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MAMARONECK 1661-1961 : A PANORAMA OF HER FIRST THREE CENTURIES
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To: all residents of Larchmont and Mamaroneck
roc a
1661 1961
eptember 23, 1961 marks the 300th Anniversary of
the purchase from the Indians of the land on Which
we dwell.
e are privileged, therefore, in this year of grace, to
celebrate our birthday.
Now we may pause to reflect upon the lives of those men and
women who with courage, industry and devotion to our national
ideals, have brought to us this year of commemoration.
Nor shall we be forgetful of the blessings of freedom which
we enjoy with all people in this, our country.
With such a heritage, and under the guidance of the Great
Creator of us all, we can confidently continue in the paths of peace,
to enjoy the benefits of prosperity and the just rewards of honor
and integrity in all our affairs.
W�ear,
herefore, declare 1961 to be our Anniversary
and we call upon all our residents to mark this
unusual event with appropriate ceremonies and occasions
which shall record our appreciation of ourg p our,astgrati-
tude for our present bounty, and our hopes for a better
life for us and our descendants in the years to come.
Mayor Supervisor Mayor
Village of Larchmont Town of Mamaroneck Village of Mamaroneck
Dated: January 1961
Indian Deed to John Richbell
0 Mamaroneck,ye 23d Sept. 1661
Know all Men by these prests. That I Wappaquewam Right owner& Proprietor of part of this Land, dee by order of
my brother who is another Proprietor & by consent of the other Indyans doe this day, sell, Lett & make over, from
mee my heyres assignes for ever unto John Richbell of oyster bay his heyres&assigns for ever three necks of Land.The
Estermost is called Mamaroneck Neck, and the Westermost is bounded with Mr. Pells purchase. Therefore know all
Men whom these presents concerne that I Wappaquewam, doe this day alienate & estrange from mee, my heires &
assignes for ever unto John Richbell his hyeres & assignes for ever, these three necks of Land with all the Meadowes
Rivers and Islands thereunto belonging, also the sd. Richbell or his assignes may freely feed Cattle or cutt timber
twenty miles Northward from the marked Trees of the Necks, ffor & in consideracon the sd Richbell is to give or
deliver unto the aforesaid Wappaquewam the goods here under mentioned, the one halfe about a month after
the date hereof, and the other half the next Spring following. As the Interpreters can testify,&for the true performances
hereof, I Wappaquewam doe acknowledge to have recd. two shirts& ten shillings in wampum the day and date above
written,Twenty two Coates,one hundred fathom of wampom, Twelve shirts, Ten paire of Stockings, Twenty hands of
powder, Twelve barrs of Lead, Two firelocks, ffifteene Hoes, ffifteene Hatches, Three Kettles"
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Honorary Committee PROGRAM OF EVENTS FOR TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION
George D. Burchell
Supervisor—Town of Mamaroneck
John B. Coffinberry AM PM EVENING
Mayor—Village of Larchmont
Joseph L. Dalfonso y Scout Cam00 Bo p
Mayor—Village of Mamaroneck 10: oree 3:00 Old Timers' Baseball
SATURDAY Harbor Island Harbor Island
Executive Committee SEPT. 16
Charles M.Baxter,Jr. Outdoor Art Exhibit
Chairman Larchmont Plaza -
William H. Johnson
Executive Coordinator
William G. Fulcher
Town Historian
Alfred M. Georger SUNDAY 3:00 Opening Ceremonies 5-7 Opening of Historical
Treasurer SEPT. 17 Larchmont Manor Park Exhibits—Mamaroneck
Harold V. Bozell Artists' Guild Barn
Mrs.Henry B.Coakley
Stanley W. Duhig
Mrs.Vito F.Luceno
Earl W. Quick MONDAY School Observances 1 -5 Tour of Historical Sites 8:30 Mamaroneck Negro
Mrs. Lionel Robbins SEPT. 18 Start Larchmont Library Citizenship Program
Mamaroneck Avenue School
Chamber of Commerce
Harold R.Eisner
Larchmont
Jesse Silberstein
2:30 Tea, Larchmont,
Mamaroneck TUESDAY Mamaroneck Woman's Clubs
School Observances Mamaroneck Woman's
Exhibits SEPT. 19 Clubhouse, William G. Fulcher,
Mrs.F.Warren Green speaker
Charles D. Silleck
TERCENTENARY COMMITTEE Laurence Hospitality
A.Quinlivang
WEDNESDAY 8:15 Mamaroneck Through
School Observances the Years—Nine Historical
Musical Events SEPT. 20 Tableaux—Mamaroneck
Robert A.Nicholson Junior High School
Charles Ashley Hardy,Jr.
Old Timers' Baseball 7:00 Reception
Charles J. Gronberg THURSDAY
School Observances 7:30 Tercentenary Dinner
Pageant SEPT. 21 Larchmont Shore Club
Mrs.S.Charles Hanna Dr. Henry Grafi, speaker
Parade
Benedict F.McGrath School Observances 3-5 Flowers Through 300 8:30 Concert,
FRIDAY Years—Mamaroneck Garden New Chamber Orchestra-
Public Relations Arrival . Destroyer, Club, St. Thomas's Church Rye Neck High School
Ralph Froelich SEPT. 22 U.S.S. Bronson Y g
Religious Participation LARCHMONT DAY
The Rev.Edgar N.Jackson
1:30 Parade, Larchmont
Scout Camporee 10:00 Dedication of 2:30 Parade, Mamaroneck
Edmund J. Fanning SATURDAY Monument to John Richbell Block Part
Review and Speech Y
SEPT. 23 Orienta Point, Mamaroneck Elk's Club
Tableaux Dr.Albert B.Corey, speaker 4:00 Pageant
Mrs. Lincoln Stulik Harbor Island
Tercentenary Cup Race
Jan C. Brassem
SUNDAY 2:00 Tercentenary Cu R
Tercentenary Dinner y p ace
Richard I. Land SEPT. 24 Larchmont Yacht Club
Tercentenary Journal
Mrs. Malcolm D. Brown
1. Home of the Siwanoy—`Salt People'—Tilled Mead- 6
ows, Fished Streams—Bone, Clay, Wood, Stone—Sound
Shore to Norwalk
2. Of Mamaronock and the River—Dam Nuisance 8
Disposed of—Post Road Goes Toll
3. The Coming of John Richbell—Original Rum- 10
runner?—First at Oyster Bay—The Price Is Right—Land
Is Divided—Got Along with Indians—First Lady of
Many—Mary Marries Mott—First Town Meeting
4. Caleb Heathcote Arrives—Manor of Scarsdale— 14
Vanishing Native
5. The Animal-at-Large Problem 15
6. Ravages of Revolution—Battle of Heathcote Hill— 16
De Lancey Returns
7. Old Houses Still Survive 17
8. Not All So Fortunate—Relief for the Needy— 18
Shank's Mare for Many
9. Path to Progress 19
10. Soil Tillers, Cotton Millers—Cotton Mill on 19
Avenue—Wagons and Saddles
11. Highways and Byways—$200 Went a Good Way 21
12. Town Met Civil War Quota—Drill Hall Still Stands 22
13. Birth of Two Villages—Reluctant Bride—Improve- 23
ments in Thirties
MAMARONECK 1661 - 1961 : A PANORAMA OF HER FIRST THREE CENTURIES
14. Larchmont: To the Manor Born—Neither Least 24
nor Last—Advent of Collins—Convenient to Station—
Flint, the Developer—Came the Stars—Good Old Days—
Sunday School and a Club
15. Water, Gas, Power and Protection 28
16. Press and Phones 29
17. Sloops Slip In and Out 30
18. The Education Explosion—`State Encourage- 30
ment'—Consolidation—Expansion Constant
19. Three Rs in Rye Neck—`Without Friction'—Bel- 32
lows and Warren
20. Comforts to the Sick 33
21. Reading, Free, for All 34
22. Societies, Clubs and Such 34
23. His House has Many Mansions—Friends—Our 34
Original Episcopalian—Asbury Visits `Mairnock'—On
Historical Editor—Helen Warren Brown Good Success Ridge—Inverted Hull—Barry Avenue
Editor—Teunis E.Gouwens Church—Holy Trinity—Anglicans in Larchmont—St.
Assistant Editors—Lavinia J.Brewer Augustine's—Lutherans—Christian Science—St. Vito's
Margaret S.Burchell Church—Presbyterians—Emanuel AME—First Syna-
Anne Lawrence Bondy Bogue—First Baptist—Strait Gate—Larchmont Temple—
Sts. John and Paul—Beth Emeth—St.James's Church
Ersaline N.Alexander
Pen and Ink Sketches—Katherine S.Kirkman 24. By Her Fruits She is Known 42
Inset Map—William J. Paonessa 25. Epilogue: Into Her Fourth Century 43
Publication Editor—Ralph Froelich Acknowledgments 43
Distribution—Joseph Germani Bibliography 43
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I. Home Of The Siwanoy-`Salt. People'
"I love thy rocks and rills hair, although the men sometimes shaved off the hair on the sides and wore the top in a roach. The
Thy woods and templed hills. . ." women were partial to ear bobs of shell—sometimes of copper.
So sing our grade school children today in Larchmont, Mamaroneck and Rye Neck. So might They were tall, slender people, broad-shouldered and with straight, black hair and swarthy skin.
Indians have sung here more than 300 years ago, had they spoken English rather than Algonkian. When the men went off to battle they painted their faces black, white, red, blue or yellow, and traveled
This land near New York City has been peopled for about 5,000 years: first by hunters and as many as twenty in one canoe using scooped, spoon-shaped paddles.
fishers who wandered along the shore of Long Island Sound gathering wild berries, nuts and roots
Sound Shore to Norwalk The families who lived along the north shore of Long Island
to eat with fish and shellfish, or with whatever deer, foxes, skunks, wild fowl, eagles, frogs, dogs, Sound from New York to Norwalk, Connecticut, and as far inland as White Plains were called
wolves, and even snakes they could snare—or kill with bow and arrow. Siwanoy—which probably meant "salt people." They had a number of villages, some of which were
just groups of family huts. The principal one was on the shore of Rye Lake; others were at Rye Beach
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d Pelham Ba
Tilled Meadows, Fished Streams About 2,500 years ago the climate settled anY• Each family—or group of families—had a sachem and a tribal council of sachems
into being fairly cool and moist and about the time that Jesus was living in Judea, Indian families banded together for mutual protection, selecting the strongest among them as chief and choosing the
were living in our present Westchester County raising corn, beans, squash and pumpkins. The soil war chiefs by agreement of the council. The Siwanoys belonged thus to the Wappinger Confederacy of
was light-textured and readily tillable with sticks and stone hoes. Any natural meadow served them. the Mohican tribe and spoke the Algonkian (or Algonquin) language. Their totem was the Wolf.
Such meadows as still exist where the Mamaroneck and the Sheldrake rivers join in Columbus Park The tribal shaman was both priest and doctor. His people believed in both good and evil spirits
and which used to exist in Shore Acres, the Indian women cultivated while their men paddled dug- and when they were ill he blew on them, or sucked on the skin with a bone tube, to draw out the evil
out canoes on the Sound in search of fish; dug clams and oysters; fished from the shore and hunted spirit. He also used herb brews and,if all else failed,a sweat bath was tried.A fire was built in a separate
in the woods. but near a pond or stream; the patient crouched beside it pouring steaming water on hot stones until
Saxon Woods Park shows us today what those woods were like. Native trees were oak, chestnut, he sweated. Then he plunged outside into the cold water and either recovered or died. If he died, he
hickory, sweet gum, willow oak, and persimmon. With tree branches, slabs of bark and bullrushes, was buried lying on his side in a
the Indians built their dome-shaped—or sometimes rectangular—houses. Grass and rushes, woven pit after a night of mourning.
into mats, made couches, beds and doors. A fire burned in a pit at the center of the house; smoke The Siwanoy believed in
escaped through a hole in the roof. naturespirits: sun, wind fire
lightning, thunder. Their calen-
dar was governed by the stars and
Bone, Clay, Wood, Stone These people used dishes of wood or baked clay. Gourds women were versed in its changes.
made spoons and cups from which they drank nothing but water. They had bone needles, awls,
Most family units consisted of
mortar and pestle, drills and hammers of wood, stone knives. Food was stored in woven baskets husband, one wife, and their chil- \'
and cooked in claypots or baked in the ashes of the fire. _
P dren, although some chiefs had
In winter the men wore hip-length deerskin leggings and skin shirts; in summer a breech two or three wives. When divorce
clout. The women wore knee-length leggings, wraparound skirts and robes of deerskin decorated occurred the children went with
with beads orainted designs. Both sexes wore moccasins and used snowshoes. Both braided their p g their mother.
Siwanoy at Home
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2. Of Mamaronock And The River
Dutch settlers on Manhattan Island in the 1620s found the Siwanoy friendly and peaceful neigh- The mosquito problem was solved about 1915 by draining and oiling the salt marshes. Annual
bors at first, but disputes arose and there were raids, burned settlements and retaliation. There spraying now controls it as well.
were also disputes between the Dutch and English settlers at New Haven, who were pushing slowly The Mamaroneck River, although not a navi-able stream, is a historic marker and flows
west and south. In the spring of 1640, Kieft, governor of the Dutch West India Company at New into a harbor which to Indians and
Amsterdam, arranged a purchase of all the territory between the group of islands at the mouth white men has been a haven. It was
of the Norwalk River and the North River. Three years later an Indian chief named Mamaronock, discovered by the Dutch about 1625.
who lived near Croton, was at war with the Dutch. Although it separated two colonies for
Why his name has been connected with our town and whether it is not so-called because, as nearly forty years and still divides the
old surveys say, it designates the "place where the fresh water falls into the salt" is not certain. Village of Mamaroneck into two
Even the spelling of the name did not settle down into its present form until 1755. It appeared towns, the people who settled along
variously as Momoronock, Momaronack, Mairnuc, Momaroneck, until it finally jelled. The creek, the shores of the harbor have never
or river called Momoronock where "the fresh water falls into the salt at high water marke" was considered it a formidable barrier. At
designated the western boundary of the colony of Connecticut in November 1664 and so remained first they forded the stream, which v
until 1700. Then an agreement made in 1683 to fix the colonial boundary at the Byram River was they referred to as "the Cricke," near
ratified by King William III and the Village of Mamaroneck was thus spared straddling two states. where Tompkins Ave. now spans it.
