Jonas Bronck left a son, Peter, who went with his mother to her new home,and from whom the numerous Bronx family of Albany and vicinity is descended. The Bronck property on the Harlem was sold on July 10, 1651, to Jacob Jans Stall. One of its subsequent owners was Samuel Edsall, a beaver-maker and man of some note in New York City, who had trade transactions with the Indians, became versed in their language, and

EARLIEST

SETTLERS

acted officially as interpreter. He sold it to Captain Richard Morris, and it subsequently became a part of the Manor of Morrisania. The Bronx River, first known as Bronck's River, or the Bronck River, was appropriately so called for this pioneer settler on its banks; and from the stream, in our own day, has been derived the name given to the whole great and populous territory which Westchester County has resigned to the growing municipal needs of the City of New York. Whatever changes in local designations may occur in the American metropolis in the progress of time, it is a safe prediction that the name of the Borough of the Bronx, so happily chosen for the annexed districts, will always endure. The example of Bronck in boldly venturing over upon the mainland would doubtless have found many ready followers among the Dutch already on Manhattan Island, or those who were now arriving in constantly increasing numbers from Europe, if the threatening aspect of the times had not plainly suggested to everybody the inexpediency of going into an open country exposed to the attacks of the Indians. In the summer and fall of 1641 events occurred which, considered in connection with the well-known unrelenting character of Director Kieft, foreshadowed serious trouble with the natives; and early in the spring of 1612 a war actually broke forth which, although at first conducted without special animosity, developed into a most revengeful and sanguinary struggle, with pitiless and undiscriminating massacre on both sides as its distinguishing characteristic.