Frederick Philipse
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Frederick Philipse (1626-1702)
Frederick Philipse, Lord of Philipse Manor, owned the vast stretch of land spanning from Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx to the Croton River. He was a self made man who emigrated from the Friesland area of the Netherlands to Flatbush, in Brooklyn, New York on Long Island whose career began by selling iron nails and rose to become an owner of taverns. When he first purchased land in Westchester County, New York, he enticed friends from New Amsterdam and Long Island to move with him with the promise of free land and limited taxes.
His past is shrouded in mystery, although, based on the family tradition and the testimony of his great-great-great-grandson, the noted historian William Jay (1789-1850), Frederick Philipse descended from a prominent aristocratic family from Bohemia who had to escape from their native land around the time of the Thirty Years' War. The distinguished Czech scholar Antonin Slechta postulated that he may have been a member of the Bohemian aristocratic family of Kinsky who were forced to leave the Kingdom of Bohemia and found refuge in Holland.
After swearing allegiance to the English and later being granted his Manorship from the English, he began construction of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. Although financing this project, work likely progressed slowly and was completed in 1685. Philipse held 52,000 acres of land along the Hudson River where he constructed on the Upper Mills portion of his estate a fine house, Philipse Manor, which still stands as a landmark in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
Frederick's first wife, Margaret, died in 1691. A year after Margaret's death, he married the widow Catharine Van Cortlandt Derval, the sister of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, an adviser to the provincial governor. Her brother Jacobus Van Cortlandt married Frederick's adopted daughter Eva and their son Frederick Van Cortlandt later built the Van Cortlandt House Museum in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, New York.[1] He is buried with his two wives in the crypt of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow.
Frederick's son Adolphus Philipse inherited his vast lands and title and his great-grandson, Frederick Philipse III moved to Yonkers, New York and leased the entirety of his property out to William Pugsley before siding with the British in the American Revolution and leaving New York City for England in 1783. The entirety of the family property was divided up into almost 200 different parcels of land, with the vast majority going to a Dutch New York City businessman, Beekman, Jr.
[edit] Descendants of Frederick Philipse
John Marshall Brown (1838-1907), [1], Captain n and assistant. adjunct. general of ME volunteers and served in SC and FL; commanded rgiment at Totopotomy and Cold Harbor and preliminary movements a Petersburg, VA.
Samuel Sprigg Caroll (1832-1893) [2], military offiicer in Northern VA campaign and Battle Cedar Mountain; commandant brigade at battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.
Matthew Clarkson (1758-1825), major-general of NY State Militia; served with Gen. B. Lincoln until end of Revolutionary War (1779-83), participated in siege of Savannah, GA, defense of Charleston, S.C., present at surrender of Yorktown (1781)..
John Jay (1780-1829), delegate and president of Continental Congress, drafter of the US Constitution, US Ambassador to France and Spain, first Chief Justice of of the US
William Jay (1789-1858) [3], prominent jurist and reformer, active abolitioniost
Henry Brockholst Livingston (1757-1823), Justice of US Supreme Court
Alexander Slidell MacKenzie (1842-67), an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
Jay Pierrepont Moffat (1896-1943), notable American diplomat, historian and statesman who, between 1917 and 1943, served the State Department in a variety of posts, including that of Ambassador to Canada during the first year of United States participation in World War II.
John Watts de Peyster (1821-1907), Brigadier General in the New York State Militia during the American Civil War and philanthropoist and military historian after the war.
Mary Philipse (173-1825) [4], George Washington's first love
Sir Frederick Philipse Robinson (1763 - 1852), a Virginian soldier, who fought for England during the American War of Independence.
Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright ( 1864-1945), [5] US Congressman and Army officer in the Spanish-American War
[edit] Reference
Jeff Canning and Wally Buxton, History of the Tarrytowns. Harrison, NJ: Harbor Hill Books, 1975. 29
