions of them) of Pelham, Eastchester, and New Rochelle. It is an interesting fact that the first of these four townships to be settled was the one most remote from Connecticut and nearest the seat of Dutch authority; which lends color to the strong suspicion that the migration of the English to this quarter was under the secret direction, or at the connivance, of the government of Connecticut, which sought to extend settlement as far as possible into the disputed border territory. Later, as Pell's purchase became sub-divided, separate local names were given to its several parts, the name of Westchester being retained for that portion only where the original settlements had been established. Thus it came that the company making the first considerable sub-purchase within the Pell tract conferred the name of Eastchester upon their lands, which immediately adjoined Westchester town at the east. The settlers in Westchester were not exterminated or driven away, like those on Hutchinson's River and Throgg's and Cornell's necks; and, though interfered with by the Dutch, held their ground permanently. Westchester was therefore the earliest enduring English settlement west of Connecticut. This was remembered when, in 1683, under English rule, the erection of regularly organized counties was undertaken; and accordingly the name Westchester was selected as the one most suitable for the county next above Manhattan Island.

It is certain that English settlers had begun to arrive in Westchester before the execution of Pell's deed from the Indians (November 14, 1654); for on the 5th of November, 1654, nine days before that execution, it was resolved at a meeting of the director-general and council of New Netherland that " Whereas a few English are beginning a settlement at no great distance from our outposts, on lands long since bought and paid for, near Vredeland," an interdict be sent to them, forbidding them to proceed farther, and commanding them to abandon that spot. Pell, in the law suit which he brought in 1665 against the heir of Thomas Cornell to recover Cornell's Neck, stated that in buying the Westchester tract he had license from the governor and council of Connecticut, " who took notice of this land to be under their government," and " ordered magistratical power to be exercised at Westchester." The colonial records of Connecticut show that such license was in fact granted to him in 1663. This sanction, issued nine years after his original purchase, was probably procured by him with a view to a second and confirmatory purchase. Whether the first settlers came to Westchester as the result of any direct instigation on the part of the Connecticut officials cannot be determined; but it is probable that the latter were fully cognizant of their enterprise, and promoted it by some sort of encouragement. Certainly the Westchester pioneers made no false pretenses, and sought no favors from the Dutch, but boldly announced themselves as English colonists. One of their first acts was to nail to a tree the arms of the Parliament of England.

Stuyvesant permitted the winter of 1654-55 to pass without offering to disturb the intruders in the enjoyment of the lands they had so unceremoniously seized. But in April he dispatched an officer, Claes Van Elslandt, with a writ commanding Thomas Pell, or whomsoever else it might concern, to cease from trespassing, and to leave the premises. Van Elslandt, upon arriving at the English settlement, was met by eight or nine armed men, to whose commander he de livered the writ. The latter said: "I cannot understand Dutch. Why did not the fiscaal, or sheriff, send English? When he sends English, then I will answer. We expect the determination on the boundaries the next vessel. Time will tell whether we shall be under Dutch government or the Parliament; until then we remain here under the Commonwealth of England." Notwithstanding this defiant behavior, the Dutch director-general was reluctant to act severely in the matter, and nearly a year elapsed before the next proceedings were taken, which were based quite as much upon considerations affecting the character of the English settlement as upon the desire to vindicate Dutch territorial rights. The director and council, by a resolution adopted March 6, 1656, declared that the English at Westchester were guilty of " encouraging and sheltering the fugitives from this province," and also of keeping up a constant correspondence with the savage enemies of the Dutch. On these grounds, and also to defend the rights of the Dutch against territorial usurptions, an expedition, commanded by Captains De Koninck and Newton and Attorney-General Van Tienhoven, was sent secretly to Westchester. On the 14th of March this party made its descent upon the village, and, finding the English drawn up under arms, prepared for resistance, overpowered them, and apprehended twenty-three of their number, some of whom were fugitives from New Amsterdam and the others bona fide English colonists. All the captives were conveyed to Manhattan Island, where the Dutch runaways were confined in prison and the English settlers placed under civil arrest and lodged in the City Hall. The next day Attorney-General Van Tien hoven formally presented his case against the prisoners. In his argument he alleged as one of the principal grievances against the people of Westchester that they were guilty of the offense of " luring and accommodating our runaway inhabitants, vagrants, and thieves, and others who, for their bad conduct, find there a refuge." He de manded the complete expulsion of the English from the province. This demand was sustained by the director and council, with the proviso, however, that the settlers should be allowed six weeks' time for the removal of their goods and chattels. At this stage the prisoners came forward with a decidedly submissive proposition. They agreed that, if permitted to continue on their lands, they would subject themselves to the government and laws of New Netherland, only requesting the privilege of choosing their own officers for the enforcement of their local laws. This petition was granted by Stuyvesant, on condition that their choice of magistrates should be subject to the approval of the director and council, selections to be made from a double list of names sent in by the settlers. Under this amicable arrangement, Pell's settlement at Westchester called by the Dutch Oostdorp), while retaining its existence, was brought under the recognized sovereignty of New Netherland, in which position it remained until the English conquest.