Iron Bridge spans Mamaroneck River, with Mary E. Gordon at Town Dock and
Harbor Island in background.
Dam Nuisance Disposed Of There was a falls near the mouth of the Mamaroneck
River just upstream of the Post Road Bridge, and a dam built there for a factory became a public
Post Road Goes TOIL In 1805 the Boston Post Road, which had been the Westchester
nuisance because of floods and the breeding of mosquitoes. An old diary records that in 1854: Path, was widened and straightened and became a toll pike. The Toll House still stands on the
"The people bought the Mamaroneck Factory pond, the dam to be taken down; East Post Road near Stuart Avenue. A wooden bridge across the river collapsed in 1843 and was
the water to flow forever without obstruction.
Bought and let out Saturday night in June;a jubilee lasted until 3 o'clock Sunday replaced by an iron pipe bridge beside which a sign warned would-be horse-racers: "Five dollars
morning." l! fine for driving faster than a walk on this bridge." In 1895 the Towns of Rye and Mamaroneck
. i1 , ,�'.� ^a V \ ; �; yr`� "C L joined together to build the present stone bridge.
A private company secured permission in 1869 from the New York State Legislature to dam
the harbor mouth and to cultivate oysters. Fortunately this venture and one to span the harbor
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~,�` �' by a railroad causeway failed to materialize. Instead the Village and the Federal Government have
WEST s�' -" =
__ �°► d�_ t beautified the harbor by extensive dredging and water's edge planting of grass and shrubs. Upstream
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f floods have quite recently been controlled removal of railroad bridge abutments near the station.
—VIZ e cKs�� � u �_ � People meanwhile have bought property on both sides of the stream, have built their churches
rlr[ .T`oivne
ipS�t�. on either side of it, lived near one bank and worked on the other shore, joined together in many
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enterprises.
1700—The English Swann along the Sound.Courtesy of Map Division New York Public Library
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3. The Coming Of John Richbell
Twenty years passed after the Dutch purchase of Westchester in 1640 and no white man came to September 1660 bought a tract of land at Lloyd's Neck on Oyster Bay. There he lived for several
settle here, but the harbor had not gone unnoticed. John Richbell, a native of Hampshire, England, years and became a constable and one of the five commissioners for the five English towns in
had been a merchant in Charlestown, Massachusetts, from 1648 and had developed trade with Long Island.
other Englishmen who lived in Barbados. On September 23, 1661 he came across to the north shore accompanied by two men: Edward
In September 1657, he drew up an agreement with Thomas Modiford and William Sharpe C. Griffen, who could speak the Indian tongue, and John Finch. Nothing P g g is known about Finch
of Barbados to return to New England and to buy a "small plantation" near "some navigable Ryver, today, but the Griffen family settled down and still lives here.
or at least some safe port of harbor, and that the way to it be neither longe or difficulte"; that A bargain was struck with Chiefs Wappaquewam and Mahatahan: three necks of land, with
it be "well-watered by some running stream or at least by some fresh ponds and springs," that it all their meadows, rivers and islands bounded on the south by the salt water, changed hands.
be "well-wooded, healthy, high ground." He was to establish the title carefully and to keep upl a These necks included lands we now know as Orienta Point with Satan's toe and Greacen
"nimble, quiet and full correspondence" with them, as that was `necessary to the life of our Point; the Hommocks (so-named by sailors who sighted little grassy hillocks along the marshy
business." shore); Larchmont Manor with Horseshoe Harbor; Pryer Manor, Premium Pond and Point. Few,
if any, Indians actually lived on these points of land. They hunted and fished here.
Original Rumrunner? Whether that business included smuggling is more guessed at
than proved, but it is well known that smuggling was a considerable activity of those engaged in
the West Indian trade from the time of the passage of the first Navigation Act in 1660 on through The Price is Right Along with possession of all meadows, rivers, and islands John
colonial history. It is also obvious that the deep harbors and bays along Long Island Sound shores Richbell bought the right to "freely feed cattle or cutt timber twenty miles northward." In return
would have been as attractive to illicit traders, dealing in Manhattan in the 17th century, as they he paid in three installments: as a binder 2 shirts and 10 shillings in wampum; and one a month
were during Prohibition in the 1920s. The Dutch governors complained of traders unloading at
later and the balance in the spring, 12 shirts, 10 pairs of stockings, 22 coats, 100 fathom of wampum
New London and carrying their cargoes to New Amsterdam up the Sound in small, shallow-draft 20 hands of powder, 12 bars of lead, 2 flintlocks, 15 hoes, 15 hatchets, and 3 kettles.
sailboats.
John Richbell meant business. In December 1661 he applied to Director General Peter
Their English successors complained that the Customs House at Oyster Bay was surrounded Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam for a patent covering his purchases. He said he intended to cultivate
by smugglers more prosperous than the officials. Governor Hardy of the Province of New York part of the land himself and to reserve some for his friends. He moved his wife, daughters, and
wrote to England in 1740 that he needed a "nimble cruiser" on the Sound if he were to get any-
mother-in-law here in 1665 and successfully defended his title against claims that Thomas Revell
where with collecting customs. There is a tale that Paul Revere bought silver and gold plate from
(Pell) had purchased the same land from the Indians. In 1668 Richbell received an English patent
Spanish pirates near New Rochelle. A Spanish two-handed sword was dredged up in 1936 near for his property from Governor Lovelace of New York.
Cedar Island. Underground tunnels in Larchmont along the Post Road may have been storage
places for the extensive smuggling of goods and foodstuffs spirited in and out of New York by
whaleboats from 1776 to 1783 when the city was overflowing with British troops and Tory refugees.
. Land is Divided The following year, Richbell deeded the land on the East neck to his
mother-in-law, Mrs. Marjory Parsons, who had loaned him money for the purchase. One lot was
First at Oyster Bay So whether to cut timber and sell lumber, to raise wheat and fruit called "Black Tom's Lotte" and was probably close to the Black Tom rock shown on current
and corn, to experiment with raising hemp for rope, or to engage—at least on the side—in the U. S. Coastal Survey charts off Orienta. Another of these lots was deeded by Ann Richbell after
lucrative flouting of weakly enforced laws, John Richbell explored along the Sound shore and in her husband's death to her son-in-law, John Emerson, and she sold the rest of the East neck to
10 11
Disbrow House,built it, 1677
Caleb Heathcote, from whom the ownership descended through his daughter Ann and her husband, When she married John Richbell
tR '
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in Barbados she was a widow
the Honorable James Delancey, Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor of the Province of New
with a little daughter, Mary Red-
York, to their son John Peter DeLancey. Orienta was for many years known as DeLancey s Neck
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man. Two other daughters, Eliza-
and
liza and that family name is still perpetuated in Delancey Avenue and Delancey Cove between ,
Greacen Point and the Hommocks, although none of the family has lived in Mamaroneck since beth and Ann, were born to her
and grew up on the Richbell home
the 1890s.
place which stood about where N "
After deeding the East neck to Mrs. Parsons, John Richbell mortgaged the Middle and West "
.
Road
Richbell Rd joins the Post + �
necks (which were subsequently lost to his estate) and divided the land on the north side of the 1
Road. The house has long
since
Westchester Path into quarter-mile house lots. He sold some of these lots to freeholders and
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gave others to his family, retaining one for himself. They were one-quarter mile square and extended vanished but may well have } .
from the Mamaroneck River to the New Rochelle line. looked quite similar to the Dis-
John Richbell died in 1682 and was buried in a little cemetery on a knoll overlooking brow house which stood until
1893 on the Washington Arms
Mamaroneck Harbor. This land belonged to his son-in-law James Mott and in later generations
site. This was unpainted clap-
to the Seaman, Rushmore, and Williams families. The early graves are unmarked but Town records
state that Richbell is buried there. His wife Ann and her mother also are buried in the cemetery. board, two stories and an attic, with a large fieldstone chimney and small windows, George
Richbell survives onl as a name. Washington supposedly stayed there on his way to assume command of the Continental Army at
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Boston. The house faced the Old Post Road. It crumbled and was taken down after about 225
years of use, but its chimney stones remain.
Ann Richbell had a farm on which she raised cattle, hogs and horses. The first cattle mark
registered in the Town records is hers: the ha'penny under each ear and a slit at the top of the
Got Along With Indians Although John Richbell had recorded difficulties with some right ear.
of his white settlers, there is no record that he had any trouble with the Indians; nor that John
Budd did on the east side of the harbor. In November, 1661, Budd moved down from the shore Mary Marries Mott Mary Redman was married about 1670 to James Mott and
of the Byram River, whence he had come from the Y g
lived on the land adjoining her mother's on the west, but she apparently died before her mother
Apawquaminis part of a tract known to them as Apawamis and extending from Beaver Brook to as she is not mentioned in the will. Her daughter, Mary Mott, is mentioned as one of three grand-
the Mamaroneck River for 300 wampum beads and some warm wool coats, or 80 pounds sterling,
daughters: Mary Ann Gedney, Mary Williams, and Mary Mott, to each of whom ten pounds
or some bags of corn; perhaps all three. In 1720, title to this land, which is now Rye Neck (includ- sterling was bequeathed. No sons and no grandsons are mentioned, but two—James and John
ing Greenhaven and Shore Acres), was confirmed by a Royal Grant from King George II to John Gedney—were born after her death and the Gedney family spread into Rye Neck, Scarsdale and
Haight, Daniel Purdy, and John Budd's son.
In 1745 the younger Budd sold part of his property (now Greenhaven) to Peter Augustus White Plains.
Elizabeth Richbell was favored by her mother in the will. She received a gold ring with an
Jay, a Huguenot merchant of New York and father of first Chief Justice of the United States emerald stone, a little Bible, and eighty pounds sterling. Her sister, Ann, received sixty pounds
John Jay. Budd's Neck (now Shore Acres) was sold to another Huguenot family named Guion. sterling and a gold ring. This Ann Richbell (or Anna) married Eleazar Gedney who came to
Some of the Budds moved across the river where they were active in Town of Mamaroneck affairs. Mamaroneck from the Boston Government in the late 1600s and has left many descendants.
Some Budds lie buried in the Town cemetery on Mt. Pleasant Avenue; others moved inland and He and his wife Anna are buried in the Gedney family cemetery on Mamaroneck Avenue near
settled near Poughkeepsie around Salt Point. the Thruway. His gravestone is dated 1722.
First Town Meeting Three years before her death in 1700, Ann Richbell opened her
home to the townsmen of Mamoronack for their first annual town meeting. The following town
First Lady of Many Madam Ann Richbell survived her husband for eighteen years. officers were elected on that day, April 2, 1697: Samuell Palmer, "supreviser," Capt. James Mott,
It is a pity we know so little about her today. She was evidently the first of many brave, capable "asceser," Henery Disbrow, Junier, "colector" and "surveier of the highways," William Palmer, "con-
women who have raised their families here and taken an interest in the development of the
stable" and "clerk."
community. Ann Richbell was a gentlewoman.
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4. Caleb Heathcote Arrives
Vanishing Native However in 1698 the bitterness of that war was far ahead and the
little settlement along the Westchester Path grew in comparative peace. There are no reports of
trouble with the Indians nor much account of how they faded from the local scene. The wars with
the Dutch from 1625 until 1640 had taken their toll among the Siwanoy. Smallpox, measles and
other white man's diseases killed many others who had no natural immunity. There may have
been some intermarriage with Indian girls, and others of the Siwanoy tribe just drifted away,
possibly to Long Island or up into Connecticut.
The following year, Ann Richbell sold about 1,000 acres of land to Colonel Caleb Heathcote Mamaroneck records of annual meetings, starting in 1697 and faithful] kept in a variety
of theet of
Westchester Militia for Y p Y
600 pounds. Colonel p e Heathcote was an ambitious young English- handwriting and weird spelling, do not mention Indians at all. A list taken in 1755 by Captain
man, a native of Derbyshire, who had been in New York about seven years and was a member Joseph Sutton divulges that local residents owned 38 Indian, mulatto, and negro slaves. As years
of the Governor's Council. In addition to his command in the Westchester Militia, which pro- passed some of these were manumitted. On July 4, 1827, slavery ceased in New York State.
tected the County during the French and Indian Wars (1689-1763), Heathcote presided as a There were English settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries with such names as Gedney, Mott,
Justice of the Peace in the Westchester Court of General Sessions, which met twice a year: one Hains, Johnson, Baxter, Palmer; Dutch with names such as Disbrow; French Huguenots after 1688
day in June and one in December. He supplied firewood to the garrison at Fort Orange (Albany) called DeLancey, Guion, Delanoy, Foshay. There were Quakers, English Dissenters, Anglicans.
and had a farm and a mill at Westchester Village (now in the Bronx) and also lived part of the In the middle of the 19th century—after the European revolutions of 1848—Germans started
year in New York. arriving, followed shortly by French and Belgians. The Irish, frustrated by the difficulties of land
The first of many civic-minded men of affairs who have left their mark on Mamaroneck and ownership by Catholics under the existing British laws and discouraged by the potato famines of
Larchmont, he was interested in religion and education, as well as business and civil government. the 1840s, started coming to Mamaroneck about 1852. They were followed at the turn of the
He was one of the founders of Trinity Church parish in New York and a warden of Rye parist century by Italians and a little later by Portugese and Poles. Jews, harried by Russian tsarist
from which St. Thomas's Church derives. He was Mayor of New York City in 1711 and later was pogroms, arrived by twos and threes in the nineties. Many nationalities come here today in connec-
Surveyor of the Customs for the Northeastern District of North America and a Jude in the
Judge tion with the United Nations.
