252 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



the city daily, and that the whole expense would not exceed $1,450,000.° 



The mill and adjoining property, at an early period, belonged to the 

 late Lancaster Underhill,who lived to the remarkable age of 98. Through- 

 out the trying period of the Revolution, this individual resided on his 

 farm, and appears to have suffered severely both in person and estate. 

 During many a severe winter night he lay concealed beneath the body 

 of an ox cart — which he had taken the precaution to cover with hay — 

 and on each returning day blessed his good fortune that his house had 

 escaped the flames. Near the mill is located the Bronxville Railroad 

 depot, distant about four and a half miles south of White Plains, and 

 eight from New York. The agent at this station (for nearly a quarter 

 of a century) is Mr. Lancaster Underhill, the son of the late Lawrence 

 Underhill a younger son of Lancaster Underhill, a former proprietor of 

 most of the adjoining lands. The Dutch Reformed Church at Bronx- 

 ville was erected in 1 840, on land given by the late Rev. Robert Bolton, 

 a former pastor of this parish, then owner of the Pond Field property. 

 The church was incorporated. 



Upon the Long Reach, in this town, are situated the farms and resi- 

 dences of John Townsend, Esq., (former sheriff of the county, and sen- 

 ator for the second district in 182 1,) Alexander Pirnie, Mr. Headly, 

 Alexander Masterton, Abijah Morgan, Charles Morgan, and Mr. Pinck- 

 ney, &c. 



The whole of this elevated district commands extensive views of the 

 Sound and surrounding country. In the immediate vicinity stands Mar- 

 ble Hall, the site of which is celebrated in our Revolutionary annals. 



From the petition of Jonathan Ward (one of the former proprietors of 

 this place) to Congress in 1825, we learn, 'that at the commencement 

 of the Revolutionary war, Stephen Ward (the petitioner's father) resided 

 in Eastchester, and county of Westchester, seven miles south of White 

 Plains; that the British troops took possession of the city of New York 

 and the southern part of the county of Westchester, in the autumn of 

 1776; that in consequence of which, the said Stephen Ward left his 

 residence, consisting of a large and valuable dwelling, barn, and sundry 

 other buildings; that between this period and the autumn of 1778, those 

 buildings were occupied, a large portion of time, by the American troops, 

 at which place there were several engagements between them and the 

 British; that in November, 1778, a large body of the British forces, com- 

 manded by General Tryon, made an excursion as far as Ward's house, 

 and, by the General's orders, totally destroyed, by a fire, the buildings, 

 with considerable other property." 2 * 



a Corporation Doc. 



b Amer. Slate Papers, No. cccclxv, 654. See Sinicoe's Mil. Journal, p. 92. 



