The Roger Morris, or Jumel Mansion

Mention of Burr brings to mind a still older and finer house than the Grange, and filled with associations even more historic. This is the Roger Morris, or Jumel, mansion, which stands near the Kingsbridge Road at One Hundred and Sixty-first Street. The property which it occupies was originally conveyed by the town of New Harlem to one of the settlers named Hendrick Kiersen, in March, 1696. The grant lay between the present One Hundred and Fifty-ninth and One Hundred and Sixty-third streets, from the Kingsbridge Road to the edge of the cliff overlooking the Harlem River.

The present edifice was built in 1758 by Colonel Roger Morris as a home for his bride, Mary Philipse of the Yonkers. Morris and Washington were aides on the staff of General Braddock in that ill-starred officer's unfortunate campaign in the old French war. Military business brought the young Virginian to Boston in 1756, and on his return he stopped at the house in New York of his friend, Colonel Beverley Robinson, where he met his host's sister-in-law, Mary Philipse. Tradition says that he fell in love with her, but there are no facts in the case. However, if he had proposed to her, it is not likely that she would have accepted an impecunious land-surveyor, as Washington was at that time. So he passed on, and his former companion-in-arms, Roger Morris, won the brilliant and witty Mary. During the War for Independence, Colonel Morris, though at first inclined to take up the colonial cause, was persuaded by his wife, so it is said, to remain loyal to the king. In consequence, he lost all his property in America by confiscation.

During the operations in this vicinity, Washington occupied the house as his headquarters from September 16th, to October 21, 1776, when he retreated to White Plains. During the British occupation of the island, it was the headquarters, off and on for over six years, of Lieutenant-General Knyphausen, the senior officer of the German mercenaries. After the war it passed into the possession of a farmer; and while Washington was President, he and his Cabinet visited the house in July, 1790. It was in this house in the fearsome days of 1776 that Washington first met Alexander Hamilton, later offering the young captain of artillery a position on his staff, which Hamilton accepted. Thus began that close intimacy which was to be of such incalculable benefit to the country, the calm steadfastness of the older man supplementing and holding in check the brilliant genius of the younger. The property passed into the possession of John Jacob Astor, who sold it, about 1810, to Stephen Jumel.

The Holyrood Chapel

The Holyrood Chapel was built less than fifteen years ago and the property cost about fifteen thousand dollars; the land is now worth two hundred thousand dollars, and the church has already accepted an offer for it and will move to Fort Washington Avenue. This transaction gives an indication of the increase in values of land in this vicinity.

Fort Washington

On the river bank at Jeffrey's Neck, where is now located Fort Washington Park, was the Revolutionary fortification of the patriots, erected under the plans of Major Rufus Putnam, Washington's engineer. The outworks of the fort extended in all directions for over a mile, and on the Jersey shore of the river was Fort Lee. It was expected that these two forts, with the obstructions placed in the river for the purpose, would prevent the passage up the stream of the British vessels; but in this expectation the Americans were disappointed, as the war vessels sailed safely through the obstructions. Much against his own judgment, Washington, instead of dismantling the fort upon his own evacuation of the island, listened to the request of Congress and left it with a garrison under Colonel Magaw. After their unsuccessful Westchester campaign, the British turned their attention to the reduction of Fort Washington. After several days of preparation, they carried it by assault on November 16, 1776, and Magaw and his three thousand troops became prisoners of war to die and rot in the New York prisons. Thus the Americans lost their last foothold on Manhattan Island. The fort was occupied by the British and was renamed Fort Knyphausen in honor of the leader of the Hessians who had taken the principal part in its capture.

Fort Tryon

We have a rather general idea that the Hessians were fit only for looting and other outrages. One has only to look at the precipitous bluff below Fort Tryon the northernmost of the fortifications below Inwood, to realize that they could also fight upon occasion. Loaded down with paraphernalia weighing fifty pounds or more and carrying a musket weighing sixteen pounds, they stormed these bluffs and carried them in the face of the finest marksmen in the world. The lines of the old fort are plainly visible, and as they are within a public park, they bid fair to be preserved for all time. On November 16, 1901, the anniversary of the battle, an appropriate monument and tablet were dedicated on Fort Washington Avenue, at the base of one of the old ramparts, the land being given for the purpose by James Gordon Bennett the younger, the proprietor of the New York Herald. The earthworks of Fort Tryon, just below Inwood, are easily discernible near the former residence of William Muschenheim of the Hotel Astor.

Inwood

Beyond One Hundred and Seventieth Street, the Kingsbridge Road finds its way down the hill on to the Dyckman meadows between a precipitous bluff on the east, the Laurel Hill of earlier days where Fort George, one of the outer defenses of Fort Washington, was located, and an equally bold line of bluffs on the west continuing to the end of the island. There is a passage through these to the Hudson to which the name of Inwood is given. This is the present terminus of Lafayette Boulevard which is itself virtually an extension of Riverside Drive.

Dyckman Property

North of Inwood, the greater part of the land may be said to have constituted the old Dyckman property, though there were some other owners. Near the extreme end of the island, Governor Kieft made two grants to Matthys Jansen and Juyck Aertsen in 1646 and 1647; but the town of New Harlem later owned the tract at the wading place, of which more later, as common land. The Jansen and Aertsen tracts afterwards became the home farm of Jan Dyckman. The original home of the Dyckmans stood on the bank of the Harlem River near Two Hundred and Ninth Street but was vacated by the family during the Revolution when they left with the Americans. Upon their return, they found that their homestead had been burnt, and nothing but its ruins remained. A new homestead, still standing, was built at the corner of Broadway and Hawthorne Street; but how much longer it will stand unless measures are taken to preserve it, is a question easily answered when we take into account the fate of other ancient buildings.

Associated with Dyckman was Jan Nagel, both of whom were young, enterprising, and progressive men, who in time secured by lot, purchase, and exchange nearly all of this upper end of the island. The Dyckmans, both of this section and of the adjoining county of Westchester, were patriots during the Revolution, and several of them served as guides and scouts for the American marauding parties; one of them, Lieutenant William Dyckman, was killed at Eastchester near the end of the war. A monument commemorating his death and that of Lieutenant-Colonel Greene and Major Flagg of Rhode Island was erected some years ago at Yorktown Cemetery in the northern part of Westchester County. Greene and Flagg were killed at Pine's Bridge over the Croton River during a raid of De Lancey's corps of loyalists.