Читать книгу History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1 - Frederic Shonnard - Страница 8

BRONCK, ANNE HUTCHINSON, THROCKMORTON, CORNELL

During the first fifteen or so years after the beginning of the colonization of New Netherland there was no attempt at settlement north of the Harlem River, so far as can be determined from the records that have come down to us. The earliest recorded occupation of Westchester land by an actual white settler dates from about 1639. At that period at least one man of note and substance, Jonas Bronck, laid out a farm and erected a dwelling above the Harlem. That he had predecessors in that section is extremely improbable. The entire Westchester peninsula at that time was a wilderness, inaccessible from Manhattan Island, except by boat. The colony proper, as inaugurated by the few families of Walloons, who came over in 1623, and as subsequently enlarged by gradual additions, was at the far southern end of Manhattan Island, where a fort was built for the general security, and where alone existed facilities for trade and social intercourse. To this spot and its immediate vicinity settlement was necessarily confined for some years; and though by degrees certain enterprising persons took up lands considerably farther north, steadily pushing on to the Harlem, it is most unlikely that that stream was crossed for purposes of habitation by any unremembered adventurer before the time of Bronck. Certainly any earlier migration into a region utterly uninhabited except by Indians, and separated by water from all communication with the established settlements, would have been an event of some importance, which hardly could have escaped mention. We may therefore with reasonable safety assume that Bronck, the first white resident in Westchester County of whom history leaves any trace, was the first in fact, and that with his coming, about the year 1639, the annals of the civilized occupation of our country begin.

The little colony of Walloons landed on Manhattan Island by the ship " New Netherland " in the spring of 1623 was, as we have seen, only one of several infant colonies planted on the same occasion and governed by a director of the Dutch West India Company, who had his headquarters in Delaware Bay. The first director, Cornelius Jacobsen May, was succeeded at the expiration of a year by William Verhulst, who in 1626 was replaced by Peter Minuit. Previously to Minuit's appointment little effort had been made to give a formal character to the administration of the local affairs of New Nether land, although the interests of the settlements were not neglected. In 1625 wheeled vehicles were introduced, and a large importation of domestic animals from Holland was made, including horses, cattle, swine, and sheep. Moreover, some new families and single people, mostly Walloons, were brought over.

With the arrival of Peter Minuit, as director-general, on May 4, 1626, the concerns of the colony first came under a carefully ordered scheme of management. The settlements in New York Bay were now made the seat of government of New Netherland. The director-general was to exercise the functions of chief executive, subject to the advice of a council of five members, which, be sides acting as a legislative and general administrative body, was to constitute a tribunal for the trial of all cases at law arising, both civil and criminal. There were two other officers of importance — a secretary of the council and a schout-fiscaal. The latter performed the combined duties of public prosecutor, treasurer, and sheriff. There was no provision for representative government, although it was customary in cases of considerable public moment to call in some of the principal citizens as advisers, who in such circumstances had an equal voice with the members of the council. Of this custom the directors sometimes took advantage in order to place the responsibility for serious and perhaps questionable acts of policy upon the citizens. The conduct of Director Kieft in entering upon his course of violent aggression against the Indians, which resulted in great devastation in our county, was given the color of popular favor in this manner.

In the early months of Minuit's administration the Island of Manhattan was purchased from the Indians " for the value of sixty guilders," or $24. The same ship which carried to Holland the news of this transaction bore a cargo of valuable peltries (including 7,246 beaver skins) and oak and hickory timber. The first year of Minuit's directorship was also signalized by the dispatching of an embassy to New England, partly with the object of cultivating trade relations with the Puritan settlers, but mainly in connection with the rival English and Dutch territorial claims. Thus at the very outset of systematic government by the Dutch in their new possessions the controversy with England, destined to be settled thirty-seven years later by the stern law of the stronger, came forward as a subject requiring special attention.

It should not be supposed that the settlement on Manhattan Island at this early period enjoyed any pretensions as a community. Indeed, it had scarcely yet risen to true communal dignity. According to Wassanaer, the white population in 1628 was 270. But this number did not represent any particularly solid organization of people composed of energetic and effective elements. The settlers up to this time were almost exclusively refugees from religious persecution, who came for the emergent reason that they were without homes in Europe — mostly honest, sturdy people, but poor and unresourceful. The inducements so far offered by the West India Company were not sufficiently attractive to draw other classes to their transatlantic lands, and the natural colonists of the New Netherland, the yeomen and burghers of the United Provinces, finding no appearance of advantage to offset the plain risks involved in emigration, were very reluctant to leave their native country, where conditions of life were comfortable and profitable much beyond the average degree. This reluctance was alluded to in the following strong language in a report made to the States-General by the Assembly of the XIX. in 1629: " The colonizing such wild and uncultivated countries demands more inhabitants than we can well supply; not so much through lack of population, in which our provinces abound, as from the fact that all who are inclined to do any sort of work here procure enough to eat without any trouble, and are therefore unwilling to go far from home on an uncertainty."

It accordingly became a matter of serious consideration for the company to devise more effective colonizing plans. After careful deliberation, an elaborate series of provisions to this end was drawn up, entitled " Freedoms and Exemptions granted by the Assembly of the XIX. of the Privileged West India Company to all such as shall plant any colonies in New Netherland," which in June, 1629, received the ratification of the States-General. As this document «as the basis upon which the celebrated patroonships, including the patroonship of Yonkers, were founded, a brief summary of it is in order.