The history of this first organized community in Westchester County is fortunately traceable throughout its early years. On March 23, 1656, the citizens submitted to Director Stuyvesant their nominations of magistrates, the persons recommended for these offices being Lieutenant Thomas Wheeler, Thomas Newman, John Lord, Josiah Gilbert, William Ward, and Nicholas Bayley. From this list the director appointed Thomas Wheeler, Thomas Newman, and John Lord. Annually thereafter double nominations were made, and three magistrates were regularly chosen. There is no indication in the records of New Netherland of any willful acts of insubordination by the settlers, or of any further delinquencies by them in the way of harboring bad characters. The Dutch authorities, on their part, manifested a moderate and considerate disposition in their supervisory government of the place. At the end of 1656 Stuyvesant sent three of his subordinates to Westchester, to administer the oath of office to the newly appointed magistrates and the oath of allegiance to the other inhabitants. But the latter objected to the form of oath, and would promise obedience to the law only, provided it was conformable to the law of God; and allegiance only " so long as they remained in the province." This modified form of oath was generously consented to. Later (January 3, 1657), Stuyvesant sent to the colonists, at their solicitation, twelve muskets, twelve pounds of pow der, twelve pounds of lead, two bundles of matches, and a writing-book for the magistrates. At that time the population of Westchester consisted of twenty-five men and ten to twelve women.

The Dutch commissioners dispatched by Stuyvesant to Westchester in 1656 left an interesting journal of their transactions and observations there, The following entry shows that the colonists were typical New Englanders in practicing the forms of religious worship:

31 December. — After dinner Cornelius Van Ruyven went to see their mode of worship, as they had, as yet, no preacher. There I found a gathering of about fifteen men and ten or twelve women. Mr. Baly said the prayer, after which one Robert Bassett read from a printed book a sermon composed by an English clergyman in England. After the reading Mr. Baly gave out another prayer and sang a psalm, and they all separated.

The writing-book for the magistrates provided, with other necessary articles, by Governor Stuyvesant, was at once put to use; and from that time forward the records of the town were systematically kept. All the originals are still preserved in excellent condition. The identical magistrates' book of 1657, with many others of the ancient records of Westchester, and also of West Farms, are now in the possession of a private gentleman in New York City.

In accepting and quietly submitting to Dutch rule, the English were merely obeying the dictates of ordinary prudence. Their hearts continued loyal to the government of Connecticut, and they patiently awaited the time when, in the natural course of events, that government should extend its jurisdiction to their locality. After seven and one-half years definite action was taken by Connecticut. At a court of the general assembly, held at Hartford, October 9, 1662, an order was issued to the effect that "this assembly doth hereby declare and inform the inhabitants of Westchester that the plantation is included in ye bounds of our charter, granted to this colony of Connecticut." The Westchester people were accordingly notified to send deputies to the next assembly, appointed to meet at Hartford in May, 1663; and also, in matters of legal proceedings, to "take the benefit," in common with the towns of Stamford and Greenwich, of a court established at Fairfield. readily attaching much importance to the will of Connecticut thus expressed, they abstained from their usual custom of nominating magistrates for the next year to Governor Stuyvesant. The latter, after some delay, sent to make inquiries as to the reason for this omission; whereat Richard Mills, one of the local officers, addressed to him a meek communication, inclosing the notifications from Connecticut and saying: "We humbly beseech you to understand that wee, the inhabitants of this place, have not plotted nor conspired against your Honor." This did not satisfy Stuyvesant, who caused Mills to be arrested and incarcerated in New Amsterdam. From his place of confinement the unhappy Westchester magistrate wrote several doleful and contrite letters to the wrathful director. " Right Hon. Gov. Lord Peter Stevenson," said he in one of these missives, " thy dejected prisoner, Richard Mills, do humbly supplicate for your favor and commiseration towards me, in admit ting of me unto your honor's presence, there to indicate my free and ready mind to satisfy your honor wherein I am able, for any indignity done unto your lordship in any way, and if possible to release me or confine me to some more wholesome place than where I am. I have been tenderly bred from my cradle, and now antient and weakly," etc. The claims of Connecticut to Westchester being persisted in, Stuyvesant made a journey to Boston in the fall of 1663 to seek a permanent understanding with the New England officials about the delicate subject. But no conclusion was arrived at, and the Westchester affair remained in statu quo until forcibly settled by the triumph of English force before New Amsterdam in the month of September, 1664.

