Cornell, after receiving the grant to Cornell's Neck, erected buildings there, which he occupied until forced for the second time by hostile Indian manifestations to abanHis daughter Sarah don his attempt at residence in the Vredeland. testified in September, 1665, that he " was at considerable charges in building, manuring, and planting" on Cornell's Neck, and that after some years he was " driven off the said land by the barbarous violence of the Indians, who burnt his home and goods and destroyed his This daughter, Sarah, was married in New Amsterdam on cattle," She inherited Corthe 1st of September, 1643, to Thomas Willett. nell's Neck from her father, and it remained in the possession of her descendants -- the Willetts, of whom several were men of great promThomas Cornell, inence in our county -- for more than a century. away from Cornell's Neck, returned to Rhode Isdriven after being land, where he died in 1655. Some Beginnings of Westchester County History.

Published for the Westchester County Historical Society, 1890.

EARLIEST

SETTLERS

In the preceding pages we have consecutively traced the several known efforts at settlement along the southeastern shores of Westchester County, from the time of Jonas Bronck's purchase on the Harlem to that of Thomas Cornell's flight from the ruins of his home on Cornell's Neck, covering a period of ten years, more or less. It is a meager and discouraging record. By reference to the map, it will be observed that all these first Westchester settlements were closely contiguous to one another, and embraced a continuous extent of territory." Bronck's patent reached to the mouth of the Bronx River, and was there joined by Cornell's; beyond which, successively, were Throckmorton's grant and the domain occupied by Anne Hutchinson. It is also of interest to note that the upper boundary of the four tracts corresponded almost exactly with the present corporate limits of the City of New York on the Sound.