Philipse-Gouverneur family papers, 1653-1874

The collection contains documents about land holdings in and around Yonkers and Westchester and Dutchess Counties, New York owned by the wealthy Philipse, Gouverneur, Verplanck, Livingston, and other allied families. Included are grants, patents, deeds, indentures, transfers, wills, leases, accounts, maps, and records of civil and chancery court actions. These records not only chronicle legal actions, riots and uprisings of the European colonial settlers related to land disputes against these wealthy colonial settler families, but also record their interactions with the true landowners the Wappinger Confederacy.

The Wappinger ('easterners'), a confederacy of the Algonquian Indians, formerly occupied the eastern bank of the Hudson River from Poughkeepsie to Manhattan Island and the country extending east beyond the Connecticut River. The Wappinger Chief Daniel Nimham (1726-1778) fought a long sustained battle to recover tribal lands fraudulently taken through the Philipse Highland Patent, 13 August 1702 (document (56)). In 1766, Nimham traveled to England, presented his case, and received a favorable ruling before the Royal Lords of Trade. In New York Provincial Council proceedings, the governor ruled against Chief Nimham stating that returning the land to the Indians would set an adverse precedent regarding similar disputes. Some aspects of this long legal fight can be reviewed in the following documents: (45) through (49); (54) through (56); and (99).

Unfortunately, documents that contain references to the enslavement of African-Americans were withdrawn before Columbia University received the collection. However, please refer to the original PDF finding aid URL located below at "Other Finding Aids", which identifies in highlighted yellow all removed items.

Finally, many of the documents bear the signature of Roger Morris, Sir Henry Clinton, General Sir William Howe, General William Tryon, Edward Hyde Viscount Cornbury (later, 3rd Earl of Clarendon), John Jacob Astor, and various members of the landholding families of the area. In addition, there are some reproductions of Philipse and Gouverneur family portraits.