In 1639 the first sale of land in Westchester County was made. It included the northern shore of Spuyten Duy vil Creek. Other sales were made by the Indians to the Dutch until, on the 8th day of August, 1699, the Sachems Sackima, Corachpa, Wechrequa, Monrechro and sundry other Indians gave a general deed confirming numerous smaller sales made to Stephanus Van Cortlandt and others, and conveying the lands that were afterward known as Cortlandt's Manor.

In the mean time the Indians were beset on the eastern side of the county as well as the western. The English settlers in Connecticut gradually pushed westward, and coveted the lands of our eastern border. On the 1st of July, 1640, Ponus, sagamore of Toquains, and Wascussue, sagamore of Shippan, sold to Nathan Turner, who acted for the people of New Haven, the tract known to the Indians as Rippowams, and which included the greater portion of what is now Fairfield County, in Connecticut, and a considerable area of the adjoining lands of Westchester. On the 11th of August, 165.5, Ponus and Onox, his eldest son, confirmed this sale to the inhabitants of Stamford. Subsidiary to this great sale, numerous others were made, -- some of lands included in the above, and others of lands adjacent thereto, like the one made to Thomas Pell, of Fairfield, Conn., in 1654, and to Edward Jessup and John Richardson, in 1663, of tracts adjoining those sold to the Dutch in the southern part of the county. By these sales the Indians disposed of the entire area of Westchester County, except a few insignificant reservations and the right to plant corn upon certain portions for a term of years. Many of these deeds overlapped each other, so that some of the land was sold two or three times.