Home / Shonnard, Frederic, and W.W. Spooner. History of Westchester County, New York, from its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1900. New York: The New York History Company, 1900. / Passage

History of Westchester County, New York, from its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1900

Shonnard, Frederic, and W.W. Spooner. History of Westchester County, New York, from its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1900. New York: The New York History Company, 1900. 329 words

The various quit-rents exacted were, for the Manor of Pelham, as originally patented to Thomas Pell, " one lamb on the first day of May (if the lamb shall be demanded) "; for Pelham, as repatented to John Pell, "twenty shillings, good and lawful money of this province, at the City of New York, on the five and twentieth day of March"; for Fordham, " twenty bushels of good peas, upon the first day of March, when it shall be demanded"; for Philipseburgh, "on the feast day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, . . . the annual rent of four pounds twelve shillings current money of our said province"; for Morrisania, "on the feast day of the Annunciation of our Blessed Virgin, . . . the annual rent of six shillings"; for Cortlandt, " on the feast day of our Blessed Virgin Mary, the yearly rent of forty shillings, current money of our said province"; and for Scarsdale, " five pounds current money of New York, upon the nativity of our Lord." Appended to most of the quit-rent leases was the significant statement that the prescribed payment was to be "in lieu of all rents, services, and demands whatever," apparently inserted to emphasize the well-understood fact that the manor grants were strictly in the line of public policy, and were in no way intended to become a source of revenue to the government. The importance of the manorial proprietorships in Westchester County, in their relations to its political and social character and to its eventful history for a hundred years, can not be overestimated. All the founders of the six manors were men of forceful traits, native ability, and wide influence. With a single exception,1 they left their estates, entirely undiminished and unimpaired, either to children or to immediate kinsmen, who in turn, by their personal characters and In consequence i John Archer, of Fordham. of financial complications, his manor did not remain in his family.