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.

The cit}^ of Van der Donk and Philipse is now a thri\-ing one, much given to factories and the enjoyment of a busy local life; but to the outsider its chief attraction centres about the names of a few eminent people who have made it their home. Foremost among these appears the name of one who for years was looked upon as the natural leader of one of the great pohtical parties of the land; a disciple of Martin Van Buren; one who had received the highest

From Spuyten Duyvil to Yonkers 209 honour in the gift of the people of the State and had been a candidate for the chief magistracy of the nation. Samuel Jones Tilden was an American of the Americans. Born in an old-fashioned house in Columbia County, N. Y., in which four generations of his family had lived, he passed the declining years of his busy and influential life within the walls of "Graystone," his substantial and costly home at Yonkers. His house is situated to the north of the city on an elevated plateau and is massive and ample rather than ornate. Its granite walls and Mansard roof, rising from the surrounding verdure, do not easily pass unnoticed inthe general view. But if we accord to Mr. Tilden the first niche in the local temple of fame, we would not leave him to solitude.