Any member of the West India Company who should settle a " colonie " (i.e., a plantation or landed proprietorship) in New Netherland was entitled to become a beneficiary of the Privileges and Exemptions, but that right was withheld from all other persons. The whole country was thrown open under the offer, excepting " the Island of Manhattan," which was reserved to the company. A colonie, within the meaning of the document, was to be a settlement of " fifty souls, up wards of fifteen years old," one-fourth to be sent during the first year and the remainder before the expiration of the fourth year. Everyone complying with these conditions was to be acknowledged a patroon of New Netherland. The landed limits of the patroonships were extensible sixteen English miles " along the shore — that is, on one side of a navigable river, or eight miles on each side of a river — and so far into the country as the situation of the occupiers will permit"; and the company waived all pecuniary consideration for the land, merely requiring settlement. Upon the patroons was conferred the right to " forever possess and enjoy all the lands lying within the aforesaid limits, together with the fruits, rights, minerals, rivers, and fountains thereof; as also the chief command and lower jurisdiction, fishing, fowling, and grinding, to the exclusion of all others, to be holden from the company as a perpetual inheritance." In case " anyone should in time prosper so much as to found one or more cities," he was to " have power and authority to establish officers and magistrates there, and to make use of the title of his colonie according to his pleasure and the quality of the persons." The patroons were directed to furnish their settlers with " proper instructions, in order that they may be ruled and governed conformably to the rule of government made or to be made by the Assembly of the XIX., as well in the political as in the judicial government." Special privileges of traffic along the whole American coast from Florida to Newfound land were bestowed upon the patroons, with the proviso that their returning ships should land at Manhattan Island, and that five per cent, of the value of the cargo should be paid to the company's officers there. It was even permitted to the patroons to traffic in New Netherland waters, although they were strictly forbidden to receive in exchange any article of peltry, " which trade the company reserve to themselves." Nevertheless they were free to engage in the coveted peltry trade at all places where the Company had no trading station, on condition that they should " bring all the peltry they can procure " either to Manhattan Island or direct to the Netherlands, and pay to the company " one guilder for each merchantable beaver and otter skin." The company engaged to exempt the colonists of the patroons from all " customs, taxes, excise, imports, or any other contributions for the space of ten years." In addition to the grants to the patroons, it was provided that private persons, not enjoying the same privileges as the patroons, who should be inclined to settle in New Netherland, should be at liberty to take up as much land as they might be able properly to improve, and to " enjoy the same in full property." The principle of recompense to the Indians for the lands, as a necessary preliminary to legal ownership, was laid down in the stipulation that " whoever shall settle any colonies outside of Manhattan Island shall be obliged to satisfy the Indians for the land they shall settle upon." The patroons and colonists were enjoined " in particular and in the speediest manner " to " endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may support a minister and schoolmaster, that thus the service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool and be neglected among them." With an eye to possible infringements upon the commercial monopoly of the company, the colonists were prohibited from making any woolen, linen, or cotton cloth, or weaving any other stuffs, on pain of banishment. The universal recognition in those times of the propriety and expediency of employing negro slaves in new countries found expression in Article XXX. of the instrument, as follows: " The company will use their endeavors to supply the colonists with as many blacks as they conveniently can, on the conditions hereafter to be made; in such manner, however, that they shall not be bound to do it for a longer time than they shall think proper."

So far as this new system of " Freedoms and Exemptions " was intended to encourage proprietary enterprises in New Netherland, its purposes were at once realized. Indeed, even before the final ratification of the plan, several of the leading shareholders of the company sent agents across the water to select the choicest domains, which were duly confirmed to them as patroons soon after the charter went into effect. Thus Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert, through their representatives, made purchases of land from the Indians on Delaware Bay, one hundred and twenty-eight miles long and eight miles broad, and were created patroons in consequence. The first patroonship erected within the borders of the State of New York was that of Rensselaerswyck, comprising territory on both banks of the upper Hudson, of which Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, of Amsterdam, was the founder. This great tract was subsequently changed into an English manor, and continued under the proprietorship of a single hereditary owner until near the middle of the present century. Another of the early patroons, Michael Pauw, acquired lands on the west shore of the North River, now occupied by Jersey City and Hoboken, later adding Staten Island to his possessions, and named the whole district Pavonia. Westchester County, as an inviting locality for a patroonship, did not immediately claim notice; but, as we shall see, it received in due time its share of attention in this regard, becoming the seat of one of the most noted of all the patroons, Adrian Van der Donck.

Much discontent arose among the general membership of the West India Company on account of the land-grabbing operations of the wealthy directors, which was intensified as time passed by continuing evidences of the self-seeking and general thriftiness of the patroons. It was charged that the latter paid little or no heed to the plain spirit of the charter of Freedoms and Exemptions, which in creating the patroons had in view essentially the development of the country granted to them; and that, instead of settling the land in good faith, they sought principally the profits of trade, coming into conflict with the interests of the company. One result of the controversy was the recall of Minuit, who was supposed to have shown too much partiality for the patroons and too little zeal for the protection of the company against their personal enterprises. This happened in 1633. The next director-general was Walter Van T wilier, who remained in office until 1638, being dismissed for promiscuous irregularities of conduct, both official and personal.

