History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1. Frederic Shonnard

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      " I have been frequently told by the Mohawk Indians," says he, " that far in the interior parts of the country there were animals, which were seldom seen, of the size and form of horses, with cloven hoofs, having one horn in the forehead from a foot and a half to two feet in length, and that because of their fleetness and strength they were seldom caught or ensnared. I have never seen any certain token or sign of such animals, but that such creatures exist in the country is supported by the concurrent declarations of the Indian hunters. There are Chris tians who say that they have seen the skins of this species of animal, but without the horns." He also speaks of " a bird of prey which has a head like the head of a large cat " — probably a reference to the cat-owl. His remarks about the beaver, based upon personal study and knowledge, are singularly interesting. The deer, he informs us, " are incredibly numerous in this country. Although the Indians throughout the year, and every year (but mostly in the fall), kill many thousands, and the wolves, after the fawns are cast and while they are young, also destroy many, still the land abounds with them everywhere, and their numbers appear to remain undiminished."

      Being finally granted leave to go back to New Netherland, Van der Donck applied to the West India Company for permission to practice his profession of lawyer in the province. But the company, careful in conceding substantial favors to a man who had caused it so much trouble, allowed him only to give advice in the line of his profession, forbidding him to plead, on the novel ground that, " as there was no other lawyer in the colony, there would be none to oppose him." After his return to New Amsterdam he did not figure prominently in public affairs. He died in 1655, leaving, it is supposed, several children, whose names, however, as well as all facts of their subsequent lives and traces of their descendants, are unknown.

      Van der Donck's Colen Donck was the only patroonship ever erected in Westchester County, and was the first of the great landed estates which, during the seventeenth century, were parceled out in this section to gentlemen of birth and means, and various enterprising and far-seeing individuals. All who had preceded him above the Harlem were ordinary settlers, who merely sought farms and home steads, without any aristocratic pretensions or aspirations. During the nine years which intervened between his death and the end of the Dutch regime, the general condition of the province was too unsatisfactory to justify any similar ambitious endeavor in the direction of extensive land ownership above the Harlem. The Indians were still restless and inclined to harass individual settlers. Indeed, in 1655, the year of Van der Donck's death, a general massacre of settlers by the Indians occurred, and the people in the outlying localities again crowded into Fort Amsterdam for protection. It was not until after the beginning of the English government that private land holdings in Westchester County at all comparable to Van der Donck's were acquired, He was the only Dutch gentleman — for Bronck be longed strictly to the burgher class — throughout the forty-one years of Dutch rule who, under the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions, an instrument framed expressly to create a landed aristocracy in America, formally sought to establish a fief in this county. It is noticeable, however, that most of the estate which he owned passed before many years — although not until the Dutch period was ended — into the hands of one of his fellow-countrymen, Frederick Philipse, in whose family it continued for a century. Moreover, almost the entire Hudson shore of Westchester County was originally acquired and tenaciously held by Dutch, and not by English, private proprietors.

      The tract of Nepperhaem, or Colen Donck, was devised by Van der Donck, in his will, to his widow. This lady subsequently married Hugh O'Neale, of Patuxent, Md., and resided with her husband in that province. Apparently, nothing whatever was done by O'Neale and his wife in the way of continuing the improvements begun by Van der Donck; and, for all that we know to the contrary, the estate remained in a wholly wild and neglected condition for some ten years. But in 1666 the O'Neales, desiring to more perfectly establish their legal title, with a view to realizing from the lands, obtained from the Indians who had originally sold the tract to Van der Donck formal acknowledgment of such sale, and also of their having received from him full satisfaction; and thereupon a new and confirmatory patent for Nepperhaem was issued by Governor Nicolls. This is dated " at Fort James, New York, on the Island of Manhattan," October 8, 1666. It describes the property in the following words: "A certain tract of land within this government, upon the main, bounded to the north wards by a rivulet called by the Indians Mackassin, so running south ward to Nepperhaem, from thence to the kill Shorakkapock [Spuyten Duyvil], and then to Paperinemen [the locality of Kingsbridge], which is the southernmost bounds; then to go across the country to the eastward by that which is commonly known by the name of Brock's, his river and land, which said tract hath heretofore been purchased of the Indian proprietors by Adriaen Van der Donck, de ceased." The English patent was bestowed upon O'Neale and his wife jointly. They at once proceeded to sell the lands in fee to different private persons. Notice of the resulting sales must be deferred to the proper chronological period in our narrative. It may be noted here, however, that the principal purchasers of Van der Donck's lands were John Archer and Frederick Philipse, who later became the lords, respectively, of the Manors of Fordham and Philipseburgh, the former lying wholly, and the latter partly, within the borders of the old patroonship.