164 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



" In 166S, John Coe sold to Stephen Sherwood his 'house and hous- 

 ing and home lot, upon the north end of Manussing Island. The Goes, 

 Sherwoods and Vowles were the principal owners in 1707, when Jon- 

 athan Vowles conveyed his share of lands in this locality to his son-in- 

 law, Roger Park.' 'As late as the year 1720, the island had a popula- 

 tion sufficiently large to claim the right to erect a pound.' ' About the 

 middle of the last century, the families of Fowler, Carpenter, Dusen- 

 berry and Haviland appear as the owners.' The island is now owned 

 by Mrs. William P. Van Rensselaer, Charles T. Cromwell, Esq., and 

 John Erring, Esq. 



In the main street of the village of Rye there tormerly stood an ancient 

 stone tavern, known as Van Sicklen's. This building had been erected 

 in the early days of the settlement, when it served the double purpose of 

 a residence and a fortification. It was built of rough stone and clay; 

 its walls was thirty inches in thickness, and one story high, with an old 

 fashioned pitched roof. The dimensions being forty feet in width, and 

 twenty-four in depth. It faced the south, with one of its gable ends 

 fronting on the Turnpike road. In the upper portion of the westerly 

 end of the wall there was an embrasure or port-hole, which, from having 

 always been there had given the house the name of " The Old Stone 

 Fort." The following order is presumed to relate to this edifice ; which 

 was torn down in May, 1868: 



"March 5th, 1676, at a town meeting, Thomas Lyon and Thomas 

 Brown are appointed to choose a house or a place to be fortified for the 

 safety of the town. Also the young men who come into the fortification 

 and remain during the troubles'* are to have an equal proportion of the 

 undivided lands, provided they be such as the town approve." 6 



Upon the 13th of July, 1681, "the town authorized John Ogden and 

 George Kniffen to purchase a barrel of powder and three hundred 

 weight of lead of Mr. Budd of Fairfield, or wherever it can be obtained 

 the cheapest. These are to be kept for the use of the town." 



At this early period, the Indians were very numerous, and the sur- 

 rounding country was infested with wolves. On the 15th of Decem- 

 ber, 1689, a bounty of fifteen shillings was ordered to be raised by a 

 town rate, for the killing of wolves. 



a King Philip's war with New England. On the lbth of March, 16T6, (eight days after the 

 date of the above order,) the entire town of Groton, Conn., consisting of forty houses, was 

 burned by the Indians. Mr. Bainl thinks that for a time the old stone fort or tavern was the 

 homestead of Peter Disbrow. " Mr. Isaac Denham, son of the first minister of Kye, lived here 

 afterwards. The piece of ground upon which the house stood is perhaps the only one of the 

 original ' town lo*s; ' the size and shape of which can be distinctly traced. It measured two 

 acres and a half when bought in 186$ by the Methodist Episcopal congregation."— liaird's 

 Rye, p. 34. 



b Town Rec. voL i, p. 73. 



