Person:Frederick Philipse (1)

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Frederick Philipse (born Frederick Flypsen; 1626 in Bolsward, Netherlands – December 23, 1702), first Lord of the Manor of Philipseborough (Philipsburg) and patriarch of the Philipse family, was a Dutch immigrant to North America of Bohemian heritage. A merchant, he arrived in America as early as 1653.<ref></ref> In 1662, he married Margaret Hardenbrook de Vries, a wealthy and driven widow. Together, and variously in league with slavers, pirates, and other undesirables, the couple amassed a fortune.<ref></ref>

Beginning in 1672 Philipse and some partners started acquiring land in what was to become lower Westchester County, New York. When the British took over the Dutch colony in 1674, Philipse pledged his allegiance to the Crown and was rewarded with a title and manorship for his holdings, which ultimately grew to some (210 km²). Serving later on the Governor's executive council, he was subsequently banned from government office for conducting a slave trade into New York.

Upon his death, Philipse was one of the greatest landholders in the Province of New York. He owned the vast stretch of land spanning from Spuyten Duyvil Creek, in the Bronx (then in lower Westchester County), to the Croton River. He was regarded by some as the richest man in the Colony.<ref></ref> His son Adolphus acquired substantial land north of modern Westchester sanctioned as the royal Philipse Patent. Stripped from the family after the Revolution for their Tory sympathies, the some tract became the present-day Putnam County, New York.

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[Note: the date of his arrival in America was in "1653", and has been corrected on wikipedia]

Among the early settlers was Adolph Hardenbrook who came from Holland and settled in Bergen. Among other children he had a daughter Margaret, who married Pieter Rudolphus De Vries, a merchant of New Amsterdam, in 1659. They had one daughter who was baptized with the name of Maria, October 3, 1660. Pieter Rudolphus De Vries died in 1661, leaving a considerable estate which descended to his widow and child. In October, 1662, bans of marriage between Frederick Philipse and Margaret Hardenbrook were published. By an antenuptial agreement Frederick Philipse agreed to adopt the child and leave her one-half of his estate unless he had children of his own, in which case he would give her an equal share with them. Although her name at baptism is given as Maria, it is possible that her name may have been changed at the time of adoption, at all events it is certain that she ever bore the name of Eva Philipse and is thus named in her adopted father's will.

By his marriage Frederick Philipse became entitled to a community of property with his wife, but she did not relinquish the sole management of her estate, for which she seemed well fitted by nature. On the contrary she conducted business of her late husband, and frequently made voyages to Holland in her own ships and acting as her own super cargo.

Frederick Philipse, and Margaret, bis wife, who was the acknowledged owner and supercargo of the Charles, and was, with her daughter, Annctje, a fellow passenger of our travelers in that ship on their voyage to New York, have figured largely in these pages, and seem, therefore, before we part from them, to require some particular notice, especially as he and some other members of the family were conspicuous in the early history of the colony of New York; and more particularly because the public records, colonial and ecclesiastical, prove that the statements hitherto published in regard to them are exceedingly erroneous.

Frederick Philipse, whose name is thus anglicised from the Dutch, namely, Flipsen, or as he himself spelt it, Flypsen, that is, the son of Flip or Philip, was born in the year 1626, at Bolsward, in Friesland, the little town near Wiewerd, where our travelers, it will be recollected, entered the canal boat on the morning they set out for Amsterdam, to take ship for New York. In what year he left Friesland, does not appear; but it was not in 16.58, as the accounts referred to state, for he was in New Amsterdam in 1653, when we find him named as an appraiser of a house and lot of Augustine Hcermans in that city. If he came over with Governor Stuyvesant, as it is asserted and as is not impossible, then he arrived here in May, 1647. But he came in no lordly capacity, nor for the purpose of taking possession of landed estates, which it is pretended, he had acquired here. He was a carpenter by trade, and worked as such at first for Governor Stuyvesant.

Margaret, his first wife, was the daughter of Adolph Hardenbrook, who came from Ervervelt, in Holland, and settled at Bergen, opposite New Amsterdam. She married Peter Rudolphus De Vries, a merchant trader of New Amsterdam, in 1659, and had by him one child, a daughter, baptized October 3,1660. Rudolphus died in 1661, leaving a considerable estate, which, by law, devolved upon his widow and child with a community of interest.