The Dutch-English controversy regarding the Westchester tract was one of the incidental phases of the general boundary dispute, which Stuyvesant, from the very beginning of his arrival in New Netherland as director-general, had in vain sought to bring to a decision. In 1650, as the result of overtures made by him for an amicable adjustment of differences, he held a conference at Hartford with commissioners appointed by the United English Colonies; and on the 19th of September articles of agreement were signed by both parties in interest, which provided that the bounds upon the main "should begin at the west side of Greenwich Bay, being about four miles from Stamford, and so to run a northerly line twenty miles up into the country, and after as it shall be agreed by the two governments, of the Dutch and of New Haven, provided the said line come not within ten miles of the Hudson River."

But these articles, constituting a provisional treaty, were never ratified by the home governments. In 1654 the States-General of the Netherlands instructed their ambassadors in London to negotiate a boundary line, an undertaking, which, however, they found it impossible to accomplish. The English government, when approached on the subject, assumed a haughty attitude, pretending total ignorance of their High Mightinesses having any colonies in America, and, moreover, declaring that, as no proposal on the boundary question had been received from the English colonies in America, it would be manifestly improper to consider the matter in any wise. Subsequent attempts to settle this issue were equally unsuccessful. Nevertheless, it was always urged by Stuyvesant that, in the absence of a regularly confirmed treaty, the articles of 1650 ought to be adhered to in good faith on both sides, as embracing mutual concessions for the sake of neighborly understanding, which were carefully formulated at the time and had never been repudiated. It will be admitted by most impartial minds that this was a reasonable contention. But the Westchester tract was not the only territory in debate. English settlement had proceeded rapidly on Long Island, and the onward movement of citizens of Connecticut in that quarter was quite as in consistent with the terms of the articles of 1650 as was the presence of an organized English colony in the Vredeland. Thus whatever course might be suggested by fairness respecting the ultimate English attitude toward Westchester, that was only one local issue among others of very similar nature; and with so much at stake, the policy of self-interest required a studied resistance to the Dutch claims in general, even if that involved violation of the spirit of an agreement made in inchoate conditions which, though in a sense morally binding, had never been legally perfected. Finally, there was no conceivable risk for the English in any proceedings they chose to take, however arbitrary or unscrupulous; for in the event of an armed conflict over the boundary difficulty, the powerful New England colonies could easily crush the weak and meager Dutch settlements.

It is not known to what extent, if any, the settlers at Westchester suffered from the great and widespread Indian massacre of 1655, which occurred before they had submitted themselves to the Dutch government and consequently before their affairs became matters of record at New Amsterdam. On the 15th of September of that year sixty-four canoes of savages — '" Mohicans, Pachamis, with others from Esopus, Hackingsack, Tappaan, Stamford, and Onkeway, as far east as Connecticut, estimated by some to amount to nineteen hundred in number, from five to eight hundred of whom were armed," — landed suddenly, before daybreak, at Fort Amsterdam. They came to avenge the recent killing of a squaw by the Dutch for stealing peaches. Stuyvesant, with most of the armed force of the settlement, was absent at the time upon an expedition to subdue the Swedes on the Delaware. A reign of terror followed, lasting for three days, during which, says O'Callaghan, " the Dutch lost one hundred people, one hundred and fifty were taken into captivity, and more than three hundred persons, besides, were deprived of house, home, clothes, and food." The Westchester people were probably spared on this occasion. It was a deed of vengeance against the Dutch, and, as the English pioneers had up to that time firmly resisted Dutch authority, the Indians could have had no reason for interfering with them. The reader will remember that when Stuyvesant's officer, Van Elslant, came to Westchester with his writ of dispossession in the spring of the same year, he was met by only eight or nine armed men; whereas one year later twenty-three adult males were made prisoners by De Koninck's party at that place. This demonstrates that the progress of the settlement had at least undergone no retardation in the interval.

