CHAPTER XXI 



PELHAM AND WESTCHESTER 



Thomas Pell the Founder of Pelham Manor — The Glittering Pageant of Lord 

 Howe's Troops to Impress the Westchesterites with the Strength of the 

 British Army — History of St. Peter's Church, Westchester. 



PELHAM MANOR derived its name from 

 Thomas Pell, the first permanent settler of 

 that region. Thomas Pell was an English 

 gentleman and an ardent royalist. Previ- 

 ous to his coming to America he had been 

 Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles 

 I. Obliged to leave the colony of New 

 Haven because he refused to swear allegi- 

 ance on the ground that he had already 

 taken oath in England, he came to West- 



Rev. Isaac Wilkins chester ' where > on November 14, 1657, he 

 purchased from the Indian sachems, 

 Maminepoe and Annhooke, 9,166 acres including the estate form- 

 erly owned and occupied by Anne Hutchinson. 



In the center of a large field in front of the Bartow mansion, 

 now the summer home of the Crippled Children's Association, are 

 the remains of the Pell Treaty Oak, where Thomas Pell smoked 

 the pipe of peace with the Siwanoy Indian chiefs after signing the 

 deed which gave him possession of "all that tract of land called 

 Westchester which is bounded on the east by . . . Gravelly 

 Brook, and so running northward . . . about eight miles, thence 

 west to ... a certain bend in Bronck's River, thence by marked 

 trees south until it reaches the tide waters in the Sound . . . 

 together with all the islands lying beyond that tract." 



The village of Westchester, which was called by the Dutch 

 Oostdorp (East Farms in contradistinction to West Farms), while 

 the whole region was known as Vriedelandt (Land of Peace), had 

 been included in the Dutch purchase of 1640. When the news of the 

 Pell purchase reached Governor Stuyvesant, he despatched, on 



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