Harrison's purchase was made for the settlement of Friends from Long Island. They called it " The Purchase," and it is still so known. The emigration began as soon as the interests of the patentees who were not Friends were purchased, and the necessary arrangements completed. Large numbers then came across the Sound. In 1704 the Court of General Sessions recorded the places where the Quakers held public meetings for worship, as directed by act of Parliment for all Dissenters, as being at Westchester and Mamaroneck. Soon afterward two other meetings were established in Harrison's purchase.

As soon as the lands of Harrison's purchase were occujjied, a movement began that placed the Quakers in possession of a large portion of the central line of the county. The Dutch, who had settled along the Hudson River, and the English, who occupied the towns along the Connecticut border, entertained no very friendly feelings for each other. Their enmity and jealousies kept them apart, and, on this account, a district of considerable width running north and south between them had remained comparatively unoccupied. Into this the Quakers rapidly ])ushed, purchasing the lands from those who had obtained titles therefor. The line of settlement ran through the i)resenttownsofHarrison, North Castle, New Castle, Yorktown, Lewisborough and North Salem, and through Putnam, Dutchess and Columbia Counties. In the town of Harrison, and in some of those just named, the Quakers constituted for a considerable time a majority of the inhabitants, while a great number afterward emigrated to the northern and central portions of the State.