was the hostess of the Van Cortlandt house near Peekskill during the Revolution, and whose stern reply to an insolent soldier on a perilous occasion is celebrated (see p. 427). Mrs. Beekman died in 1S47 at the age of ninety-four. Besides Philipseburgh Manor, various (states of Tories scattered through the county were confiscated. All of these, however, were conproperties of but moderate dimensions. Several of them were ferred by the State upon patriotic persons as gifts. John Paulding and David Williams, two of the captors of Andre, received forfeited D.

1 From McX.

an engraving Stauffer. of

in the Yonkers.

possession of Copyrighted,

3 by William

Calmer East.

Reproduced by

GENERAL

COUNTY

HISTORY

farms in Westchester County-- the former being given the handsome property of Dr. Peter Huggeford in the Manor of Cortlandt, and the latter the estate of Edmund Ward in Eastchester. The famous Thomas Paine, author of "Common Sense," was presented with a tract of some three hundred acres in Upper New Iiochelle, which had previously belonged to one Frederic Deveau. About 1802, after his return to America, Paine took up his residence on this property, and lie lived there most of his remaining years and was buried in a corner of the farm. His bones were disinterred and taken to England by William Cobbett in 1819. The spot is marked by a monument to his memory. The subdivision of the county into townships was made by an act of the legislature passed March 7, 1788. By this important statute twenty-one " towns " were erected, as follows: Westchester, Morris ania, Yonkers, Greenburgh. Mount Pleasant, Eastchester, Pelham, Now Rochelle, Scarsdale, Mamaroneck, White Plains, Harrison, Rye, North Castle, Bedford, Poundridge, Salem. North Salem, Cortlandt, Yorktown, and Stephentown. The Town of Westchester included all of the original Westchester and West Farms tracts, with Fordhain Manor.