Some of them, it would appear, sided with the province in the controversy, and hence, doubtless, some of the actions for defamation and other proofs of disturbance which we find on record about this time." In 1695 a tract of land which for more than thirty years had belonged to the Kye settlers, "situated above Westchester Path, between Blind Brook and Mamaroneck River, and extending as far north as Kye Fond," was bought by a certain John Harrison from an Indian who professed to be " the true owner and proprietor." After having been surveyed by order of Governor Fletcher, of New York, this tract, called "Harrison's Purchase," was patented (June 25, 1696) to Harrison and four associates-- William Nicols, Ebenezer Wilson, David Jamison, and Samuel Haight. In vain did the people of Kye protest against so unrighteous a proceeding. The land was wholly unimproved and unsettled, its rightful prior ownership was claimed by the Indian from whom Harrison bought if, and, moreover, the Rye men, by having contemptuously neglected to avail themselves of the opportunity extended to them by Dongan in 1685 to prove their 1 Baird's Hist, of Rye.

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

land titles, had incapacitated themselves from establishing a superior title by the records. The issuance of the Harrison patent was followed, about the end of 1696, by a verdict adverse to Eye rendered in the New York courts in a suit brought by Mrs. Ann Bichbell against the Eye people for intrusion on the White Plains lands. These two events brought matters to a crisis. Eye seceded from New York, applied to be received back into Connecticut, and, meeting with encouragement, resumed formal connection with the latter government, until by order of the king compelled to abandon it. Eye's petition to the general court of Connecticut, in conjunction with a similar one from Bedford, was submitted on January 19, 1697, and was graciously received.