Davenport Neck

Davenport Neck is a peninsula in New Rochelle, New York, extending southwesterly from the mainland into Long Island Sound, and running parallel to the main shore.

The largest number of stone objects of Indian manufacture collected within the City have been found here, many of them of very fine workmanship, attesting the superior culture of those who inhabited these villages.

It is along the shores of Davenport Neck that the greatest number of the specimens in the Indian collection at the headquarters of the Huguenot Historical Association in the Paine Cottage were found.

The presence here of articles made from material foreign to the region, in some instances coming from as far away as the Ohio Valley, shows extensive trade relations with other tribes in the West.

Early residents such as Mary Le Counte who died in 1841 at the age of 105 years, had vivid recollections of the Indian villages and their wigwams.

Lispenard sold the neck to Joseph Rodman of Flushing, Long Island, a Quaker, but retained the mills with dam and pond.

Joseph Rodman died in 1759, and his grandson of the same name succeeded to the ownership of the neck, and the latter, becoming involved in financial difficulties, sold it to John R. Myer, just previous to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

The home, referred to as the Lispenard-Rodman-Davenport House, is the oldest standing residential structure in New Rochelle and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Long before this, both branches of the Davenport family sold off large plots of acreage to wealthy persons, who established handsome homes and estates on the neck.

All seven children of Adrian Senior and his wife Elenor eventually made their homes along the waterfront of Davenport Neck and nearby Premium Point.

The Iselin's left some property for neighbors, including "Nutwood", located next to the Souci estate, and owned by Clarkson Potter, four time representative to the United States Congress.

When Lydia Davenport Thorne bequeathed a parcel of her family owned property to the city of New Rochelle in 1929 she stipulated that it be used for passive recreation only so as to preserve the tranquil aura of the Neck.

The early name of Hudson Park was Bonnefoy Point, and it referred to the entire promontory at the northeast end of Davenport Neck.

Guillaume LeConte and Jacob Leisler together bought up the entire neck after the projected Huguenot settlement there on had been expanded by a purchase of a larger tract on the mainland.

Le Conte had arrived in New York City in the spring of 1689 from the West Indies, to take charge of the property of his father-in law, Jacques Lasty.