It is of interest, before coming to the period of Heathcote's proprietorship, to glance to at the origin of the village of Mamaroneck, which we have omitted section. this with do in our account of Richbell's connection and Soon after procuring his English patent (1G68), John Richbell a lots, house or ts, allotmen of his wife set apart for the purpose along d westwar River neck Mamaro the from running strip of land These the harbor shore, and fronting on the old Westchester path. lots were eight in number: one he reserved for himself, one he deeded sold. as a gift to John Basset (1669), and the others he leased or \mono- the purchasers was Henry Disbrough, or Disbrow, in 16-6, house. who the next year erected on his lot the famous Disbrow Tr£n eler-s along the Boston Post Road may still see, on the western this outskirts of Mamaroneck, a stone chimney, all that remains of idea an giving size, great its for ble The ruin is remarka structure.

SETTLEMENT

MAMARONECK

of the enormous fireplaces in use at the time when the house was built. It is said that the Disbrow house is one of the landmarks described by James Fenimore Cooper (who lived in Mamaroneck) in the " Spy," and that a secret cupboard in the chimney served as a hiding place for Harvey Birch, the hero of that story. The strip devoted by Eichbell to the Mamaroneck house lots was called " BichbelFs two-mile bounds," from the fact that each lot ran two miles " northwards into the woods." Such was the beginning of the venerable village of Mamaroneck. For many years, however, only a very few settlers lived there, and in an instrument drawn as late as 1707, by " the freeholders of Mamaroneck " in common, the names of only eight persons appear as signers.