Historic Pelham

Presenting the rich history of Pelham, NY in Westchester County: current historical research, descriptions of how to research Pelham history online and genealogy discussions of Pelham families.

Friday, August 10, 2018

Why Did the Settlement at West Chester Planted by Thomas Pell Reportedly Display the "Parliament's Arms"?


The story of the first English settlement planted on the lands acquired by Thomas Pell from local Native Americans on June 27, 1654 is fascinating.  The settlement was known as West Chester by the English.  It was known as Oostdorp (East Village) by the Dutch. It was located near today's Westchester Square in The Bronx.  I have written about this settlement on many, many occasions, given its importance to the history of our town.  Here are a few of many examples.

Tue., Apr. 24, 2018:  Important New Scholarship on the Men to Whom Thomas Pell Sold Part of the Manor of Pelham in 1654.

Wed., Aug. 19, 2015:  Dutch Records Regarding Thomas Pell's Settlement at Oostdorp, Known by the English as the Village of West Chester.

Fri., Apr. 24, 2009:  Dutch Authorities Remove the Settlers At West Chester in March, 1656.

Fri., Jan. 02, 2009:  An Account of the Dutch Capture of Westchester in 1656.

Thu., Oct. 18, 2007:  April 19, 1655 Dutch Protest Against Thomas Pell's Efforts To Settle Englishmen on Lands the Dutch Called VreedLandt.  

Mon., Oct. 16, 2006:  17th Century Papers Relating To Westchester County Published in 1849 Contain References Important to Pelham.

Thu., Apr. 13, 2006:  Rumors in 1657 That Thomas Pell Manipulated Local Native Americans To Protect His Land Acquisition From Incursions by the Dutch.  

Mon., Aug. 17, 2015:  Buyer's Remorse:  After Thomas Pell Bought Pelham From Native Americans, He Wanted His Money Back!

For a general history of the English plantation once known as Westchester, West Chester, Oostdorp, Oost-Dorp, East-Town, East-Towne, Easttowne and by many more names, see the following: 

The Borough Towne of Westchester -- An Address Delivered by Fordham Morris, on the 28th Day of October, 1896, Before the Westchester County Historical Society, in the Court House at White Plains, N. Y. (White Plains, NY:  Privately Printed, Ca. 1896).  


Thomas Pell’s successful negotiation of the so-called "Indian Deed" with local Native Americans for the purchase of the land that subsequently became known as the Manor of Pelham had enormous implications for the dispute between the English and the Dutch over control of the area. The tract was vast -- about 50,000 acres. The Dutch claimed some of it.   Effective dominion over the lands could block any further northward movement of Dutch settlers – at least along the shore of the Long Island Sound westward to an area just beyond the Hutchinson River.   As one judicial authority has said in examining the acquisition, Thomas Pell’s purchase was “a bold attempt to extend English hegemony in the New World at the expense of the Dutch.”

Pell soon arranged settlement of a portion of the area near its western / southwestern border directly on the fault line between the feuding Dutch and English colonies.  The Dutch called the larger tract within which the settlement was located "Vreedland” (among other spellings including Freedlant, Vreedlandt, Vreelant, and Vreedlant).  Indeed, the lands that later became today's Pelham were first called "Vreedlandt."

Within months after Thomas Pell obtained his so-called "Indian Deed" to the land, he made land available to English settlers who planted a settlement at the mouth of today’s Westchester Creek in what is known now as The Bronx.  The Dutch and others later called the little settlement “Oostdorp” or “Easttowne”.

The enormity of Pell’s move was not lost on Dutch authorities.  Almost immediately they took steps to halt it.  At a meeting of the director general and council of the New Netherlands, it was resolved:

“that whereas a few English are beginning a settlement at a great distance from our outposts, on lands long before bought and paid for, near Vreedlant, to send there an interdict, and the attorney general, Cornelius van [Thienhoven], and forbid them to proceed no farther, but to abandon that spot. . . .”

On April 22, 1655, Dutch authorities served a formal protest dated April 19, 1655 on the settlers at Vreedland.   According to Lockwood Barr, who wrote a popular book on the history of Pelham and its surrounding area, the protest was served on Thomas Pell.  That is unlikely since it seems to have been served on leaders of the community in which Pell never resided.  Written in Dutch, the protest laid claims to the lands Pell had bought.

The response, reportedly delivered on behalf of the settlers at Vreedland, suggests both their strength of character and resolve on behalf of the Commonwealth and, presumably, for personal gain. The Dutch official named Claes van Elslant who delivered the protest returned to the Dutch authorities with the following reply ascribed to the settlers:

“Why doth not the Fiscal write English?  Then we could answer in writing; we expect a settlement of the boundary between Holland and England; until then, we abide under the State of England.”

The Dutch were unwilling to ignore such a dismissal of their demand.  They invaded the settlement and removed many of the Englishmen to a prison ship near Fort Amsterdam.  Eventually, the settlers were released and forced to pledge allegiance to the Dutch in order to be permitted to settle in the area under Dutch authority.  In March, 1656, however, the Dutch Fiscal presented a statement to the Director-General and the Council of New Netherland summarizing Thomas Pell’s “intrusion” at West Chester and asking that he be ordered, once again, to quit the area.

When the Dutch official (the official "Court Messenger") named Claes van Elslant appeared at the newly-planted settlement at West Chester on April 22, 1655 to deliver a warning from the Dutch Director General and his Council, he observed a number of things according to his later report of the incident.  He observed "houses" near where he could "land" his boat.  He was met by four "armed men" who tried to stop him from landing and stepping onto the land of the settlement.  He stepped out anyway to read the Dutch protest.  He then was held there until the "leader" of the group of New Englanders was brought forward, armed with a pistol and accompanied by eight to ten armed men "more."  Claes van Elslant was with a colleague referenced as "Albert the trumpeter" who accompanied him presumably to call an assembly with a horn if necessary.  

The two Dutch men were, for a time, placed under guard in a "hut on the shore well guarded by men."   The English told the two men that if they had any wine they would have shared it, but they had none.  The English then, in an apparent show of force, "discharged their guns all round."

In his subsequent report of the events, Court Messenger Claes van Elslant reported that he tried to gain some intelligence about the little settlement against which the Dutch planned to take actions to expel the settlers.  He reported as follows:  "I had also inclined to see their houses and fixtures; also, the Parliament's arms, which the English say hang on a tree, carved on a plank; but they left us standing in a hut on the shore well guarded by men.  Done as above."  Immediately below is van Elslant's brief report to Dutch authorities, in its entirety.  


"This day, 22d April, 1655, have I, Claes van Elslant, Court Messenger, by order of the Hon ble Fiscal, Cornelis van Tienhoven and the Supreme Council of New Amsterdam, in New Netherland, protested against those who were building the new village on the Company's land called Vreedlant; four armed men came to meet me at the ill, demanded what I was after?  I said, Where best could I land; near the houses?  They answered, You shall not land.  I said, Let me land, I am cold; and I sprung ashore.  Whereupon I and Albert the trumpeter, were placed under a guard and warned not to advance a foot further, until he who had the command came to us with a pistol, holding the barrel forward in his hand, accompanied by 8 @ 10 armed men more, to whom I read the Protest, word for word, and handed him the same, who gave for answer:  I cannot understand Dutch; why did not the Fiscal send it in English?  If you send it in English, then shall I answer in writing.  But, said he, that's no matter; we expect the ships from Holland and England which are to bring the settlement of the boundary.  Whether we are to dwell here under the States or under the Parliament, time will tell; furthermore, we abide here under the States of England.  Whereupon we took our departure.  They said, if we had a sup of wine we should offer you some; but we have not any.  And they discharged their guns all round.  I had also inclined to see their houses and fixtures; also, the Parliament's arms, which the English say hang on a tree, carved on a plank; but they left us standing in a hut on the shore well guarded by men.  Done as above.

(Signed), 

CLAES VAN ELSLANT."

Source:  O'Callaghan, E. B., ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York; Procured In Holland, England and France by John Romeyn Brodhead, Esq., Agent, Vol. II,  p. 161 (Albany, NY:  Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858).   

I have indicated on the 1868 map of the Town of Westchester immediately below roughly where I believe this tiny little settlement stood in 1654.


1868 Map of the Town of Westchester With Red Outline of Area
Where This Author Believes the First Huts Were Built in Late 1654
to Plant the Settlement of West Chester Begun by Thomas Pell.
Source:  Beers, Frederick W., "Town of Westchester, Westchester
Co., N.Y." in Atlas of New York and Vicinity from Actual Surveys By
and Under the Direction of F. W. Beers, Assisted by A. B.
Prindle & Others, pg. 14 (Philadelphia, PA: James McGugan,
1868). NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

The brief report of Claes van Elslant to the Director General and his Council in Fort Amsterdam is fascinating for a host of reasons.  It affirms that on April 22, 1655, only six or seven months after the settlement was planted, there were at least fourteen to sixteen armed settlers present and that they already had built "houses" and a "hut on the shore."  It further demonstrates that the houses were "near" a shore where a boat could have landed.  It affirms that the settlers knew they were on disputed land and even recognized that they believed that news from England would arrive any day with an indication of precisely where the disputed boundary between New Netherland and New England would be settled.  Thus, the leader of the settlers reportedly stated:  "we expect the ships from Holland and England which are to bring the settlement of the boundary.  Whether we are to dwell here under the States or under the Parliament, time will tell."

In short, the settlers understood that Thomas Pell had planted them on lands claimed by the Dutch.  They also recognized that depending on where their nations, through negotiations, settled on the boundary between their colonial holdings known as New Netherland and New England, they might eventually be subject to local Dutch rule or local English rule.

