THE HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY. GENERAL HISTORY. CHAPTER I. THE BOUNDARY, TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF BY J. THOMAS SCHARF, LL.D. THE American people, their lives, their institutions, and their civilization are so entirely different from what is presented elsewhere that as they make their history, so they must preserve its records. Never fettered by axioms, they avoid all prejudices that come from the past; not more attached to one line of operation than another, they are not prone to employ an old method rather than a new; without rooted habits, they easily shake off the influence which other nations might exercise. Their firm conviction is that their country is unlike any other, and that their situation is without a precedent in all the history of the world. No natural boundary restrains, in this country, the efforts of man, and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do. occupations; he bears it with him into the depth of the backwoods, as well as into the business of the city. It is this same passion, applied to maritime commerce, which makes him the cheapest and quickest trader in the world." The inner life, the domestic history of any portion of a people which thus impressed the shrewdest and most philosophical of all European writers on America, requires and deserves a more detailed examination and presentation than is possible to the historian writing the social and political history of a nation, or even of one presenting the annals of a State. It is in the private life, in the principles that impress individual action, in the moral character of the men of business, in the purity of social life and in the virtues which embellish the home, that depend the value of our civilization and the permanency of our political institutions. Mr. Alison, in his "History of Europe," prophesied that "democratic institutions will not and cannot exist permanently in North America. The frightful anarchy which has prevailed in the Southern States "The perpetual change," remarks De Tocqueville, since the great interests dependent on slave emanci"which goes on in the United States, the frequent pation were brought into jeopardy, the irresistible vicissitudes of fortune, accompanied by such unfore- sway of the majority, and the rapid tendency of seen fluctuations in private and in public wealth, the majority to deeds of atrocity and blood, the serve to keep the minds of the citizens in a perpetual increasing jealousy, on mercantile grounds, of the state of feverish agitation, which admirably invigorates Northern and Southern States, all demonstrate their exertions, and keeps them in a state of excite- that the Union cannot permanently hold together, ment above the ordinary level of mankind. The and that the innumerable millions of the Anglowhole life of an American is passed like a game of American race must be divided into separate States, chance, a revolutionary crisis or a battle. As the same like the descendants of the Gothic conquerors of causes are continually in operation throughout the Europe. Out of this second great settlement of country, they ultimately impart an irresistible im- mankind will arise separate kingdoms, and interests pulse to the national character. The American, and passions, as out of the first. But democratic taken as a chance specimen of his country, must then habits and desires will still prevail, and long after be a man of singular warmth in his desires, enterpris- the necessity and the passions of an advanced stage ing, fond of adventure, and above all of innovation. of civilization have established firm and aristocratic The same bent is manifested in all that he does; he governments, founded on the sway of property in the introduces it into his political laws, his religious doc-old States, republican ambition and jealousy will not trine, his theories of social economy, and his domestic cease to impel millions to the great wave that ap 1 proaches the Rocky Mountains. Democratic ideas will not be moderated in the New World till they have performed their destined end, and brought the Christian race to the shores of the Pacific." All the convulsions thus predicted have taken place with even greater force and consequences than the historian contemplated, and yet our Union is preserved in greater strength and more apparent durability than was thought possible by its most enthusiastic admirer. The practical common sense, the wise and exalted patriotism of the people, have brought order out of confusion, removed obstacles to progress, destroyed institutions inimical to liberty, and placed their country, its institutions and its government upon a higher plane of progress and duration than was thought to be possible by the wisest of its founders. All the causes and consequences of our general history fall properly within the scope of the political historian,-it is our more limited and restricted duty to collect and preserve the data of a small, yet mighty, part of the whole country, and to show what exists to-day in a single county of a great State, what forces in the past produced that wonderful wealth and civilization, that wise and exalted patriotism, that tact and shrewdness in business, that astounding material development, which illustrates the wealth and wisdom of Westchester County. BOUNDARY.-The northern boundary line of Westchester County, as it is at present marked, was fixed at the time the county was erected November 1, 1683, and at the same time Long Island Sound was designated as the southern boundary, and the Hudson River as the western boundary. The line between New York and Connecticut has for more than two centuries been a matter of dispute between the two States, and consequently the Eastern boundary line only has a history to be traced. In the times of the Dutch possession of New York, the question of boundary between that province and the colony of Connecticut arose. It grew out of the conflicting charters granted by the Dutch and English governments. The States-General of Holland on October 11, 1614, gave a three years' monopoly of trade between Virginia and New France, from fortieth to forty-fifth degrees of north latitude to the United Company of Merchants. This same year a trading port was established by Christiansen on Castle Island south of Albany. June 3, 1621, the Dutch West India Company was chartered with the exclusive privilege of traffic and planting colonies on the coast of America from the Straits of Magellan to the remotest north. Under this charter settlements were made by the Dutch in what was then called New Netherland. In 1632 the arms of the States-General were erected at Kierit's Hoeck (now Saybrook), at the mouth of the Connecticut, which had been discovered by Adriaen Block in 1614, and called the Freshwater. The river had been periodically and ex clusively visited by the Dutch traders for many years. Van Twiller, in 1633, purchased from the Indians an extensive tract of land, called the Connittelsock, lying on the west bank of the river and sixty miles from its mouth. At this point was established a trading post, called "The House of Good Hope." November 