Being summoned in 1648 to take the oath of allegiance to New Haven, he refused, for the reason that he had already subscribed to it in England, "and should not take it hero." For his contumacious conduct he was fined, and, refusing to pay the fine, " was again summoned before the authorities, and again amerced." Thus his early career in Connecticut was attended by circumstances which, on their face, were hardly favorable to his subsequent selection by the government of that colony as an agent for carrying out designs that they may have had regarding the absorption of Dutch lands. It is altogether presumable that in buying the Westchester tract from the Indians in 1654 he acted in a strictly private capacity, although the settlers who went there may have been stimulated to do so by the colonial authorities. Pell himself does not appear to have ever become a resident of Westchester. He evidently regarded his purchase solely as a real estate speculation, selling his lands in parcels at first to small private individuals, and later to aggregations of enterprising men. Of the more important of these sales, as of the conversion of much of his property into a manorial estate called Pelham Manor, due mention will be made farther along in this History. The erection of Pelham Manor by royal patent dated from October 6, 1606, Thomas Pell becoming its first lord. He married Lucy, widow of Francis Brewster, of New Haven, and died at Fairfield without issue in or about the month of September, 1669. He left property, real and personal, valued at £1,294 14s. 4d., all of which was bequeathed to his nephew, John Pell, of England, who became the second lord of the manor. For some six years following Pell's acquisition of Westchester in 1654, there were, so far as can be ascertained, no other notable land' purchases or settlements within our borders.