From the pages of De Laet, the historian of the West India Company, we obtain an interesting statement of the fiscal affairs of New Netherland to the close of Minuit's directorship — that is, to the end of the first term of organized government. The total exports of the Province of New Netherland from its foundation to the beginning of 1633 amounted in value to 454,127 florins. The value of the imports during the same time was 272,847 florins. Thus for the nine years the company realized a profit on trade transactions of 181,280 florins, or about $8,000 annually. This was an exceedingly trifling return on a capitalization of nearly three millions of dollars, and it is no wonder that the practical-minded merchants who controlled the company began to look in a decidedly pessimistic spirit at the whole New Netherland undertaking, and as time went by conceived a fixed indifference to the local welfare of such barren and unprofitable settlements. On the other hand, the company was earning magnificent sums in prize money from its captures of the enemy's merchant ships, and was drawing handsome revenues from the newly conquered dominions in South America and the West Indies. The contempt in which New Netherland came to be held because of its unproductive ness is strikingly illustrated by the selections of men to manage its affairs. Van Twiller, who succeeded Minuit, was a mere coarse buffoon; and Kieft, who followed Van Twiller, was a cruel and vulgar despot, who from the first regarded his position as that of sovereign lord of the country, and proceeded to rule it by his arbitrary will, dispensing with a council. It is sufficient to contrast these selections of rulers for New Netherland with the choice of Prince Maurice of Nassau for governor of the Province of Brazil, to appreciate the comparatively low and scornful estimation placed upon the North American realms in the inner councils of the West India Company after due experience in their attempted exploitation. According to an explicit " Report on the Condition of New Netherland," presented to the States-General in 1638, the company declared that up to that time it had suffered a net loss in its New Netherland enterprise; that it was utterly unable to people the country; and that " nothing now comes from New Netherland but beaver skins, minks, and other furs."

Closely following the submission of this significant report came a new departure in policy as to colonization, which had far-reaching effects, and under which before long a tide of immigration began to roll into our section.

Realizing at last that the splendid scheme of patroonships, or a landed aristocracy, instituted in 1629, appealed only to a limited class of ambitious and wealthy men, who could never be relied upon to perform the tedious and financially hazardous work of settling the country with a purely agricultural population, the States-General on September 2, 1638, at the instance of the company, made known to the world that henceforth the soil of New Netherland would be open to all comers, of whatever position in society, whether natives of the home country or inhabitants of other nations not at war with the Netherlands. The specific terms attached to this very radical proposition were the following:

All and every the inhabitants of this State, or its allies and friends," were invited to take up and cultivate lands in New Nether land, and to engage in traffic with the people of that region. Persons taking advantage of the offer of traffic were required to have their goods conveyed on the ships of the West India Company, paying an export duty of ten per cent, on merchandise sent out from the ports of the Netherlands, and an import duty of fifteen per cent, on merchandise brought thither from New Netherland. These certainly were not onerous customs exactions. Respecting individuals, of whatever nationality, desiring to acquire and cultivate land, the director and council were instructed " to accommodate everyone, according to his condition and means, with as much land as he can properly cultivate, either by himself or with his family." The land thus conceded was to become absolute private property, and to be free from burdens of every kind until after it had been pastured or cultivated four years; but subsequently to that period the owner was to pay to the company " the lawful tenths of all fruit, grain, seed, to bacco, cotton, and such like, as well as of the increase of all sorts of cattle." Those establishing themselves in New Netherland under this offer were bound to submit themselves to the regulations and orders of the company, and to the local laws and courts; but there was no stipulation for the renunciation of allegiance to foreign potentates. Considering the illiberal tendency of international relations prevalent in the seventeenth century, and the native self-sufficient character of the Dutch race, this whole measure is remarkable for its broad and generous spirit. There was no allusion in it to the subject of religious conformity, and the perfect toleration thus implied afforded a strong inducement to persons growing restive under the narrow institutions of the English colonies. This element, migrating from New England, found the shores of Westchester County most convenient for settlement, and became one of the most important and aggressive factors of our early population.

The noteworthy measure of 1638, whose pro visions we have just analyzed, was supplemented in July, 1640, by an act of the States General effecting a thorough revision of the charter of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629. The patroonships were not abrogated, but the right to be chosen as patroons was no longer confined to members of the company, and the privileges and powers of the patroons were subjected to considerable modification. The legal limits of their estates were reduced to four English miles along the shore, although they might extend eight miles landward in; and the planting of their "colonies" was required to be completed within three instead of four years. Trade privileges along the coast outside of the Dutch dominions were continued as before; but within the territory of New Netherland no one was permitted to compete with the ships of the company, excepting that fishing for cod and the like was allowed, on condition that the fisherman should sail direct to some European country with his catch, putting in at a Netherlands port to pay a prescribed duty to the company. In this act much greater relative importance was attached to the subject of free colonists, or colonizers other than patroons, than in the original charter of 1629, the object manifestly being to assure the public that New Netherland was not a country set apart for lords and gentlemen, but a land thrown open in the most comprehensive way to the common people. Free colonists were defined to be those who should " remove to New Netherland with five souls above fifteen years," and all such were to be granted by the director-general " one hundred morgens (two hundred acres) of land, contiguous one to the other, wherever they please to select." The colonists were put on precisely the same footing as the patroons in matters of trade privilege, and, in fact, enjoyed all the material rights granted to the patroons except those of bearing a title and administering great landed estates, which, however, were equally within their reach in case of their ability to comply with the requirement for the transportation from the old country and introduction into the new of fifty bona fide settlers. The company assumed the responsibility of providing and maintaining " good and suitable preachers, schoolmasters, and comforters of the sick"; and it extended to the free colonists, no less than the colonists of the patroons, exemption from all taxes for a certain period. The former clause regarding negroes was renewed in about the same language, as follows: "The company shall exert itself to provide the patroons and colonists, on their order, with as many blacks as possible, without, however, being further or longer obligated thereto than shall be agreeable."