3, 1620, King James I. incorporated "The Council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing New England in America" (commonly called the Plymouth Company). The charter conferred upon them the territory lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Earl of Arundell, president of this company, in 1631 granted to Robert, Earl of Warwick, the country from the Narragansetts along the shore forty leagues, and westward to the Pacific Ocean. The Governor of Massachusetts Bay protested against the establishment of "The House of Good Hope" as an encroachment on English rights, and Van Twiller responded, October 4, 1633, that Connittelsock belonged to the Dutch by right of purchase. An expedition from the Plymouth colony had already landed about a mile above the Dutch trading post, and what is now Connecticut was soon settled at various points by the English. Before the opening of controversy between the Dutch and English colonists, a similar one was going on on the other side of the ocean. The Plymouth Company complained to the privy council about "the Dutch intruders," and as early as February, 1622, we find the British ambassador at the Hague, Sir Dudley Carlton, claiming New Netherland as a part of New England and requiring the States-General to stay the prosecution of their plantation. To this remonstrance no attention was paid. May 5, 1632, the West India Company reported to the States-General that "the English themselves, according to their charter (of Massachusetts Bay), place New England on the coast between the 41st and 45th degrees of latitude. But the English began in the year 1606 to resort to Virginia, which is south of our Territory of New Netherland, and fixed the boundaries, according to their charter, from the 37th to the 39th degree. So that our boundaries according to their own showing should be from the 39th degree inclusive to the 41st degree, within which bounds we are not aware that they ever undertook any plantation. What boundaries Your High Mightinesses have granted to your subjects, can be seen by the charter issued in the year 1615," which date appears to refer to the charter of October, 11, 1614, which went into effect January 1, 1615. The remonstrance of New Netherland of July 28, 1649, maintains their right of possession by virtue of discovery made by the ship "de Halve Maen" belonging to the General East India Company, whereof Henry Hudson was master; and that its boundaries were "the ocean or great sea which separates Europe from America, by New England and Fresh (Connecticut) River, in part by the river of Canada (the St. Lawrence) and by Virginia." England was equally pertinacious in her claim over Connecticut, resting it upon the discoveries of the Cabots in 1494 and 1497, and upon that of Gosnold in 1602, as well as upon the denial of the right of the Dutch. Hudson never made any sale to the English. It was upon the validity of this sale, in connection with the voyage of the Dutchman, Adrian Block in 1614, through Hell Gate and along the coast of Connecticut to Fisher's and Block's Island, and Cape Cod that the claim of the Dutch to Connecticut rested. The claim of the Dutch to the coast of Connecticut was maintained in 1646 by Governor Kieft, who threatened Governor Eaton, of Connecticut, with war if that colony did not respect Dutch rights. All offers to settle the dispute by arbitration were refused by the Dutch. That most comprehensive grant not only covered the disputed territory, but took in the greater part of the Dutch claim on the Hudson. King Charles granted to his brother, the Duke of York and Albany, on the 24th of March, 1664, all of New Netherland from the Delaware to Cape Cod. This grant embraced Connecticut east of the Connecticut River—with some variations of the boundaries-and also the whole of Long Island, "together with all the river called Hudson River, and the lands from the west side of Connecticut River to the east side of Delaware Bay." By the charter and patent issued within less than two years of each other, nearly all of New York was HUDSON RIVER R NEW YORK LINE AGREED ON IN 1664 NEWBURGH, WEST ROINT ●PO'KEEPSIE PEEKSKILL 20 MILES LINE OF 1650 SING SING O TREES MASS: LINE OF GK MASSACHUSETTS EQUIVALENT TRACK CONNECTICUT RIDGEFIELD ANGLE HWILTON ANLLE In 1650, Peter Stuyvesant, on behalf of the colony of New Netherland, had a conference with the authorities of Connecticut at Hartford, which resulted in a provisional treaty on the boundary that the line should "begin at the west side of Greenwich Bay, being about four miles from Stamford, and so run a northerly line twenty miles up into the country, until it shall be notified by the two governments of the Dutch and of England, provided the said line come not within ten miles of the Hudson River." This agreement was never sanctioned by the home governments, and thirteen years later, on the 13th of October, 1663, a second conference was held at which Connecticut proposed "that West Chester and all ye people and lands Between that & Stamford shall be long to their colony of Connecticut till it be otherwise issued," which proposition was refused by the agents of Governor Stuyvesant, who proposed that "West Chester, with the land and people to Stamford, shall Abide under the government of Connecticut tell the tyme that the bounds and limits betwixt the Abovesaid collonij and the province of New Netherlands shall be determined heare [by our mutual Accord or by persons mutually chosen, margin] or by his Royal granted to Connecticut, and most of Connecticut given Majesty of England and other high and mighty lords of the estates of the united provinces." 1 War breaking out between England and Holland, this agreement or treaty was never ratified by the home governments. King Charles II., on the 23d of April, 1662, granted to the colony of Connecticut the following boundary: "All that part of our dominion in America bounded by Narraganset Bay, commonly called Naragonsit Bay, where the said river falleth into the sea, and on the north by the line of the Massachusetts plantation, and on the south by the sea; and in longitude as the line of the Massachusetts colony, running from east to west; that is to say, from the said Narragansett Bay on the east to the south sea on the west part; with the islands thereto adjoining, etc." 1 Colonial boundaries, Hartford (M.S.), vol. ii., doc. 4, quoted in "History of Rye," by Rev. Charles W. Baird, D.D. L.I. SOUND LONG ISLAND THE DIFFERENT BOUNDARY LINES BETWEEN CON- to New York. On the 18th of September, 1664, Colonel Richard Nicolls, the representative of the Duke of York, received the surrender of the city of New Amsterdam, and the whole of the New Netherlands accepted the situation of an English colony by the 12th of October following Notwithstanding the charter of Connecticut was older than the patent to the Duke of York, no little alarm was taken when it was known that their boundaries had been disregarded by the King in his patent to his brother. Delegates were dispatched by the authorities of Connecticut to the Governor of New 2 This map is copied by permission from Rev. Charles W. Baird's "History of Rye," p. 105. |