Thomas Pell, to whose enterprise was due the foundation of the first permanent settlement in the County of Westchester, was born, according to Bolton's researches, at Southwyck, in Sussex, England, about 1608, although he is sometimes styled Thomas Pell of Nor folk. He was of aristocratic and distinguished descent, tracing his ancestry to the ancient Pell family of Walter Willingsley and Dymblesbye, in Lincolnshire. A branch of this Lincolnshire family removed into the County of Norfolk, of which was John Pell, gentle man, lord of the Manor of Shouldham Priory and Brookhall (died April 4, 1556). One of his descendants was the Rev. John Pell, of Southwyck (born about 1553), who married Mary Holland, a lady of royal blood. Thomas Pell, the purchaser of the Westchester tract, was their eldest son. As a young man in England he was gentle man of the bedchamber to Charles I., and it is supposed that his sympathies were always on the side of the royalist cause. It is uncertain at what period he emigrated to America, but Bolton finds that as early as 1630 he was associated with Roger Ludlow, a member of the Rev. John Warham's company, who settled first at Dorchester, Mass., and later removed to Windsor, Conn. In 1635, with Ludlow and ten families, he commenced the plantation at Fairfield, Conn. (called by the Indians Unquowa). In 1647 he traded to the Delaware and Virginia. Being summoned in 1648 to take the oath of allegiance to New Haven, he refused, for the reason that he had already subscribed to it in England, " and should not take it here." For his contumacious conduct he was fined, and, refusing to pay the fine, " was again summoned before the authorities, and again amerced."

Thus his early career in Connecticut was attended by circumstances which, on their face, were hardly favorable to his subsequent selection by the government of that colony as an agent for carrying out designs that they may have had regarding the absorption of Dutch lands. It is altogether presumable that in buying the Westchester tract from the Indians in 1654 he acted in a strictly private capacity, although the settlers who went there may have been stimulated to do so by the colonial authorities. Pell himself does not appear to have ever become a resident of Westchester. He evidently regarded his purchase solely as a real estate speculation, selling his lands in parcels at first to small private individuals, and later to aggregations of enterprising men.

Of the more important of these sales, as of the conversion of much of his property into a manorial estate called Pelham Manor, due mention will be made farther along in this History. The erection of per ham Manor by royal patent dated from October 6, 1666, Thomas Pell becoming its first lord. He married Lucy, widow of Francis Brewster, of New Haven, and died at Fairfield without issue in or about the month of September, 1669. He left property, real and personal, valued at £1,294 Its. M., all of which was bequeathed to his nephew, John Pell, of England, who became the second lord of the manor.

For some six years following Pell's acquisition of Westchester in 1654, there were, so far as can be ascertained, no other notable land purchases or settlements within our borders. Van der Donck's patent of the " Yonkers Land," inherited by his widow, continued in force; but the time had not yet arrived for its sub-division and systematic settlement. The New Haven Colony's purchase from Ponus and other Indians in 1640, confirmed to the people of Stamford in 1655, which covered the Town of Bedford and other portions of Westchester County, also continued as a mere nominal holding, no efforts being made to develop it. No new grants of any mentionable importance were made by the Dutch after that to Van der Donck, and while in dividual Dutch farmers were gradually penetrating beyond the Harlem, they founded no towns or comprehensive settlements of which record survives.

But with the decade commencing in 1660 a general movement of land purchasers and settlers began, which, steadily continuing and increasing, brought nearly all the principal eastern and southern sections under occupation within a comparatively brief period.