Vice-Admiralty Court for New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Manor of Scarsdale with the Richbell acres in his possession, Colonel Heathcote S. The Animal—A t-Large Problem
(pronounced Heth cut) set about creating a manor for himself on the pattern of those he had
known in England. He repaid the Indians for the eighteen miles of land he had bought from Farming, fishing, and lumbering made a livelihood for the early settlers. The townspeople banded
II together to help each other. The exportation of timber,Mrs. Richbell and bought from them more land in Fox Meadows, White Plains, North Castle p P for example, was stopped by the annual
meeting in 1702 until all fields were cleared. Fences were built at a prescribed height. Roads were
and New Castle. These holdings he consolidated into the Manor of Scarsdale by royal patent in
1701 and—although he died in February 1721—his property remained intact until 1774. Madam mended. Animals, straying on the common, had to be identified by brands and had to be regulated.
Martha Smith Heathcote, whom he married in 1699, survived her husband until 1736 but none The quit rent for the King had to be collected and forwarded to the Governor of the Province of
of her four sons lived to reach his majority. Her daughter, Ann, married the Honorable James
New York.
DeLancey and remained in Mamaroneck. The other daughter, Martha, married Lewis Johnston, In 1717 rams were banned from the common from August 1 through October 20. In 1733 a
'i M.D., of Perth Amboy, N. J. pound was established for horses and mares
found on the common without side hobbles. (Today
Caleb Heathcote built a brick manor house called Heathcote Hill overlooking Mamaroneck
the problem is dogs). In 1765 the annual meeting decreed that oysters and clams "were not to be
Harbor and there they lived, at least in the summertime, about where the Mamaroneck taken or meddled with in the east channel between Ho Island and the
a aroneck Woman s g e mouth of the harbor under
penalty of forty shillings fine" from the early part of April until the middle of October. Persons from
Club now stands. There is a story that he used to be rowed there from New York City in a barge
manned by slaves. out of town were forbidden to take oysters at any time. Since 1925 a United States Department of
Public Health law, endorsed b the Westchester County Department of Health h
As the Heathcote descendants remained loyal to their English inheritance during the Revo- Y as forbidden the
lution, Heathcote Hill was unfortunately burned to the ground when Mamaroneck was "neutral" taking of oysters and clams from our harbor waters by anyone at any time.
or "debatable" ground and its inhabitants were subjected continually to raids and foraging by In 1773 geese were forbidden on the common. In 1785 all men were called out to destroy the
troops from both armies and their camp followers. James DeLancey, sheriff and native of West- barberry which was growing wild, probably as a result of neglect during the Revolutionary War, and
chester, was especially hated as a mastermind in some of these British raids. threatened wheat fields with blight. In 1811 a bounty on crows was established at six cents from
April to December and three cents from December to April, with eggs bringing a reward of one cent.
14
I
15
- I
DeLancey House, built in 1792 on site of Heathcote Manor House
British Arm and returned to New York and
6. Ravages Of Revolution Yta
Mamaroneck He built a wooden house in 1792 m <
on the foundation of the Manor House built by
his grandfather, Caleb Heathcote. There he lived
It
until his death in 1828 and took an active interest
in the affairs of the little town. Supervisor 1798-
1800 and again in 1814, he was also active in
forming St. Thomas's Episcopal parish, previously
part of the Rye parish.
Another Revolutionary soldier, Colonel Gilbert
From 1776 until 1782 no one had time to attend town meeting or to keep minutes; in fact, public
Budd of the American Army, also returned to
gatherings were not held. Neighbor was divided against neighbor by war. The Heathcotes and Mamaroneck and became active in its affairs. He was Clerk of the Township and in 1807 was
DeLanceys remained loyal to the crown, for example, but the Jays and the Budds stood with the formally thanked in the minutes of the annual meeting for his long service in that volunteer post.
Committee of Safety and the Continental Congress. There is a story that a fisherman named Hains
was jailed for denouncing the Congress and another story that one of the Gedneys was tied to a
r if he did not become a Tory. Fear for his wife and
tree and threatened by death from exposure Y
children caused him to change sides—only to be jailed by the opposite faction.
Legend has it that a sloop, or schooner, laden with food for the beseiged people of Boston
sailed from Mamaroneck and was wrecked on Scotch Caps. Among the numerous raids which 7. Old Houses Still Survive
occurred, those directed by the notorious Lt. Col. K G. Simcoe were,particularly feared and hated.
Writing from Mamaroneck on November 21, 1777, under flag of truce to Governor William Tryon,
General Samuel Parsons indignantly objected to British tactics of burning houses and turning Colonel Budd's house has vanished from the scene, but Major DeLancey's house, in which his
innocent women and children out into the night. He received an equally indignant reply. son-in-law James Fenimore Cooper was married, is still here, although disguised now as a tavern.
Through lack of foresight of real estate developers in the 1900s it was moved from its hillside
Battle of Heathcote Hill On October 21, 1776, a battle occurred on Heathcote Hill down to the corner of Fenimore Road and the Post Road and was remodeled in part in 1924.
when American troops, connected with Washington's forces at White Plains, attacked the Queen's Moving houses was lightly undertaken prior to the 20th century. Motor traffic and telephone
Rangers, a loyalist regiment, recruited among natives of Westchestcher and Connecticut, which wires were no problem. Some buildings had no cellars and none had heavy heating and plumbing
was occupying DeLancey's Neck (Orienta) and the harbor's edge. The British were under the equipment. The former Methodist parsonage which now sits on North Barry Avenue opposite
Brooks Street is one illustration. Some old buildings which survive today but serve other than their
command of Lt. Col. Robert Rogers. The Americans, commanded by Major Green, numbered
150 men from the 1st and 3rd Virginia Regiments and 600 men from Delaware. At least 25 dead original purposes are the Gedney farmhouse (now the Rye Neck School Administration buildin g),
were counted in one orchard. Colonel Rogers had taken possession of the schoolhouse which stood the Guion farmhouse and perhaps inn (now Tommy Chen's restaurant); the Van Amringe mill,
on the north side of the Old Post Road near Orienta Avenue. He was surprised by Colonel Haslet at the end of Taylor's Lane, now a private home, and the Weaver Street School at 84 Weaver
and repulsed the attack, but 36 British prisoners, 60 stands of arms and a number of blankets Street, now a private home.
were taken. Other old houses still serving as residences
The Queen's Rangers continued camping in Mamaroneck for several weeks. A Gedney family include the Underhill house on Premium Pond,
burial party was fired upon by soldiers during a burial in the family cemetery behind the F. E. parts of which were built between 1769 and 1773;
Bellows School. The western edge of the Town of Mamaroneck now Larchmont Manor was the Manor House on Elm at Prospect Avenue,
occupied during the same weeks by Hessian troops under the command of General Wilhelm von Larchmont, built in 1790 by Peter Jay Munro,
Knyphausen. They had landed on Davenport Neck in New Rochelle and their number swelled to and the old Griffen homestead on Old White
14,000 exclusive of camp followers. A British military map shows their camp between the Post Plains Road opposite Saxon Woods Park. It stands
Road and the Sound, just over the New Rochelle line in Mamaroneck. on land that belonged to the Griffen family from
1711 until the late 1920s and the oldest portion
DeLancey Returns After the war, Major John Peter DeLancey resigned from the has carved on its door 1712. Griffen Home.sieud, bunt in 1712
17
16
3 V
8. Not All So Fortunate 9. Path To Progress
On October 14, 1814, John Peter DeLancey wrote from his Mamaroneck home to his son-in-law Communications were poor in the first two hundred years of Mamaroneck's settled history. It
James Fenimore Cooper: was twelve years after John Richbell bought his land before the first Post Riders started coming
through on the eighteen-inch-wide Westchester Path. It was another hundred years before stage
"! seldom hear from Tom. He is so busy in drilling his men, and I believe he is now g g
on a tour of duty at Harlem throwing up works. He and Edward expect commis- coaches started coming through. The riders at first took two weeks for the trip from New York
Bions in Governor Tompkin's new Levies. The report of the day [from the Com- to Boston. Later they shortened this to one week each way. They brought letters, newspapers, and
mittee of Defence] is that the British are expected this Falk for my own part I do
not believe it. I think the season is too late for this year. What next Spring may word-of-mouth news. But news was scarce. In 1781 the will of John Guion stated:
produce I do not know." "Whereas my son Peter Guion hath been gone for seven years and not heard of, in
A light on the condition of the few slaves who lived in Mamaroneck is included in this letter case he should return in person . . ."
also. Mr. DeLancey wrote: A United States Post Office was opened on the Post Road in Mamaroneck Village on December 23,
"Sam and Abraham want to be sold. Do you want either or both of them? The price W 1812. David Rogers was the first postmaster. The Post Office later occupied a store on Mamaroneck
is X 100 for each. The former went to town fora week to try to get somebody to Avenue nearer to the railroad station. Free carrier service began for those who lived on streets
purchase him, but could get nobody to give him more than forty pounds for him;
that had sidewalks about 1900 and air mail commenced in 1918. The present Post Office on
the other is to go as soon as we get through our Fall work . . . Do you want a
steady man to take care of your sheep and poultry . . ." Mt. Pleasant Avenue was commissioned on December 30, 1935.
When a slave was manumitted by his master the transaction was a matter of public record and Larchmont did not build up as rapidly as did Mamaroneck. Its first United States Post Office
had to have the consent of the poor master. In 1793 the Town meeting recorded that Henry was opened on June 29, 1882, with the appointment of William H. Mills as postmaster. Air mail
Disbrow had bought 'for 3 pounds- the time of the Negro man, Christmas, from May 15 until started in 1918 and carrier service on October 18, 1919. The present building was completed
the next Town meeting, when he was to be returned "as well clothed as he now is." and first occupied late in 1937.
Relief for the Needy The plight of the poor became painful to the townsmen shortly
after the Revolution. In 1789 they voted 15 pounds for the support of these people. Each year 10. Soil Tillers, Cotton Millers
thereafter they provided for the poor and that the poor master should visit them, especially during
the winter.
In 1802 they started talking with other towns about a joint poorhouse. This they considered Despite poor communications, the economy was changing gradually during the 19th century,
again in 1820 at a special meeting. In 1875 they resolved that "travellers in extreme necessity especially after the Civil War, from agriculture to industry. Today only one small truck farm
shall be taken care of to the extent of one night's lodging and one meal during the winter months." remains. Well-kept lawns, vegetable patches, and flower gardens remind us that the soil is fertile
and easily worked. Vegetable "Victory" gardens flourished during World War Il in many vacant
Shank's Mare for Many These foot travelers along the Post Road were a familiar lots. Today, however, vacant lots are hard to come by.
sight in the 19th century. Not everyone—nor every immigrant family—had the money to ride on Milling was the first industry in Mamaroneck. Caleb Heathcote had a grist mill on the
the stage coaches which began to run from the Battery to Boston in 1772, nor on the railroad Mamaroneck River and a Quaker named John Deall operated a tidewater mill at the end of
which first came through on Christmas Day 1848, nor on the produce sloops.
Taylor's Lane. John Guion ran a gristmill where Beaver Brook fell into Guion Creek. There
James Fenimore Cooper's daughter mentions in an introduction to his letters that her grand- was a mill on the Sheldrake River where Larchmont Gardens Lake offers skating now.
mother, Mrs. John Peter DeLancey, felt sorry for the people who trudged past on the road and A cotton processing mill—the Premium Mill—was a big establishment on Premium Pond
sent them milk for the babies and food for the whole family. They were making their way to until about 1830. During the Civil War the Deall mill was operated by Theodore Van Amringe
who had bought out Mr. Deall in 1836 and converted the mill to grinding pumice. He imported
New England for jobs in the new factories. Some of them found jobs here and stayed.
18 19
I
i
the pumice stone from Turkey and sold his product to the Union forces as an abrasive. This IL Highways And Byways
mill continued working into the 20th century.
Cotton Mill On Avenue The Westchester Manufacturing Company was formed early
N in the 19th century and took over the Heathcote mill, using it to process cotton. The mill stood
on the flat land behind the buildings on Mamaroneck Avenue between the Post Road and Prospect
Avenue. This mill burned down in 1836 and was not replaced until 1848. After the dam was
destroyed in 1854, water power was brought through a flume from a smaller dam upstream near
Ward Avenue. The factory burned again in 1867 and was abandoned.
There was a pickle factory further up the river on Halstead Avenue near where the Camo- Many early milestones along the Post Road still stand, among them one at Tompkins Square in Rye
tone plant is today. A factory in Washingtonville did a large business in exporting gutta percha
Neck and one mounted on a large stone pedestal near the flagpole by the Larchmont Village
sheets. After 1890 there was also a big stone quarry on Fenimore Road in -Washingtonville and Municipal Building that reads: "21 miles from New York." A plaque on the pedestal states:
a MacIn a "Originally erected in 1804 1/a mile
tosh factory on Mamaroneck Avenue, whose building still is in use. ..
east of here, 21 miles via the Boston
Post Road to New York City Hall.