The reference to Parliament by the leader of the New England settlers is also important.  Oliver Cromwell (a "Roundhead" or Parliamentarian) had played a significant role in the defeat of the Royalists during the English Civil War and, on December 16, 1653, became the "Lord Protector" of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland.  In short, there was no English King to which the New Englanders could profess allegiance -- hence the references to whether they would "dwell here under the States [i.e., Dutch dominion] or under the Parliament."

Even more fascinating is Claes van Elslant's report that while he was present in the tiny settlement he tried to see "the Parliament's arms, which the English say hang on a tree, carved on a plank."  What were these "Parliament's arms" and why did they convey such significance that van Elslant felt compelled to report to Dutch authorities in New Amsterdam that he had tried to determine whether they, in fact, had been carved on a plank and were hung in the settlement by the English?

The concept of marking territory with Royal Arms almost like a boundary or no trespassing sign was important to the Dutch.  In the case of the English at that particular time, however, they had no King (rather, they had a Lord Protector).  Thus, they had no "Royal" Arms as previous English Kings had had.  It seems likely that the reference to "Parliament's arms" is a reference to the "Arms of His Highness By the Grace of God and Republic, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland" that represented the dominion of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.  

Those arms are described as follows:  

Crest:  "A demi lion issuant argent, holding in his paws a broken spear proper" 

Escutcheon:  "Quarterly of six: first, sable, a lion rampant argent; second, sable, three spear-heads argent imbrued proper; third, sable, a chevron between three fleurs-de-lis argent; fourth, gules, three chevrons argent; fifth, argent, a lion rampant sable; sixth, argent, on a chevron sable a mullet of the field."  

An example of an image of the arms is depicted immediately below.



Coat of Arms of Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658).  English Military
and Political Leader and Later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth
of England, Scotland and Ireland.  Source:  Wikipedia.  NOTE:  Click
on Image to Enlarge.





One scholar recently has emphasized the importance to the colonial Dutch authorities and to the West India Company of affixing the Arms of the States General "in prominent places along the coast" in the region over which the Dutch exercised dominion in New Netherland.  Thus, of course, for settlers from another nation to affix the arms of their nation along the coast in an area claimed by the Dutch as part of New Netherland would have been viewed as a direct slap in the face of Dutch authorities and, indeed, a hostile action.  

As Professor Andrew Lipman recently wrote in his important study entitled "The Saltwater Frontier:  Indians and the Contest for the American Coast":  

"To establish the bounds of their trading zone Dutch colonists affixed 'the Arms of the States General' in prominent places along the coast.  Soon these shield-shaped plates of metal adorned spots from Cape Cod to the current site of Philadelphia.  The historian Patricia Seed points out that since the Middle Ages Dutch market towns used 'municipal arms as equivalent to modern 'No Trespassing' signs.'  Posted around the outskirts of town, they allowed a city to assert 'its freedom from the local lord, warning revenue, judicial, and military officers to 'keep out' for the town administered these functions.'  These metal plaques served as warnings that any violation of Dutch commercial territory would be answered with force.  Amsterdam's emblem, adorned with three diagonal crosses in a kind of triple-X shape, is the most famous of these medieval seals.

The exact appearance of the States Arms is unknown, but most were likely fashioned from copper, and they almost certainly featured De Nederlandse leeuw (Dutch lion) holding seven arrows in its right paw, representing the seven provinces united against Spanish tyranny.  As the historian Simon Schama points out, this heraldic climbing leeuw was a ubiquitous symbol in seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture.  Lions appeared in relief on silver coins, pressed into sealing wax, etched in woodcuts, and traced on maps that arranged the seven provinces into the form of the iconic leeuw, while the animal itself was shown holding raised swords, bounding from the sea or surrounded by a stockade wall in defiance of Spanish sieges.  Perhaps a few centuries-old leonine images are still scattered somewhere deep in the soil near Manhattan; in 1972 an excavation at the footprint of Fort Amsterdam unearthed a finely made clay pipe dating to the 1660s with a maker's mark on the heel featuring the triumphant great cat.

The copper lions the West India Company affixed to trees were subject to frequent vandalism.  'Mischievous savages' from the Delaware Bay had pilfered one of these arms near the Swanendael settlement in 1631, possibly as a protest against an act they recognized as staking out territory or perhaps to reuse the valuable copper.  The furious Swanendael colonists demanded that the Indians bring them the head of the thief.  The Natives obliged the request, but the Dutch remained suspicious:  a colonist later assumed the incident was the cause of the eventual destruction of the settlement by Indians.  Colonial competitors were likewise known to have defaced the arms on multiple occasions.

The West India Company's belief that marking their trading zones with metal seals would reify the borders of New Netherland was just as compromised and self-serving a ploy as the opportunistic claims of vacuum domicilium by the English.  There was a basic ideological chasm between the rivals on the topic of possession.  The Dutch tended to believe that trafficking where Indians were still present would grant them ownership and authority over the territory, while the English gained a purchase on the mainland by opportunistically repopulating and replanting the ruins of a devastated Native landscape.  To put it in the most simple terms, the Dutch leadership presumed that American territory could be theirs through commerce, while the English liked to think their chosen corner of the continent was a gift given by God."

Source:  Lipman, Andrew, The Saltwater Frontier:  Indians and the Contest for the American Coast, pp. 119-121 (New Haven, CT and London:  Yale University Press, 2015) (endnotes omitted).

Thus, on April 22, 1655, Claes van Elslant looked for the "Parliament's arms" that he had heard had been carved on a plank and hung by the New Englanders in the tiny little settlement of West Chester.  Though there is no evidence he saw such arms, he noted that he was held in a hut near shore and was not allowed to look around.  Clearly van Elslant understood that if such arms were present and he reported that fact back to the Dutch authorities, it would incense them even further -- though they already were furious that the New Englanders had settled on Thomas Pell's lands that the Dutch claimed as theirs.

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Monday, June 25, 2018

Connecticut Authorized Thomas Pell to Make Another Purchase of Native American Lands in 1663


It was déjà vu.  Apparently Pelham founder Thomas Pell believed that if it worked once, it likely would work again.

During early 1654, as the First Anglo-Dutch War raged, Thomas Pell used the confusion of the times to acquire from local Native Americans lands that the Dutch claimed they already had acquired -- the very lands that became the Manor of Pelham.  Indeed, in 1653 and early 1654, only months before Pell’s purchase, the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands were at war.  Although they fought the “First Anglo-Dutch War” entirely at sea, English and Dutch settlers feared fighting would spread to the North American colonies at any time.  Only days before Pell’s purchase, Dutch and English colonists were unaware that the Treaty of Westminster had been signed in Europe on April 5, 1654, ending the war. Amidst all this, Pell negotiated his acquisition of Native American lands claimed by the Dutch – a dangerously provocative act clearly designed to support the English cause and to defy the Dutch.  For more about how Pell used the unsettled political circumstances of the First Anglo-Dutch War to further his personal gain and the political objectives of the English settlers by acquiring Pelham, see Bell, Blake A., The New Englanders Who Signed Thomas Pell's 1654 Agreement Acquiring Much of Today's Bronx and Lower Westchester Counties From Native Americans, The Bronx County Historical Society Journal, Vol. XLVI, Nos. 1 & 2, pp. 25-49 (Spring / Fall, 2009).

Nearly a decade later, Thomas Pell saw another such opportunity as the winds of war swirled yet again.  The English and Dutch were on the brink of war again as the Second Anglo-Dutch War loomed.  Moreover, Thomas Pell was still smarting from the Dutch wresting control of the settlement he planted on his new Pelham lands known as "West Chester."  See Tues., Apr. 24, 2018:  Important New Scholarship on the Men to Whom Thomas Pell Sold Part of the Manor of Pelham in 1654; Wed., Apr. 25, 2018:  More on the Settlement of Westchester Planted by Thomas Pell in 1654.

As the drums of war sounded, in March of 1663, more than a year before Petrus Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to a small English fleet on September 8, 1664, Thomas Pell obtained a license from the General Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut to acquire lands to expand his Pelham purchase.  

At a session of the General Assembly held at Hartford on March 10, 1663, Governor John Winthrop Jr. and the members of his Assembly entered the following into the records of the Assembly:

"AT A SESSION OF THE GEN ll ASSEMBLY AT HARTFORD, MARCH 10th 1663.

John Winthrop Esq r, Gou r.

Assis ts.

Mr. Allyn,          Mr. Woolcot,
Mr. Willys,        Mr. Clark,
Mr. Treat,          Mr. Allyn, et Sec'y.

Deputies:

Mr. Wadsworth,       Tho:  Judd,               John Nott,
Mr. Fitch,                 Mr. Jehu Burre         Wm. Cheny,
Capt. Newbery,        John Bnkes,             Tho: Tracy,
Ln t Fyler,                Nath:  White,            Tho:  Leppingwell,
Anth:  Hawkins,       Sam ll Boreman,       Mr. Rob:  Chapman. . . .

This Court doth grant liberty to Mr. Thomas Pell to buy all that land of the Indian proprietors between West Chester and Hudsons Riuer, (that makes Manhatoes an Island,) and lay it to West Chester, prouided that it be not purchased by any before, nor in their possession. . . ."

Source:  The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, Prior to the Union with New Haven Colony, May, 1655; Transcribed and Published, (In Accordance with a Resolution of the General Assembly,) Under the Supervision of the Secretary of State, With Occasional Notes, and an Appendix:  By J. Hammond Trumbull, Vol. I, pp. 417418 (Hartford, CT:  Brown & Parsons, 1850).