Thus from 1629 to 1640 three distinct plans for promoting the settlement of New Netherland were formulated and spread before the public. The first plan, after being tested for nine years, was found a complete failure, because based upon the theory that colonization should naturally and would most effectively proceed from the patron age of the rich, who, acquiring as a free gift the honors of title and the dignities of landed proprietorship, would, it was thought, readily support those honors and dignities by the substance of an established vassalage. It was soon found that such a theory was quite incapable of application to a country as yet undeveloped, and that the sole reliable and solid colonization in the conditions which had to be dealt with would be that pursued on the democratic principle and under taken in their independent capacity by citizens of average means and ordinary aims. It stands to the credit of the West India Company and the Dutch government that, having discovered their fundamental error of judgment in the first plan of settlement, they lost no time in framing another, which was made particularly judicious and liberal in its scope and details, and was as successful in its workings as the original scheme had been disappointing.

We have now arrived at the period indicated at the beginning of this chapter as that of the appearance of the first known settlers within the original historic borders of our County of Westchester. The attention of the Dutch pioneers on Manhattan Island had early been directed to this picturesque and pleasant region, and it is a pretty well accepted fact that some land purchases were made from the Westchester Indians antedating 1631), although the records of these assumed transactions have been lost. The most ancient deed to Westchester lands which has been preserved to the present day bears date of August 3, 1639, and by its terms the Indians dispose of a tract called Keskeskeck; the West India Company being the purchasers, through their representative, Cornelius Van Tienhoven, provincial secretary to Director Kieft.

In the next year Van Tienhoven was dispatched by Kieft on similar important business to this same section; and, April 19, bought from the Siwanoy Indians all the lands located in the southeastern portion of Westchester County, running as far eastward in Connecticut as the Norwalk River. The instructions under which he acted directed him to purchase the archipelago, or group of islands, at the mouth of the Norwalk River, together with all the adjoining territory on the main land, and " to erect thereon the standard and arms of the High and Mighty Lords States-General; to take the savages under our protection, and to prevent effectually any other nation encroaching on our limits." The purchase of 1640 was in the line of state policy, being conceived and consummated as a countercheck to the English, who, having by this time appeared in considerable numbers on the banks of the Connecticut River, were making active pretensions to the whole western territory along the Sound and in the interior, and were thus seriously menacing the integrity of the Dutch colonial empire.

We may here appropriately pause to glance at some pertinent aspects of British colonial progress in New England — aspects with which, we shall be bound to grant, those of contemporaneous Dutch development in New Netherland do not compare over-favorably.

The Pilgrims of the "Mayflower" landed on Plymouth Rock late in the month of December, 1620, a little more than two years before the original company of Walloons came to New York Bay on the ship "New Netherland." The first British settlement in New England and the first Dutch settlement in New Netherland were thus inaugurated almost simultaneously, the former having a slight advantage as to time, and the latter a considerable one in the possession of a more genial climate, a less stubborn soil, and a superior natural location, as also in the enjoyment of a more powerful, interested, and liberal home patronage. From the parent settlement at Plymouth, the English not only rapidly advanced into the whole surrounding country, but in the course of a few years sent colonizing parties to quite remote localities; and wherever an English advance colony gained a foot hold, there permanent and energetic settlement was certain very speedily to follow. As early as 1633 a number of Englishmen from Massachusetts, desiring to investigate the Indian stories of a better soil to the south, came and established themselves in the Connecticut Valley. Shortly afterward a patent for this region was obtained from the British crown by Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook, and others. In 1636 John Winthrop, son of Governor Winthrop, settled on the Connecticut with a goodly company; and in 1638 Theophilus Eaton, with the noted Rev. John Davenport, led a large band of settlers to the same locality, planting the New Haven colony. Rhode Island was brought under settlement also at that period by Roger Williams and other dissidents from the intolerant religious institutions of Massachusetts.

Now, the English, in establishing important and flourishing settlements throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island, were, technically speaking, not in advance of the Dutch. The Dutch were the undisputed first discoverers of the entire Connecticut and Rhode Island coastline, along which the intrepid navigator Block sailed in 1614. Later, Dutch voyagers returned to those shores and trafficked with the natives; and finally, in 1623, when Director May arrived in New York harbor on his mission of colonization from the West India Company, he dispatched a number of his Walloon families to the mouth of the Connecticut River. At the same place the arms of the States General of the Netherlands were formally erected in 1632, and in 1633 Director-General Van Twiller bought from the Indians a tract of land called Connittelsock, situated on the western Connecticut bank, on which tract, at a point sixty miles above the mouth of the stream, a Dutch fort and trading-house, named Good Hope, were built. Indeed, the English pioneers of 1633, proceeding down the Connecticut, found the Dutch already in possession there.

