To view this website in other languages, click on the language options in the upper left-hand corner:
Philipse Manor Hall is Yonkers’ last connection to the 17th century. Built starting in the 1680s as a frontier trading post, by the 18th century it had become the central hub of the massive Philipse Manor, which spanned 52,000 acres of Westchester County.
For thousands of years the land where the Saw Mill River meets the Hudson River was inhabited by Munsee Lunaape people called the Weckquaesgeeks at a fishing village called "Nappeckamack."
The Saw Mill River (then called "Nepperhan"), a freshwater tributary of the Hudson, provided fresh water for the village and served as the spring spawning grounds for fish like herring and smelt. The salty Hudson River (then called "Shattemuck") was home to shellfish and other fish like shad and sturgeon.
Europeans harnessed the Nepperhan to power industrial mills. The river falls almost 700 feet from its source in central Westchester County down to the Hudson River, and the last section is the steepest.
Dutch lawyer and immigrant Adriaen Van Der Donck acquired the area around the Nepperhan River in the 1640s. It was he who renamed the river to the “Saeg Kill” or “Saw Mill River,” after the saw mill he had built on the natural falls.
In 1672, Dutch merchants Frederick Philipse I and his wife Margaret Hardenbroek purchased Adriaen Van Der Donck’s old property. They had made their fortune in the fur trade with local Munsee people and in the Albany area, trading with the Mohican and Haudenosaunee (a.k.a. Iroquois) people. Using fur trade funds, they began making improvements to the existing grist mill and saw mill. They built a ship’s landing and dock at the mouth of the Saw Mill River and brought European tenant farmers to work the land.
Construction on a stone house on the Saw Mill River began sometime in the 1680s, and in 1685 the Philipses sent their first slave ship, The Charles, to West Africa to traffic in enslaved people, most of whom they sold in the Caribbean. Those profits, and the first eight enslaved Africans to arrive at the Saw Mill River site sometime in 1685-86, helped build Philipse Manor Hall.
Using their vast fortune, the Philipses continued to buy properties northward until they owned all the land between Spuyten Duyvil Creek in the Bronx and the Croton River in the north, and from the Hudson River east to the Bronx River. They built another industrial mill complex on the Pocantico River, known as the Upper Mills. The complex on the Saw Mill River became known as the Lower Mills.
In 1693, Frederick Philipse I received a manor award from the King of England, giving him the right to rule his tenant farmers as a lord. The 52,000 acre Philipse Manor was born.
Tenant farmers worked the land, growing wheat for export, while enslaved Africans operated the Manor’s industrial complexes and many households - here on the Saw Mill River, north on the Pocantico River, and in lower Manhattan. At both mill complexes, enslaved people ran the grist mills and saw mill, made barrels in the cooperage, baked bread or made butter for export, and piloted boats on the Hudson River.
The Philipses had a diversified portfolio. In addition to real estate deals, loans, and investments, they also operated an international shipping business, trading in manufactured European goods, wheat flour and ship’s biscuit (including a contract with the British Royal Navy), sugar and molasses from the Caribbean, tea and spices from the East Indies, and enslaved Africans.
Combined with the rents from their tenant farmers, these businesses made the Philipse family the wealthiest New Yorkers for four generations.
Ships traveling around the world - to West Africa, Madagascar, the Caribbean, Europe, and other colonies - brought goods, and people, and immense wealth to Philipse Manor Hall. During the American Revolution, its convenient ship's landing and location between the Hudson River and the Albany Post Road made it the site of numerous troop encampments and battles. After the war, Philipse Manor Hall remained at the center of the growing town of Yonkers and later became Yonkers’ first City Hall. Today, it tells the story of New York's early history, connecting the ordinary people and extraordinary events of the past to the present.
As you explore the museum (and the Virtual Wing), you’ll learn more about the people, places, cultures, and events that shaped colonial New York and Philipse Manor Hall itself. You can access parts of this website by using your smartphone camera to access QR codes on the panels in the museum, or use the navigational bar at the top of this website to explore more about the history and people of Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site.