Wagons and Saddles Wagons and carriages were made on the west side of Mamar- Reset 1941. .
oneck Avenue near the Post Road and also close by Larchmont Station. Saddles and harness were Westchester County was divided :{ +
made locally. Jobs were to be had building roads, on the railroad, building houses. Cordwainers into towns in 1788 by the Legisla- f .,�. : AF
and blacksmiths were prosperous. ture of the State of New York. Ago =
Meanwhile the waters of the Sound sparkled in the summer sun and beckoned city people as Town functions and powers were
guests of a variety of hotels—from rather elegant establishments in Larchmont and Orienta, to a set by state law. It was 1826 before
simpler one on the present Harbor Island and several drummers' hotels near the railroad. Two the annual (by that time two day) 23 Miles from New York, says the Post Road milestone in front of the old Silleck
farmhouse in Mamaroneck. The stone marker has since been moved a block or so
hotels remain in Larchmont Manor and motels have sprung up along the Post Road. In the gay meeting in Mamaroneck authorized to Tompkins Square where it stands today.
nineties large country houses came into style along the waterfront. Names of financiers became local: the supervisor to spend money he held from the tax on the Turnpike and from bank stocks to buy
Flagler, Bostwick, Constable, Osborn, Taylor. Some estates remain as dwellings; some have be- a copy of the laws of the State. People were still independent-minded. They resented the interfer-
come private clubs; one is now a school. Farms gradually were sold and subdivided. They lingered ence of the State in their management of local roads and they said so.
longest in the unincorporated section of the Town. They had been cooperating since 1802 with people in New Rochelle on the maintenance of
the Post Road (which they called Main Street in the Village of Mamaroneck). The Westchester
The Carriage Trade was plied in Mamaroneck by Jacob Mayer, who Turnpike Company, a private concern, had built a toll road in 1805 and in 1812 the Town had
made his vehicles in this building on the west side of Mamaroneck
Avenue near the Post Road.Picture from the Free Library collection bought two road scrapers, presumably for roads other than the Turnpike. Weaver Street existed
Boal, the Blacksmith, had his shop on Mamaroneck Avenue. dates to about 1910.
then and also Mt. Pleasant Avenue.
—- m $200 Went a Good Way In 1865 Mamaroneck Avenue from the Post Road to the
' Depot received improvements costing $250, and another $200 was appropriated to extend a
- "carriage way" twenty-three-feet wide to the Harrison line. Mamaroneck Avenue suffered in its
r1 development for some years due to a spring which created havoc from time to time and also to a
grade crossing at the railroad. It was, however, widened to 100 feet in 1877 and during the nine-
ties the railroad was persuaded to construct the underpass.
Chatsworth Avenue crossed the railroad on a bridge. It was opened in 1874. As the Town
., .. r. grew and the automobile age unfolded, care of the through roads passed to the County and State,
but care of the local roads was retained.
20 21
Hotels and streets named for the Union blossomed on the assessment maps. The Town
erected a Liberty pole at the Village Square in 1862 and the care of the flag thereafter became
the duty of the Town Clerk. When the Post Road was widened in 1930 the bandstand and horses'
drinking trough disappeared. The flagpole was relocated on Harbor Island.
13. Birth Of Two Villages
1@1 IN
Snow Removal, a multithousand-dollar budget item now, was no problem before the automobile age. This picture of turn-of-the-century Mamaroneck Village has remained the site of the Town offices throughout the Town's history.
Mamaroneck Avenue includes two horse-drawn sleighs.The scene is from the east side of the Avenue looking down the West Post Road, center,
the cone-topped band shell and flagpole being at the entrance to Harbor Island. Rented quarters on the Post Road succeeded private houses as meeting places and from 1879
Snow removal from the roads is a problem of the automobile age. Gilbert Haight writing a until about 1940 the Town offices and jail were in the present American Legion Hall. They now
diary in March 1868 records that snow fell deep enough for sleighing on the 9th of December are back in rented quarters on the Post Road with the Board meeting room at the Weaver Street
and was still on the ground:
Firehouse.
"At this writing we have had twenty-three snow storms . . . the cricke has been The State law did not allow Towns to provide many municipal services such as police, fire and
frozen up solid since the 15th day of December and no sloops could get in or out sanitation until legal changes were made between 1909 and 1934. People living in rather thickly
of the harbor . . . March 17—This morning the harbor is clear of ice so a sloop can settled neighborhoods wanted those services and at the same time did not want to give up their
get out and in . . . March 20—A heavy snow fell last night so that the N.N.H.R.
was obstructed. The snow lays in drifts, and is about six inches on the level." representation on the County Board of Supervisors. So in 1891 residents of Larchmont voted to
More snow was recorded on April 5th, 1.Oth, and 13th. incorporate as Larchmont Village.
Reluctant Bride Four years later Mamaroneck Village was incorporated for the same
12. Town Met Civil War Quotareasons. People living near the harbor were tired of wading through muddy roads and walking on
clamshell sidewalks—when indeed they were fortunate enough to pass a house which had a shell
sidewalk. They were also tired of struggling with septic tanks, dry wells and privies. Rye Neck
During the Civil War there was another hiatus in the Town records. None appear for 1863 and was a reluctant bride in this union. In Mamaroneck the vote on November 16, 1895 tallied: ayes
1864. This was not due to carelessness as the safe-keeping of records was frequently mentioned 246, nays 68; in Rye Neck: ayes 168, nays 159.
over two hundred years. The biggest tangible asset of this amalgam for the whole Mamaroneck area was the purchase
At the close of the war, in April 1865, it was noted that Louis Walsh had been supervisor for by the Village in 1907 of Hog or Quahog, now called Harbor Island, for $69,125. Four acres
two years and had attended many meetings in White Plains. It was also stated that Mr. Walsh upland and 16 adjacent acres underwater became public property. A beach was created about 1910
had "saved the Town a large amount of money by filling up the quota of soldiers due to the on the west side of the island near where the tennis courts now are. Sand was imported from Cow
Government of the United States." Mr. Walsh was described as "a true friend of the soldier and l Bay and each year found it washed away. The beach was usable only at high tide. At that time
also of the poor." the island was cut off from the mainland by a tidal creek over which a causeway carried the
The following year the Town meeting voted to spend $100 to buy an arm for William O'Brien, road down to the coal dock on the south shore. There sloops, and later steamboats, docked to
but there is no explanation of how he lost his arm. pick up freight.
Drill Hall Still Stands Graves in the Town cemetery remind us each Memorial Day Improvement in Thirties In the early thirties the coal dock was removed and the.
of those who served in the Union Army and Navy. A Mr. Cochran who kept the Weaver Street present bathing pavilion and beach were constructed. A stone retaining wall was built as a WPA
School enlisted in the Army—as did many others—but no local lists were kept. A local company of project which the Village fathers secured to provide work for the many unemployed, but skilled,
boys drilled on the field at the corner of Barry Avenue and the Post Road. Their drill hall still stone masons living in Washingtonville. A Federal grant, partially supported by Village tax funds,
stands although now converted into a multiple dwelling. A branch of the United States Sanitary provided means of dredging the West Basin and filling in the tidal creek, as well as filling the
Commission met at the Barry Avenue School. Mrs. Guion was its president. underwater acres which had been gradually filled for twenty years as a garbage dump.
22 23
This venerable public thoroughfare, which was substantially the same route as today's Boston
Post Road, was visible from his front door.
` Neither Least nor Last So, little known to himself, Mr. Munro in this historic
moment of chagrined discovery became the first Larchmont citizen to complain about Thruway
ry .
w a � noises and Post Road eyesores. Thus we might attribute to him the honor of being grandfather
to all of today's Zoning and Planning Boards. His tribe has mightily increased!
: Anyway, Mr. Munro decided that he wanted to plant some kind of fast-growing trees on his
estate which would as soon as possible screen out the dust and clatter. He consulted his gardener,
a Scot, and that canny one suggested that he might send to his relatives in Scotland for seeds of the
native Larch tree. This was done and the trees grew quickly, making Mr. Munro happy. In
The
the Flagler estate on Edgewater Point shows the Larchmont breakwater.Shoreline of John Richbell's purchase today boasts many beautifully landscaped parks, c6rbgrounds, and private estates. This view from
appreciation he then called his property "Larchmont," the "mont" deriving from the hill on which
According to William H. Johnson, who was Village Manager at this time, it took about eight
the house stood overlooking the Horseshoe Harbor. Only two larch trees remain on the property—
years to really establish the beach by spreading layer upon layer of sand on the mud. The Village whether original planting or descendants is not clear—but in the name of the Village the old trees
are memorialized in the hearts of its residents.
still buys sand yearly to improve the beach. All residents of the Village, Town, and Larchmont
Village may use it for an annual fee. The Island also affords boating facilities, football, baseball,
softball fields, tennis courts, children's playground, parking area for cars, and a place to sit on a
P Advent Of Collins Edward K. Collins, a gentleman from Mississippi and president of a
hot day beneath a tree beside the water. transatlantic steamship company, purchased the manor in 1845. He liked to entertain and built a
The idea of having a pleasant waterside park is duplicated in Larchmont, although restricted
ballroom on the west side of the mansion, which was later taken down. He brought his guests
there to residents of the Manor section. Other public parks include Station Park Plaza, Cargill
Park, Flint Park, Larchmont Gardens Lake, Columbus Park, and Florence Street Park. from New York to Larchmont on his steam yacht, anchoring in Horseshoe Harbor, and helping
the ladies across the rocks and beach to the boathouse by laying a red carpet.
It was he who added the porch on the north facade of the mansion and the double-decked
portico on the south side, embellished with designs in gold. He also added the stained glass Collins'
coat of arms in a fanlight above the south door and the delicately tinted glass sidelights—all imported
14. Larchmont: To The Manor Born from France.
On September 20, 1854, the S. S. Artie sailed from Liverpool with about 300 passengers,
many of them prominent in the New York business and social world. At noon on the twenty-sixth,
Larchmont started its development as farmland. In 1701 Samuel Palmer bought the middle neck " as a heavy fog began to lift, the Artic collided with the S. S. Vesta. There were lifeboats for only 50
of the Richbell purchase. Farms adjoining the Palmer acres belonged over the years to the Burnet, persons and after frantic efforts to improvise rafts, the Artic sank with almost all of her passengers.
Wilmont, and Kane families. According to Philip Severin, whose memory is still green, a small
Larchmont Hills now exists and art of that
colony of immigrant families lived in the 1890s where La p �
area was known as "Goat Hill" because goat milk could be bought there. "
An old storyruns that the name "Larchmont," which has become the address for slightly i
more than half of the inhabitants of the Township, originated when Peter Jay Munro, a New York
neck property from the
attorney of Westchester background, acquired almost all of the middle p p y �a
F
Palmers in 1790 and proceeded to build for himself and family a lovelymansion at the head of g
what is now Prospect Avenue. Called then the "Mansion House, it still stands today, known
more intimately as the "Manor House." On its completion, it can now be imagined, Mr. Munro
stepped back to admire his lovely home and spacious grounds and found to his chagrin that
Manor House in Larchmont was built in 1790 by Peter!ay Munro. View at left is from the north,or Post Road side.South portico was added
he was greatly annoyed by the dust and noises of horses' hooves from the old Boston Post Road. by Edward K. Collins, who purchased the mansion in 1845.
25
24
It was two weeks before the news reached New York and caused the closing of the stock Good Old Days Philip Severin, in a series of charmingly nostalgic articles on early Larch-
exchange and many banks for a period of mourning. The captain of the vessel wrote to Mr. mont, which appeared in The Daily Times in 1949, reminds us fondly about the horse and buggy
Collins from Quebec, where he was taken after being rescued: days of Larchmont at the turn of the century. His word picture might also have been painted of
"Dear Sir: It becomes my painful duty to inform you of the total loss of the S. S. Mamaroneck Station in that era, when families of great wealth were summer residents of Orienta
Artic, under my command, with your wife, daughter, and son . . ." Point and the Rye Neck waterfront:
"The roads were all dirt with wagon ruts quite deep at times...The wagons
Convenient to Station In 1865, Mr. Collins decided to auction off his "Manor." On and carriages with trotter, or team, made their way over the station bridge,
going to and from houses and farms of the surrounding area. Some carried
the auction map, as an added attraction to buyers, was shown a building described as the "Chats- residents of the Manor to the station and stores in attractive carriages,many
worth Station" of the New Haven Railroad, "conveniently" located 1/2 mile from the property for with coachmen, and on rare occasions a footman to open milady's carriage.
Many were the surreys—some with fringes—backed to the station platform,
Sale. some seeking fares from the in-coming steam-engined trains. Drivers of the
This old Chatsworth Station, now today's busy Larchmont Station, was in those days only a surreys barked for fares...The vehicle which carried the bulk of commuters
flag stop on the line: commuter business being so poor. The "convenience" of the station, however, was the horsecar. . . They left the station and proceeded down Larchmont
Avenue to Cedar Avenue. The heavy snows of those years did not deter the
to buyers of property in Larchmont, did materialize a few years later. horsecars from delivering their fares along the avenue."
it
Flint, the Developer Meanwhile, the'Collins land was purchased by Thompson J. S.
Flint who realized its natural attractions and began to develop his plan for an exclusive suburban
community that would attract the prominent and wealthy metropolitan dweller. He first, though,
took a loyal native son's precaution of setting aside six acres of shorefront as a park for the benefit
of those who bought lots.
i
In 1872, Mr. Flint sold the 288 acres of land involved to the Larchmont Manor Company for
$250,000. The provision was made and stands today that the six shorefront acres be retained for �a
III the residents deriving original ownership rights from transactions with the Larchmont Manor
l
Company. The curving waterside park was designed by George S. Towle, a member of Olmstead
Brothers, the firm which designed Central Park in New York.