Though there are no further records of efforts by Pell to secure the lands to the southwest of his Pelham purchase all the way to the Hudson River, had he done so, today's Pelham likely would be a very different place.  For reasons now lost to history, however, Thomas Pell never succeeded (and, perhaps, never attempted) to acquire such additional lands adjacent to those he purchased on June 27, 1654 that subsequently became the Manor of Pelham.



John Winthrop, Known as "John Winthrop Junior" or "The Younger,"
Was the Eldest Son of John Winthrop, the First Governor of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony, and Mary Forth.  He Was Governor of the Colony of Connecticut
and Head of the General Assembly at the Time a License Was Issued to Thomas
Pell on March 10, 1663 to Purchase Additional Lands from Native Americans
Adjacent to the Lands that Became the Manor of Pelham.  NOTE:  Click on
Image to Enlarge.

*          *          *         *          *

Below is a brief excerpt of material from a wonderful article by L. H. Roper entitled in a recent issue of The New England Quarterly entitled "The Fall of New Netherland and Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Imperial Formation, 1654-1676."  It provides an excellent background of the tumultuous events leading up to the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the surrender of New Amsterdam to the English on September 8, 1663. 

"The Connecticut leadership did not await the conclusion of London's laborious process.  News that it had received its charter, which was proclaimed in the colony on 9 October 1662, was taken as a license to intensify its pressure to detach Long Island and 'West Chester' from Dutch authority and to extend its 'protection' to the New Haven towns of Southold (on Long Island) and Guilford.  By 8 January 1663, Stuyvesant learned that Connecticut was aserting that its patent included all of Long Island.  Accordingly, the colony had issued a 'peremptory order' to the inhabitants of Oostdorp (Westchester) informing them that henceforth they were subject to Connecticut's control; in addition, over the course of 1663, Connecticut operatives incited riots against Dutch authority at Rustdorp (Jamaica), Middleburgh (Elmhurst), Vlissengen (Flushing), Hempstead, and Gravesend.  In December, Stuyvesant was compelled to arms to prevent an English group from acquiring the lands of the Neversink Indians between the Barnegat and Raritan Rivers in modern New Jersey.  By the spring of 1664, Dutch authority in these places hung in the balance as Hartford, acting expressly in accordance with its new powers, directed Winthrop and three other leading colonists -- Wyllys, Matthew Allyn, and John Young -- 'to go over to Long Island, and to settle the English plantations on the Island under this Government,' while Thomas Pell received 'liberty' to buy the Indian lands between 'West Chester' and the Hudson River.  Five days later, Stuyvesant received a report that 'the English of Westchester' had been intriguing with the Esopus and Wappinger Indians, who between June and December 1663 had fought a nasty war with the Dutch in the Hudson River Valley, 'to kill all the Dutch and drive them away' after the English had seized Long Island and Manhattan.  A presumed English spy arrived at Wiltwijck (Kingston) the following month proclaiming that the English would take over New Netherland 'within 6 or 8 weeks.' 33

[Footnote 33:  "33  Report made by P. W. van Couwenhoven of Information Respecting Intrigues of the English with the Wappins and Esopus Indians, [March 1664], and Letter from Ensign Nyssen to Director-General Stuyvesant, Reporting the Visit of an Englishman at Wildwyck, 21 April 1664 (n.s.), DRCHNY, 13:363-64, 368.  For English activity in the Neversink country, see Instructions Given to Martin Cregier and Covert Loockermans for the Purchase of the Nevesing Country, from Barnegatt to the Raritan, 6 December 1663 (n.s.), Journal of a Voyage to the Newesinghs by Captain Cregier, and Agreement Made by the Newesingh Indians to sell to the Dutch their Lands, not already sold, 6-11 December 1663 (n.s.), DRCHNY, 13:311-12, 314-16, 316-17; Edward Rous and and Others to John Scott, 2 December 1663, MHS Collections, 5th ser., 1:397-99.  For Connecticut's activities, see Connecticut Records, 1:384-87, 392-98 at 398; Letters Relating to the Annexation of Long Island to Connecticut, DRCHNY, 14:516-18; Meeting of the General Assembly, 10 March 1664, Connecticut Records, 1:416-24 at 418.  For the attachment of 'West Chester' and Long Island to Connecticut, see Extract from a Letter of Stuyvesant to the Directors, 8 January 1663 (n.s.), DRCHNY, 14:520; Meeting of the Council, 10 July 1663, Meeting of the General Assembly, 8 October 1663, At a Generall Assembly Held at Hartford, 12 May 1664, and At a General Session of the Generall Assembly at Hartford, 8 [October] 1663, Connecticut Records, 1:406-7, 425-31 at 426-27, 409-16 at 411-12; extract from a Letter of Stuyvesant to the Directors [Westchester], 14 May 1663 (n.s.), To his Honor, Secretary Cornelis van Ruyven, at Fort Amsterdam, 15 November 1663, and Letters from Director Stuyvesant to the Governor and Council of Connecticut about the Claims of the Latter, 5 November 1663 (n.s.), DRCHNY, 14:526-27, 531-40."]

Stuyvesant's protests to Connecticut and to his superiors in the West India Company brought him no satisfaction on either front.  34  

[Footnote 34:  "34  Extract from a Letter of Stuyvesant to the Directors, 26 April 1664 (n.s.), and Extract from a Letter of Stuyvesant to the Directors, 4 August 1664 (n.s.), DRCHNY, 14:546-48 at 547-48, 551-55."]

When Winthrop returned to America, Stuyvesant  asked him for a 'categorical answer'; meanwhile, a delegation to Hartford in October 1663 requested that the neighbors honor their 1650 treaty until further directions were received from Europe.  Connecticut officials insisted on the colony's right to all of the disputed territory and, further, its duty to perfect the king's grant.  Continuing to dissemble, Winthrop, supposed friend of the Dutch colony, advised the visitors that the Connecticut patent did not include New Netherland; nonetheless, he mostly absented himself from the negotiations on the grounds of illness and declined to put his opinion in writing since, as he insisted, the language of the patent was clear on its face.  His councilors, though, when presented with this view, observed that 'the Governor is but one man.'  The confused and irritated emissaries returned to New Amsterdam empty handed.  35

[Footnote 35:  "35  Journal kept by Cornelis van Ruyven, Burgomaster Cortlandt and John Laurence, Delegates from New Netherland to the General Assembly at Hartford, in New England, in the month of October, 1663 (n.s.), DRCHNY, 2:385-93; Peter Stuyvesant to John Winthrop Jr., 20 July 1663 (n.s.), and Thomas Willett to John Winthrop Jr., 23 July 1663 (n.s.), MHS Collections, 5th ser., 1:395-96, 396-97."]

By August, Stuyvesant, now fully disabused of Winthrop's motives, had prepared as best he could for an English attack.  He informed the West India Company of Connecticut's predations on Long Island, which reflected his neighbor's contempt for the boundary negotiated in 1650.  He also heaped skepticism on the report relayed by his superiors.  The assembling commissioners and military expedition, the report had concluded, were intended for New England with the brief to 'install' bishops there and to unite those colonies 'under one form of government in political, as well as ecclesiastical matters.'  Dismissing the report's hopeful inference that the initiative would provoke resistance and manifest New English affinity for the Dutch colony, Stuyvesant insisted that New Netherland was the real target, and his intelligence was supported by news that Rhode Island had received a charter, which included a grant of liberty of conscience, and that York had been granted his patent.  36

[Footnote 36:  "36  Extract from a Letter of Stuyvesant to the Directors, [4 August 1664 (n.s.)]; [responding to] Chamber of Amsterdam to the Director and Council of New Netherland, 21 April 1664 (n.s.), DRCHNY, 14:551-55 at 552-54, 2:235-37 at 235-36."]

Four frigates bearing Nicolls, Maverick, Carr, Cartwright, and between three and four hundred soldiers reached Nantasket toward the end of July.  The commissioners sought the assistance of the Massachusetts government, which agreed to recruit and pay for two hundred volunteers and to send Clarke and Pynchon (Wylly's son-in-law and close friend of Winthrop, the physician of his wife, Amy) as the colony's representatives to the mission.  Notifying Winthrop of their arrival, the other commissioners planned to rendezvous with him at Gravesend, at the western end of Long Island.  37

[Footnote 37:  "37  John Pynchon and Thomas Clarke to Secretary Edward Rawson, [15 August 1664], Pynchon Papers, 1:32; Colonial Records:  General Entries, vol. 1, 1664-65, University of the State of New York, State Library Bulletin, History, no. 2 (May 1899):  55; Massachusetts Records, vol. 4, pt. 2, pp. 120-24.  For Pynchon's relationships with Winthrop (with whose family Amy Wyllys Pynchon lived in 1654-55, while he treated her) and Wyllys, see, e.g., letters between Pynchon and Winthrop of 22 May, 20 June, 26 July, [30 November], and [17 December] 1654.  Pynchon Papers, 1:5-13, 131.  The social connections between these New England imperialists also appear from Amy Pynchon's requests for treatment on her knee from Thomas Pell (John Pynchon to John Winthrop Jr., 1 and 7 May 1660, Pynchon Papers, 1:32-34)."]

At the end of August, the fleet arrived at New Amsterdam and ordered the town to surrender or be sacked; meanwhile, Nicolls proceeded to recruit additional colonial troops to swell the occupying force.  38  

[Footnote 38:  "38  License to Recruit Soldiers on Long Island against the Dutch, 24 August 1664, and Letter from Col. Nicolls to Capt. Young about such Long Island People as have taken up arms against the Dutch, 29 August 1664, DRCHNY, 14:555-56."]