The earliest of these new purchasers were Peter Disbrow, John Coe, and Thomas Stedwell (or Studwell), all of Greenwich, Conn., who in 1660 and the succeeding years bought from the Indians districts now embraced in the Towns of Rye and Harrison. Associated with them in some of their later purchases was a fourth man, John Budd; but the original transactions were conducted by the three. Their leader, Peter Disbrow, says the Rev. Charles W. Baird, the historian of Rye, was " a young, intelligent, self-reliant man," who seems to have enjoyed the thorough confidence and esteem of his colleagues. On January 3, 1660, acting by authority from the Colony of Connecticut, he purchased " from the then native Indian proprietors a certain tract of land lying on the maine between a certain place then called Rahonaness to the east and to the Westchester Path to the north, and up to a river then called Moaquanes to the west, that is to say, all the land lying between the aforesaid two rivers then called Peningoe, extending from the said Path to the north and south to the sea or sound." This tract, on Peningo Neck, extended over the lower part of the present Town of Rye, on the east side of Blind Brook, reaching as far north as Port Chester and bounded by a line of marked trees.

Six months later (June 29, 1660) the Indian owners, thirteen in number, conveyed to Disbrow, Coe, and Stedwell, for the consideration of eight coats, seven shirts, and fifteen fathom of wampum, all of Manussing Island, described as " near unto the main, which is called in the Indian name Peningo." A third purchase was effected by Disbrow May 22, 1661, comprising a tract lying between the Byram River and Blind Brook, " which may contain six or seven miles from the sea along the Byram River side northward." Other purchases west of Blind Brook followed, including Budd's Neck and' the neighboring islands; the West Neck, lying between Stony Brook and Mamaroneck River, and the tract above the Westchester Path and west of Blind Brook, or directly north of Budd's Neck. This last-mentioned tract was " the territory of the present Town of Harrison, a territory owned by the proprietors of Rye, but wrested from the town some forty years later." Baird describes as follows the aggregate landed property represented by the several deeds: " The southern part of it alone comprised the tract of land between Byram River and Mamaroneck River, while to the north it extended twenty miles, and to the northwest an indefinite distance. These boundaries included, besides the area now covered by the Towns of Rye and Harrison, much of the Towns of North Castle and Bedford, in New York, and of Greenwich, in Connecticut; whilst in a north west direction the territory claimed was absolutely without a fixed limit. As the frontier town of Connecticut, Rye long cherished pretensions to the whole region as far as the Hudson." The satisfaction given the Indians for all parts of the territory consisted chiefly of useful articles, and for some of the section the recompense be stowed was very considerable according to the standards obtaining in dealings with the Indians in those days. Thus, the value paid for Budd's Neck was " eightie pounds sterling," and for the Harrison tract twenty pounds sterling. These sums certainly contrast quite imposingly with the value given by the Dutch in 1624 for Manhattan Island — twenty-four dollars.

Little time was lost in laying out a settlement. For this purpose Manussing Island was selected as the most available spot, and there a community was established which took the name of Hastings. In Disbrow's deed of May 22, 1661, to the lands between the Byram River and Blind Brook, mention is made of "the bounds of Hastings on the south and southwest," which indicates that at that early date the island village had already been inaugurated and named. The following list of all the inhabitants of Hastings the second town organized in Westchester County) whose names have come down to us is taken from Baird: Peter Disbrow, John Coe, Thomas Studwell, John Budd, William Odell, Richard Vowles, Samuel Ailing, Robert Hudson, John Brondish, Frederick Hanninson, Thomas Applebe, Philip Oalpin, George (Mere, John Jackson, and Walter Jackson. It will be observed that all these, with one exception (Clere), are good English names. This settlement, only one hour's sail from Greenwich, was too far removed from New Amsterdam to excite the jealous notice and protest of Director Stuyvesant, although it lay considerably to the west of the provisional boundary line marked off in the articles of 1650. Its founders apparently removed there with no other object than to secure homes and plantations, holding themselves in readiness, however, like those of Westchester, to come under the Connecticut government in due time. The oldest Hastings town document that has been preserved is a declaration of allegiance to "Charles the Second, our lawful lord and king," dated July 2nd, 1662. At the same period when the people of Westchester were informed that their territory belonged to the Colony of Connecticut, and instructed to act accordingly, like notification was sent to Hastings. Early in 1663 the townsmen, at a public meeting, appointed Richard Vowles as constable, who went to Hart ford and was duly qualified. John Budd was selected as the first deputy to the Connecticut general court, which body, on the 8th of October, 1663, designated him as commissioner for the Town of Hastings with " magistraticall power."