But the Dutch occupation of the mouth and valley of the Connecticut River was never otherwise than merely nominal, a fact which, in view of the easily conceivable future importance of that quarter in connection with the maintenance of Dutch territorial claims, is certainly striking, and characteristically illustrates Dutch deliberation and inefficiency in colonizing development as contrasted with English alacrity and thoroughness. Moreover, all the connecting circumstances indicate that the establishment by the Dutch of a fort and trading-post on the Connecticut was not prompted by serious designs of consecutive settlement, but was a pure extemporization in the interest of ultimate insistence upon lawful ownership of that region. From 1623, the year in which Manhattan Island was regularly settled, until 1639, a period of sixteen years, not a single Dutch colony had been founded, and probably not a single Dutch family had taken up its abode, in all the country intervening between the Harlem and the Connecticut Rivers — a country splendidly wooded and watered, with a highly interesting coast and rich alluvial lands, and vastly important as an integral and related portion of the dominions of New Netherland. It may perhaps be replied that the whirlpool of Hell Gate presented a natural obstacle to convenient intercourse with the shores of the Sound, and consequently to advantageous settlement in the entire trans-Harlem country. But if the Manhattan Island colony had been animated by any noticeable spirit of progress, it would not have allowed sixteen years to pass without finding access to this region, either from the northern extremity of Manhattan Island or from the Long Island side. The truth is, there was no general development by the Dutch even of Manhattan Island during the period in question. Only its southern end was occupied by any regular aggregation of settlers, and this aggregation still existed mainly for the business of bartering with the Indians and sending to Holland " beaver skins, minks, and other furs," the only products which, as declared in the " Report of 1638 on the Condition of New Netherland," were afforded by the province.

To review the comparative situation in 1640, while the English had steadily and systematically advanced as an earnest and practical colonizing people, covering the land from Plymouth Rock to the Sound with organized settlements which sought the immediate development of all its available resources, the Dutch had remained stationary, with only a single settlement worthy of consideration. It is true they had located and occupied a few trading posts in and around New York Bay, as well as in distant parts of New Netherland — in Delaware Bay, on the upper Hudson at Albany, and on the Connecticut River. But these enterprises represented in no case creditable colonizing endeavor.

It has been seen that, in the years 1639 and 1640, Cornelius Van Tienhoven, as the representative of Director-General Kieft, purchased from the Indians, first, a large Westchester tract called Keskeskeck, and, second, lands covering generally the southeastern section of this county and extending to the Norwalk River. This was done to fore stall English claims to priority of possession, at that time conspicuously in course of preparation. But even in this matter of land purchases the Dutch were scarcely aforetime of the alert English. To the latter, also, the Indians executed a deed of sale, embracing extensive portions of Westchester County, and nearly as ancient as the first Dutch land deed. On July 1, 1640, Captain Nathaniel Turner, on behalf of the New Haven colony (Quinnipiacke), bought from Ponus, sagamore of Toquams, and Wascussue, sagamore of Shippan, lands running eight miles along the Sound and extending sixteen miles into the northwestern wilderness. This tract was comprehensively known by the name of " The Toquams." Ponus prudently reserved for himself " the liberty of his corn and pasture lands." It included, in Connecticut, the present Town of Stamford, as well as Darien and New Canaan, and parts of Bedford and Greenwich; and, in Westchester County, the Towns of Poundridge, Bedford, and North Castle, either in whole or in part. On the basis of this purchase, the settlement at Stamford, Conn., was laid out in 1641. In 1655 the bargain of 1640 was reaffirmed by a new agreement with the Indians respecting the same district. No early settlements in the Westchester sections of the tract were attempted by the English; but it is an interesting point to bear in mind that the interior sections of this county bordering on Connecticut were first bought from the Indians not under Dutch but under English auspices, and thus that the English fairly share with the Dutch the title to original sovereignty in Westchester County, so far as that title can be said to be sustained by the right of mere purchase.

There was a second English purchase from the Indians in 1640, which constructively may have included some parts of Westchester County. Mehackem, Narawake, and Pemeate, Indians of Norwalk, agreed to convey to Daniel Patrick, of Greenwich, all their lands on the west side of " Norwake River, as far up in the country as an Indian can goe in a day, from sun risinge to sun settinge," the consideration being " ten fathoms wampum, three hatchets, three bows, six glasses, twelve tobacco pipes, three knives, tenn drills, and tenn needles."

