Beside the Puritans, who came fi-om Connecticut, another English element came into Westchester County after the transfer of New York to the English, in 1664. The Governors sent over by the Duke of York were accompanied by numerous officers and retainers, who were no sooner established in their new positions than they began to look about them for lands for themselves and their families. Naturally, Westchester County offered an inviting field for their purpose and many of them settled there. They were nearly all Episcopalians, and through their influence many of the Protestant Episcopal Churches upon Manhattan Island and in this county were established.

They were compelled to purchase lands from those who had obtained titles before them. The Philipse and Yan Cortlandt manors occupied the territory along the Hudson and across the northern portion of the county, north of the Croton River, and the New England purchases covered all the lands along the Sound and up the Connecticut border. But the idea was somehow started among the New York oflScials that there was still some unoccupied and unclaimed territory in the central portion of the county. This was hastily sought for by numerous parties, and land grants and patents were obtained far in excess of the available lands, and which overlapped each other in a manner that makes it impossible now to map them. The most of these centred about the present town of North Castle.

THE DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT.

The Huguenot Settlement. -- Simultaneously with Luther's work in Germany thereformed ideas were widely spread in France. They were born on French soil, but were greatly strengthened by the progress of the Reformation in Germany, and grew rapidly under the active influences of Geneva. French Protestants were not long in drawing into two classes, -- the Lutherans and the Huguenots.