The Island of Manussing, only one mile in length, was in the course of two or three years found inadequate for the growing requirements of the colonists, and they began to build up a new settlement on the mainland. This was probably in 1664. Meantime other colonists had joined them, including Thomas and Hachaliah Browne, George Lane, George Kniffen, Stephen Sherwood, and Timothy Knap. They called the new village Rye, " presumably," says Baird, " in honor of Thomas and Hachaliah Browne, the sons of Mr. Thomas Browne, a gentleman of good family, from Rye, in Sussex County, England, who settled at Cambridge, Mass., in 1632." " The original division of Rye consisted of ten acres to each individual planter, besides a privilege in the undivided lands." The general court of Connecticut, on the 11th of May, 1665, ordered "that the villages of Hastings and Rye shall be for the future conjoined and made one plantation, and that it shall be called by the appellation of Rye." Gradually the island was abandoned. The village of Rye became within a few years a very respectable little settlement. It lay " at the upper end of the Neck, along the eastern bank of Blind Brook, and the present Milton road was the village street, on either side of which the home-lots of the settlers were laid out. . . . The houses erected were not mere temporary structures, as on Manus sing Island, but solid buildings of wood or stone, some of which have lasted until our own day. They were long, narrow structures, entered from the side, and stood with gable end close upon the road, and huge chimney projecting at the rear. Each dwelling generally contained two rooms on the ground floor — a kitchen and ' best room ' — with sleeping apartments in the loft."

The original Rye purchases of Disbrow and his associates in 1660 antedated by only one year the purchase of the adjacent Mamaroneck lands, extending from the Mamaroneck River to the limits of Thomas Pell's Westchester tract. On the 23rd of September, 1661, the Indian proprietors, Wappaquewam and Mahatahan (brothers), sold to John Richbell, of Oyster Bay, Long Island, three necks of land, described as follows in the conveyance: "The Eastermost is called Mammaranock Neck, and the Westermost is bounded with Mr. Pell's purchase." The three necks later became known as the East, Middle, and West Necks. All the meadows, rivers, and islands thereunto belonging were included in the sale; and it was also specified that Richbell or his assigns might " freely feed cattle or cutt timber twenty miles Northward from the marked Trees of the Necks." As payment, he was to deliver to Wappaquewam, half within about a month and the other half in the following spring, twenty-two coats, one hundred fathom of wampum, twelve shirts, ten pairs of stockings, twenty hands of powder, twelve bars of lead, two firelocks, fifteen hoes, fifteen hatchets, and three kettles. Two shirts and ten shillings in wampum were given in part payment on the day of the transaction. But Richbell was not permitted to enter into undisturbed possession of his fine property. Another English man of Oyster Bay, one Thomas Revell, in the following month (October, 1661) appeared on the scene and undertook to buy the identical lands, or a very considerable portion of them. His negotiations were with the same Wappaquewam and certain other Indians, to whom he paid, or engaged to pay, more than Richbell had bound himself for. Out of his rival claim arose a wordy legal dispute, wherein affidavits were filed by various witnesses, one of whom (testifying in Richbell's behalf) was Peter Uisbrow, of Manussing Island. From the testimony of Wappaquewam it appears that that chief was overpersuaded by another Indian, Cockoo, to resell the territory to Revell, upon the alluring promise that " he should have a cote," " on which he did it." The burden of the evidence was plainly in favor of Richbell, who, in all the legal proceedings that resulted, triumphed over his opponent.

The Indian Cockoo, who contributed his good offices to the assistance of Revell in this enterprise, was none other than the notable Long Island interpreter, Cockonoe, who was John Eliot's first instructor in the Indian language, and who was a frequent intermediary between English land purchasers and the native owners of the soil. What is known of the history of this very unique char acter has been embodied in an interesting monograph by Mr. William Wallace Tooker, to whom we are indebted for the article on Indian local names in the second chapter of this volume.