It was a year or two previously to 1640 that Jonas Bronck, generally regarded as the first white inhabitant of Westchester County, came across the Harlem River to take up land and build a home. He was not a native Hollander, being, it is supposed, of Swedish extraction. But he appears to have made his home in Amsterdam, where he was married to one Antonia (or Teuntje) Slagboom. While there is no evidence that he was a man of large wealth, it is abundantly manifest that he was quite comfortably circumstanced in worldly goods. Unquestionably his sole object in emigrating to New Netherland was to acquire and cultivate land, probably under the liberal general offer to persons of all nations proclaimed by the States-General in 1638. He was, therefore, one of the first of the new and more substantial class of men who began to remove hither after the substitution by the West India Company of a broad and democratic plan of colonization for the old exclusive scheme of special privileges to the patroons. Sailing from Amsterdam in a ship of the company's, with his wife and family, farmhands and their families, domestic servants, cattle, and miscellaneous goods, he landed on Manhattan Island; and, not caring to purchase one of the company farms there (the whole island having been expressly reserved to the private uses of the West India Company), proceeded to select a tract in the free lands beyond the Harlem. Here, pursuant to the custom peremptorily required by Dutch law, he first extinguished the Indian title, purchasing from the native chiefs Eanachqua and Taekamuck five hundred acres " lying between the great kill (Harlem River) and the Ahquahung " (now the Bronx River). An old " Tracing of Broncksland " is still preserved in the office of the secretary of state at Albany, upon which the house of Jonas Bronck is located. Its site as thus indicated was not far from the present depot of the Harlem River branch of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, at Morrisania. This dwelling is described as of " stone," covered with tiles, and had connected with it a barn, tobacco-house, and two barracks. As the Dutch word for stone (steen) is always ambiguous unless accompanied by a descriptive prefix, it is uncertain what kind of building stone, whether brick or the native rock of the country, was used by Bronck. In view of the generally provident character of the man, it is a reasonable supposition that he brought a supply of brick with him from Holland; and thus that the first house erected in the county was made of that respectable material. To his estate he gave the Scriptural name of Emmaus. From the inventory of the personal property which he left at his death, it is clear that he was a gentleman of cultivation. His possessions included pictures, a silver-mounted gun, silver cups, spoons, tankards, bowls, fine bedding, satin, grosgrain suits, linen shirts, gloves, napkins, tablecloths, and as many as forty books. The books were largely godly volumes, among them being Calvin's " Institutes," Luther's " Psalter " and " Complete Catechism," the " Praise of Christ," the " Four Ends of Death," and " Fifty Pictures of Death."

Bronck died in 1643. The celebrated Everardus Bogardus, the Dutch domine on Manhattan Island and husband of Anneke Jans, superintended the inventorying of his estate. His widow married Arent Van Corlaer, sheriff of Rensselaerswyck. Jonas Bronck left a son, Peter, who went with his mother to her new home, and from whom the numerous Bronx family of Albany and vicinity is descended. The Bronck property on the Harlem was sold on July 10, 1651, to Jacob Jans Stall. One of its subsequent owners was Samuel Edsall, a beaver-maker and man of some note in New York City, who had trade transactions with the Indians, became versed in their language, and acted officially as interpreter. He sold it to Captain Richard Morris, and it subsequently became a part of the Manor of Morrisania.

The Bronx River, first known as Bronck's River, or the Bronck River, was appropriately so called for this pioneer settler on its banks; and from the stream, in our own day, has been derived the name given to the whole great and populous territory which Westchester County has resigned to the growing municipal needs of the City of New York. Whatever changes in local designations may occur in the American metropolis in the progress of time, it is a safe prediction that the name of the Borough of the Bronx, so happily chosen for the annexed districts, will always endure.

The example of Bronck in boldly venturing over upon the main land would doubtless have found many ready followers among the Dutch already on Manhattan Island, or those who were now arriving in constantly increasing numbers from Europe, if the threatening aspect of the times had not plainly suggested to everybody the expediency of going into an open country exposed to the attacks of the Indians. In the summer and fall of 1641 events occurred which, considered in connection with the well-known unrelenting character of Director Kieft, foreshadowed serious trouble with the natives; and early in the spring of 1642 a war actually broke forth which, although at first conducted without special animosity, developed into a most revengeful and sanguinary struggle, with pitiless and undiscriminating massacre on both sides as its distinguishing characteristic. It is probable that, before the preliminaries of this war had so far developed as to fairly warn the people of the impending peril, various new Dutch farms and houses on the Westchester side were added to the one already occupied by Bronck. Be this at it may, it is certain that settlers from the New England colonies had begun to arrive at different localities on the Sound. These English settlers, in many regards the most important and interesting of the Westchester pioneers, now claim a good share of our notice.

First in point of prominence is to be mentioned the noted Anne Hutchinson, whose name, like that of Bronck, has become lastingly identified with Westchester County by being conferred upon a river. Whether she was the first of the immigrants from New England into Westchester County, cannot be determined with absolute certainty; but there is no question that she was among the very earliest. In the summer of 1642, permission having been granted her by the Dutch authorities to make her home in New Netherland, she came to the district now known as Pelham, and on the side of Hutchinson's River founded a little colony. The company consisted of her own younger children, her son-in-law, Mr. Collins, his wife and family, and a few congenial spirits. In barely a year's time the whole settlement was swept to destruction, everybody belonging to it being killed by the Indians, with the sole exception of an eight-year-old daughter of Mrs. Hutchinson's, who was borne away to captivity. The lady herself was burned to death in the flames of her cottage.

The tragical fate of Anne Hutchinson is one of the capital historic episodes of Westchester annals, because to the personality and career of this remarkable woman an abiding interest attaches. It is true that interest in Anne Hutchinson, in the form of special sympathy or special admiration, may vary according to varying individual capabilities for appreciation of the polemic type of women; but upon one point there can be no disagreement — she was among the foremost characters of her times in America, sustaining a conspicuous relation to early controversialism in the New England settlements, and must always receive attention from the students of that period.

