The former were always given the first right to purchase their farms in fee, and no farm was ever sold to strangers except with the tenants' assent, notwithstanding the proprietors were not bound to do so.

In 1773 Anne de Lancey and Lewis Johnston determined to have a partition of all the lands in the Manor that remained unsold, and proceedings to that end were begun under the act of the Provincial Legislature of 1762, for that purpose. But before they had gone very far Dr. Johnston died. The Proceedings were therefore begun anew in the names of Anne de Lancey and the Heirs of Lewis Johnston.

These Proceedings in Partition were instituted under " An Act for the more effectual collection of his Majesty's Quit-rents in the Colony of New York and for the Partition of Lands in order thereto " passed the 8th of January 1762, and of another amendatory Act passed the 30th of December 1768. The original Petition was in the name of Lewis Johnston ; after his death his children were substituted in his place. They were Heathcote Johnston, John I Burnet, Anne Burnet, Bowes Reed and Margaret Reed. The other party in both Petitions was of course, Anne de Lancey. The Commissioners to make the partition were, Philip Pell, Jacobus Bleecker, and William Sutton, " all of the County of Westchester."

THE ORIGIN AND HISTOllY OF THE MANORS.

A fter the proper advertisements had been published the proper time in Rivington's New York Gazetteer and Holt's New York Journal, two of the newspapers of the da}', the Commissioners met to organize " at the house of Thomas Beslj' in New Rochelle " on the oth of April 1774. Philip Pell, .Ir , was appointed clerk. The Commissioners and ch'rk were sworn in by Judge Tiiomas Jones of the Supreme Court ^ who attended for the purpose, and delivered to each a certificate of their appointment, signed by himself.