Came the Stars As Larchmont developed more and more as a desirable summer colony,
I�
Charles Brady King, automotive pioneer and long-time Larchnronter, drives first automobile
many well-to-do city businessmen and members of the theater and arts groups began settling their through streets of Detroit.March 6,1896.
families here for the summer. Laurette Taylor and John Drew are remembered as residents of
Larchmont. Ethel Barrymore lived for years on Taylor's Lane, Mamaroneck, and D. W. Griffith Sunday School and a Club About this time in a little shoreside wooden building at
also felt the lure of the Sound, building a studio on the Flagler estate on Orienta Point where he Horseshoe Harbor two diligent ladies started Larchmont's first Sunday School. A group of men who
" artistic colon still flourishes in Larchmont with Jean and
Storm. This arts rested in boating petitioned Mr. Flint for use of the building as a clubhouse. He agreed,
n of the Y r interested filmed "Orphans were g
gP
Walter Kerr, Walter Slezak, Phyllis McGinley and many others.
with the provisions that they would pay a token annual rental of one dollar, that they would provide
Access to New York was important. A horsecar line, an innovation of the Manor company, was janitorial service to clean up for the Sunday School meetings, and that they themselves would not
built in 1872 and ran back and forth on Larchmont Avenue to the Chatsworth Station, starting use the building on Sundays for club meetings, although they were welcome to attend Church. They
bul g Y
fromCedar and Grove Avenues in the Manor each morning about 8 o'clock, alerting the early agreed and thus quietly andquite unostentatiously was born today's's national mecca of boatin
'and
"commuters" to its departure from the barn by the loud ringing of a bell and depositing them back racing: the Larchmont Yacht Club. Its birthplace still stands, occupied by the Horseshoe Harbor
P g
home in the late afternoon. Club.
L�
26 27
1 S. Water, Gas, Power And Protection study of possible sources. In June 1959 a 30-inch main to the
Delaware River was ready to combat summer droughts. The
Village of Larchmont was added to the distribution system with
1,600 paying customers representing 7,000 persons.
Bucket brigades and water pumped from the harbor having
proven incapable of coping with major fires, volunteers in both
villages at about the same time in the 1880s, started hose com-
panies. In Larchmont, fires on weekends were rather gala affairs
Charles Murray, first president of the Manor Park Society, pioneered in bringing "modern with the firemen clad in white flannels and blueachtin jackets;
Y g j
conveniences to Larchmont. He financed a large reservoir in 1889 which led to the creation of the on weekdays there was apt to be a dearth of volunteers as so
Larchmont Water Company. Mr. Murray organized the Larchmont Electric Company in 1894. many had gone to the City. Three fire departments now protect
Gaslight had come to Yonkers in 1854, and to Mamaroneck about 1875. The Westchester Lighting our homes. ,
Company merged 11 small companies in 1900, providing light, fuel and power. Finally in 1951 it William Palmer was elected constable and clerk at the
merged with the Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc. Natural gas was brought to the area first town meeting in 1697. His successors today are many and
by Con Ed in 1951. well-equipped to protect an area of 9.81 square miles with a
The problems of water supply and fire control were common to both villages as they grew. population of 35,812. tikt,
Several disastrous tires destroyed blocks of stores and, although blessed with wells of sweet spring The Police Officer of a half century ago was
geared to a more leisurely pace than is his
water, more houses meant that more water was a vital need. A private water company was organized modern counterpart.
in Mamaroneck in 1887 by wealthy summer residents of Orienta; reservoirs were established at
Mamaroneck and Winfield Avenues and also at Gedney's pond.
Ten years later the demand for water by other residents resulted in the Mamaroneck Water
Company, which installed equipment for purifying the water and distributed it via three-inch mains,
relying on gravity for pressure. There were 500 customers on the company's books in no time at all.
Fire hydrants soon brought the need for bigger mains plus a pumping station forcibly to the atten- 16. Press And Phones
tion of the men of the community. In 1902 Interurban Water Works absorbed the Mamaroneck
Water Company. A 16-inch main was built along Mamaroneck Avenue and other streets, through
the Town of Mamaroneck, New Rochelle and Pelham to Mount Vernon. A 12-inch main ran along
Barry and Halstead Avenues to Harrison Communications increased considerably as the centuries unfolded. The coming of the railroad
and Rye Beach; a new pumping station speeded up the arrival of letters and newspapers. Telegraph service came about 1865, then local
was built on the original site. newspapers. In 1879 George Morris Forbes started the first of these, the Mamaroneck Investigator.
In 1927 Westchester Joint Water- It was published on Main Street in Rye Neck but lasted only three or four years. Its successors were
works No. 1 was voted into being, in- the Mamaroneck Register, edited by William E. Peters, and the Richbell Press, published by J.
heriting 5,000 accounts. Additional Wallace Clapp. Next came the Mamaroneck Paragraph, a weekly, established by Charles Nutt and
storage areas were built, the reservoir published for many years by Charles R. Rice, who was also something of a photographer. Coex-
was enlarged and Rye Lake was tapped. istent with the Paragraph was the Larchmont Times, issued by George P. Forbes on a weekly
In 1959 there were 8,500 accounts rep- basis. In 1925, Mr. Forbes founded The Daily Times and absorbed the Paragraph. In 1943 The
resenting a population of 46,500 which Daily Times became a Macy Westchester Newspaper.
consumed upward of 1.7 billion gallons `- Telephone service started here in 1898 with two exchanges: Larchmont and Mamaroneck.
of water annually. The three municipali- Both names faded from telephone books when dial telephone service started locally after the Korean
ties of which the utility is the agent War.Telephone exchanges do not follow municipal boundaries exactly. In May 1961 the Mamaro-
(.Mamaroneck Village, Mamaroneck Volunteer Firemen,organized in both villages in the 1880s,have marched in count- neck exchange which is now called OWens 8 had 7,181 subscribers. Larchmont, now known as
less colorful parades. This one was about 1910, proceeding eastward on the West
Town, Harrison Town) undertook a Post Road nearing Mamaroneck Avenue. TEnnyson 4, had 7,236.
28 29
3
1/ . Sloops Slip In And Out in the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Schools and also in Rye Neck. Besides the public schools there are
parochial schools: three Catholic and one Jewish.
Way back in 1704, Caleb Heathcote was concerned about schools. He wrote to the Venerable
Society for the Propogation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in London, England, about the need for
a schoolmaster in Westchester. Joseph Cleator arrived before the year was out, on a salary of 15
pounds per year paid by the Society. He kept school four months of the year in Mamaroneck, four
months in Rye, and four in Bedford.
On April 3, 1733, at their annual meeting the "freeholders and inhabitants voted and agreed
to hold all town meetings in the school house by Daniel Barker's." That would have been near
Orienta Avenue and the Old Post Road and may have been a private school supported by subscrip-
The coming of the railroad in 1848 made a change in the transportation of freight. Prior to the tion. There is no record of town support at that date. It was in that schoolhouse that the British
railroad, freight moved by sea. Two sloops made the voyage to New York and back once a week, Queen's Rangers were quartered in October 1776.
docking at Harbor Island and also at the Rye Town dock on Guion Creek. Captain John Chapman
told his memory of these boats when he was ninety years old in 1949: 'State Encouragement After the Revolution when the State of New York came into
"Y used to stand on the bridge and watch them sail in. I could sight their topsails g
over the trees on Orients." , g being, the Legislature was at first occupied by setting up State, County and Town laws. In 1795 it
got around to schools and voted "legality and state encouragement"to associations of taxpayers in
Captain Hains Gedney owned the sloops. One was called the John G. Perry, carried 100 tons communities for the maintenance of schools, provided for town school commissioners who appor-
and was 90 feet on the boom. She was said to have the largest mainsail of any vessel that docked tioned state funds among several neighborhood school districts and with whom district trustees were
in New York harbor. The other sloop on "required to confer . . . concerning the qualifications of the masters or master . . . and all matters
u the Mamaroneck run was the Celerity.Y relating to the welfare of the school, of the property, of erecting and maintaining the same, so as to
E
nW' Like all of Captain Gedney's fleet of entitle it to a share of the public money."
t
seven vessels, she was designed by her Commissioners elected at the Town meeting on April 5, 1796 were Edward Merrit, John
owner and built in Milton. About 1890 Griffen, and Samuel Merrit. By 1807 there was a schoolhouse on Weaver Street and in 1819 a meet-
two steamboats replaced the sloops and ing was held in the schoolhouse by the Sheldrake bridge. That would be the old "Depot School" site
'
N- alternated dailyon the tri to New York.
p on Mamaroneck Avenue, on which a new wooden building was built in 1855 facing south toward
' They were the Hattie Palmer, the Mary the Sound. The land for this site was bought in 1815 for one cent from the Westchester Manufac-
;a E. Gordon, and later the Irene Elaine turing Co. All that remains of the Depot School today y is the bell which summons worshippers to
Davis. After about thirty-five years of Mass at St. Vito's Church. The Weaver Street School still stands—camouflaged since 1927 under a
the
use, out of business b Y were put Y coat of stucco and converted into a residence.
competition from motor trucks.
a P These early schools had several small private
IN Growth and progress do not always rivals both in Mamaroneck and Rye Neck.Parents
IN
- ° add u to a pleasanter life. t
p P supplemented tax monies with some payments
The Irene Elaine Davis, snuggled between the East Basin dock and the Cygnet,
was one of the steamboats that made the daily trip to New York from about for tuition and/or books. Besides this from 1848 r '
1890 for 35 years. through 1873 the dog tax of fifty cents per animal {
was given for school expenses. For a short time
in the 1830s there was a third public school on
3
18. The Education Explosion Rockland Avenue and for a time in the 1860s
a fourth was kept on Weaver Street at the Scars-
dale line.
The Weaver Street School, built before 1807, still stands as a
In the development of local schools, a vigorous, steady growth has blossomed into Mamaroneck's stuccoed residence.
pride:'fine, buildings, high standards of instruction, fine programs, and excellent playing fields for •
the 6500 or more boys and girls who stream along the Post Road and many other streets to classes Consolidation In 1887 all the Larchmont-Mamaroneck schools were consolidated into a
30 31
o-
Union Free School District, and Central School was constructed. A High School department was June 8, 1895, the New York State Assembly created Harrison District No. 6. According to
organized in 1890. Harris Sniffen, the well-beloved principal of Weaver Street School, was offered the Rye Neck School counsel, William Samuel Johnson, questions of bonded indebtedness, dis-
the position of first High School principal. He had prepared many boys—some from Rye Neck— tribution of children, boundaries, etc., which arose as a result of the new district were settled
for college entrance, charging them a fee for his services only when he felt they could afford to "without friction on the easy principles of common justice." In 1895, also, women voted at the
pay him, but he preferred to remain with the younger children. annual District meeting on their right as taxpayers and over the challenge of at least one gentleman.
The growth of the schools reflects the growth of the community. Additions to Central School The first High School graduation took place in Rye Neck in 1895. A kindergarten was started
were made in 1912 and as recently as 1942. A proposition to buy a new school site near the in 1903 making a K-12 school in one building as in Mamaroneck. Frederick E. Bellows was
Hommocks to replace Central was defeated in January 1961 but plans for expansion are still under appointed principal and served in this capacity until 1931 when he was designated superintendent.
consideration by the Board of Education and a number of citizens. Mamaroneck Avenue School
replaced the Depot School in 1902 and had to be expanded in 1916 and 1928.
Bellows and Warren Growth of the school population necessitated a new building
and the High School was moved in 1923 into its own structure on Carroll Avenue. After Mr.
Expansion Constant Larchmont's first modern school building was Chatsworth Avenue Bellows' retirement the name of the High School was changed to the Frederick E. Bellows High
School, built in 1902 with additions in 1912,1922 and 1930 but these were not sufficient to accom- School, but in 1957 the name Rye Neck High School was revived when a new building was
modate children from the rapidly growing Town of Mamaroneck section. Weaver Street School was completed on a 46-acre plot given to the District by Mrs. Edgar Palmer and carved out of the
reactivated for several years until Murray Avenue School was ready for occupancy in 1922. It too original Jay farm. The Carroll Avenue building, which had been enlarged in 1928, today houses
needed additions in 1926 and 1930. the Frederick E. Bellows Elementary School. Another elementary school was needed in 1930
The Senior High School was built in 1925 and was enlarged in 1958. In 1931 the Junior High to accommodate the children from Shore Acres, Greenhaven and the eastern part of Rye Neck.
School was opened and served without enlargement until 1959. In fact during World War II the This was built in 1930 and was named two years later for Daniel Warren in appreciation of his
Senior High building housed grades 7 through 12 and the newer building was closed to save fuel. service as a school trustee 1892-1895 and as president of the Board of Education 1896-1928.
Registration (May 1961) was 5,004 pupils in kindergarten through 12th grade. The enrollment in May 1961 was 1,523 kindergarten through 12th grade.
19. Three R's In Rye Neck 20. Comforts To Th
.v e Sick
There is no hospital in Mamaroneck. Residents have been served since 1889 by New Rochelle
Growth similar to that in Mamaroneck took place in Rye Neck. In 1739 travelers to Boston on the Hospital and since July 1892 by United Hospital in Port Chester. After considerable debate and
Westchester Path noted a school house on their left near the Jay Farm—very close to the site of the investigation of the rising cost of hospital equipment by local physicians during the 1920s, the
new Rye Neck High School. Children attended this school from Rye Neck, Harrison and Milton. On Palmer Hospital Fund of about $25,000 which had been bequeathed for the erection of a hospital
April 6, 1813 the Rye Town Board voted to distribute the school fund and appointed Samuel Deall here, was added to the endowment at United. The Westchester County Hospital at Grasslands
of Rye Neck, Ezrabiah Wetmore of Port Chester and Jared Peck of Rye as commissioners; and John also serves local residents.
Guion of Rye Neck, John Brown of Rye and Charles Field of Port Chester, inspectors. In 1814 the Two visiting nurse associations serve the Town. Larchmont Visiting Nurse Association, Inc.
Town was divided into three districts and District 1 was designated as the land south of the farm- has offices in the Municipal Building. It was organized in 1910 and offers bedside care on a part-
house of Sylvanus Lyon. That homestead stood just east of the Osborn Memorial Home. time basis throughout the Larchmont Postal District.
