CHAPTER XVII 



WEST FARMS 



THE original patent of West Farms comprised the terri- 

 tory between the Fordham line on the north, the 

 Bronx River on the east, the Sound on the south, 

 and Bungay Creek and Morrisania on the west. Its earlier 

 history is given elsewhere. In 1846, it was made into a 

 township, being formed from Westchester and including 

 Morrisania and Fordham. Morrisania was taken from West 

 Farms in 1856 and formed into a separate township. 



The intersection of Westchester Avenue and the Southern 

 Boulevard was called Fox's Corners, and it is still locally 

 known as such. It received its name from William Fox, a 

 wealthy Quaker merchant of New York, who married into the 

 Leggett family and thus became possessed of the property, 

 some of which is still owned by his descendants, the Tiffany 

 family. To the east of the Corners, the late Colonel Richard 

 M. Hoe, the inventor of the rotary printing-press, had a 

 magnificent- country place, which he called Brightside. The 

 locality is at present in a transition state; for, though there 

 are a great many apartments and flats, there are still more 

 vacant lots. The old estates have been cut up, and very few 

 of the elegant mansions of the middle of the last century re- 

 main to show us how the well-to-do merchants of that epoch 

 used to live. 



South of the Corners, the Hunt's Point road leads down to 



the East River. The point was a part of the West Farms 



patent of 1668, and received its name from Thomas Hunt, 



380 



