Frederick Philipse I
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Frederick Philipse (1626-1702)
Frederick Philipse I, Lord of Philipse Manor, owned the vast stretch of land spanning from Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx to the Croton River. He was a self made man who emigrated from the Friesland area of the Netherlands to Flatbush, in Brooklyn, New York on Long Island.
He began by selling iron nails and began to buy taverns. When he first purchased land in Westchester County, New York, he enticed friends from New Amsterdam and Long Island to move with him with the promise of free land and limited taxes.
After swearing allegiance to the English and later being granted his Manorship from the English, he began construction of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. Although financing this project, work likely progressed slowly and was completed in 1685.
He held 52,000 acres of land along the Hudson River. He constructed on the Upper Mills portion of his estate his fine house, Philipse Manor, which still stands as a landmark in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
Frederick's first wife, Margaret, died in 1691. A year after Margaret's death, he married the widow Catharine Van Cortlandt Derval. She was the sister of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, an adviser to the provicial governor. Her brother Jacobus Van Cortlandt maried Frederick's adopted daughter Eva and their son Frederick Van Cortlandt later built the Van Cortlandt House Museum in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, New York.[1]
He is buried with his two wives in the crypt of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow.
His son Adolf Philipse inherited his vast lands and title. His great-grandson, Frederick Philipse III moved to Yonkers, New York and leased the entirety of his property out to William Pugsley before siding with the British in the American Revolution and leaving New York City for England in 1783. The entirety of his property was devided up into almost 200 different parcels of land, with the vast majority going to a Dutch New York City businessman, Beekman, Jr.
[edit] Reference
Jeff Canning and Wally Buxton, History of the Tarrytowns. Harrison, NJ: Harbor Hill Books, 1975. 29