Stuyvesant's attempts to delay the inevitable came to nothing; with a shortage of powder and his defenses in disarray, he was compelled to accept terms.  Yet, despite the Crown's involvement, Connecticut's hand remained firmly on the tiller.  According to the Reverend Samuel Drisius, 'about 600' New Englanders had joined the expedition.  Stuyvesant, in his report to the States General, noted that defeat came at the hands of 'the Hartford Colony, our too powerful enemies,' who had been 'reinforced by four Royal ships.'  We may wonder what went through the director-general's mind when Winthrop personally delivered the articles of capitulation to him.  39"

[Footnote 39:  "39  The West India Company and its operatives on the South River had reports of 300 soldiers; see West India Company to the Burgomasters of Amsterdam, [July 1664], and Commissioners of the Colonie on the Delaware River to the Burgomasters of Amserdam, [June 1664], DRCHNY, 2:243, 244.  The New Amsterdam government later reported that one of the frigates carried almost 450 soldiers 'and the others in proportion,' but this seems an exaggeration given the other accounts and the size of the ships; see Translation of a letter from the Schout, Burgomasters, and Schepens of the City of New Amsterdam, to the West India Company, 16 September 1664, in John Romeyn Brodhead, Commemoration of the Conquest of New Netherland on the Two Hundredth Anniversary, by the New York Historical Society (New York:  By the Society, 1864), pp. 70-71; Letter from Rev. Samuel Drisius to the Classis of Amsterdam, 15 September 1664 (n.s.), DRCHNY, 13:393-94 at 393.  E. B. O'Callaghan, the nineteenth-century translator and editor of DRCHNY, translated 'gesecondeert' as 'reinforced' in Stuyvesant's Report of the Surrender of New Netherland, 1665 (DRCHNY, 2:365-70 at 366), but 'seconded' or 'supported' seems aa superior translation of the original Report of the Honorable Peter Stuyvesant, late Director-General of New Netherland, on the causes which led to the surrender of that country to the English (Archive States General, 1.01.07 in.nr.12546.57, Nationaal Archief, The Hague).  My thanks to Jaap Jacobs for the original reference and for his wisdom on this and many other points.  For Winthrop's delivery of the terms, see Answer of Ex-Director Stuyvesant, 1666, DRCHNY, 2:429-47 at 444."]

Source:  Roper, L. H., The Fall of New Netherland and Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Imperial Formation, 1654-1676, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 4, pp. 686-89 (Dec. 2014).


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Wednesday, June 20, 2018

The 1665 Lawsuit Against Thomas Pell Over Cornell's Neck Which He Claimed as Part of the Manor of Pelham




"It appears that the governor [of the Colony of New York, Richard
Nicolls] created Pelham Manor in order to mollify [Thomas] Pell."

-- Philip J. Schwarz, Author of "The Jarring Interests:  New York's
Boundary Makers, 1664-1776" (State University of New York Press, 1979)

Introduction

The Court of Assizes for the Colony of New York was established under the Duke's Laws in 1665.  The first session of the Court began on September 28, 1665 at New York before the Governor of the Colony, his Council, and the Justices of the Peace of the so-called East Riding of Yorkshire, a judicial district that was "ridden" on horseback by Justices of the Peace to dispense justice and that included Long Island.  

One of the very first matters considered by the new Court of Assizes on only its second day of operation (September 29, 1665) was a significant land dispute between Pelham founder, Thomas Pell, and a married couple named Charles Bridges and Sarah Cornell Bridges.  The dispute involved Cornell's Neck to which Charles and Sarah Bridges claimed title through Sarah's mother who once was married to Thomas Cornell.  Thomas Pell, on the other hand, claimed that Cornell's Neck was encompassed within his acquisition of the lands that became the Manor of Pelham from local Native Americans on June 27, 1654.

The map immediately below shows the location of Cornell's Neck.


Map Showing Location of Cornell's Neck and its Relation to
the Settlement of Westchester, Throggs Neck, and Pelham
Neck.  Source:  Cornell, John, Genealogy of the Cornell Family
Portsmouth, R. I., Opposite p. 21 (NY, NY:  {Press of T. A. Wright,
1902).  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

If this were a simple land dispute, it would not be as fascinating as it actually is.  Once historical context and color is added, it becomes apparent this very land dispute eventually led to the recognition of Pelham as a "manor" by colonial representatives of the English King.  Indeed, it could be argued that the famed Town of Pelham that became known as an affluent playground for wealthy New Yorkers and a community of grand estates and mansions during the 19th century might have been a very different place were it not for the land dispute between Thomas Pell and the Bridges Family involving Cornell's Neck during the 1660s.  Today's Historic Pelham Blog article tells this compelling story.

Historic Developments Cause Questions Over Land Ownership to Swirl

At the time Thomas Pell bought the lands that later would become Pelham, he knew he was acquiring an area claimed by the Dutch who controlled New Amsterdam and New Netherland.  Indeed, in 1653 and early 1654, only months before Pell’s purchase, the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands were at war.  Although they fought the “First Anglo-Dutch War” entirely at sea, English and Dutch settlers feared fighting would spread to the North American colonies at any time.  Only days before Pell’s purchase, Dutch and English colonists were unaware that the Treaty of Westminster had been signed in Europe on April 5, 1654, ending the war.  Amidst all this, Pell negotiated his acquisition of Native American lands claimed by the Dutch – a dangerously provocative act clearly designed to support the English cause and to defy the Dutch.  Pell repeatedly claimed that he purchased the lands "under license" from the colonial authorities of the Colony of Connecticut.

Broadly speaking, Pell's new lands were, in effect, an area between the southern-most area of English settlement in the Colony of Connecticut and the northern-most area of Dutch settlement in New Netherland.  To make matters worse, the descriptions of the land Pell purchased contained in the so-called Pell Indian Deed were ambiguous at best.  

To put it succinctly, the Dutch believed they owned the lands Pell acquired.  They claimed to have acquired the lands through Indian Deeds beginning in 1640 and had authorized settlements in the region including Thomas Cornell's land on Cornell's Neck and Anne Hutchinson's settlement in an area believed to have been near today's Co-op City in the Bronx.  Pell, on the other hand, believed he acquired much of the same lands encompassing an area extending from at least Cornell's Neck (if not beyond), all the way northeast to today's Larchmont (if not beyond) and westward to the Bronx River.

On September 8, 1664, the Dutch surrendered Fort Amsterdam, New Amsterdam, and New Netherland to the English.  English authorities immediately took control of the surrendered lands on behalf of a brother of King Charles II named James Stewart, Duke of York (who later became James II of England and James VII of Scotland).  The new English dominions became the Colony of New York.  

These developments raised a host of issues in the context of private land ownership.  Firstly, what was the status of landholders who occupied their lands through grants made by, or acquisitions derived from, Dutch authorities now that the English had ousted the Dutch?  Secondly, in settlements like those in the little village of West Chester and on Cornell's Neck where Colony of Connecticut residents like Thomas Pell supposedly had acquired the lands "under license" from the Colony of Connecticut, should the lands be properly considered part of the new Colony of New York or part of the pre-existing Colony of Connecticut?  Of course, all these questions swirled around Thomas Pell's acquisition.

Ownership of Cornell's Neck

Thomas Cornell, Sr (b. 1595 – d. 1655) was one of the earliest settlers of Boston (1638), Rhode Island (1643) and the Bronx and a contemporary of Roger Williams and the family of Anne Hutchinson.  In 1646, New Netherland authorities granted Cornell a patent on an area of about four square miles that later became part of today's The Bronx.  It was bounded by Westchester Creek, the Bronx River, village of Westchester and the East River.  Then called Cornell's Neck, the area now is known as Clason Point.  See "Thomas Cornell (Settler)" in Wikipedia -- The Free Encyclopedia (visited Jun. 16, 2018).

Although Thomas Cornell and his family settled on Cornell's Neck, numerous sources indicate that he soon was driven from the area by Native Americans who attacked his cattle and burned his buildings.  After Cornell's death, his widow (sole executrix of his last will and testament) reportedly conveyed Cornell's Neck to two of the couple's children including Sarah who subsequently gained sole title to the land.  

Sarah Cornell had been married to Colonel Thomas Willet who died.  Thereafter she married Charles Bridges in November, 1647.  Though Charles Bridges had arrived in America from Canterbury, England, he played an active role in the administrative affairs of the Dutch Colony of Curacao and, later, New Netherland and was known by the Dutch as Carel van Brugge (or ver Vrugge).  

Charles Bridges and Sarah Cornell Bridges File Suit Against Thomas Pell

In 1664, as the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam and New Netherland to the English, Thomas Pell laid claim to Cornell's Neck.  In an apparent effort to bolster his position as he began to agitate for an expansive recognition of the extent of the lands he acquired from Native Americans, Thomas Pell approached settlers in the settlement he had planted at West Chester (adjacent to Cornell's Neck) and demanded that they sign a writing indicating that they submitted to his dominion as purchaser of the property.  The majority of them did so on June 15, 1664.  (See transcription of, and citation to, the document later in this article.)

Charles and Sarah Bridges of Cornell's Neck grew alarmed.  On October 26, 1664, the couple "entered a protest against all bargains, deeds, and sales of Thomas Pell of Onkway, or any from or under him" relating to Cornell's Neck.  This "protest" involved a lawsuit that subsequently was tried in the Court of Sessions at Hempstead.  Following that trial, an appeal was taken to the newly-established Court of Assizes of the Colony of New York.

