Mary Philipse

Of Anglo-Dutch extraction, she was a wealthy heiress (although strictly not so, as she had brothers who inherited from their father), possible early love interest of George Washington, and New York City socialite.

In 1758 she married in New York Englishman Roger Morris (January 1727 – September 1794), who had fought extensively in the French and Indian War.

It was later found that a provision in the couple's prenuptial agreement creating a life trust transferable to their children had protected her Highland Patent inheritance from the 1779 bill of attainder.

In early 1756 Washington had shared company with then-retired Captain Beverley Robinson and his wife Susanna, Mary's elder sister.

In 1779, estates of 58 prominent Loyalists, including the Morris home and Mary's share of the Philipse Patent, were confiscated by the Commissioners of Forfeiture of the New York Colony.

Before marrying, Philipse and Morris had signed a prenuptial agreement that shared a life lease of the estate between husband and wife, transferred to their children after their death.

[10] After the war it was subsequently shown in court that as a result the Morris share of the Philipse Patent was vested in their children and had not been reached by New York's bill of attainder.

In 1809 America's first robber baron, John Jacob Astor, bought the interest of the three surviving Morris children, which would take effect on Polly's death, for this property for £20,000 sterling.

[12] Once Mrs. Morris died in 1825 and his title to the land entered into force, Astor brought suit against the state to recover the lands – or at least the rents due upon them – from the former tenant farmers who had been able to acquire their holdings from the newly independent government of New York for a fraction of their value from the Commissioners of Forfeiture in 1788 (not "during the dark days of the Revolution when the Continental Army was desperate for funds" as claimed in French's Gazetteer of the State of New York [1860]).

[13] Astor thereupon brought suit to evict three of the farmers, and the verdict in his favor was upheld by the United States Supreme Court.

He was one of the three heirs bought out by Astor with his sisters Joanna (Mrs. Thomas Cowper Hincks) and Maria,[17] and was father of Francis Orpen Morris the naturalist.