In October, 1662, bans of marriage between Frederick Philipse and Margaret Hardenbrook were published, when the Court of Orphan Masters of New Amsterdam summoned her before them, to render an inventory of her child's paternal inheritance. This she declared she was unable to do, probably in consequence of the commercial character of the assets; whereupon the court received the ante-nuptial contract between her and Frederick Philipse in lieu of the inventory, in consequence of its embodying an agreement on his part to adopt the child of Rudolphus as his own, and to bequeath her one-half of his estate, unless he had children born to himself, and in that case to give her a share equally with them. Adoption was permitted by the laws, and also the limitation of successory estates by marriage contracts, and the child thus in legal intendment, became the child of Frederick Philipse upon the consummation of the marriage in December following. In the baptismal record, the name of this child is written Maria. This may have been, and probably was, an error of the registrar; certain it is, that Frederick Philipse, by his will, made provision for a child, which he calls his oldest daughter, named Eva, who was not his child by marriage, as it seems; and he makes no provision for Maria, as he was bound to do by his marriage contract, unless it be that for Eva. The conclusion, therefore, seems irresistible, that Eva and Maria were one and the same person.

By his marriage with Margaret Hardenbrook, Frederick Philipse became entitled to a community of property with her. She did not, however, relinquish to him the sole management of the estate which she possessed, but on the contrary, continued the business of her former husband, a practice not uncommon in the colony, and became a woman-trader, a character which does not appear to have always been a very amiable one, judging from our journalist's description of her, and of the mistress of Illetie the Indian at Albany. She went repeatedly to Holland in her own ships, as supercargo, and bought and traded in her own name. By her fortune, thrift, and enterprise, however, as well as by his own exertions, Philipse soon came to be the richest man in the colony. His property was valued in 1674 by commissioners appointed by Governor Colve, at 80,000 guilders; an amount large in those days, and yet small compared with his subsequent wealth. On her death, his commercial operations became more extensive. It is not certain when Margaret died, though it was not in 1662, as strangely stated by some, for that was the year of her marriage with Frederick Philipse. She was alive, and a passenger in the ship with our travelers in 1679, but she must have died before 1692, when Frederick Philipse espoused Catharine van Cortlandt, widow of John Derval and daughter of Olotf Stevensz van Cortlandt, for his second wife. He became the largest trader with the Five Indian Nations at Albany, sent ships to both the East and West Indies, imported slaves from Africa, and engaged, as it was with good reason alleged, in trade with the pirates at Madagascar. His gains and profits were much enhanced, it was believed, by his connection with the government, and his intimacy with the governors, by which he obtained immunities not granted to others. He was a member of the council under all the governors, from Andros to Bellomont, embracing an uninterrupted period of twenty years, with the exception of the brief usurpation of Leisler. When the latter event occurred, he was in conjunction with Stephen van Cortlandt, left in charge of the government by Lieutenant Governor Nicholson. After resisting for a few days the proceedings of Leisler, as became his position, he wisely, when the public sentiment pronounced itself in favor of them, submitted to them as the acts of the government difurtu, much to the chagrin of Bayard and his associates He was subsequently clothed by Governor Sloughter with similar powers, in conjunction with Nicholas Bayard, during the absence of that governor at Albany. He had the ear of Fletcher, who bestowed upon him and his son Adolphus, extravagant grants of land. When the Leisler party came into power under Bellomont, in 1698, he resigned his seat in council, in consequence, as he alleged, of his advanced age, which was then seventy-two, though in reality, it would seem, to avoid, if possible, theblow which was already given in an orderfor his removal by the home government, on account of his practices with the pirates, an order which arrived a few weeks after his resignation.

In 1680, he acquired a piece of land from the Indians, the title to which was confirmed by patent in the same year from Governor Andros, situated on the Pocanteco or Mill river, in the county of Westchester, running along Sleepy Hollow, the region since made famous in our legendary lore. This acquisition was the nucleus of the large tract in that county extending from Yonkers to the Croton river, which, with a small piece on the opposite side of the Hudson, near Tappaan, and the bridge across the Spytenduyvel, called Kingsbridge, were purchased or patented by him, and erected by Governor Fletcher in 1693, into a manor, with the customary privileges of a lordship, of holding court leet and court baron, and exercising advowson and right of patronage of all churches to be erected within its limits, to be held by him, his heirs and assigns, by the name of the manor of Philipsborough. This property remained in the family until the American revolution, when, by reason of the adherence to the British crown of the proprietor, Colonel Frederick Philipse, great grandson of the founder of the estate, it was confiscated by the state of New York.