On September 29, 1665, the case was tried before a jury in the Court of Assizes.  Plaintiffs Charles and Sarah Bridges were represented by an attorney named John Sharpe.  Thomas Pell represented himself in the matter.  

The matter was tried before a jury of seven men.  The jury foreman was John Tucker.  The remaining six jurors were William Wilkins, John Emans, Charles Morgan, John Forster, Joseph Bayley, and Robert Terry.

The attorney for Charles and Sarah Bridges presented the land grant and patent issued to Thomas Cornell by Willem Kieft, Director-General of New Netherland, on July 26, 1646.  He also presented "the widow Cornell's conveyance of same to Sarah and her sister" as well as evidence of the original purchase of the land from local Native Americans by Petrus Stuyvesant, who also served as Director-General of New Netherland.  The attorney presented the articles of surrender for the surrender of New Netherland to the English in 1664 as well as "the king's instructions confirming Dutch grants."

In reply, Thomas Pell presented evidence of his purchase of the lands from local Native Americans on June 27, 1654.  He also pleaded that his acquisition was made "under license from Connecticut" and that the Dutch lacked power to grant an ownership interest in the lands.

The jury rendered its verdict in favor of Charles and Sarah Bridges.  Thomas Pell was required to pay costs as well as six pence damages to the plaintiffs, a modest award even in  1665.  

Thomas Pell Continues His Fight For an Expansive Recognition of His Property Rights

Thomas Pell was absolutely furious with the result of the lawsuit.  He embarked on a campaign to overturn the result in any way he could.  

As local residents in the region of the settlements of Cornell's Neck and West Chester began to seek confirmations of their patents from New York colonial authorities, Thomas Pell complained bitterly to anyone who would listen that colonial officials would not recognize his land rights in the region.  

Pell wrote to John Winthrop, Jr., Governor of the Colony of Connecticut where Pell resided.  He asked Winthrop to intercede on his behalf with the Governor of the Colony of New York. In that letter Pell pleaded his case once again.  His arguments may be distilled, essentially, to an assertion that the Dutch were intruders in the region as well as enemies of England with "no right off dominion, no right of jurisdiction, no right to purchase" lands that rightfully belonged under English dominion.  Pell argued, in essence, that the Governor of the Colony of New York was treating him as a second-class English subject with fewer rights than enemies of England.

Thomas Pell was an affluent and influential man among the English settlers from New York to Connecticut.  Clearly his importunities could not be ignored without some political risk.

Finally, on July 3, 1666, the office of New York Governor Richard Nicolls wrote to Thomas Pell (through an aide) to note that word had reached him that, as the aide put it:  " you Complaine of very hard Measure that you have rec d in that hee [i.e., the Governor] disposeth of the Lands at Westchester and there about to which you pretend a Title."

In the same letter, the Governor's aide continued, informing Pell that the Governor would stop confirming such patents in the region temporarily so "That if you have any just Clayme to those Lands or Exceptions to what hee doth, or is about to do, you may deliver them in to him."  The letter further warned Pell, however, that the Governor "conceiveth [that] no Person hath a more Lawfull Power to dispose thereof, than himselfe by vertue of his Commission and Authority from his Royall Highnesse And hee did believe the Tryall about Cornhill's Neck, was a Sufficient President for the Clearing of the Title to the rest."

The letter with its warning to Pell did not dampen Pell's fury.   Moreover, it appears that the Governor of the Colony of New York and his advisors recognized that the private land ownership problem was not limited to Thomas Pell and his claims of ownership extending as far as Cornell's Neck.  Indeed, during a Court of Assizes session held between September 27, 1666 and October 2, 1666, several amendments to colonial laws were approved to require reconfirmation or renewal of all previous land grants in the region.  As one source puts it:

"Several amendments of the code were made at this session of the Assizes. Public rates were required to be paid every year in wheat and other produce, at certain fixed prices, 'and no other payment shall be allowed of.' . . . Perhaps the most important decree related to land patents. 'The Court having taken notice of the defects and failings of both towns and persons in particular of not bringing in their grants or patents to receive a confirmation of them, or not coming to take out new grants where they are defective, or where there are none at all, according to former directions in the Law, As also taking it into their serious considerations that several towns and persons within this Government, as well English as Dutch, do hold their lands and houses upon the conditions of being subjects to the States of the United Belgic Provinces, which is contrary to the allegiance due to his Majesty, They do therefore Order that all grants or patents whatsoever formerly made, shall be brought in, to be confirmed or renewed by authority of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, and all such as have not patents shall likewise be supplied therewith by the first day of April next after the date hereof; after which time neither town nor private person, whether English or Dutch, shall have liberty to plead any such old grants, patents, or deeds of purchase in law, but they shall be looked upon as invalid to all intents and purposes." 

According to New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead:

"This stringent ordinance made great commotion. It was vigorously enforced, because the quit-rents and fees on renewals were necessary for the support of the government. In the course of the next few months, Neperhaem, Pelham, Westchester, Eastchester, Huntington, Flushing, Brookhaven, Easthampton, New Utrecht, Gravesend, Jamaica, Hempstead, Newtown, Flatlands, Bushwick, Flatbush, and Brooklyn, paid new fees and obtained new charters which generally confirmed to each of them their old boundaries, and 'all the rights and privileges belonging to a town within this government.'"

Thomas Pell was among those who sought reconfirmation of his land purchase by colonial authorities.  As one scholar has noted, though New York Governor Richard Nicolls would not go so far as to recognize Pell's claimed ownership of Cornell's Neck, he did seem to "mollify" Pell with the broad and expansive nature of the confirmation of his land ownership. Indeed, the patent issued to Thomas Pell on October 6, 1666 recognized Thomas Pell's lands as a "manor."  Though the patent never referenced the lands as "Pelham Manor" or the "Manor of Pelham" (that would not come until a later confirmation issued to Pell's nephew and heir John Pell), the terms of the patent were unmistakable, providing in part that Pell's holdings:

"shall be forever hereafter had, deemed, reputed, taken and be an enfranchised township, manor and place itself, and shall always from time, and at all times hereafter, have, hold and enjoy like and equal privileges with any town, enfranchised place or manor within this government, and in no manner of way be subordinate or belonging unto any other township or jurisdiction, but shall in all be held as an entire enfranchised township, manor and place of itself in this Government."  

As one scholar has noted (quoted and cited in full below):  "the patent did not mention Pell's claim under Connecticut; instead the grant was based on his original purchase from the Indians alone.  Since no counterclaim under a Dutch patent existed, Nicolls was free to grant the land as he pleased.  It appears that the governor created Pelham Manor in order to mollify Pell."

Thomas Pell may have failed to obtain official sanction of his contention that Cornell's Neck was part of the lands he bought from local Native Americans.  He succeeded, however, in gaining a recognition of his remaining vast holdings as a "manor" -- a manor that became known far and wide as the "Manor of Pelham."

*          *          *          *          *

Transcribed below are a variety of materials relevant to today's Historic Pelham Blog article.


"Upon the 16th [sic] of June, 1664, we find the inhabitants of Westchester surrendering all their rights to Thomas Pell, in the following manner: -- 

'Know all men by these presents, that whereas there was an agreement made on the fourteenth of November, 1654, between Thomas Pell and divers persons, about a tract of land called Westchester, which was and is Thomas Pell's, bounded as appears by an instrument bearing date as above expressed, wherein the undertakers engaged the payment of a certaine summe of money, present pay, for the said land expressed in the covenant, by reason of some troubles which hindered the underwriters possession, the agreement was not attended, the present inhabitants considering the justnesse and right of the above said title of Thomas Pell, doe surrender all their rights, titles, and claimes, to all the tract of land aforesaid, to bee at the disposal of the said Thomas Pell, as being the true and proper owner thereof. 

Witness our hande, this 15th day of June in the yeere of Lord one thousand six hundred and sixty four. 

JOHN QUIMBIE
CONSIDER WOOD,
NICKOLAS BALLE,
JOHN WINTER, 
RICHARD PONTON, his [sideways "X"] mark.
JOHN BARKER, 
ROBERT HUESTIS, 
EDWARD JESSOP, 
WILL BEET,
JOHN LARENS,
SAMUEL BARRET, his B mark
THOMAS VAILLE, his [sideways "X"] mark.
WILLIAM JONES, his [sideways "V"] mark.
JOHN ACER,
JOHN WILLIAMS, his [sideways "Y"] mark.
SAMUEL PITCHER, his [sideways "T"] mark.
THOMAS MILLENER.

The same day Thomas Pell issued the following order to the inhabitants of Westchester: -- 

'The major part of the inhabitants of West Chester having surrendered up all their rightes, titles and claimes, of ye land, wch they pr tended, to possesse, to Thomas Pell, the owner thereof (as appeareth by writing under their hande, in the foregoing page), That the inhabitants might enjoy the present improvements of Their labors, Their home Lotts, and planting grounds with what meadowes were in times past laid out to each man's particular to mow for this yeere I have desired Mr. Jessop, with the Townsmen and freemen, That it may bee orderly attended. And in case men want meadow to supply their pr esent necessity, they make Their addresses to the aforesaid persons, for Their order, where to mow, to supply Their present occasions.

Witness my hande This sixteenth day of June, in the yeer of our Lord one thousand, six hundred, sixty-four."

p. me, THOMAS PELL."

