The Farmers' Bridge is of later date, and the destruction of everything in the neighborhood by the retreating Americans and the British during the Revolution changed the whole aspect at Fordham or King's Bridge.

On May 3, 1669, Governor Lovelace gave leave to John Archer to settle sixteen families on the mainland, " near the wading-place," and ordained that whatever agreements Archer should make with the inhabitants as to their proportions of improvable lands and hamlets, he would confirm, but postjioned prescribing the limits of the settlement until he had made a visit to the place, and then he promised a patent for their further assurance.

From February 12, 1669, to October 11, 1671, the records at Harlem show that Archer, the owner of

the soil about Fordham, had leased most of the farms to several parties, but in 1671 his leases provided that the rent should be payable to Cornells Steenwyck, of New York. Archer had, on September 11, 1669, given a mortgage on his lands to Steenwyck for eleven hundred guilders in wampum. He gave another mortgage to Steenwyck in 1676, but in the mean time, in order to get rid of continual interferference by the Harlem magistrates, he obtained from Governor Lovelace a patent for his lands, which were purchased by him from Doughty and the Indians. It is difficult to trace, from the description, the exact bounds, but, after a careful study of the territory and the description, the tract seems to have been bounded as follows : It lay on the eastward of Harlem River, near unto the passage commonly called " Spiting Devil," upon which " ye new Dorp or village is erected, known by the name of Fordham." (The accompanying map of the village of Fordham is referred to, and it seems, from the best authorities which can be obtained, that the ancient village was located somewhere near the present King's Bridge depots of the New York Central and New York City and Northern Railroads, iis now situated.)