His name appears variously in legal documents as Cockoo, Cokoo, and Cockoe — all abbreviations of the correct form, Cockonoe. Eliot, in a letter written in 1649, descriptive of how he learned the Indian tongue, relates that he became acquainted while living at Dorchester, Mass., with a young Long Island Indian, " taken in the Pequott warres," whom he found very ingenious, able to read, and whom he taught to write, " which he quickly learnt." " He was the first," says Eliot, " that I made use of to teach me words and to be my interpreter." And at the end of his "Indian Grammar," printed at Cambridge in 1669, Eliot testifies more particularly to the services rendered him by this youth. " By his help," he says, " I translated the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and many texts of Scripture; also I compiled both exhortations and prayers by his help." Cockonoe attended Eliot for some time in his evangelistic expeditions, and later made his home among the English settlers on Long Island, whom he stood ready at all times to assist in their private dealings with the Indians. When Thomas Revell sought to get the upper hand of Richbell in the purchase of lands in the present Township of Mamaroneck, he accordingly brought Cockonoe with him from Long Island, and confided to him full authority in the premises. Cockonoe made large promises to the native owners in Revell's behalf, and readily induced them to grant him power of attorney to sell the lands to Revell. The understanding was shrewdly planned, but Richbell's claim was too well established to be overcome.

Richbell, unlike Pell in his Westchester purchase, and Disbrow and his companions in their Rye venture, did not hold himself independent of the Dutch provincial administration. He promptly applied to the government at New Amsterdam for confirmation of his landed rights. Perhaps he was actuated in this step by a prudent desire to avoid the legal complications and annoyances which the settlers at Westchester had experienced, and perhaps he sought to strengthen his case against his competitor Revell by the forms of official recognition. In an elaborately polite communication, dated "In New Netherlands, 24th December, 1661," and addressed " To the most noble, great, and respectful lords, the Director-General and Council in New Netherlands," he solicited " most reverently " that letters patent be granted him for his tract, promising not only that all persons settling upon it should similarly crave letters patent from the Dutch authorities for such parcels of land as they should acquire, but also that he would take care to " enforce and instruct them of your Honour's government and will." By a document signed May 6, 1662, Director Stuyvesant complied with his request, stipulating, however, that Richbell and all persons associated with him or settling under him should "present themselves before us to take the oath of fidelity and obedience, and also, as other inhabitants are used to, procure a land brief of what they possess."

The bounds of Richbell's patent on the Sound ran from " Mr. Pell's purchase " at the southwest to the Mamaroneck River at the north east. The three necks, constituting its water front, are thus described by the historian of the Manors of Westchester County:

The Middle Neck was sometimes styled the " Great Neck," from its longer extent of water front, which led to the supposition that its area below Westchester Path was greater than that of the East Neck. The East Neck extended from Mamaroneck River to a small stream called Pipin's Brook, which divided it from the Great Neck, and is the same which now (1886) crosses the Boston Road just east of the house of the late Mr. George Vanderburgh. The North Neck extended from the latter stream westward to the mouth of a much larger brook called Cedar or Gravelly Brook, which is the one that hounds the land now belonging to Mr. Meyer on the west. And the West Neck extended from the latter to another smaller brook still further to the westward, also termed stony or gravelly Brook, which was the east line of the Manor of Pelham. A heated controversy arose between John Richbell and John Pell (second lord of the Manor), as to which of the two brooks last named was the true boundary between them, Pell claiming that it was the former and that the West Neck was his land. After proceedings before Governor Lovelace and in the Court of Assizes, the matter was finally settled on the 22nd of January, 1671, by an agreement practically dividing the disputed territory between them.

Richbell erected a house on the East Neck, and resided there. In the interior his landed rights, as understood in his deed from the Indians, extended " twenty miles northward." By letters patent from Governor Lovelace, issued to him October 16, 1668, the whole tract was confirmed to him, " running northward twenty miles into the woods." This tract embraced the present Towns of Mamaroneck, White Plains, and Scarsdale, and most of New Castle. But the enterprising men of Rye in 1683 bought from the Indians the White Plains tract — a purchase which gave rise to a protracted contention about the ownership of that section. The West and Middle Necks went out of Richbell's possession under mortgage transactions, the principal mortgagee being Cornelius Steenwyck, a wealthy Dutch merchant of New York. Most of the Middle Neck was subsequently acquired by the Palmer family (still prominent in the Town of Mamarcheck). Toward the end of the eighteenth century Peter J. Munro became its principal proprietor, from whom it is called to this day Munro's Neck. Upon it is located the widely known and exclusive summer resort of Larchmont, The East Neck was conveyed by Richbell, immediately after the procurement of his patent from Governor Lovelace, to his mother-in-law, Margery Parsons, who forth with deeded it to her daughter Ann, his wife. By her it was sold in 1697 to Colonel Caleb Heathcote, under whom, with its interior extension, it was erected into the Manor of Scarsdale. Heathcote's eldest daughter, Ann, married into the distinguished de Lancey family. As he left no male heir, Ann de Lancey inherited much of the manor property, and the de Lanceys, continuing to have their seat here, gave their name to the locality still called de Lancey's Neck.