Source: Bolton, Robert, The History of the Several Towns, Manors, and Patents of the County of Westchester, from its First Settlement to the Present Time Carefully Revised by its Author, Vol. II, pp. 286-87 (NY, NY: Chas. F. Roper, 1881) (citing "Westchester Town Court Rec. Conn., A.D. 1665, p. 17." for the first record and "Westchester Town Court Rec. Commg. A.D. 1665, p. 12." for the second record).

"[14-15:]

[CALENDAR:  Sept. 29.  Charles Bridges and Sarah, his wife, vs. Thomas Pell; appeal from the court of sessions at Hempstead concerning Cornhills Neck, adjoining to Bronxland, near Westchester.  Jurors:  John Tucker, William Wilkins, Charles Morgan, John Emans, John Foster, Robert Terry, Joseph Bayly.  John Sharpe, attorney for plaintiff; Thomas Pell for himself.

Plaintiff pleads the grant and patent of Gov. Kieft to Thomas Cornhill, father of Sarah, one of the plaintiffs, also the widow Cornhill's conveyance of the same to Sarah and her sister, also the purchase of the said land by Gov. Stuyvesant from the Indians and confirmation of it to Thomas Cornhill, also the articles of surrender and the king's instructions confirming Dutch grants; defendant pleads the purchase of the lands from the Indians in 1654 under license from Connecticut and lack of power in the Dutch to grant these lands.  Verdict of jury for the plaintiffs, the defendant to pay costs and six pence damages.  Judgment and order accordingly.]"

Source:  Christoph, Peter R. & Christoph, Florence A., eds., New York Historical Manuscripts: English -- Records of the Court of Assizes for the Colony of New York, 1665-1682, pp. 5-6 (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 1983).

"The second grantee under the Dutch, (in this town) [i.e., the Town of Westchester] was Thomas Cornhill or Cornell, who obtained the following 'grond brief,' or grant in 1646.  

'We William Kieft, Director General, and the Council on the behalf of the High and Mighty Lords, the States General of the United Netherlands, the Prince of Orange and the noble Lords, the Managers of the incorporated West India Company in New Netherlands residing, by these presents do publish and declare that we, on this day the date underwritten, have given and granted unto Thomas Cornell a certain piece of land lying on the East River, beginning from the kill of Bronck's land east south east along the river, extending about half a Dutch mile from the river till to a little creek over the valley (marsh) which runs back around this land; with the express condition and terms that the said Thomas Cornell, or they who to his action hereafter may succeed, the noble Lords the Managers aforesaid, shall acknowledge as their Lords and Patroons under the sovereignty of the High and Mighty Lords the States General, and unto their Director and Council here shall in all things be confirmed as all good citizens are in duty bound, provided also that he shall be furthermore subject to all such burdens and imposts as by their noble Lords already have been enacted, or such as hereafter may yet be enacted, constituting over the same the aforesaid Thomas Cornell in our stead in the real and actual possession of the aforesaid piece of land, giving him by these presents the full might, authority, and special license, the aforesaid piece to enter, cultivate, inhabit and occupy in like manner as he may lawfully do with other his patriomonial lands and effects, without our the grantors in the quality as aforesaid thereunto any longer having, reserving or saving any part, action or control whatever, but to the behoof as aforesaid for all destiny, for this time and for ever more, promising furthermore this their transport firmly, inviolably and irrevocably to maintain, fulfil and execute, and furthermore to do all that in equity we are bound to do without fraud or deceit, these presents only as undersigned and confirmed with our seal or red wax here underneath suspended.

Done in the Fort Amsterdam in New Netherlands, this 26th of July, 1646, undersigned,

WILLIAM KIEFT.

By order of the noble Lords, the Director General and the Council of New Netherlands.

CORNELIS VAN TIENHOVEN, Secretary. a [Footnote a:  "a  Alb. Rec. G. G. 206, also 351."]

Upon the death of Thomas Cornell, the neck became vested in his widow who conveyed the same to her eldest daughter, Sarah, the wife of Charles Bridges.

In the book of general entries at Albany, occurs the following order addressed to the schout, burgomeesters, and schepens of New York:

'Upon the complaint of Charles Bridges and Sarah his wife against William Newman and Thomas Senequam, an Indian, now in custody, you are hereby required to summon a court to meet to-morrow, to examine, hear and determine the matters in controversie between the said partyes, and to proceed therein according to equity and good conscience.  Given under my hand at Fort James, in New York, the 24th of March, 1664.' b  [Footnote b:  "b  Alb. Book of Gen. Entries, from 1664 to 1665, page 101."]  

The cause appears to have been decided in favor of Mr. Bridges and his wife, for on the 27th day of March, 1665, the constable of Westchester was required (by the Governor0 'to deliver unto Mr. Bridges and his wife, or their assignees, the goods that lye attached in your hands as of right belonging to them, for doing whereof this shall be your warrant.  Given under my hand at Fort James in New York, &c.' c  [Footnote c:  "c  Alb. Book of Gen. Entries, page 102."]  Richard Nicolls.

In 1664, Thomas Pell of Onkway, Connecticut, laid claim to Cornell's neck.

Upon the 26th of October, 1664, 'Charles Bridges and Sarah his wife entered a protest before and against all bargains, deeds, and sales of Thomas Pell of Onkway, or any from or under him, of or concerning a parcel of land situated on the East River, beginning from the kill of Bronx land, east south east, likewise alongst the river bounded almost half a Dutch mile, a copy of the original grant whereof unto Thomas Cornell, father of the said Sarah Bridges they have also registered, until such time as the cause can be tried.'  a  [Footnote a:  "a  Alb. Rec. Gen. Entries vol. i. p. 14."]

The following particulars are taken from the assize records, in relation to a trial between the two parties, held on the 29th of September, 1665.

Charles Bridges          }
                                    } Plaintiffs.
and Sarah his wife,     }

Thomas Pell, Defendant.

Names of Jurors.

John Tucker, Foreman,
William Wilkins, 
John Emans,
Charles Morgan, 
John Forster,
Joseph Bayley, 
Robert Terry.

'The attorney for the plaintiffs produced a copy of the heads of the trial at the court of sessions held in June last, at Hampstead, he likewise puts in a declaration alledging the defendant's unjust molestation of the plaintiffs in their possession of a certain pacel of land called Cornell's neck, lying and being near Westchester, which of right belongs unto them, &c.

To prove their title, a grant and patent from the Dutch governor, Kieft, to Thomas Cornell, deceased, father of Sarah, one of the plaintiffs, is produced and read in court, that upon the said grant, Thomas Cornell was in lawful possession of the said lands, and that he was at consdierable charges in building, manuring, and planting ye same, that after some years the said Thomas Cornell was driven off his said lands, by the barbarous violence of the Indians who burnt his house and goods, and destroyed his cattle, which was made appeare by sufficient testimony.  That widow Cornell's conveyance of the said neck of land to Sarah Bridges, one of the plaintiffs, and her sister, was likewise given in, under which the plaintiffs claime.   That the said widow Cornell was left sole executrix of the last will and testament of her husband, Thomas Cornell, deceased, and so had power to convey the premises; this was allowed of, (although neither the will nor a copy thereof were produced,) there being no exceptions made against it.  There was likewise an act from the late Dutch governor, Stuyvesant, produced, where he buyes the same lands of the Indians again, (though alledged to be bought long before,) and confirms it to Thomas Cornell, his heires and assigns.

Mr. Pell, the defendant, makes answer for himself, that he bought the land in question in the year 1654, of the natives, and paid them for it.  He pleads his being a free denizen of England, and hath thereby liberty to purchase lands in any of his majesties dominions, within which compass this is.  He alledges the fifth clause in the King's treaty, sent over hither to make for him, as declaring this land to be within his majesties dominions, he saith the governor and council of Connecticut tooke notice of this land to be under their government, a  [Footnote a:  "a  The legislature of Connecticut, (says the historian Trumbull,) determining to secure as far as possible the lands within the limits of their charter, authorized one Thomas Pell to purchase of the Indian proprietors all that tract between Westchester and Hudson's river, and the waters which made the Manhadoes an Island; and resolved that it should be added to Westchester, 1663. -- Trumbull's Hist. of Connecticut, 273."] and that they ordered magistratical power to be exercised at Westchester, and that he had license from them to purchase.  He pleads that where there is no right there can be no dominion, so no patent could be granted by the Dutch, they having no right.  Several testimonys were read to prove that ye Indians questioned Mr. Cornell's and other plantations there, about not paying for those lands, which was the occasion of their cutting them off and driving away the inhabitants, but the defendant hath paid a valuable consideration to the natives.

The attorney for the plaintiffs alledges ye articles of surrender, and the King's instructions, wherein any grant or conveyance from the Dutch is confirmed, and plead the antiquity of Mr. Cornell's grant and possession, together with his great losse.  After a full hearing of the case it was referred to the jury, who brought in their verdict for the plaintiffs, the defendant to pay costs and charges of suite, and sixpence damage.'

Judgment was accordingly granted by the court, and the following order issued.

'The court having heard the case in difference between the plaintiffs and defendant debated at large concerning their title to a certaine parcell of lnd, commonly called Cornell's neck, adjoining to Bronx land, near Westchester, and having also seen and perused their writings and evidences, it was committed to a jury, who brought in their verdict for the plaintiffs, viz, that thee land in question doth of right belong to the plaintiffs, and that the defendant shall pay the costs and charges of suit, and sixpence damage.  The court doth give their judgment accordingly, and do likewise order that the high sheriff or the under sheriff of ye north riding of Yorkshire, upon Long Island, do put the plaintiffs in possession of the said lands and premises, and all persons are required to forbear the giving the said plaintiffs, or their assigns, any molestation in their peaceable and quiet enjoyment thereof.' b  [Footnote b:  "b  Alb. Assize Rec. p. 15.n"]"

Source:  Bolton, Jr., Robert, History of the County of Westchester, From Its First Settlement to the Present Time, Vol. II, 152-55 (NY, NY:  Alexander S. Gould, 1848).