In 1857 the population center of District 1 had shifted closer to Mamaroneck Harbor and the The Mamaroneck Postal District is served by the Mamaroneck Health Center, Inc. at 234
railroad. The District lines were redrawn and a new schoolhouse was built on Barry Avenue. The Stanley Avenue. This organization is the result of a merger in 1934 of the Mamaroneck Society
District became a Union Free School, rather than a Common School District. for Lending Comforts to the Sick, Inc. (1909) and the Child Welfare Association (1918). By act
of the Village Board the Health Center was combined in 1938 with the Westchester County
Department of Health. It provides bedside care in the Mamaroneck Postal District. Throughout
Without Friction In 1893 the yellow, wooden, Barry Avenue School was replaced the Town and Village of Mamaroneck it covers child health, maternity, tuberculosis control, Com-
by a brick structure which was enlarged in 1902 and 1907 and has been demolished in 1961. On municable diseases, orthopedic cases, mental health, and polio immunizations.
32 33
a
21. Reading, Free, For All the Massachusetts colony. The first meeting on the mainland was at the Village of Westchester
near Throggs Neck. The next meeting was in Mamaroneck, probably at the home of Samuel
Palmer. It languished for a time and was "re-established" in 1711.
Two libraries serve residents of our Town. Both are members of the Westchester Library The graveyard, on the north side of the Boston Post Road in Larchmont just west of Larch-
Mont Avenue, marks the location of this simple meetinghouse and of its successor which was
system and both are free. Larchmont Public Library started as a Free Library Association but is
built in 1739. As the Quaker. farmers moved inland to higher lands the drive down Weaver Street
now operated by a board of trustees appointed by the Village Board. It receives Village and Town
tax support. The building was built by the Village in 1924 on grounds given by E. F. Albee. The became irksome and the meetinghouse was moved just over the Scarsdale town line. It continued
Village Board has recently approved funds for improved facilities. to be known as the Mamaroneck Meeting until about 1930 when it was "laid down" and its
members became members of the Purchase Meeting. The deed to the burying ground is preserved
There was a "Reading Room" in Mamaroneck in 1865. It received a grant of $200 from
the Town meeting that April. Small lending libraries thereafter supplied books. In 1922 the at Purchase.
Mamaroneck Free Library Association was formed by a group of interested residents. It opened '
OUr Original Ep1SCOpa lan Caleb Heathcote was an Anglican. He wrote from his
its doors to public borrowing of books which it had collected in a rented store. A vacant lot in
home on Heathcote Hill to the Bishop of London asking that missionaries be sent to Westchester
Rye Neck at Barry Avenue and the Post Road was deeded to the Library by Augustus Y. Van to establish the Church. It is recorded that by 1704: "one Church of England parson officiated in
Amringe. However, the trustees decided the location was too far from the center of the Village. Rye, Mamaroneck, and Horseneck (now Greenwich) once every Sunday in turn throughout the
So they sold the land and purchased the present site on Prospect Avenue. A gift from the Baxter year." This arrangement did not work out well. In February 1705, Colonel Heathcote wrote to
family increased the available land to the rear. In 1927 the John R. Hegeman Memorial Building the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts that the Reverend Thomas
was erected with the rear lawn space left for future expansion.
Pritchard A. M. had scarcely preached four sermons in any part of his parish-in the past four
Plans for this expansion are actively underway. Like the Health Center, the Library depends
months, that he was living in a French Town called New Rochelle, and that nobody would come
for its support upon both private subscriptions and public tax funds. A
to hear him when he did preach. (Whether through Mr. Pritchard or someone else, however, most
of the New Rochelle Huguenots eventually became Episcopalians). Colonel Heathcote was a
vestryman of Trinity parish in New York City and was genuinely concerned for the Church.
Mamaroneck remained part of the Rye parish from 1704 until 1817 and was represented
on the vestry there until the independent parish of St. Thomas's was incorporated. John Peter
And Such Delancey was the first senior warden of St. Thomas's; Peter Jay Munro was junior warden. The
22. Societies, Clubs An Reverend William Heathcote DeLancey, son of the senior warden and later Bishop of Western
New York, served as the first rector. The Rev. G. Clayton Melling is his ninth successor. The Rev.
Wiley Washington Merryman is associate minister.
There are some 300 organizations in the Town and Village of Mamaroneck. They embrace civic, A white wooden church was built on the site of the present Henrietta Constable Memorial
philanthropic, veteran, religious, taxpayer, patriotic, educational, social, political, fraternal, youth, Church, which was consecrated on June 10, 1886. Other parish buildings, housing the Sunday
ethnic, musical, recreational, art, and many more interests. School, parish office and meeting rooms, were erected at about this time by the parishioners. For
about 10 years prior to World War I a mission, St. Andrew's, was maintained on North Barry
Avenue. A rectory was built by the Constable family at
Prospect Avenue and Fenimore Road. Two endowment
buildings on the Post Road were provided by the Con-
stables to insure the parish an income. In 1923 an addition
23. His House Has Many Mansions was made to the parish meeting rooms and a general repo- T
vation of the buildings was undertaken in 1959 with funds ' a:
subscribed b members of the Church. This work is now
The churches are the oldest, strongest and most inclusive of all organized groups. partially completed. Additional property on Mt. Pleasant
Avenue was acquired by act of the vestry in 1960.
Friends Quaker Ridge is an old place name, yet not as old as the residence of Friends here. Women were first elected to the St. Thomas vestry building Builtin 18xding stoodd the original on the site off Thomas's Church
bthe stone structure
They came first to Flushing, Long Island, in 1656 to escape the persecution they had suffered in in 1958. that replaced it in 1886.
35
34
6
Asbury Visits Mairnoc Methodist church services started locally on December Inverted Hull Built largely by ships' carpenters, the new church was constructed like an
19, 1771. Francis Asbury, a pioneer circuit rider sent to this country by John Wesley as a missionary, inverted ship's hull with hand-hewn timbers and some fine detailed carving. It was noted at the time
arrived in Baltimore on October 27, 177 1. Traveling toward Boston on horseback he arrived in of the dedication that:
Mamaroneck on December 19th a cold, rainy day and dismounted outside a tavern which stood
"All members rich and poor, bear their proportion of the church's burdens. There is
about where the Village incinerator now stands. He started to preach in the road and aroused the nothing like exclusiveness or aristocracy."
ridicule of those who were warming themselves inside the tavern. They streamed out to make fun
of him, but John Griffen, a Quaker, came to his assistance and offered to let him spend the night at Men and women were now allowed to sit together and a committee on music was organized,
his house on the Old White Plains Road, where he also allowed him to preach that evening. Asbury but no organ was allowed in the edifice until 1870. Even in the new $20,000 church the preacher
noted in his diary: complained of disorder among certain young men and women who attended, and it was ordered
"The next day I preached at Mairnock, [he also had trouble with the spelling] to a <<
that a notice be put in a conspicuous place prohibiting spitting of tobacco juice in the pews and
company of people who at first took but little notice of the worship of God, but I young people were exhorted to show proper respect by not engaging in any unbecoming act."
trust some of them felt the power of truth in their hearts." The church membership continued to grow. It was noted in 1891 that "everyone whose reli-
He returned on January 10, 1772 and had an encouraging reception. After the Revolution, gious background was not strongly ritualistic gravitated to the Methodist Church." In 1869 an upper
and a lower "parlor" was added at the back of the sanctuary to accommodate the Sunday School.
starting about 1790, services were held by various itinerant preachers and on April 6, 1813, a meet- A chapel on Weaver Street was maintained from 1878 until 1926 when it burned down. The present
ing took place at the home of Hester Sands to elect trustees and to discuss the building of a church. Church House served as a parsonage until 1928, when the adjoining Johnson property was acquired.
The old carriage sheds behind the church were torn down then and the land running to Beach
On Good Success Ridge The following year the church was completed on Highs
Avenue was sold. The Education Building was erected on the Tompkins Avenue side of the church
grounds in 1958. The Rev. Edgar N. Jackson is the 29th minister to serve the Mamaroneck Methodist
Street: "a chaste edifice of wood located upon the highest summit of Good Success Ridge facing the Church since 1854. The Rev. Richard B. Stout is associate minister.
Post Road and the Bay." That is today Prospect Avenue opposite the Village Hall. Services were
conducted by circuit riders who also served churches in New Rochelle, Rye and Port Chester and the
time of waiting for their arrival afforded a pleasant social hour.
Fire destroyed the church in February 1845. It was rebuilt over the summer. A Sunday Barry Avenue Church Next in age among Mamaroneck churches is the Barry Avenue
School was started in 1858. African Methodist Episcopal Zion congregation, which had its first services in 1852 at the home of
Revival meetings helped to increase the Methodist Church membership. Within 15 years the Grandma Hicks on Cedar Street. There is an undocumented legend that these people cooperated
with their,Westchester Negro and white Quaker neighbors in operating that loosely knit and dan-
building was outgrown and plans were underway for a new church on a larger piece of land on the gerous escape route known as the Underground Railroad by which fugitive slaves were smuggled to
East Post Road. The old church was privately sold. It became known as Richbell Hall and was
rented by the Town for offices and a meeting place. Finally the Town bought it. After serving for Canada, where their owners could not legally pursue them.
At first camp meetings were held in the summer at Harriot's Grove on River Street until enough
better than sixty years as Town office, jail, the scene of political rallies, town meetings, dancing money had been accumulated to build a small church. The present property at 645 North Barry
classes, and as the office where Relief was dispensed during the Depression years, it was sold to Avenue was bought about 1900 and the little church was moved there. In 1903 the present edifice
American Legion Post 90 and still proudly stands. During renovations
and parsonage were completed. The church was renovated in 1960. The Rev. Homer S. Roan is
at St. Thomas's Sunday School in 1959, it was again used for religious
purposes.
pastor.
The old church had two doors and a center aisle. Men sat on the
right, ladies on the left although after a while this rule was relaxed suf-
ficiently to allow both sexes to enter by either door. In 1850 it was Holy Trinity Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church started as a mission. In 1854 the Reverend
voted that the congregation might sit where they pleased. Five trustees Thomas McLoughlin was appointed as pastor of New Rochelle parish of the Blessed Sacrament
resigned in protest to this vote and it was pointed out: and its outlying missions of Mamaroneck, Rye, Port Chester, Harrison, White Plains, Tuckahoe,
Bronxville, Pelham and City Island. He had one assistant, the Reverend Thomas Dowling. They
"Because of the strange performance of some men in their paroxsysms of enthusiasm
Outstanding example of church ar- made their rounds on horseback and said Mass in private houses and at the old red house on the
it is easy to see that a refined Christian woman would prefer to be somewhat re- chitecture, the Mamaroneck Meth-
moved from the violent shouting and gesticulation that was sure to occur, especially odist Church, built in 1859, is the west bank of the Mamaroneck River near the factory. Father McLoughlin looked for land to buy
third that has housed the congre-
in time of revivals." gation. and money with which to build a church.
36
37
s
His hopes were realized in Mamaroneck in 1868 when a wooden church was ready for occu- School, the congregation dedicated on May 1, 1927 its red brick American Gothic sanctuary at the
pancy at Spruce Street and the Boston Post Road. It was called the Church of St. Thomas, but the corner of Cortland Avenue and Fenimore Road on Heathcote Hill. The Service was originally cele-
name was changed in 1874 to the Most Holy Trinity when the parish was incorporated with a resident brated in both German and English,but in recent years all services have been in the English language.
pastor, the Rev. Christopher A. Farrell. A year later, the Rev. Isadore Meister came as pastor and In 1955 the congregation purchased a residence for the pastor, and in 1959 erected an educational
remained until his death in 1913. In 1885 the cornerstone of the present grey stone church was laid and office wing. The Rev. Edward Kerston Perry is pastor.
with Archbishop Michael Corrigan presiding. The old church was converted into a school the next
year under the care of the Sisters of Charity, who drove here each day from St. Vincent's Retreat in
Harrison. The stone rectory was added within a few years. In 1922 a convent was built for the Sisters. Christian Science Christian Science was introduced in Mamaroneck in March 1910 by a
group of students who organized a Society, later to become a branch of the Mother Church, the First
Six years later the present stone school was completed. Most recent enlargement of the church prop- Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. The first Sunday services commenced on April
erty is the sexton's house on DuBois Avenue, which replaces a cottage on Spruce Street that was 3, 1910 in a one-story building, formerly used as a plumbing shop, at 145 Mamaroneck Avenue.
destroyed by fire.
The Rt. Rev. Monsignor George Ehart P. A. is pastor of Most Holy Trinity. His assistants are Wednesday night testimonial meetings were arranged and a Sunday School was organized. The first
public lecture was held September 17, 1911, at the Mamaroneck Motion Picture Theater (the Audi-
the Rev. James P. Flynn and the Rev. Joseph J. Boyd.
There are 430 children enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade in Holy Trinity School. torium) with an audience reported as 500 persons. In 1912 the Society moved to a store on Halstead
Avenue and later to rooms in Masonic Hall.
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Mamaroneck, N. Y., was incorporated January 13, 1919.
Anglicans in Larchmont St. John's Episcopal parish in Larchmont dates back to In June 1924 a lot on Fenimore Road, opposite Munro Avenue, was bought and on September 7,
1881. At that time Sunday services were held in the so-called Union Church on Horseshoe Harbor 1930, the first service was held in the new church. A dedicatory service was held ten years later when
and the Sunday School met at the Manor House. Ten years later, on October 31, 1891, the parish the church was free from debt. A Reading Room has been open to the public for forty years. In the
was incorporated with twenty families. There was a small chapel at Prospect and Linden Avenues summer of 1957 it was moved from the Church into its own building at 142 Mamaroneck Avenue,
until the present stone church at Fountain Square was completed in 1894. The Murray Memorial formerly occupied by the Mamaroneck Federal Savings and Loan Association.
