The successive tides ot Dutch and English immigration, the original sharp definition of the lines which separated the two nationalities, the obliteration of those lines by a merging of racial interests, the institution of slavery, the growth of the colony toward moneyed prosperity, the influence of the Revolutionary War in domestic circles, the political and social readjustment which followed it -- all these epochs are vitalized by stirring, important and interesting incidents and phases that are gifted with an enduring charm for the generations succeeding the actors in them.

Traders rather than colonists, the Dutch settlers were slow to move northward on the Hudson until the purchases of Indian lands by the West Indian Company, by Brons and by Adrian von der Donck. About 1623 they began to undertake the colonization of the valley of the Hudson, and were followed by the English and the Huguenots. " Westchester," writes Mrs. Catharine Van Cortlandt, ' in a hitherto unpub-

• To Mrs. Van Cortlandt, the author of this chapter is deeply indebted.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

lished sketch of the early settlers, their manners and customs, " was not as Dutch a county as many others, although many of its settlers were Hollanders and their descendants. The Dutch language was not so much spoken as in Rockland or Orange. In the southern part of the county the Huguenot and English stocks prevailed, and the near proximity of New York caused an advance in their customs and manners. In the Dutch Churches in the northern part of the county the congregations clung tenaciously to their language and usages, yielding to the encroach, ments of the English step by step and grudgingly."