She was of excellent English birth and connections. Her mother was the sister of Sir Erasmus Dryden, and she came collaterally from the same stock to which the poet Dryden and (though more distantly) the great Jonathan Swift trace their ancestry. Her husband, Mr. Hutchinson, is described as " a mild, amiable, and estimable man, possessed of a considerable fortune, and in high standing among his Puritan contemporaries"; entertaining an unchanging affection for his wife, and accompanying her through all her wanderings and trials, until removed by death a short time before her flight to our Westchester County. Mrs. Hutchinson personally was of spotless reputation and high and noble aims; benevolent, self-sacrificing; holding the things of the world in positive contempt; an enthusiast in religion, independent in her opinions, and fearless in advocacy of them. With her husband and their children, she left England and came to Massachusetts Bay in 1636. Settling in Boston, she immediately entered upon a career of religious teaching and proselytizing. " Every week she gathered around her in her comfortable dwelling a congregation of fifty or eighty women, and urged them to repentance and good deeds. Soon her meetings were held twice a week; a religious revival swept over the colony." But, careful not to offend against the decorum of the church, she confined her formal spiritual labors to the women, declining to address the men, although many of the latter, including some of the principal personages, visited her, and came under her personal and intellectual influence. Among her cordial friends and supporters were Harry Vane, the young governor of the colony; Mr. Colton, the favorite preacher; Coddington, the wealthy citizen; and Captain John Underhill, the hero of the Pequod wars, who, accepting a commission from the Dutch in their sanguinary struggle with the Indians, was the leader of the celebrated expeditionary force which, in 1644, the year after the murder of Mrs. Hutchinson, marched into the heart of Westchester County and wreaked dire vengeance for that and other bloody deeds. To the work of instruction she added a large practical philanthropy, assisting the poor and ministering to the sick.

But it was not long before Mrs. Hutchinson, by the independence of her opinions, excited the serious displeasure of the rigid Puritan element. Her precise doctrinal offense against the established standards concerned, says a sympathetic writer, " a point so nice and finely drawn that the modern intellect passes it by in disdain; a difference so faint that one can scarcely represent it in words. Mrs. Hutchinson taught that the Holy Spirit was a person and was united with the believer; the Church, that the Spirit descended upon man not as a per son. Mrs. Hutchinson taught that justification came from faith, and not from works; the Church scarcely ventured to define its own doc trine, but contented itself with vague declamation." Although at first the Hutchinsonians were triumphant, especially in Boston, where nearly the entire population were on their side, the power of the church speedily made itself felt. On August 30, 1637, the first synod held in America assembled at Cambridge, its object being " to determine the true doctrines of the church and to discover and announce the errors of the Hutchinsonians." Eighty-two heresies were defined and condemned, certain individual offenders were punished or admonished, and Mrs. Hutchinson's meetings were declared disorderly and forbidden. Meantime Vane had been deposed as governor, and Winthrop, an unrelenting opponent of innovations, elected in his stead. In the following November Anne was publicly tried at Cam bridge. " Although in a condition of health that might well have awakened manly sympathy, and that even barbarians have been known to respect, her enemies showed her no compassion. She was forced to stand up before the judges until she almost fell to the floor from weakness. No food was allowed her during the trial, and even the members of the court grew faint from hunger. She was allowed no counsel; no friend stood at her side; her accusers were also her judges." She was condemned by a unanimous vote, and sentenced to be imprisoned during the winter in the house of the intolerant Joseph Welde, and to be banished in the spring from the colony. While in duress pending her exile, she was excommunicated by the First Church of Boston for "telling a lie." In March, 1638, the Hutchinson family left Boston and removed to Rhode Island. There they remained until after the death of Mr. Hutchinson, in 1642, when Anne resolved to seek another home under the Dutch, and came to what is now Pelham, at that time a complete wilderness.

There is no record of land purchase from the Indians by Mrs. Hutchinson or any of her party. This is undoubtedly for the reason pointed out by Bolton, that the whole colony was exterminated before purchase could be completed. Indeed, it does not appear that even the formality of procuring written license from the Dutch authorities to settle in the country had yet been observed. The massacre occurred in September of 1643. It is said that an Indian came to Mrs. Hutchinson's home one morning, professing friendship. Finding that the little colony was utterly defenseless, he returned in the evening with a numerous party, which at once proceeded to the business of slaughter. According to tradition, the leader of the murderous Indians was a chief named Wampage, who subsequently called himself "Ann-Hoock," following a frequent custom among the savages, by which a warrior or brave assumed the name of his victim. In 1654, eleven years later, this Wampage, as one of the principal Indian proprietors of the locality, deeded land to Thomas Pell, over the signature of " Ann-Hoock." A portion of the peninsula of Pelham Neck was long known by the names of " Annie's Hoeck " and the " Manor of Ann Hock's Neck." Bolton, referring to various conjectures as to the site of Anne's residence, inclines to the opinion that it was " located on the property of George A. Prevoost, Esq., of Pelham, near the road leading to the Neck, on the old Indian path." The only one of Mrs. Hutchinson's company spared by the attacking party was her youngest daughter, quite a small child, who, after being held in captivity four years, was released through the efforts of the Dutch governor and restored to her friends; but it is said that she " had forgotten her native language, and was unwilling to be taken from the Indians." This girl married a Mr. Cole, of Kingston, in the Narragansett country, and " lived to a considerable age." One of the sons of Anne Hutchinson, who had remained in Boston when his parents and the younger children left there in 1638, became the founder of an important colonial family, numbering among its members the Tory governor Hutchinson, of the Revolution; also a grown-up daughter of Mrs. Hutchinson's married and left descendants in New England.