Parish house was built in 1895. In 1958 the Francis J. H. Coffin Memorial Sunday School was com-
pleted and occupied by the Sunday School and the church office. The Rev. Kenneth E. Mackenzie is
St. Vito's Church St. Vito's Roman Catholic Church, like Most Holy Trinity, has changed
rector.
its name since it began as a mission called St. Anthony's Chapel in 1907. It was connected with Our
St. Augustine's St. AuLady of Mount Carmel Church of White Plains. The Rev. J. A. Marinaro had charge of this chapel
gustine's Roman Catholic Church was incorporated as a parish in for a year. He was succeeded by Father Papale and then by the Rev. Francis Cocozza. A wooden
1892 through the efforts of Mrs. Frederick W. Flint and Mrs. Oliver Adams. The first church was
church building which still stands on Madison Street was solemnly blessed in May 1910. The parish
a little chapel on Beach Avenue with the Reverend John Powers as pastor. Land on Larchmont
was incorporated in 1911 as St. Vito's.
Avenue was bought early in the 1900s and a church was built there. The present stone church was The Rev. Biagio Del Negro (Father Del) arrived as pastor in June 1927. On December 17,
completed in 1928. St. Augustine's School was started in 1911 by the pastor, Father Brady. It has 1927, Father Del put a large ad in The Daily Times. He appealed to the people of Mamaroneck,
today an enrollment of 618. St. Augustine's Academy, which was established about the same time regardless of creed or race, to help him buy land on Underhill Avenue at the Old White Plains Road
as the school, was consolidated with it in 1941 when the new school building was ready for occupancy.
for his badly needed church and rectory. The people helped. The Church of St. Vito at Underhill
The old Academy became a convent for the Sisters of St. Dominic of Newburgh. The Rt. Rev. Avenue and New Street opened offically on Christmas Day 1930. Plans are now underway for a
Monsignor Thomas J. Deegan is pastor. Assistants are the Rev. Vincent J. McShane and the Rev. parochial school.
James J. Halligan. The Rt. Rev. Monsignor John A. Goodwine is pastor of St. Vito's. His assistant is the Rev.
Michael Gallucci. St. Vito's serves the Italian speaking people in this area, as well as those who
Lutherans The 20th century brought more churches to Mamaroneck. First of these was the speak English as their native tongue. Some services are conducted in Italian.
Lutheran congregation, which held its first service in 1901 at the home of Ludwig Miller. For some
years the Rev. Werner Jentsch, of St. Luke's Church, New Rochelle, and pastors from White Plains
• and Mount Vernon conducted services here. By 1907 the congregation had grown too large to be Presbyterians Larchmont Avenue Church (Presbyterian) held its first services in an artist's
accommodated in a private home and, with the permission of the Mamaroneck Board of Education, studio, following a meeting on May 17, 1914, at the home of Miss Emily E. Lindsley. The studio was
began to use the Depot School on Sunday afternoons. The parish was formally organized as the located in a former carriage house that belonged to Miss Helena Flint at 39 Larchmont Avenue.
Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. John on September 25, 1913. After twenty years in the Depot About sixty persons attended the first service. The Church was formally organized under the patron-
39
38
a
age of the Presbytery of Westchester on July 28, 1914. Land was bought at Larchmont and Forest Strait Gate Shortly after the First Baptist Church was organized a group of missionaries from
Park Avenues and a one-story building, containing a basement church, arose. On September 20, 1925 Refuge Temple of New York City felt inspired to come to Mamaroneck for the purpose of holding
the present Church House was dedicated as a "Seven Day Church for a Seven Day Need." prayer meetings. After making some acquaintances they started holding prayer meetings on a house-
The Sanctuary was completed in 1930 and the new Education building in 1953. The Rev. Floyd to-house basis and from these grew the Strait Gate Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
E. McGuire D. D. is minister. The Rev. David E. Crossley is assistant minister. Mrs. Harriet Scates, who is the senior member of Strait Gate, offered her home for the prayer
meetings and a few years later located a small building which was for sale. Although this building was
a chicken coop, it was renovated and soon after the Rev. James Saddler was appointed as minister.
Emanuel AME About the same year that the Larchmont Avenue Church was being organ- The property acquired with the chicken coop was 100 by 200 feet on Madison Street.
ized a group of colored people started holding meetings on Sunday nights at St. John's Church, In 1944 the Rev. John Brown was appointed as presiding elder at Strait Gate, succeeding the
Larchmont. Congressman Ralph Gamble was particularly interested in their welfare and helped Rev. Mr. Saddler. The Rev. Mr. Brown proceeded to build the present white wooden church almost
them to organize Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. After a time they got enough money solely by himself. It was dedicated in 1945 but unfortunately the Rev. Mr. Brown did not live long
together to build a small church on Byron Place near Myrtle Boulevard. In 1954 construction of the to enjoy its use. He was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Steele and the Rev. Mr. Clark and the parsonage
New England Thruway obliterated their little church, but the congregation was compensated for its property on Center Avenue was bought. In 1957, the Rev. Alfred S. Powell was appointed as pastor
loss. Emanuel A.M.E. Church has now stepped over the Town line into New Rochelle and has a brand of Strait Gate. The membership has more than tripled in the last few years. The latest addition has
new yellow stucco building at 29 Valley Place. Its pastor is the Rev. M. A. Robinson of Brooklyn. been the purchase of a lot adjacent to the church, on which Strait Gate hopes soon to build a center
for the youth of Mamaroneck.
i
First Synagogue Jewish people started settling in Mamaroneck and Larchmont about
Larchmont Temple After World War II people started moving into the suburbs in
1890. On September 14, 1924 a small group met to establish a progressive synagogue which would
great numbers. Real estate boomed. Two new churches, a Temple and a Synagogue resulted.
serve as a spiritual and social center for residents of Harrison, Rye, Mamaroneck and Larchmont.
The Larchmont Temple (Reform Jewish) was organized in 1948 and first conducted services
Within a month sufficient funds had been collected to purchase land on Halstead Avenue on the
in Vyner's basement, later in the Weaver Street Firehouse through the courtesy of the Town Coun-
west bank of the Mamaroneck river. Within two years the Hebrew Institute of Mamaroneck was cil. A Hebrew School was formed. The Temple is a member of the Union of American Hebrew
completed and furnished. On Sunday December 19, 1943 at the Hommocks Country Club the final
$16,000 mortgage on the property was burned. Congregations.
The Downer property at 75 Larchmont Avenue was purchased and for a time the house was
Five years later, in August 1948, five acres of land were purchased at Rockland and Palmer
used for services until the brick Georgian Temple was completed in 1956. Although colonial on the
Avenues. As a larger center was planned to accommodate families from Scarsdale, White Plains
exterior to conform with the neighborhood, the Temple is modern style inside. Morris M. Kertzer is
and New Rochelle as well as the original group, the name of the Institute was changed to the West-
chester Jewish Center. This is a traditional synagogue with no other affiliations. It maintains its own rabbi and Mrs. Maurice Mermey is Temple president.
Hebrew School.
Ground was broken for the new Center in September 1951. As soon as part of the rooms were Sts. John and Paul The Roman Catholic parish of Sts. John and Paul was incorpo-
completed they were put in use and the old building on Halstead Avenue was sold. The first High
Hrated in 1949 by Francis Cardinal Spellman. Masses were said in the Weaver Street Firehouse until
Holy Day services were held in the new auditorium in September; 1954. Irving Koslowe is rabbi of
Sun-
the Westchester Jewish Center and Gordon V. Lyons is president. a small chapel was built on the property directly opposite. This served for daily Mass, but on Sun-
days the firehouse continued to be used until the Church and School were completed in 1952. A con-
vent for the Sisters of St. Dominic of Newburgh, who staff the school, was next constructed. The
First Baptist Mamaroneck's second oldest Negro church is the First Baptist Church on War-
rectory was remodeled in 1957. In 1960 an addition was made to the schoolhouse. Present enroll-
ment is 656 pupils, kindergarten through eighth grade.
ren Street (now Pelham Street) and was called "The Lovely Hill Mission." The congregation moved The Right Rev. Monsignor John J. Flynn is pastor of this parish. His assistants are the Rev.
to the home of Mrs. Ellen Johnson and following that to a tent in Lester Park (Howard Avenue). Thomas J. McGovern and the Rev. Peter T. Raich.
A small building was built and in 1938 the present sanctuary was completed. This is now being
enlarged to occupy every possible foot of land between the river and Howard Avenue. The Rev.
Samuel Carter was the first pastor of First Baptist. The Rev. T. J. Garland has served the church Beth Emeth Beth Emeth Synagogue was founded in September 1958. It is affiliated with
for twenty-five years. the United Synagogue of America and is conservative. A Hebrew School was started in October 1958
40 41
in a house on Willow Avenue. Later this was moved to a music school and then to quarters at 2 East 25. Epilogue: Into Her Fourth Century
Avenue. High Holy Day services were held in September 1958 at the Weaver Street Firehouse,
where it is still necessary to hold them. Yosef Yerushalmi is rabbi of Beth Emeth and Harry Silver-
son is president. On September 23, 1961 Mamaroneck celebrates her 300th birthday and starts on her fourth cen-
tury. While heeding the admonition of Saint Paul when considering her past to "hold fast that which
St. James Church On September 6, 1960, St. James Pentecostal Church No. 1 suc- is good," she looks ahead to new growth, new improvements. Already coming into view are new
ceeded the Church of God in Christ at 679 Mamaroneck Avenue in a rented store. Bishop James schools, replanning of school grounds, the dredging of the East Basin, Urban Renewal. This is not
Joyce of New Rochelle is pastor. the end of Mamaroneck's story.
i
24. By Her Fruits She Is Known
Mamaroneck has lived through three wars and a depression in the last fifty years of her 300 year
history. Many of her sons and daughters have gone far away from home; many have returned, but
not all. Bank failures, mortgage foreclosures and tax lien sales are behind us. Real estate is a good
business, as it was in John Richbell's day, and a good investment. There are two Federal Savings
and Loan Associations in the Town, six commercial banks that are branches.of county banks, and
one savings bank. Many doctors and lawyers practice here. Many commuters and as many 1&al
businessmen live here.
Larchmont has very little industry—a lumberyard, a machine tool manufactory, printing shops.
a
Rye Neck has yacht builder, a sail maker, an educational film maker, a paper convertor, a maker
of stairs, and maker of costume jewelry.
Mamaroneck Village products include mechanical and asbestos pump packings, fire brick, vege-
Appr8C1at10IlS-Generous help in the preparation of this manuscript is gratefully acknowledged to: Miss Ruth Tyler, editor of scientific publications
table fibers for ropes and twines, industrial waxes, metal spinning and stamping, herring, frozen pies, American Museum of Natural History; Mrs. Eleanor Wynne, librarian Mamaroneck Free Library; Miss Jean Ross, New Rochelle Public Library Reference
Department; Philip Severin, Arthur C. Emelin (Youngan Old), Mrs. R. W. Popp, Mrs. Henry D. Holden, Mrs. Ivan Flood, Malcolm D. Brown, Mrs.
plastic stripping, rods and tubing, art publishing, precision metal parts, structural and ornamental William Harvey Smith, Harold Roth, Stephen LeRoy Angell, Miss Jennie Halstead, The Rev. Floyd E. McGuire, D.D., Mrs. Charles F. Wicker, The
Rev. Edgar Jackson, Mrs. Roswell K. Doughty, The Rev. Edward K. Perry, Board of Trustees of First Church of Christ Scientist, The Rev. Joseph J.
iron, plastic novelties, dental plates, gold wire jewelry, dresses, ladies bags, carryalls, compacts, Boyd, The Rev. James J. Halligan, The Rev. G. Clayton Melling, Mrs. Viola Harris, The Rev. Homer S. Roan, Jerome James, Miss Jean Baxter. Mama-
roneck Chamber of Commerce, Larchmont Chamber of Commerce, Watson Griffen, Mrs. Edward Shields, Mrs. David L. Jasper, Rt.Rev. Monsignor John
boats, tools and dies, air conditoning, plastic convertors, advertising displays, plastic molds, wooden A. Goodwine, Miss Gertrude Toy, Right Rev. Monsignor John J. Flynn, Miss Mary Clark, librarian Larchmont Public Library,Mrs.John Conley, Mortimer
Margoluis, Rabbi Irving Koslowe, Mrs. Clayton Rawson, Adrian Reed, Harry Silverson, Charles D. Silleck,Rabbi Yosef Yerushalmi, Miss Mary Haas,Mrs.
boxes, knock-down furniture, dog coffins, kitchen cabinets, ceramic kilns, aluminum products, storm Wilma Jubert, Everitt Houghton, and Mrs. Herbert R. Houghton. Pictures: Mamaroneck Free Library, William G. Fulcher, Mrs. Henry D. Holden.
