Cestria de Castris nomen quasi Castria sumpsit. Chester from Caster (or the camp) was named.

A more appropriate name could not have been selected, as it was situated west of the New England settlements.

b Spaflord's Gazetteer.

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 145

this town embraced West Farms, and the manors of Morrisania and Fordham.

Like the adjoining lands, Westchester was originally purchased by the Dutch West India Company, of the Mohegan sachems and other Indians, who claimed it in 1640.a-

Upon the 14th of November, 1654, Thomas Pell of Fairfield, Connecticut, obtained a second grant from the aboriginal proprietors, which also embraced the present town. Thirty years later we find the sachems Maminepoe and Wampage conveying to the inhabitants of Westchester " all that tract of land lying on the east side of Bronckses river."

The principal Indian settlements in this town, were located upon Castle Hill neck and about Bear swamp.^ The former is said to have been the site of an Indian castle. On the south-east side of Spicer's neck is situated " Burying Point,'" their place of sepulture. The extensive ^^ shell banks'' on the shores of the East river, afford evidence that the aboriginal population must at one time have been very considerable.

Westchester "was probably first settled in 1642, by a Mr. John Throckmorton and thirty-five associates, who came from New England, with the approbation of the Dutch authorities."*^ By the Dutch it was denominated " Vredelaiid,^^ or the " La?id of Peace,^^ " a meet appellation (says the historian of the New Netherlands,) for the spot selected as a place of refuge by those who were bruised and broken down by religious persecution."^