"Several amendments of the code were made at this session of the Assizes. Public rates were required to be paid every year in wheat and other produce, at certain fixed prices, 'and no other payment shall be allowed of.' . . . Perhaps the most important decree related to land patents. 'The Court having taken notice of the defects and failings of both towns and persons in particular of not bringing in their grants or patents to receive a confirmation of them, or not coming to take out new grants where they are defective, or where there are none at all, according to former directions in the Law, As also taking it into their serious considerations that several towns and persons within this Government, as well English as Dutch, do hold their lands and houses upon the conditions of being subjects to the States of the United Belgic Provinces, which is contrary to the allegiance due to his Majesty, They do therefore Order that all grants or patents whatsoever formerly made, shall be brought in, to be confirmed or renewed by authority of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, and all such as have not patents shall likewise be supplied therewith by the first day of April next after the date hereof; after which time neither town nor private person, whether English or Dutch, shall have liberty to plead any such old grants, patents, or deeds of purchase in law, but they shall be looked upon as invalid to all intents and purposes.'* [Footnote cites the following: "*Court of Assizes II, 80, Col. MSS., xxii., 107; N.Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., i, 414-419; Hoffman's Treatise, 1, 97."]

This stringent ordinance made great commotion. It was vigorously enforced, because the quit-rents and fees on renewals were necessary for the support of the government. In the course of the next few months, Neperhaem, Pelham, Westchester, Eastchester, Huntington, Flushing, Brookhaven, Easthampton, New Utrecht, Gravesend, Jamaica, Hempstead, Newtown, Flatlands, Bushwick, Flatbush, and Brooklyn, paid new fees and obtained new charters which generally confirmed to each of them their old boundaries, and 'all the rights and privileges belonging to a town within this government.'" 

Source:  Brodhead, John Romeyn, History of the State of New York, Vol. II, pp. 109-10 (NY, NY: Harper & Brothers, Publishers 1871).

"Charles Bridges, who had come over from Canterbury, England, and had taken an active part in the Dutch administrative affairs of Curacoa and New Netherland, even changing his name for a time to Carel van Brugge or ver Vrugge.  His wife was Sarah Cornell, daughter of Thomas Cornell, of Cornell's Neck.  She wsa the widow of Colonel Thomas Willet when Bridges married her in November, 1647.  After the death of Bridges she was married a third time, to John Lawrence, Jr., of Flushing.  Bridges and his wife succeeded in a suit against Thomas Pell, at the court of assizes, on September 29, 1665, for possession of the land on Cornell's Neck, from which Thomas Cornell had been driven 'by the barbarous violence of the Indians who Burnt his House and Goods, and destroyed his Cattle.' -- Innes.  New Amsterdam and its People, pp. 194-195; General Entries, vol. 1, p. 155; Court of Assizes, vol. 2, pp. 15-18; Collections of N. Y. Hist. Society, 1892, pp. 118-119."

Source:  Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York -- One Hundred and Thirty-Third Session 1910, Vol. XXXIII, No. 67, Part I, p. 72 n.1 (Albany, NY:  J. B. Lyon Co., 1910).

In 1666, Mathias Nicolls wrote a letter on behalf of the Governor of the Province of New York, Richard Nicolls, to Thomas Pell addressing his complaints regarding efforts by others to receive land patents that he believed infringed upon his own holdings. The letter is transcribed below, followed by a citation to its source. 

"A LETTER WRITTEN BY YE GOVERNORS ORDER UNTO MR. THOMAS PELL, CONCERNING HIS LAND IN WESTCHESTER. 

MEMORANOCK, July 3d, 1666. 

Sr. 

The Governor having been Informed by Mr. Delavall and others that you Complaine of very hard Measure that you have rec d in that hee disposeth of the Lands at Westchester and there about to which you pretend a Title; his Honor gave mee Order to acquaint you, that for ye present hee hath putt a Stopp to Westchester Patent, as well as others there about (although they have for some time laying ready for his Passing) That if you have any just Clayme to those Lands or Exceptions to what hee doth, or is about to do, you may deliver them in to him, But hee conceiveth , no Person hath a more Lawfull Power to dispose thereof, than himselfe by vertue of his Commission and Authority from his Royall Highnesse And hee did believe the Tryall about Cornhill's Neck, was a Sufficient President for the Clearing of the Title to the rest; However, Its his pleasure to heare what you can alleadge or object, so that you do it Speedily for he thinkes it not convenient, to leave those matters much longer in Suspense; yor Answer hereunto by the first oppertunity will bee expected. This is all I had in Charge to deliver unto you, So I subscribe Sr. 

Your humble Serv t MATHIAS NICOLLS." 

Source:  Fernow, Berthold, Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Vol. XIII, p. 403 (Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons and Company 1881).

"THOMAS PELL - TO JOHN WINTHROP, JR.

To ye Honored John Winthrop Esquire, Governour off his Maiestys Colony in Connecticut att his house in Hartfford these psent.

FAYRFFEILD 2 : 5 : 66 :

HONOURED S R, -- Once more I doo humbly present my request to you yt you would be pleased to visit Generall Niccols in my behalfe w th a few lines.  Ye coppy off ye purchase I sent to your worship when you liued in New London in 1655 p my sonne Scott, wch you judged to be good : since it is conffirmed p oath beffore Captayne Talcot. Wt ever ye Dutch Gouernour Stevensons [Peter Stuyvesant's] pretence was, the kings majesty in his letters 1664 chalengeth all these parts of America to be his dominions; & wt ye Dutch possesed claymed to be his teritoryes, therffore will not suffer any neighbour nation how allied so euer to sitt downe in his terittoryes wth out his leaue. No dominion his majesty allowes to forreigne power, therffore calleth them intruders : no dominion, no jurisdiction, no purchase, no pattent legally. Sr, you well know no alien, except he be naturalized, can inherit in any off ye kings dominion, nor purchase. The Dutch not naturalized because his majesty in ye fore sayed letter 1664 calleth them intruders : therefore will haue them sujected p power (no right off dominion, no right of jurisdiction, no right to purchase), when as a naturall English man hath power to purchase in any off his majestys dominions ; all his majestys dominions being an English mans house & home, beinge vnder ye protection off his Soueraigne Lord. I judge it impossible it can legally fall to ye Duke off Yorke p conquest : when ye inhabitants off West Chester were called vnder one of his majestys colonyes p pattent power, ye inhabitants in parson endeavoringe p force off armes to subdue ye intruders accordinge to ye kings command, & their superiors, vnder whom they were subjected, maniffesting it p their parsonall apperence beffor General Niccols. Neither is it possible yt ye articels off aggreement made wth ye Dutch had any refference to ye English vnder made wth ye Dutch had any refference to ye English vnder his majestyes suiection : articeles off aggreement weare made wth enemies (as enemies) not wth freinds. Ye articells off aggreement could not comprehend ye Dutch breiffs yt they should be ratiffied, wch were no vnder ye Dutch power & weare his jaiestys subjects, as will appeare p ye Court off Records in Hartfford. So it makes ye kings subjects in a worse case then intruders & oppen enemyes : loyal subjects to loose all & oppen enemyes to injoy their clames p articells off aggreement. Sr, you being one of ye 4 New Englands Commissioners know yt ye articels off aggreement did not reach his majestys subjects, but those yt opposed his majestys interest that were made wth those parsons yt weare in enmyty wth his majesty to mantayne their owne interest : his majestyes subjects weare not in a cappasity to be capitulatinge, standing vppon articels off agreement whear was no disagreement, but wear willinge to attend his majestys service. Shall enemys power be established, & his majestyes made null & voyed? Sr, you know in his majestys letter to ye Gouernour & Councell to Connectic[ot] Colony it was his pleasure to exprese himself yt their priveledges & libertys, neither Civill or Eccesiasticall, should be in ffringed not in the least degree. 

I shall desire to present these queres ; whither so doinge doth not charge his majesty off iniustice (establishinge Dutch breeffs), 2ly whither it doth no justly lay a stumbling block to his majestys most loyall subjects. Sr, it was your Worpps pleasure to say you gaue ye Generall ye gouern[ment] off ye bounds belonginge to West Chester, not ye propriety. Sr, I hope you will seriously consider ye premises & appear to be helpffull at this time to your humble servant to command. 

THOS PELL. 

Indorsed, 'Mr Pell. Rec : July 4, 1666.'"

Source: The Massachussetts Historical Society, Collections of the Massachussetts Historical Society, Vol. I - Fifth Series, pp. 410-12 (Boston, MA: The Massachusetts Historical Society, 1871).

"THE ROYAL PATENT OF PELHAM MANOR.

