50 The Story of The Bronx 



Nicolls, and the further instructions of the king confirming 

 any grant or conveyance made by the Dutch. The jury 

 found for the plaintiffs, giving sixpence damages. The sheriff 

 of the "North Riding of Long Island" was ordered by the 

 court to put the plaintiffs in possession of their land and to 

 restrain any one from interfering with "their peaceable or 

 quiet enjoyment thereof." The case was a very important 

 one, not on account of the damages sustained or awarded, 

 but for the principle involved. It validated under English 

 law every land grant, conveyance, deed, or patent given by 

 the Company or its officers, and secured to every holder of 

 land under such circumstances the peaceful, absolute, and 

 indisputable possession of his lot, farm, or tract. 



On June 24, 1664, three months before the surrender, Pell 

 granted to James Eustis, Philip Pinckney, John Tompkins, 

 Moses Hoit, Samuel Drake, Andrew Ward, Walter Lancaster, 

 Nathaniel Tompkins, and Samuel Ward, "to the number of 

 ten families, to settle down at Hutchinsons, that is where the 

 house stood at the meadows and uplands, to Hutchinson's 

 River, they paying according to ye proportion of the charges 

 which was disburst for the purchase, and other necessary 

 charges, etc." They were all Connecticut men from Fair- 

 field; and, in 1665, drew up a covenant for their guidance, 

 for the establishment of neighborly feeling among themselves 

 and for the prevention of disputes. It consisted of twenty- 

 six articles: "Imprimis, that we by the grace of God, sitt 

 down on the track of land lieing betwixt Huthesson's broock, 

 whear the house was, untell it com unto the river, that runeth 

 in at the head of the meados. " The tenor of the rest of the 

 articles might furnish a basis for a communal society, so excel- 

 lent are they as to church, education, division of the land, 

 arbitration of disputes, and public improvements. 



