THE TOWN 



OF 



"3T o 3ST IK- E I=L s 



Yonkers is situated on the east bank of the Hudson, immediately 

 above New York Island, seventeen miles north of New York, one 

 hundred and thirty south of Albany, and ten south-west of White Plains; 

 bounded north by Greenburgh, east by Eastchester and a small angle of 

 Westchester, or by Bronx's River, south by West Farms and New York 

 county, and west by the Hudson River. It extends near eight miles 

 along the Hudson, and has a medial width of near three miles. 



The name of this town — at different periods written, Younkers, Younc- 

 kers, Jonkers and Yonkers — is derived from the Dutch " Jonker," or 

 " Jonkheer," meaning in that language the " young gentleman" a com- 

 mon appellation for the heir of a Dutch family." 



Yonkers and the Mile Square constituted a township within the great 

 manor of Philipsburgh, until the year 1779, when the manor was confis- 

 cated and conveyed to the people of this State, A.D. 1788, the present 

 township was independently organized. b Thirty years after the Dutch 

 discovery of the New Netherlands, A.D. 1639, we find the Dutch West 

 India Company purchasing lands in this town of the native Indian 

 sachems : — 



"Appeared before me, Cornelis Yan Tienhoven, Secretary of the New Nether- 

 lands, Frequemeck, Rechgawac, Packanniens, owners of Kekeshick, which they 

 did freely convey, cede, etc., etc., to the behoof of the General Incorporated 

 "West India Company, which lies over against the flats of the Island of Manhates, 

 mostly east and west, beginning at the source of said kill till over against the 



a Benson's Mem. of X. T. 



I Act passed Ttn March, 1TSS. Rev. Stat, vol. iii. 2S6. 675 



