Hartsdale is the home of America's first canine pet cemetery (started by veterinarian Samuel Johnson in 1896), and the world's first Carvel Ice Cream store (1934), which closed in 2008.

[1] Hartsdale's earliest settlers were the Wecquaesgeek (sometimes spelled Weckquaesgeek), a band of the Wappinger people, an Algonquian tribe that lived in southeastern New York from northern Westchester down through Manhattan.

As lord of his Philipse Manor, he leased his land to tenant farmers who for a time lived alongside their Native American neighbors.

The Odell House (on Ridge Road, built in 1732) served as the headquarters for the French general the Comte de Rochambeau, and is where the count and George Washington are supposed to have formed an alliance leading to the Battle of Yorktown.

The area remained largely agrarian until 1865, when Eleazar Hart deeded land for the development of the New York and Harlem Railroad line into Manhattan, setting the stage for Hartsdale's change into a more cosmopolitan commuter village.

In keeping with the family's philanthropic efforts, Frieda Schiff Warburg, on her death in 1958, bequeathed a remaining 150 acres (0.61 km2) to the town of Greenburgh to build a public school.

The main Warburg mansion currently serves as the school district headquarters, but other remnants from the original estate grounds can still be seen standing in the surrounding woods and neighboring streets.

In 1957, he and his wife Catherine (Mrs. Henry J. Gaisman) passed the title for his land to the New York Archdiocese for $600,000, with the agreement that they could live there as long as they wished.

In 1999, the estate was saved from sale and development when the Town of Greenburgh acquired the property and reopened it as the Hart's Brook Nature Preserve.

Today the Catherine and Henry J. Gaisman Foundation continues to donate large amounts of money to support medical research.

][citation needed] Hartsdale is one of the few communities immediately surrounding New York City that still has two working farms, both on Secor Road.

Ferncliff Cemetery is located on Secor Road in Hartsdale, famous as the burial grounds for many celebrities, including Aaliyah, Malcolm X, Heavy D, Judy Garland, Jerome Kern, Joan Crawford, Basil Rathbone, Ed Sullivan, Jam-Master Jay, James Baldwin, Michel Fokine, Tom Carvel, Oscar Hammerstein, Thelonious Monk, Paul Robeson, Minnesota Timberwolves Guard Malik Sealy, soprano Arleen Auger, and others.

British rocker John Lennon, U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and Muppets creator Jim Henson were cremated there.

Radio DJ Alan Freed was also initially interred in Hartsdale until his ashes were moved to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.