windows, screens, jalousies, bouillon cubes and canned chicken, electronic equipment, lanolin, radio Bibliography-Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia; The United States to 1865 by Michael Kraus, University of Michigan Press 1959; Indian History
of New York State, Part III-The Algonkian Tribes, by William A. Ritchie, State Archeologist 1959; History of the State of New York, edited by Edward
accessories and components, small electronics, metallizing plastic articles, electric and gas water C. Flick, State Historian, Vols. I, III, IV, VI. Columbia University Press 1933; Mamaroneck Paragraph, September 23, 1915; Mamaroneck Town Records
edited by Robert Lucas Forbes, Daily Times, September 21, 1936; Daily Times September 21, 1936 unsigned articles about Caleb Heathcote,James G.Burnet,
heaters, expansion tanks and storage tanks, offset printing, plastic and metal cases for shipping, plas- James Fenimore Cooper, Mamaroneck Churches; Old Larchmont, articles written and illustrated by Philip Severin, Daily Times, October and November
1949; Now and Then by Youngan Old,Daily Times,August 13, 1932-December 23, 1933;Mamaroneck Through the Years by William Gershom Fulcher, 1936;
tic compounds, communications engineering, laundry equipment, and steel coil springs. Both com- The Story of a Friendly Village by William Gershom Fulcher, 1946;History of the County of Westchester by Robert Bolton, Jr., Alexander and Gould 1848,
2 Vols.; Documentary History of New York, Vol. III, p. 854; History of Westchester County, N. Y.by Frederic Shonnard and Walter W. Spooner,N. Y.,
munities have a number of retail stores. Historical Co. 1900; Westchester County During the Revolution by Otto Hufiland, Westchester Historical Society 1926; History of Westchester County by
J.Thomas Scharf A.M. lld,L.E.Preston and Co. 1886;Historic New Rochelle by Herbert B. Nichols, 1938; Historical Collections of the State of New York
importers of a variety Of by John Barber and Henry Howe, 1841; Hessians in New Rochelle by L. F. Hovery, New Rochelle Historical Society 1950; Date Book 1960, Westchester
Mamaroneck also has wholesale furniture distributors, dealers and im
P y Historical Society; Early American Inns and Taverns, by Elsie Lathrop,Tudor Publishing Co. N.Y. 1946;History of the Mamaroneck School System to 1890
products: such thing g Y , magnesium,as lumber, aluminum, stainless steel, high heat resistant allo sby James Hamilton, 1941 H.S.Term paper;A History of the Rye Neck Schools 1739-1945 by Helen Warren Brown; Diary of Gilbert Haight; A Small History
of the Gedney Family of Westchester County,N.Y.by Helen S.Peck,published 1896 by Curtis G.Peck;John!ay by George Pellew,Houghton Miftin Co.1898;
A Short History of Rye Neck by Maureen McKernan, The Daily Times, September 1945;Daily Times,June I1, 1946; Will of John Guion,September 26,1781;
aircraft and marine equipment, marine spar varnish, candy, tomatoes, nonferous and stainless steel
This is Larchmont, League of Women Voters of Larchmont, N. Y. 1960; Water-The Story of the 30 Inch Main, Westchester Joint Water Works No. 1,
fastenings, Catholic religious articles, plumbing supplies, tires and automotive accessories, cutlery, June 9, 1959; Directory of Manufacturers,Distributors and Service Industries in the Village of Mamaroneck, Mamaroneck Chamber of Commerce 1958-1959;
Mamaroneck Methodist Church 1859-1959, Centennial Anniversary booklet published December 1959; History of the Mamaroneck Health Center by Helen
leather goods, transistor clocks, barometers, beer and ale, high fidelity equipment, and optical spe- Warren Brown, Daily Times, November 1949; The Quakers of Westchester County by Stephen LeRoy Angell,published in the Club Dial by The Woman's
Club of White Plains,January 1961; History of the Town of Rye by Louis C. A. Lewin and Warren J. Lewin, published in Port Chester, N. Y. 1960; The
cialty goods. Story of Larchmont Manor Park by Edward H. Tatum; Historic Westchester by Elizabeth Cushman; The Two Neighbors-Matnaroneck and Rye Neck by
Ann Doughty Brown,Term paper in Rye Neck High School,March 14, 1949; Mamaroneck Has More for the Mariner, Mamaroneck Chamber of Commerce
Both communities have their share of service industries, for example: movers, cleaners and 1961; Report to the Board of Education by the Advisory Committee on City Government, Union Free School District No. 1 Town of Mamaroneck.January
p 1961; Articles (unsigned) The Palmer Estate in Rye Neck,January 23, 1952, Mamaroneck Village, March 5, 1960,Harbor Island in Place of Oyster Center,
dyers, laundries. Mamaroneck Village also has boat yards. September 10, 1960, Rye Neck Orphan Enjoys Uneasy Peace, August 25, 1960, Daily Times; First News Arrived Via Post Rider by Evelyn McManus, Daily
Times,July 19.1960.
42 43
Tercentenary Committee
n Finance Fred T.Wilson Miss Jean Baxter
Stanley W.Duhig,chairman Mrs.Eleanor Merrow Wynne Mrs.William Chester
Harold V.Bozell,co-chairman Mamaroneck Negro Citizenship Program Religious Observances
Mrs.William Chester Mrs.Leo H.Thomas,chairman The Rev.Edgar N.Jackson,convenor
Mrs.Henry B.Coakley Wain T.Carrington School Participation
Mrs.Vito F.Luceno Mrs. Marie McKnight Mrs.Lionel Robbins,chairman
Mrs.Lionel Robbins Mrs.Mary F.Morrell Miss Alice Valente,Mamaroneck School District chairman
Historical and Monument Charles Pangburn Mrs.Daniel Fisher,Westchester Day School
William G.Fulcher,chairman Nathan W.Potter William G.Fulcher,Mamaroneck High School
Mrs.Edwin E.Berliner Music Mrs.Anne Johnson,Chatsworth
Mrs.Charles L.Bowman Charles Ashley Hardy,Jr.,chairman Mrs.Judith Jones,Mamaroneck Avenue
Jo$eph J.Rigano Isidore Lee,co-chairman Sister Marie John,St.Augustine
Mrs.William Harvey Smith Theodore Fagin Sister Mary Eleanor,St.Augustine
Miss Alice Valente Irving Golomb Sister Mary Loretta,Sts.John and Paul
Historical Tableaux Dr.Robert M.Rosenbaum
Sister Margaret Walter,Sts.John and Paul
Mrs.Lincoln J.Stulik,chairman Mrs.Bliss Woodward Dr.Norman J.M.Murray,Rye Neck Schools
Mrs.Harold Saunders,The Most Holy Trinity
William G.Fulcher Old Timers Baseball Mrs.Eudolia Smith,Central
Miss Betty S.Lattner Charles J.Gronberg,chairman Miss Alice Valente,Mamaroneck Junior High School
Theodore Parker Irving Belowich Mrs.Vivian B.von Bernuth,Murray Avenue
Miss Anita Petricchioni George Burton
Scout Camporee
David Singleton
William F.Celestin Edmund J.Fannin
Lincoln J.Stulik Robert Cohen g,chairman
Historical Tours Frank Cunningham Tercentenary Cup Race
Mrs.Vito F.Luceno,chairman Joseph S.Faillace Jan C.Brassem,chairman
Donald B.King,vice-chairman
Mrs.Richmond S.Barton George P.Forbes,Jr. Fred L.Bradfute
Harold V.Bozell Adolph Goodliffe Willard Brown
Mrs.Frederick Carey Thomas Hogan Ralph H.Fisher
William G.Fulcher Charles Lanza
Mrs.Adrian A.Henigson Victor Malinowski Tom L.Fitzsimons
William H.Johnson George E.Mills,Jr. Col.Charles H.Greenhall
Mrs.James T.O'Neill Leo N.Orsino Danner Hunt
Beresford F.Proctor Peter G.Kerby
Hospitality C.
Saunders Fred Santoro Rodney M.011inger
Laurence A. Bvan,chairman Harold Sders Albert H.Swanke
Com.Henry C.Bschen Erwin D.Tuthill
E James A.Gunn
Howard E.Webler
Malcolm H.Tuttle
f Roger H.Harper Old Town of Mamaroneck Historical Society Milton L.Van Slyck
I! Hon.Henry T.Hornidge Mrs.William Harvey Smith,chairman Joseph P.Wiegers
Samuel E.Magid IOpening Ceremonies Tercentenary Dinner II Cushman McGee
John W.McGrath Mrs.Henry B.Coakley,chairman Richard 1.Land,chairman
Burton C.Meighan,Jr. Pageant And Hostesses Francis A.Auleta
Gordon R.Molesworth Mrs.S.Charles Hanna,chairman Walter F.Brady
E.J.O'Neill Mrs.Jacques G.Allerand John M.Coughlin
Rudolph J.Schaefer
Mrs.George D.Burchell Peter C.Doern,Jr.
F'
W.D.Scholle Mrs.William Chester Mrs.Stanley W.Duhig
Gabriel Wendel Mrs.David B.Chisholm Harold R.Eisner
Fred T.Wilson Mrs.Ivan Hardingham Mrs.F.Warren Green
Miss Nancy Kiehnle Mrs.Harry L.Hampton
Larchmont Exhibits Mrs.Richard I.Land J.Stanley Hare
Mrs.F.Warren Green,chairman Mrs.Gordon R.Molesworth Dayton Edwards Herrick
{ George W.Burton Mrs.William E.Slater Everett T.Houghton
William Collins Roy J.Keller
Mrs.Thompson J.Flint Parade Philip Kuritzky
Thompson J.Flint Benedict J.McGrath,chairman
p Cmdr.Frank Ca ino Edward Margoluis
Stanley Judkins Mrs.Harold H.Rhoades
Chief William J.Keresey Cmdr.Arthur R.Davignon Kirkwood H.Savage
William G.Kirtland,Jr. John B.Forrest Mrs.Henry M.Shields
George E.Mills,Sr. Chief Jeremiah Geary Mrs.Harry G.Waltner,Jr.
Chief PhilipPeterson Chief William J.Keresey
Gabriel Wendel
Edward Roth William B.Lemon Fred T.Wilson
Chief Hans Schmidt Chief Philip A.Peterson Philip A.Wocker
Miss Nathalie Shelton Cmdr.Loreto Poccia
Chief Paul A.Yerick Chief Marshall Sarles Liaison For Municipal Governments
Chief Hans Schmidt Frank T.Griffen,Village of Larchmont
Mamaroneck Exhibits Elwood J.Wall Mrs.Edward P.Helwig,Town of Mamaroneck
Charles D.Silleck,chairman Chief Paul A.Yerick Battista J.Santoro,Village of Mamaroneck
Mervyn H.Connor Public Relations Publicity For Tercentenary Committee
Mrs.Grace Huntley Pugh H.Richmond Campbell,honorary chairman Budd Gottstein
E.J.O'Neill Ralph Froelich,chairman
Secretary For Tercentenary Committee
Gabriel Wendel Mrs.Eugene L.Bondy,Jr. Mrs.Harry H.Shandanian
j
i
y :
d
ROCHELLE
1JEW
' N Reminders of our historic past
O
1 Sloop on Sound or harbor
2 Griffen Homestead, 1712. Old White Plains
Road opposite Saxon Woods
3 Site of the Battle of Heathcote Hill,October
�1� 21,1776.Cortland Avenue between Fenimore
elRoad and Delancey Avenue
�/ 4 Delancey House, 1792. Boston Post Road
at Fenimore
5 Peter Jay Munro House, 1790 (called Manor
House), Elm Avenue at Prospect, Larchmont
D 0 Z All, I 6 Site of Quaker Meeting House, 1711. Boston
L Post Road just west of Larchmont Avenue
\ / 7a Larchmont milestone,21 miles to New York.
(�^ A R 01 0 �J* C Boston Post Road at Municipal Building
C D PJ �d Z 7b Mamaroneck milestone, 23 miles to New
Square
�\\� f N M N T / `O " 8a Original sMethoditon Post soTompkinsad at Church, 1814, rebuilt
0/ 1845 (later Town Hall,now American Legion
MONl W / Hall). Prospect Avenue near Mt. Pleasant
LARCN 8b St. Thomas's Church, 1886 (original edifice
��y p� 1823),Mt.Pleasant Avenue
1\No ya It A Q 9a Site of first school, prior to 1733. Orienta
1�1 ^ (r Olt, Avenue at Old Post Road
9b Weaver Street School, 1807 (first public
�-� C�
r^ �` school), 84 Weaver Street, Larchmont
��1 — 9c Site of Depot School, 1819. Mt. Pleasant at
\ 1 �i
r \ q Mamaroneck Avenue
\\ 10 Graveyards of early families
.r ;1 \ a John and Ann Richbell, Rushmore Avenue
at harbor's edge
b Quaker and Barker Cemetery, Boston Post
A-
- \ Road, Larchmont
c Disbrow, Rockland Avenue at Munro
_ �.( d DeLancey,Palmer Avenue between Heath-
WA
` 1� ` \\ N \` cote and e Town Cemetery, Mt Avenues Pleasant at Stanley
��� 2
X \�,, � _ Avenue
f Guion, Guion Creek south of Stuart Ave-
0
,� nue
g Gedney, Mamaroneck Avenue at North
"
T Barry
h Gedney, rear of F. E. Bellows School
1 t 1Q I \
� i Florence and Powell, Fulton Road near
��- D = tOa �\ Carpenter Place
j Palmer, Weaver Street, Cooper Lane to
OD_ prJ Marden Road, Larchmont
m p,Q 11 Disbrow Chimney, 1677. Washington Arms,
Boston Post Road at Orienta Avenue
�� 3' 0 n ycma anec Q y `E 12 First High School, 1887. Central School,
O Boston Post Road west of Orienta Avenue
0 13 Site of Samuel Palmer house, 1701. Larch-
mont Library, Chatsworth Avenue at Boston
Post Road
14 Sites of dams and mills
a Premium Mill, Pryer Manor
b Van Amringe's Mill formerly Deall's Mill,
end of Taylor's Lane
c Guion's Mill, Stoneybrook at Boston Post
Road
Town O Mamaroneck—Se tember 23 1961 `'1 /'/ d� r \ _ d Cotton mill, Larchmont Gardens Lake
f p \ "a i 15 Rocks where "fresh water falls into the salt."
�' Mamaroneck River just north of Boston Post
POINTS OF HISTORICAL INTEREST k'
)�� �. �° Road
16 Village Square. Mamaroneck Avenue and
Boston Post Road
O 17�!` Site of Old Rye Town dock. Guion Creek
south of Stuart Avenue at Boston Post Road
';Z,,,
, � � �, 18 Toll Gate House, 1805. Boston Post Road
\ east of Keeler Avenue
I1J C� g {� \• o p / 19 Site of Heathcote Manor House, circa 1702.
Mamaroneck Woman's Club, Cortland Ave.
20 Rockingstone, glacial deposit. North Chats-
" \
worth at Rockingstone Avenue, Larchmont
2 Griffen Homestead 3 Battle Site 4 DeLancey House, 5 Munro House �k
CITY
or RYE
a
"Nimble" Sloop
` I•
4
Early Church
I r'I o �I I+►�
Quaker Meeting House
Ij
Early Schoolhouse
elf f z
�r f
Family Graveyards
i
fl
Mile Stones
o - u
`.
7 � '