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Yonkers, New York — American Historic GemBy Marilyn LoeserI’ve had a certain whimsical impression of Yonkers, NY, since I first watched the 1969 movie adaptation of the Broadway hit — Hello Dolly starring Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau. A matchmaker, Dolly Levi, takes a trip to Yonkers to see the "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire," Horace Vandergelder. While there, she convinces him, his two stock clerks and his niece and her beau to go to New York City. What I found when I finally arrive in Yorkers, nearly 40 years after watching the musical, is a city rich in tradition, history and commerce. I also find a bit of American history that I really hadn’t thought much about before — the role of Loyalists during the American Revolution.
Kimberly begins her narrative in the oldest part of the house, diagramming generations of family members, spouses, children and their roles in the colony.
On November 28, 1776 — the same year the Declaration of
Independence was signed — more than 200 colonial New Yorkers placed their
signatures on a “Declaration of Dependence.” Among the Loyalists signing the
document was Frederick Philipse III, Lord of the vast Manor of Philipsburg and
resident of the mansion we are touring. Van der Donck built a saw mill on the river. Van der Donck also is credited with the city’s name. As a “jonkheer,” or young nobleman, his property came to be called “the Jonkheer’s Land.” Although Van der Donck gave Yonkers its name, the real founder of the city was another Dutchman, Frederick Philipse I.
Kimberly explained to us how the fortune was divided when Frederick Philipse I died in 1702 between his oldest surviving son, Adolph, who received the Upper Mills, and his orphaned grandson, Frederick II, who received the Lower Mills and the Manor House.
“His beliefs were so strong that he was arrested in 1776,
under orders from General George Washington,” our guide explains. “He and his
family later “His land and his mansion were confiscated by the New York State Legislature and sold at public auction,” she says as she begins another narrative about the manor during the next century before it opens as a museum of art and history in 1911. Thanking our knowledgeable and gracious hostess, Mark and I walk out into the winter afternoon to explore more of the city.
Local sculptor Isidor Konti, best known for his works at the 1890 World's Columbian Exposition, the 1904 Saint Louis Fair and the 1915 Panama–Pacific Exposition, also designed a memorial to honor local citizens who died in the First World War. The memorial has been updated with new plaques in honor of those who died in later conflicts. Yonkers offers several history lessons and is well worth a visit. If you go: For information on other attractions in and near Yonkers, check the website tourism.westchestergov.com/. Located just north of New York City, Yonkers is easy to reach by car or rail. Mark and I stayed at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, just minutes from Yonkers and other attractions in the area. For more information check the website at marriott.com/property/propertypage.mi?marshaCode=NYCWE. |
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My husband Mark and I enter Philipse Manor Hall on a chilly
winter day and are immediately introduced to our guide Kimberly Adams. She, in
turn, introduces us to the Philipse family.
It’s
when she begins to explain the struggles of the loyalists that I begin to
understand how victory in war — and the beginnings of a free nation — meant loss
of property and prestige to the citizens who wanted to remain loyal subjects of
King George III.
Through trade, land acquisition and a strategic marriage,
Philipse amassed a fortune. In 1672, Philipse purchased the Yonkers’ Nepperhan
mill site. This was the beginning of what would become a 52,500-acre estate
which was established by a royal patent in 1693 as the “Lordship or Mannour of
Philipsborough.”
“Frederick Philipse
II came of age and into the title of Lord of the Manor in 1716,” said Kimberly.
“Now the Manor Hall served as his family’s summer residence.”
When Adolph died in 1750, Frederick II inherited the
plantation at the Upper Mills, bringing the entire Manor of Philipsburg together
once again, and allowing Frederick II’s son, Frederick III, to inherit the Manor
intact.
He
was determined to make the Yonkers mansion a showcase of English gentility and
the principal family seat. But times were changing. While others rebelled
against Great Britain, Frederick III defended the Crown.
fled to British–occupied New York City and then to England, where he died 20
years later.
The Yonkers Civil War Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument
stands in front of Philipse Manor Hall at the corner of Warburton Avenue and
Dock Street. It was erected on September 17, 1891 to “honor the men of Yonkers
who fought to save the Union” in the Civil War.