2 The Story of The Bronx 



of the county. The county also included the islands contigu- 

 ous to its shores. 



By act of the State Legislature, March 7, 1788, all the 

 counties were divided into townships. There were twenty-one 

 of these in Westchester County, following very closely the 

 lines of the ancient manors and patents. The section under 

 consideration was formerly within the towns of Yonkers, 

 Morrisania, Eastchester, Pelham, and Westchester. 



Yonkers was a part of the Philipsburgh Manor, sequestrated 

 by the State in 1779, on account of the disloyalty of its owner, 

 Colonel Frederick Philipse. The part of the township within 

 the Borough was known as Lower Yonkers ; and it remained 

 a part of the original township until June 1, 1872, when the 

 city of Yonkers was incorporated. At the same time, the por- 

 tion of the township lying south of a line drawn from the 

 northwest corner of the land belonging to the Sisters of Charity, 

 known as St. Vincent de Paul, due east to the Bronx River, 

 was set off as a new township under the name of Kingsbridge. 

 It remained a part of the Yonkers township until December 

 sixteenth of the same year, when the selection of town officers 

 was perfected. Its northern boundary was the line given 

 above, from the Hudson River to the Bronx; its southern, 

 the northern line of the ancient manor of Fordham, from the 

 Harlem River at East 230th Street to a point on the Bronx 

 River between First and Second avenues, Williamsbridge, 

 and Spuyten Duyvil Creek; its western, the Hudson River. 



Morrisania was the most sparsely settled section of the 

 whole county 1 ; and why it should have been made into a 



1 By the National Census of 1 790, the names of thirteen heads of families 

 are given, with one hundred and three free persons and thirty slaves, of 

 whom seventeen belonged to Lewis Morris, the manor-lord, and five to 

 James Graham. 