John Richbell, the original purchaser of all the lands whose history has thus been briefly traced, was " an Englishman of a Hamp shire family of Southampton or its neighborhood, who were merchants in London, and who had business transactions with the West Indies or New England." He was engaged for a time in commercial enterprises in the British West India islands of Barbados, then a prominent center of transatlantic trade. In 1656 he was a merchant in Charlestown, Mass. (near Boston). The next year he entered into a peculiar private understanding with Thomas Mediford, of Barbados, and William Sharpe, of Southampton, England, which is supposed to have afforded the basis for his purchase, four years later, of the Mamaroneck tract. The details of the understanding are not stated in terms in any document that is extant; but its nature can readily be conjectured from the wording of the " Instructions " prepared for him by his associates, dated Barbados, September 18, 1657. He is advised to inform himself " by sober understanding men " respecting the seacoast between Connecticut and the Dutch settlements, and the islands between Long Island and the main, ascertaining " within what government it is, and of what kinde that government is, whether very strict or very remiss." Having satisfied himself, in these and other particulars, that he "may with security settle there and without offense to any," he is advised to " buy some small Plantation," which, among other advantages, must be " near some navigable Ryver, or at least some safe port or harbour," and " the way to it neither long nor difficult." He is next to obtain an indisputable title to the land, to settle there with his family, and to clear and cultivate it. Precise directions are given him for his agricultural and economic operations, including the following significant ones: " Be sure by the first opportunity to put an acre or two of hemp seed into the ground, of which you may in the winter make a quantity of canvass and cordage for your own use. In the falling and clearing your ground save all your principal timber for pipe stands and clapboard and knee timber." Lastly, he is instructed to " advise us, or either of us, how affairs stand with you, what your wants are, and how they may be most advantageously employed by us, for the life of our business will consist in the nimble, quiet, and full correspondence with us." There can be no doubt that all this was with a view to procuring facilities for contraband traffic. The navigation laws, at that time as throughout the colonial period, were extremely burdensome, and large profits were to be made in evading them. Although no direct evidence exists that the Mamaroneck shores were utilized to this end, we think it highly probable that some illicit trade found its destination there. It is a fact that Richbell's lands, unlike those of Thomas Pell and Disbrow and his associates, were not taken up to any considerable extent by bona fide colonists for many years. Yet he was a poor man, always in debt, and could not afford to let his property lie idle. As late as 1671 a warrant was issued by Governor Lovelace " for ye fetching Mr. John Richbell to town [New York City] a prisoner," wherein it was recited that " John Richbell, of Mamaroneck," was " a prisoner under arrest for debt in this city, from which place he hath absented himself contrary to his engagement." It may hence justly be remarked that, on the other hand, he could hardly have been engaged in any very extensive or remunerative " nimble " business.

Before buying the Mamaroneck tract, Richbell had become an in habitant of Long Island, residing at Oyster Bay. On the 5th of September, 1660, he purchased Lloyd's Neck, on that island, for which on December 18, 1665, he obtained a patent from Governor Nicolls. This property he sold one year later for £450. Through his brother, Robert Richbell, a member of the English Council of Trade created by Charles II., he probably received early information of the expedition intended for the conquest of New Netherland from the Dutch. After the conquest he made his home at Mamaroneck, where he died July 26, 1684, leaving a widow and three daughters — Elizabeth, Mary, and Ann. Elizabeth, according to Bolton, became " the second wife of Adam Mott, of Hamstead," and their son, William, was the ancestor of Dr. Valentine Mott, of New York City. Mary Rich bell married Captain James Mott, of Mamaroneck, who, in an entry in the town records, alludes to " a certain piece of land laying near the salt meadow," " in my home lot or field adjoining to my house," as being the burial place of John Richbell.