Her temper was resolute ; she ruled her weak husband, and had a taste for ruling: To be an influential centre of opinion was her ambition, which she took no trouble to conceal. She claimed to be " inspired," and that

PELHAM.

it had been " revealed to her" that she would come to New England to be persecuted, but that God would ruin the colony for her sake. She narrowly escaped procuring the verification of her own prediction." '

For a woman so constituted the change must have been great from the heated discussions at Boston to the unsettled wilderness around Pelham Bay. That name was not known, it is true, for many years afterwards. But the names " Annies Hoeck and Hutchiusons River " still bear testimony to the presence and fate of this remarkable woman. It seems a strange providence that, after her troubled and stormy career, she should uot have been permitted to pass the evening of her days in peace, where no controversies, theological or otherwise, and no religious opinions, orthodox or heterodox, Calvinistic or Arminiau would ever have disturbed the profound repose of the inhabitants, even could her life have been prolonged to the j)resent day and hour.'^

In the year 1654, Thomas Pell bought of the Indians (so he stated in his testimony before a Court of Assize, held in New York, Septeral)er 29, 1665), the title to the lands afterwards known as Pelham, Westchester and New Rochelle. This whole tract of land was originally included in the grant made by the Indians to the Dutch West India Company in the year 1(540.^ What Pell paid to the Indians for it does not clearly appear. Probably not so much as the Dutch had paid them twenty-eight years before for the whole of [Manhattan Island-- twenty-four dollare in beads and trinkets.