THE TOWN OF MOUNT PLEASANT. 523 



three daughters, Susannah, Mary and Margaret. The eldest son, 

 Frederick Philipse being heir of his father, became devisee intail male 

 of the manor in Philipsburgh, tenant for life, under the will of his father, 

 with remainder intail male, while the upper Highland Patent of Philips- 

 town passed to the second son, Philip devisee intail of those lands among 

 whose descendants it still remains. 



Frederick Philipse, the eldest son and last lord of the manor of Philips- 

 burgh, was born in New York, 12th of September, 1720. He was edu- 

 cated at Kings College (now Columbia), New York, and became a 

 most accomplished gentleman, and a person of considerable literary at- 

 tainments. He was also an ardent Churchman, and a liberal bene- 

 factor. In fact, to his untiring efforts, under God, does St. John's 

 parish, Yonkers, owe much of her present prosperity ; it was through 

 his generosity that the parochial church was erected, in 1752-3. He 

 was elected a member of the Venerable Propagation Society in 1764, 

 and his name appears among the list of vestrymen of Trinity Church, 

 New York, from 1779 to 1782. He was also a member of the House 

 of Assembly and held the commission of Colonel in the Provincial militia. 

 "This Frederick," says the late Hon. John Jay, "I knew. He was a 

 well-tempered, amiable man ; and a kind, benevolent landlord. He had a 

 taste for gardening planting, &c, and employed much time and money in 

 that way. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Williams, Esq. (an 

 English gentleman, who held an office in the Custom House)," by his 

 wife, Sarah Olivier. " She was a handsome, pleasing woman," born in 

 New York, 5th of August, 1732, and married 9th Sept., 1756. Her 



first husband was Rutgers. "At the commencement of our 



Revolution," continues Mr. Jay, "he, Frederick Philipse," was inclined 

 to the Whigs, but was afterwards persuaded to favor the tories.^ He 

 was removed to Connecticut on his parole. Nothing could have been 

 more favorable to him, circumstanced as he was, than to be placed in 



a Sabine in his Biographical sketches of American loyalists, says of Frederick Philipse: 

 " He occupied an elevated position in colonial society, bat tie does not appear to have been 

 a prominenc actor in public affairs. He was, however, a member of the House of Assembly, 

 and held the commission of colonel in the militia. Nor does it seem that, though a friend of 

 existing instutions, and an opposer of the Whigs, he was an active partisan. In April, 1775, 

 he went to 1 he ground appointed by the Whigs of Westchester < 'ounty, to elect deputies to 

 Congress, and declared, that he would not join in the business of the day; and, that his sole 

 purpose in going there was to protest against their illegal and unconstitutional proceedings. 

 On some other occasion he pursued a similar line of conduct, but his name is seldom met 

 with in the documents of the time. Soon after 1771, Colonel David Humphreys, who subse- 

 quently became an aid to Washington, and under the Federal government, minister to Portu- 

 gal and Spain, and who had just completed his studies at Yale College, became a resident in 

 his family, then living on Philipse manor. The late President Dwight was well acquainted 

 with him at this time, and speaks of him as " a worthy and respectable man, not often ex- 



finally embarked for England. In per __ 

 was extremely large, and on account of his bulk his wife seldom rode in the same carriage 



with him " 



with him. ; 