'Richard Nicolls, Esq., Governor under His Royal Highness the Duke of York, of all his territories in America. To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting, Whereas, There is a certain tract of land within this government upon the main, situated, lying and being to eastward of Westchester bounds, bounded to the westward by the river called by the Indians Aqueouncke, commonly known by the name of Hutchinson's River, which runneth into the bay lying between Throgmorton's Neck and Hook's Neck, commonly called Hutchinson's Bay, bounded on the east by a brook called Cedar Tree Brook, and on the south by the Sound which lieth between Long Island and the main land, with all the islands in the Sound not already granted or otherwise disposessed of, lying before explained, and northwards to run into the woods, about eight English miles in breadth as the bounds to the Sound -- which said tract of land hath heretofore been purchased from the Indian proprietors and satisfaction given for the same. 'Now know ye that by virtue of the commission and authority unto me given by His Royal Highness James, Duke of York, etc., upon whom by lawful grant and patent from His Majesty, the proprietor and government of that part of the main land, as well as of Long Island as all the islands adjacent among other things as settled. 'I have thought proper to give, grant, confirm and ratify unto Thomas Pell, of Oncknay, alias Fairfield, in His Majesty's colony of Connecticut, gentleman, his heirs and assigns, all the said tract of land, bounded as aforesaid together with all the lands, islands, seas, bays, woods, meadows, pastures, marshes, lakes, waters, creeks, fishing, hawking, huntin, and fowling, and all other profits, and that the said tract of land and islands, and appurtenances shall be forever hereafter had, deemed, reputed, taken and be an enfranchised township, manor and place itself, and shall always from time, and at all times hereafter, have, hold and enjoy like and equal privileges with any town, enfranchised place or manor within this government, and in no manner of way be subordinate or belonging unto any other township or jurisdiction, but shall in all be held as an entire enfranchised township, manor and place of itself in this Government; to have and to hold the said tract of land-grant with all and singular the appurtenances, premises and privileges, immunities, and franchises given and granted unto the said Thomas Pell, to his heirs and assigns, to the proper use and behoof of the said Thomas Pell, his heirs and assigns forever, freely and clearly in so large and ample manner with all the privileges as before expressed, as if he had held the same immediately from His Majesty the King of England etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., his successor as of the manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent is free and common seaage [sic], and by fealty only yielding, rendering and paying yearly unto His Royal Highness the duty forever, and his heirs, or to such Governor as from time to time be constituted and appointed, as an acknowledgement [sic] one lamb upon the first day of May, if the same shall be demanded. 'Given under my hand and seal, at Fort James, in New York, on the island of Manhattan, the sixth day of October, in the eighteenth year of the reign of our sovereign lord Charles the Second, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc., etc., and in the year of our Lord God, 1666. 

RICHARD NICOLLS. 

'Entered and recorded in the office of New York, the eighth day of October, 1666. 

Attest: MATHAIS NICOLLS, Sec'y."

Source:  Bolton, Robert, The History of the Several Towns, Manors, and Patents of the County of Westchester, from its First Settlement to the Present Time Carefully Revised by its Author, Vol. II, pp. 38-39 (NY, NY: Chas. F. Roper, 1881).

"By the end of his term of office, in summer 1668, Governor Nicolls learned about the domestic effects of the 1664 boundary decision.  Because former citizens of Connecticut and New Haven in Long Island and the Westchester area now became citizens of New York, they tried to make New York grant them the style of government to which they were accustomed.  Nicolls's efforts to institute a governmental structure that would please both his royal master and his would-be New England masters could satisfy neither and were therefore a cause of instability from the start of New York's existence.  The geographical boundary which the commissioners had tried to delineate between New England and New York proved to be no barrier to New England political beliefs, which were currently under strong suspicion in England.  When dealing with John Winthrop, Jr., Nicolls found little cause to worry that Connecticut would exhibit the same intransigence as did Massachusetts, but when associating with former Connecticut colonists in New York, he did witness some of the righteous stubborness that he had met with in Boston.  If he thought the 1664 boundary agreement protected him from New England republicanism, then he must have been dismayed to learn the degree to which the former Connecticut men were still 'part' of New England in spite of royally authorized commissioners' decisions.

Nicolls was to learn that the boundary decision created land problems as well, even though the apparent precision with which the line was located left no doubt about the extent of the adjoining colonies' jurisdiction.  As much as Connecticut's delegates lost at the 1664 negotiations, they still tried to find a way to protect private land claims in the area west of the new boundary line.  They appear to have attempted to get at least verbal assurances that individuals, groups, and towns could retain possession of any lands they had earlier settled and improved even though they would be under New York's jurisdiction.  That this was understood is indicated by Thomas Pell's later protest to Governor Winthrop that 'it was your worshipps pleasure to say you gave the Generall the government off the bounds belonging to West Chester, not the propriety.'

The common picture of the 1664 negotiations comes from the final agreement of 1 December, but the first draft of the agreement shows the extent of Connecticut's failure concerning private land claim and also reveals the influence of Westchester landowners.  The agreement was so complicated as to be unworkable.  It included a proviso for a line twenty miles from the Hudson River, but also stipulated that 'false borders' or enclaves, might be set up.  The draft agreement meant to reserve to Connecticut the possessiions of Connecticut people and of the town of Westchester .  This appears to be an audacious attempt to begin an irredentist movement within New York.  

No such measures appeared in the final agreement of 1 December 1664.  This meant that all private land claims would have to be settled between individuals and New York's governments or courts.  The efforts of Thomas Pell of Fairfield, Connecticut, to protect his large land claims in the Westchester area show how thorny were problems of determining private land disputes connected with the boundary agreement.  They also show the manner in which, from the beginnings of New York, politics influenced the resolution of the colony's boundary conflicts with her neighbors.

Because of his status, Pell was able to pursue his claims in the Westchester area on many fronts; in spite of his status he encountered insurmountable obatacles.  The Articles of Surrender between New Netherland and the conquering English, by which the Dutch officially gave up the colony to English rule, guaranteed that all the Dutch might 'enjoy their lands' and other property 'wheresoever they are within this country. . . .'  On this basis Charles Bridges and his wife had contested Pell's title to 'Cornell's Neck' in October 1664, for they held a Dutch patent to the same land.  When their case was not decided at the Hempstead Court of Sessions in June 1665, they went before the 29 September 1665 Court of Assizes, over which Governor Nicolls presided.  The Bridges's attorney gave the original Dutch grant as evidence, then reminded the court of the Articles of Surrender.  Pell answered for himself that no patent from the Dutch had any validity inasmuch as the Dutch had never had valid dominion, according to Charles II.  Moreover, Connecticut had claimed the area and had given him license to purchse land there from the Indians.  The seven-man jury, none of whom appears to have been Dutch, brought a verdict in favor of the Dutch grant and assessed Pell for costs and six pence damages.  They did so not only because the Articles of Surrender protected Dutch property, but because it was 'sufficiently and lawfully proved' that the land in question, 'together with a large tract as far as Greenwich, was before purchased by the Dutch government,' so that the duke of York now owned it.  As presiding judge Nicolls therefore accepted the validity of all Dutch patents in preference to Connecticut patents in the area and by implication regarded all the territory retained by New York after the 1664 boundary decision as new land which had never been part of Connecticut.  

Pell was particularly incensed that a Dutch claim should take precedence over that of an English citizen.  At about the time that Governor Nicolls was attempting to make a workable division of land in and near Westchester, Pell began to complain to his friends.  In New York Alderman Thomas Delaval passed on the complaint to the governor.

Nicolls promptly wrote Pell to inform him that he was about to dispose of the lands in the area, since it was he alone who had the authority to do so.  Pell still might enter complaints, but the governor regarded the verdict in the Bridges-Pell case as a satisfactory precedent on which to base his later land-granting decisions.  Pell continued to have a very weak case.

The day after Nicolls wrote to Pell, Governor Winthrop received a long, involved letter of protest, in which Pell pleaded that Winthrop intercede with Nicolls on his behalf.  Arguing as he hd before the Court of Assizes that the Dutch had no right to land in New York, Pell asserted that one of His Majesty's subjects was being treated as a second-class citizen, while the Dutch enemy was being favored.  The Articles of Surrender could have no reference to English claims, for they were directed towards the Dutch.  Moreover the English in the Westchester area had never submitted to Stuyvesant's jurisdiction.  Pell concluded by reminding Winthrop that he had said only the government, 'not the propriety,' had been conveyed to New York in 1664.

It is significant that neither in his plea before Assizes nor in his letter to Winthrop did Pell emphasize Connecticut's pre-1664 claim to the lands as much as he did his English citizenship and the alien status of the Dutch.  Pell correctly insisted that 'a naturall English man hath power to purchase in any off his majesty's dominions; all his majesty's dominions being an English mans house & home, beinge under the protection off his Soveraigne Lord.'  Pell lost most of his claim, however, because his right to buy property anywhere in the king's dominions collided with the king's delegation of land-granting authority to separate jurisdictions in the colonies.  It was Governor Nicolls who was now empowered to grant the territory which Charles II had given to his brother and heir; Nicolls was not only obligated by the Articles of Surrender to honor Dutch titles, but was constrained by the boundary decision of 1664 to make an essentially ex post facto judgment as to which colony had owned the Westchester area before the English conquest.

In doing so, Nicolls risked alienating an influential English subject whose allegiance he needed in order to govern New York effectively.  Therefore Pell's pressure got results.  On 6 October 1666 Nicolls granted part of Pell's claim to him as Pelham Manor.  But the patent did not mention Pell's claim under Connecticut; instead the grant was based on his original purchase from the Indians alone.  Since no counterclaim under a Dutch patent existed, Nicolls was free to grant the land as he pleased.  It appears that the governor created Pelham Manor in order to mollify Pell.  A patent for the townspeople of Westchester followed in a few months and included among the grantees three of the men who had signed a 15 June 1664 submission to Pell."

Source:  Schwarz, Philip J., The Jarring Interests:  New York's Boundary Makers, 1664-1776, pp. 11-15 (Albany, NY:  State University of New York Press, 1979) (footnotes omitted).

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