From Thomas Cornell the estate passed successively to his widow, to his two daughters, Sarah ami Rebecca, aiid to his grandson, William Willett, son of his eldest daughter, Sarah, by her first husband, Thomas Willett. William Willett (born 1644) ir, 1667 obtained from the first English governor, Nicolls, a new patent to Cornell's Neck. He made his abode there, apparently, soon afterward, ami lived in quid enjoyment of his handsome property until his death, in 1701. He was one of the first aldermen of the borough Town of West Chester. Having no descendants -- in fact, he never married -- he left Cornell's Neck to his younger brother, the noted Colonel Thomas Willett, of Flushing. The latter at once (March 28, 1701) conveyed it to his eldest son, William, expressing among his reasons for that act his desire for "the advancement and preferment of ye " said son. The kk advancement and preferment " of
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HISTORY
WESTCHESTER
COUNTY
the second William Willett transpired immediately; for in the same year he was elected a delegate from Westchester County to the continprovincial assembly, in which capacity lie served almost uous^ until his death (1733). This is a circumstance of peculiar comconsequence when it is remembered that Cornell's Neck was which prised within the limits of the borough Town of Westchester, regularlv elected a deputy of its own to the assembly. William Willett must have been a particularly forceful character to have commanded the suffrages of the county for a generation, notwithstanding his residence in the exceptionally favored borough town. identified with the popular party. We have seen thoroughly He was in a previous chapter that when the great issue of the abuse of the governor's prerogative arose, and a test of popular sentiment was instituted by causing the deposed Chief Justice Morris to stand for the assembly, William Willett resigned his seat in that body to afford opportunity for the desired test; and also that he was one of the most zealous of Morris's partisans at the DUTCH CHCKCII, FOKOIIAM. famous electoral cont e s t on the Eastchester Green.