Philipse Patent

Philipse bought the roughly 250 sq mi (650 km2) tract from two Dutch traders who had purchased it from "Wiccopee chiefs" of the Wappinger native American people.

The first step to establishing rights to real estate at the time was to apply to the colonial government for a license to purchase a tract of land from local Native American inhabitants.

On December 2, 1680, Dutch traders Lambert Dorlandt and Jan Sybrant (Seberinge) applied to the New York colonial government for a license to purchase land in present-day Putnam County.

"[2] Eventually, on July 15, 1691, Dortlandt and Sybrant secured from the local Wapppinger leaders a deed to a 15,000-acre tract of the "low lands" along the eastern bank of the Hudson River from the peak on Anthony's Nose to Pollepel Island, and east to a marked tree.

Adolphus was the second son of Frederick Philipse, the first Lord of the Manor of Philipsborough, a Dutch immigrant to North America of Bohemian heritage who had risen to become one of the greatest landholders in New Netherland.

Thus began a policy that lasted throughout his lifetime and his heirs' so long as they owned the land,[5] to rent rather than sell, a practice which led to stunted growth for two and a half centuries to come.

Upon Frederick's death in 1702, Adolphus inherited a partial share of the Manor's lands,[5] which then amounted to over 80 square miles and encompassed the bulk of today's lower Westchester County.

Based upon a 1751 survey, the tract was geographically divided on the 7th of Feb 1754 into nine Lots as seen in the preserved undated pen and ink map: three on the river, three in the interior, and three on the eastern border abutting The Oblong.

[8] This reached a peak in 1766, when a tenant in the northeast of Mary Philipse's center parcel, William Prendergast,[9] fomented a small army of 2,000 men to forcibly wrest freedom from paying rent on the lands they occupied.

[10] Royal grenadiers were dispatched from Poughkeepsie, and, after skirmishes en route, resulting in several dead on each side, engaged Prendergast and 50 of his men at the Oblong Meeting House[11] in the Gore, earning their surrender.

In spite of assurances of restitution in the 1783 Treaty of Paris signed with the British,[19] and the enormous sum raised – the better part of a quarter of a million pounds Sterling[20] – New York's Provisional Congress reneged and no compensation was forthcoming.