In 1785 overseers of the poor had been chosen for the first time, and the positions were afterwards filled at each annual election. In succeeding years the amount raised by the town for the support of the poor was much diminished, $25 being voted for this object in 1800, and $35 in 1804. This amount reached $100 in 1818, $130 the next year and $150 in 1822, but in the intervening years it was much less. Of late years the amount has been hardly noticeable, $50 being voted in 1876, while in 1882 the overseers of the poor were limited in their expenditures for the benefit of vagrants and tramps for that year to $15.

Slavery. -- It is of considerable interest to note the conditions in which slavery has existed in the town, our first information dating back to 1712. This was eleven years after the formation of the Manor of Scarsdale; so it is probable that the figures ap])ly to the whole manor, and not to the town in its present extent. At this date the inhabitants numbered only

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

twelve, of whom four were whites, all being males and over ten years of age ; the remaining eight were slaves, of whom two were females over sixteen years of age, two males under sixteen and the remaining four males over sixteen.

Our next information is forty-three years later, and is gained from a " list of slaves taken April ye 5th, 1755, by Joseph Sutton, Cap'"." This information is, of necessity, inaccurate, as the names given are chosen from a list including inhabitants of other places beside Scarsdale, to which some of them may belong, although these names are all familiar in Scarsdale, -- David Barker, one male slave ; Richard Palmer one female slave ; Jonathan Cornell, one male and one female slave ; Jonathan Griffin, one male and one female slave; Richard Cornell, two males and one female slave; Richard Cornell, Jr., one male and one female slave; Benjamin Griffin, one female; and William Griffin, one male and three females, giving a total of sixteen.