Lot: Wolfert Webbers Upper Farm (Original Grants and Farms)

Lot
Wolfert Webbers Upper Farm
Lot Group
Original Grants and Farms
Property Was Used in 1660 For:
Full Stokes Entry (See images below)
THE WOLFERT WEBBERS UPPER FARM

Block Check List. 1098-1264-1257-993-995-1014-10961098.

The early history of this farm is identical with the early history of the John L. Norton farm.

Jan Vinge, one of the patentees of the large grant north of the Great Kill, bought 150 acres from the other members of the syndicate, as Johannes Van Brugh had done. His farm lay north of and adjoining Van Brugh's plantation.

Jan Vinge to Jacob Cornelisse Stille. Deed not found of record; recited in Liher Deeds, XLII: 27 (New York).

Jacob Cornelissen Stille lived at the Great Kills in 1684.

For Jacob Cornelissen and his descendants, see the A^. Y. Ceneal. & Biog. Rec, Vol. XL, 1876.

Jacob Cornelisse Stille to Wolfert Webbers. Deed not found of record; recneA'm Liber Deeds, "XlAl: 27.

Stille's daughter, Grietje, married Wolfert Webbers, Oct. 29, 1697.

Arnout Webbers, and Sarah, his wife; Jacob Webbers, and Margaret, his wife; Frederick Webbers, and Lena, his wife; Cornelius Webbers and Jannetie, his wife; Ariante van Arden, late Ariantie Webbers; Altie SomerDicKE, late Aeltie Webbers; and Margaret Webbers, to Joseph Haynes. Deed dated Oct. 6, 1759. — Liber Deeds, XLII: 27 (New York). Conveys: "All that a certain part and parcel of land laid out for one equal fifth part of a patent formerly granted to Johannes Van Brugh, Thomas Hall, Jan Vinge, Egbert Wouters and Jacob Leanders [sic] as the same fifth part was sold by Jan Vinge to Jacob Cornelisse and by the said Jacob Cornelisse to Wolfert Webbers deceased. Bounded on the south by the land of Johannes Van Brugh, on the North by the land of Aernout Webbers, on the west by Hudson River, and on the east by the commons of the city of New York."

Joseph Haynes had that part of his farm west of the Bloomingdale Road laid out into three large lots, in 1760, by Fransz Maerschalck. Recitals in Liber Deeds, XLII: 49. No copy of this map has been found, but the lots may be easily identified.

When Haynes bought the property, there was a house on it which had been built by Wolfert Webbers. It has been possible to locate it exactly by a surveyor's description, in the deed to Joseph Murray dated Nov. 19, 1748, of the land that Webbers sold to Murray to straighten their boundary lines. That description, printed in Tuttle, Abstracts of Farm Titles, III: 30, makes Webbers' house a landmark. It stood just west of the road, in the bed of 44th St.

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Aug. 5, 1762, Haynes borrowed £1,600 from his wife's sister. Miss Anne Jevon, giving her a mortgage on the farm as security.— Liwr Mtges., II: 57 (New York). It may be surmised that he needed the money to improve the house and farm.

Joseph Haynes died between March 9, 1763, when he made a codicil to his will, and May 9, 1763, when the will was probated.—Z,!^<>r ;Fi7/j, XXIV: 22 (New York). He devised his entire estate to his wife during her life; after her death, one half of the estate to go to his nieces, Charlotte and Elizabeth Haynes; the other one half, to his wife's sisters. The codicil to his will provided that Anne Jevon should live with his wife during her widowhood and in case of his wife's remarriage. Miss Jevon should have an annuity of £100 yearly. The widow and Anne Jevon were named executrices. Mrs. Haynes died about 1768, leaving four surviving sisters, Anne, the wife of Daniel Horsmanden, Elizabeth, Mary, and Catharine Jevon. The three Misses Jevon and the two nieces of Haynes seemed to be then living in England.

Daniel Horsmanden's first wife was the widow of the Rev. William Vesey, rector of Trinity Church. The record of his marriage to Anne Jevon has not been found. It must have taken place between 1763 and 1768. Daniel Horsmanden was born about 1693, in England. A lawyer by profession, he came to New York about 1730. In 1733, he was called to the provincial council. In 1736, he was appointed recorder and, in 1737, he was made judge of the supreme court. Gov. Clinton, to whom he was politically opposed, suspended him from his various offices in 1747, but, by 1750, he was restored to the bench and to his seat in the council. In 1763, he was made chief justice. After his marriage to Anne Jevon, they lived in the house which Webbers had built and Haynes had improved. Horsmanden's strong British tendencies induced him to name the house "Frog Hall."

Aug. 13, 1776, the provincial convention resolved to empower Washington to commandeer a number of houses for use as army hospitals for the American troops, among others, "Mr. Horsemanden's, commonly c'alled Frogg Hall." — Chronology.

Horsmanden, who was an ardent and active royalist, retired to Flushing, L. I., where he died in September, 177S, at an advanced age.

Daniel Horsmanden will be best remembered as the author of a history of the so called "Negro Plot." He firmly believed the negroes had conspired, and was ruthless in punishing alleged offenders. See Chronology, 1741.

Daniel Horsmanden and his wife, and the other heirs of Joseph Haynes, sold lot 2 on the Maerschalck map to John Reis, Jan. 16, 1771. Lots i and 3 were sold to Medcef Eden, probably soon after Oct. 14, 1784, when the deed to Haynes, dated in 1759, was recorded at Mr. Eden's request. — Liber Deeds, XLII: 27 (New York). The subsequent history of this farm is clearly set forth in Tuttle, Abstracts of Farm Titles, Vol. III.

Lot 2 of Haynes is there called the Charles Kelly Tract. Lots I and 3 formed the Astor and Cutting Tract. East of the road the different small farms are named as the William Wright Tract; the Medcef Eden, Jr., Tract; the Tyson and Williams Tract; the William L. Rose Tract; and the Thomas Addis Emmet Tract.

In the history of the farm, in Tuttle, the name of Mrs. Horsmanden and her sisters is given as "Sevon." The name is written "Jevon" in the records.

In 1780, in a deed from the daughter of Jacobus Van Orden to Thomas Jones, of the north-easterly corner of Van Orden's farm, immediately south of "The Hermit.age," the Bloomingdale Road is called "the road leading from New York or the Bowery, by Frog Hall, to Bloomingdale." — Liber Deeds, XL: 588.