Stcinding in the doorway, he delivered himself in this wise: "Your possessions shall pass away when the eagle shall despoil the lion." If the reader wishes to take a grain of salt with that Indian no objection will be made. All of the central portion of the present city of Yonkers was purchased in 181 3 by Lemuel Wells. This estate, having the Nepperhan River running through the middle of it and including, among other buildings, the Philips manor-house, had previously been acquired by Cornelius P. Low. from the Commissioners of Forfeiture. Mr. Wells bought it at public auction for the sum of $56,000. At that date there were less than a dozen houses, including mills,

2o8 The Hudson River

on the entire estate of 320 acres. It was not till after the death of Mr. Wells, in 1842, that the site of Yonkers began to be built upon. The operation of the Hudson River Railroad, commencing in 1849, created a lively demand for property in that convenient locality, and the subsequent growth of the place has been rapid. But it is essentially a new town. Its civic history is nearly all condensed into a little more than half a century. Modern Yonkers, some one has said, is the child of the railroad. As lately as 1841, it was, according to the Rev. Doctor David Cole, an insignificant hamlet. In 1876 it was thus described:

A few miles north of Spuyten Duyvil is the large village of Yonkers. Thirty years ago a church, a few indifferent houses, a single sloop at a small wharf, and the gray walls and roof of a venerable structure, which you may see stretching among the trees parallel with the river, comprised the whole borough. That building is the Philipse Manor house, now occupied for municipal purposes by the public authorities of Yonkers.