In the autumn of 1642, a few months after Anne Hutchinson's first appearance on the banks of the Hutchinson River, the foundations of another notable English settlement on the Sound were laid. John Throckmorton, in behalf of himself and associates (among whom was probably his friend, Thomas Cornell), obtained from the Dutch government a license, dated October 2, 1642, authorizing settlement within three Dutch (twelve English) miles " of Amsterdam." In this license it was recited that " whereas Mr. Throckmorton, with his associates, solicits to settle with thirty-five families within the limits of the jurisdiction of their High Mightinesses, to reside there in peace and enjoy the same privileges as our other subjects, and be favored with the free exercise of their religion," and there being no danger that injury to the interests of the West India Company would result from the proposed settlement, " more so as the English are to settle at a distance of three miles from us," " so it is granted." The locality selected by Throckmorton was Throgg's Neck (so called from his name, corrupted into Throgmorton), and apparently the colony was begun forthwith. By the ensuing spring various improvements had been made, and on July 6, 1643, a land-brief, signed by Director Kieft, " by order of the noble lords, the director and council of New Netherland," was granted to " Jan Throckmorton," comprising " a piece of land (being a portion of Vredeland), containing as follows: Along the East River of New Netherland, extending from the point half a mile, which piece of land aforesaid is surrounded on one side by a little river, and on the other side by a great kill, which river and kill, on high water running, meet each other, surrounding the land." The term " Vredeland " mentioned in the brief (meaning Free Land or Land of Peace) was the general name given by the Dutch to this and adjacent territory along the Sound, which was the chosen place of refuge for persons fleeing from New England for religious reasons.

John Throckmorton, the patentee, emigrated from Worcester County, England, to the Massachusetts colony, in 1631. He was in Salem as late as 1639; but, embracing the Baptist faith, removed soon afterward to Rhode Island, where he sustained relations of intimacy with Roger Williams. It is well known that Williams came to New Netherland in the winter of 1642-43, in order to obtain passage for Europe on a Dutch vessel, and it is not improbable that Throckmorton accompanied him on his journey to the Dutch settlements from Rhode Island.

One of Throckmorton's compatriots was Thomas Cornell, who later settled and gave his name to Cornell's Neck, called by the Indians Snakapins. He emigrated to Massachusetts from Essex, England, about 1636; kept an inn in Boston for a time; went to Rhode Island in 1641; and from there came to the Vredeland of New Netherland. On the 26th of July, 1646, he was granted by the Dutch a patent to a " certain piece of land lying on the East River, beginning from the kill of Bronck's land, east-southeast along the river, extending about half a Dutch mile from the river to a little creek over the valley (marsh) which runs back around this land." This patent for Cor nell's Neck was issued at about the same time that the grant to Adrian Van der Donck of what is now Yonkers was made. The Cornell and Van der Donck patents were the first ones of record to lands in Westchester County bestowed by Dutch authority subsequently to the Throckmorton grant of 1643. It is claimed for Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck, that he was the earliest settler in Westchester County whose descendants have been continuously identified with the county to the present day. He was the ancestor of Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University, and Alonzo B. Cornell, governor of New York. His part in the first settlement of the county has been traced in an interesting and valuable pamphlet from the pen of Governor Cornell. Both Throckmorton and Cornell escaped the murderous fury of the Indians to which Anne Hutchinson fell a victim in the fall of 1643. It is supposed that they were in New Amsterdam at the time with their families, or at all events with some of their children. Certain it is that the infant settlement on Throgg's Neck was not spared. Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, in his " History of New England from 1630 to 1646," says: " They [the Indians] came to Mrs. Hutchinson in way of friendly neighborhood as they had been accustomed, and, taking their opportunity, they killed her and Mr. Collins, her son-in-law, . . . and all her family, and such of Mr. Throckmorton's and Mr. Cornell's families as were at home, in all sixteen, and put their cattle into their barns and burned them." Throckmorton did not return to the Neck to live, or at least did not make that place his permanent abode. In 1652 he disposed definitely of the whole property, conveying it, by virtue of permission petitioned for and obtained from the Dutch director-general, to one Augustine Hermans. From him are descended, according to Bolton, the Throck-Morton's of Middletown, N. J. Cornell, after receiving the grant to Cornell's Neck, erected buildings there, which he occupied until forced for the second time by hostile Indian manifestations to abandon his attempt at residence in the Vredeland. His daughter Sarah testified in September, 1665, that he " was at considerable charges in building, manuring, and planting " on Cornell's Neck, and that after some years he was " driven off the said land by the barbarous violence of the Indians, who burnt his home and goods and destroyed his cattle." This daughter, Sarah, was married in New Amsterdam on the 1st of September, 1643, to Thomas Willett. She inherited Cor nell's Neck from her father, and it remained in the possession of her descendants — the Willetts, of whom several were men of great prominence in our county — for more than a century. Thomas Cornell, after being driven away from Cornell's Neck, returned to Rhode Island, where he died in 1655.

In the preceding pages we have consecutively traced the several known efforts at settlement along the southeastern shores of Westchester County, from the time of Jonas Bronck's purchase on the Harlem to that of Thomas Cornell's flight from the ruins of his home on Cornell's Neck, covering a period of ten years, more or less. It is a meager and discouraging record. By reference to the map, it will be observed that all these first Westchester settlements were closely contiguous to one another, and embraced a continuous extent of territory. Bronck's patent reached to the mouth of the Bronx River, and was there joined by Cornell's; beyond which, successively, were Throckmorton's grant and the domain occupied by Anne Hutchinson. It is also of interest to note that the upper boundary of the four tracts corresponded almost exactly with the present corporate limits of the City of New York on the Sound.