156 THE BOROUGH OF THE BRONX 



afterward the fashion, the rank, the beauty and the scholarship of 

 Yonkers were assembled at the manor-hall to celebrate the nuptials. 

 Morris had been a fellow-soldier with Washington on the field of 

 Monovgabela, where Braddock fell, in the summer of 1755. He 

 built, shortly after his marriage, the fine mansion at One Hundred 

 Sixtieth Street and Edgecombe Avenue, which was the residence, 

 until her death in 1865, of Madame Jumel, the widow of Aaron 

 Burr. Morris remained loyal to the crown, and when Washington 

 encamped with his army upon Harlem Heights in the fall of 1776, 

 he fled for safety, and Washington, for a time, made this mansion 

 his headquarters. 



The Philipse manor-house was erected in 1682, by Frederick 

 Philipse, a wealthy shipowner, who had fought his way from ob- 

 scurity to power and wealth, having been a poor carpenter lad when 

 he landed upon these shores from Holland. He abandoned carpen- 

 tering and engaged in the fur business. Fortune smiled upon him 

 when he married Margaret Hardenbroeck, the widow of a rival fur- 

 trader, Pietrus Rudolphus De Vries. She not only was a great help- 

 mate, but she established him as a man of wealth and influence. 



Frederick Philipse secured to himself, by purchase from the 

 Indians and grants from the Dutch government, all the land from 

 Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Harlem River on the south to the 

 Croton River on the north, and between The Bronx and the Hudson 

 River on the east and west. In 1693 this vast estate was formally 

 erected by royal charter into a manor under the title of Philipse- 

 borough and Philipse was invested with all the privileges of a lord. 

 It embraced the site of the present city of Yonkers in the very 

 heart of which may be seen the pioneer manor house erected in 

 1682. In this pretentious manor-hall the courtly aristocracy of the 

 province were wont to meet in gay and joyous throng. There still 

 swings in the center of the southern front a dark, massive door 

 which was manufactured in Holland in 1681 and imported by Mrs. 

 Philipse. This old manor-house has had an eventful history. It 

 was occupied by the Philipse family until 1776, when the "Third 

 Lord of the Manor" fled to England and the property was confis- 

 cated by the Americans in 1779. 



Frederick Philipse, the third and last lord of the manor, was 

 a graduate of King's College, and was a scholarly gentleman with 

 literary tastes. His wife was a devotee of fashion. It is said that 

 it was her pride to appear on the roads of Westchester, skilfully 



