These Great Patents were not Manore, though two of them were larger than either of the Manors of Pelham, ilorrisania or Fordham. They were simply Patents for great tracts of land issued according to law to three bodies of grantees as individuals, who each possessed an undivided share, bodies which in modern parlance would be called " syndicates.'' They were based uj^on a license to Colonel Heathcote to purchase vacant and unappropriated land in Westchester county and extinguish the title of the Natives

HISTORY OP WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

granted by Governor Fletcher on the 12th of October, 1696.

He was the most prominent of the gentlemen who formed the bodies above mentioned and who became the Owners and Patentees of these three Patents. The first purchase made by Colonel Heathcote in the region mentioned, was from Pathunck, Wampus, Cohawney, and five other Indians, who on the 19th of October, 1696, executed to him a deed conveying " for and in consideration £100 good and lawful money of New York," " all that tract of land situate lying and being in the County of Westchester in the Province of New York in America, bounded north by Scroton's ' River, easterly by Byram River and Bedford line, southerly by the land of John Harrison and his associates, and the line stretching to Byram river aforesaid, and westerly to the land of Frederick Philipse." >

This covered all the present town of New castle and most of North castle as it now exists, and other lands south and east of the latter. It is hence sometimes called " North castle Indian Deed," or from one of the Indians " Wampus's Land Deed." Colonel Heathcote made most of the purchases of the Indians of Northern and Central Westchester then inhabiting it, in accordance with the customary rule in such matters which has been before explained.