Frederick Philipse was, as we have seen, twice married. He had no children by Catharine van Cortlandt, his second wife. By Margaret Har denbrook, he had four: I. Philip, baptized March 18,1664. II. Adolphus, baptized November 15,1665. III. Annetje, baptized November 27,1667, and IV. Rombout, baptized January 9,1670. The genealogy in Burke's Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, says he had two children, Frederick, born in 1656, and Eva, and makes Philip and Adolphus to be sons of this Frederick by Margaret Hardenbrook; while that in Bolton's History of Westehester County, gives him one child, Frederick, born in 1656, at Bolsirard, and makes Margaret Hardenbrook to be the wife of this Frederick, and Philip, Adolphus, Eva and Annetje to be his children. The errors of these statements are so palpable on the face of them, as hardly to require being pointed out. Margaret Hardenbrook married Frederick Philipse, as the record shows, in December, 1662; surely then, her husband could not have been born in 1656, only six years before. Frederick Philipse was in this country as early as 1653, remained FREDERICK PHILIPSE,here and married his first wife in 1662. He could not have had a son born to him in Friesland in 1656. All this confusion arises from the mistake of these writers in supposing that there was a son Frederick born to the first Frederick, and attributing to two Fredericks what pertains to one.

Frederick Philipse, the first of the name in this country, and the subject of this sketch, died in 1702, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He left a will, by which he devised to Frederick Philipse, his grandson, the son of Philip, his oldest son, the Yonker's plantation and other lands; to Eva, his oldest daughter, who married Jacobus van Cortlandt, May 7, 1691, a house and ground in New York, and a mortgage of Domine Selyns; to his son Adolphus, the land at the upper mills in Westchester county; and to his daughter Annetje, wife of Philip French, a house and ground in New York, and an estate in Bergen. Rombout is not mentioned in the will, having probably died in infancy; nor is there any mention of any son Frederick, or of the children of such a son. Eva, his oldest daughter, was, as we have concluded, such by adoption, and not by birth. This is to be inferred from the absence of her name in the baptismal record, and by the times of the birth of his other children as given by the same record.

Adolphus Philipse was, for several years, speaker of the colonial assembly. Mary, daughter of Frederick Philipse, named in the will of the first Frederick, and sister of Colonel Frederick Philipse, in whose hands the manorial estate was confiscated, won, it is said, the affections of Wash.ington, but the demands of his country called him away, and she became the wife of Colonel Morris, who embraced the cause of the king.

As this sketch of Frederick Philipse differs materially from the accounts heretofore published, we adduce here the authorities for all the essential facts presented. 0' Callaghan's Calendar of Dutch Manuscripts, 56,210, 218. Valentine's History of New York, 144. New York Colonial Manuscripts, X, 281. Calendar of English Manuscripts, 26,118,158, 206,270. Neto Netherland Register, 100. Valentine's New York Manual for 1862,617, 623; for 1863, 801-807. Record of Court of Orphan Masters, city clerk's office, New York, sub dato December 18,1662. New York Colonial History, II, 699; III, IV, passim. Records of Wills, in surrogate's office, New York, Book VII, 101. Burke's Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland for 1851,1, 890; II, 1361. Bolton's History of Westchester County, I, 320, 323, and pedigree ; II, 418,466,467. Blake's History of Putnam County, 80-3.

PHILIPSE, Frederick An emigrant from Holland, coming to New Netherland as a young man. He married, first, Margaretta Hardenbrook, widow of Peter Rudolphus, a rich fur merchant, and by this marriage he laid the foundation of the largest fortune acquired by any man at that time. He married, second, Catharena Van Cortlandt, widow of John Dervall, a rich English merchant, and the pair became possessors of almost unbounded wealth. Mr. Philipse became patentee of a manor on the Hudson, embracing a large portion of the present Westchester County. He erected a manor house where he and his wife spent the rest of their days in the felicity which wealth and social position can give. In 1674 his fortune was estimated at 80,000 fl. In 1676 his assessment was ~81. 18. 9. on property valued at ~13,000.