This also was begun under the auspices of an association organized on principles of economy-- the Teutonic Homestead Association, composed, as its name indicates, mostly of Germans. The number of the Teutonic associates was five hundred, and The land which they bought consisted of about one hundred ami thirty-one acres. Subsequently a third settlement, Central .Mount Vernon, was built up between the two villages. Central and West Mount Vernon were incorporated as one village in 1869, and were consolidated with Mount Vernon in 1878. Various other outlying localities gradually came into being. After a career of about thirty-nine years as a village, Mount Vernon became a city in 1892, taking in, of course, all these connected districts. The fundamental object of the founders of Mount Vernon, to establish a community of homes, is perpetuated by the motto of the official seal of the city, Urbs Jucundarum Domium -- "A City of Happy Homes." But after serving its original purposes the association gradually underwent disorganization, and the ultimate development of the place was the result of private enterprise, conRev.

W.

S. Coffey,

in Sebarf's

History,

ii.,

722.

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

ducted under the ordinary conditions of local progress. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the peculiar character given the community at the beginning operated continuously to attract to it, in the succeeding years, citizens of the same general spirit, aims, and conditions of life as the original associators -- men chiefly of moderate means, but of providence, thrift, foresight, and energetic traits. For many years few men of large wealth, either inherited or self-acquired, came to live in Mount Vernon; but it could not be otherwise than that substantial and even opulent fortunes should in the course of time be gained by numerous citizens of a community erected on such a basis as that of Mount Vernon.