Frederick Philipse (1626, Bolsward, Netherlands – December 23, 1702 [1]), Lord of Philipse Manor, owned the vast stretch of land spanning from Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx to the Croton River. He was a self-made man who emigrated from the Friesland area of the Netherlands to Flatbush, New Netherland on Long Island, who began his career by selling iron nails and rose to become an owner of taverns. When he first purchased land on the mainland, which later became Westchester County, New York, he enticed friends from New Amsterdam and Long Island to move with him with the promise of free land and limited taxes.
After swearing allegiance to the English and later being granted his manorship from them, he began construction of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. Although financing this project, work likely progressed slowly and was completed in 1685. Philipse held 52,000 acres (210 km²) of land along the Hudson River, where he built, among other structures, a simple residence in Yonkers, New York which would be expanded by his descendents into a full-fledged mansion, Philipse Manor. The neighborhood of Kingsbridge, Bronx is named for his bridge over the Harlem River. In 1685 Philipse imported about 50 slaves directly from Angola on his own ship. [2]
He was on the Governor's executive council from 1691 to 1698 when he was banned from government office by the British governor, Lord Bellomont for his conducting a slave trade into New York.[2]
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Frederick Philipse may have been born in Holland, however, his family is of Bohemian origin, as has been confirmed by the testimony of the Supreme Court Justice John Jay, who was related to him: “Frederick Philipse, whose family, originally of Bohemia, had been compelled by popish persecution to take refuge in Holland, from whence he had emigrated to New York.” (William Jay, The Life of John Jay: with selection of his correspondence and miscellaneous papers. New York: J. & J Harper, 1833, p. 10). On his Bohemian aristocratic ancestry, see also: Thomas Capek, Ancestry of Frederick Philipse: First Lord and Founder of Philipse Manor at Yonkers, N. Y. New York: The Paebar Co., 1939.
Philipse's first wife, Margaret, died in 1691. A year after her death, he married the widow Catharine Van Cortlandt Derval, the sister of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, an adviser to the provincial governor. Her brother Jacobus Van Cortlandt married Frederick's adopted daughter Eva and their son Frederick Van Cortlandt later built the Van Cortlandt House Museum in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, New York.[3] Philipse is buried with his two wives in the crypt of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow.
Frederick's son Adolphus Philipse[4] inherited his vast lands and title and his great-grandson, Frederick Philipse III moved to Yonkers, New York and leased the entirety of his property to William Pugsley before siding with the British in the American Revolution and leaving New York City for England in 1783. After the Revolution, New York confiscated Philipse's property, and that of other loyalists. The entirety of the family property was divided up into almost 200 different parcels of land, with the vast majority becoming today's Putnam County, New York in the form of the Philipse Patent, and other large parcels going to Dutch New York businessman Henry Beekman.