FORDHAM MANOR 155 



"He was at all times a dreamer — dwelling in ideal realms — 

 in Heaven or Hell — peopled with the creatures and the accidents 

 of his brain. He walked in the streets, in madness or melancholy, 

 with lips moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in 

 passionate prayer (never for himself, for he felt or professed to 

 feel that he was already damned), but for their happiness who 

 at the moment were objects of his idolatry or with his glances 

 introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish and with a face 

 shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest storms, and all 

 night with drenched garments and arms beating the winds and 

 rains would speak as if the spirits that at such times only could 

 be evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals his 

 disturbed soul sought to forget the ills to which he might never 

 see but in fitful glimpses, as its gates opened to receive the less 

 fiery and more happy natures whose destiny to sin did not inspire 

 the doom of death. 



"He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his 

 will and engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of 

 some controlling sorrow. The remarkable poem of 'The Raven' 

 was probably a reflection and an echo of his own history. He 

 was that bird's — unhappy master, whom unmerciful Disaster fol- 

 lowed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore — 

 'Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore of 'Never — 

 never more' !" 



Whatever faults or failings Poe may have had when he was 

 alive, he stands today as a worthy American poet and prose writer. 

 The fact that his name has been carved with other prominent 

 Americans in the "Hall of Fame" is sufficient proof of the respect 

 and admiration in which he is held by the American public. 



The Philipse manor-house at Yonkers, located close to the 

 boundary, deserves our attention, for the Philipseburgh Manor 

 was included within the Borough until June 1, 1872, when the 

 City of Yonkers was incorporated. Tradition says that it was here 

 that George Washington courted the beautiful Mary Philipse when 

 he was the guest of Colonel Robinson while on his horseback jour- 

 ney from Virginia to Boston, twenty years before he became the 

 great leader of the Revolution. 



It is not known whether Washington was simply backward in 

 asking for her hand or whether he was actually rejected. At any 

 rate, Colonel Roger Morris was the successful suitor, and shortly 



