The Philipse family was a prominent Dutch family in New Netherlands and the British Province of New York. Its members owned both the vast hereditary estate in lower Westchester County, New York (Philipsburg Manor), and the roughly Highland Patent, later known as the "Philipse Patent" (today's Putnam County and parts of Dutchess County). Frederick Philipse, the first lord of Philipsburg Manor, was New York's richest man.
Among the family's numerous enterprises, the Philipses engaged in the slave trade. Some of the victims of the slave trade they kept for themselves: while many families in colonial New York owned slaves, most possessed one or two house slaves; the Philipse family owned more than 120 enslaved men, women, and children. Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, the family had its lands seized in 1779 by the Revolutionary government of the Province of New York and sold by its Commissioners of Forfeiture. Though never compensated for their losses by the Colonial government,Description of the Abstract of Sales, Commissioners of Forfeiture "Many citizens of New York, however, still harbored strong resentment against the loyalists, leading the Provincial Congress to effectively nullify the Treaty of Paris of 1783 by an act of May 12, 1784." various family members did receive payments from the British government in following years.Life of Sir John Beverley Robinson, Bart., C.B., D.C.L.: Chief-Justice of Upper Canada, by Major General Charles Walker Robinson, C.B. (1904), as cited at Loyal American Regiment, Beverley. Ultimately the British Compensation Commission granted them £24,000 toward the original £80,000 value of he and Susanna's personal estate (reflecting about £16,000 Sterling, plus the 60,000 Philipse Patent acres and some city property valued together at about £64,000), though only about £17,000 was ever paid.An American Loyalist: The Ordeal of Frederick Philipse III , Stefan Bielinski, New York State Museum (1976). Bielinski claims Frederick Philipse III was "compensated handsomely by the crown" for his loss. No amount, however, was specified, only a prior reference to a royal pension granted him for his "attachment to his majesty's government" that only reached 200 pounds by 1782, a minute fraction of the over 220,000 pound loss he had suffered via attainder.
History The Philipse family is of Bohemian origin. According to Supreme Court Justice John Jay, (whose maternal grandmother, Eva de Vries, had been adopted by Frederick Philipse upon his marriage to Margaret Hardenbroeck): "Frederick Philipse, whose family, originally of Bohemia, had been compelled by popish persecution to take refuge in Holland, whence he had emigrated to New York."(William Jay, The Life of John Jay: with selection of his correspondence and miscellaneous papers. New York: J. & J Harper, 1833, p. 10). On his Bohemian aristocratic ancestry, see also: Thomas Capek, Ancestry of Frederick Philipse: First Lord and Founder of Philipse Manor at Yonkers, N. Y. New York: The Paebar Co., 1939. Frederick Philipse (1636–1702), first lord and founder of Philipsburg Manor, had eleven children with his first wife, Margaret Hardenbrook de Vries.Morris, F. O., "Philipse of Philipsburgh", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 10 (1856). Married 1662, name listed as "Philipszen", New York Genealogical & Biographical Record (quarterly), 1875, selected extracts She died in 1691. A year later, Frederick married the widow Catharine Van Cortlandt Derval, who survived him for many years.Glenn, p. 258: Her will is dated 7 January 1730Glenn, Thomas Allen, Some colonial mansions and those who lived in them: With genealogies of the various families mentioned, H. T. Coates & company, Philadelphia, 1900
She was the sister of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, an adviser to the provincial governor. Her brother Jacobus Van Cortlandt married Frederick's adopted daughter Eva and their son Frederick Van Cortlandt later built the Van Cortlandt House in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, New York.Jeff Canning and Wally Buxton, History of the Tarrytowns. Harrison, NJ: Harbor Hill Books, 1975. Jacobus and Eva's daughter, Mary, was the mother of John Jay by her marriage to Peter Jay.
Family residences The Philipse name is today most commonly associated with the two manor houses in Westchester County, New York (Philipse Manor Hall and Philipsburg Manor House). However, Frederick Philipse I was first and foremost a prominent and active merchant of New Amsterdam (renamed New York during his lifetime), and that is where he lived and conducted business. His primary residence was located in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, on the corner of Markvelt (now Whitehall Street) and Breuers Straet (now Stone Street). The lot was granted to him by Peter Stuyvesant in 1658.
As evidenced by his will, his Manhattan property included not just a residential building, but also his primary counting-house (office), several warehouses for his international trade business, and a "bolting house" for processing flour. His being a carpenter by trade, it is likely that he drew plans for them himself and oversaw their construction. Even after he was granted the lordship of Philipsburg Manor in Westchester in 1693, his will confirms that he was still living in this Manhattan house. He left "the house in New York where I now live" to his grandson, Frederick Philipse II.
His son, Adolphus Philipse, owned a house on New Street, also in Manhattan's Financial District, where he primarily resided. He also had a hunting lodge near Lake Mahopac in present-day Putnam County, which was part of his Highland Patent.
Philipse I built two manor houses on Philipsburg Manor, one in southern Westchester County (on the Lower Mills segment of the manor) and the other in central Westchester (on the Upper Mills segment of the manor). The Upper Mills House, fortified against possible attacks by the local Native American tribes, was initially called Philipse Castle. The Westchester houses were occupied by the Philipses mostly during their supervisory trips to oversee the operations at the two Mills properties or as stopovers on upstate trips (such as visiting relatives at Van Cortlandt Manor). Philipse's grandson, Frederick Philipse III, converted the Lower Mills house into a mansion and made it his primary country residence.In the late 18th century, the Lower Mills area was often referred to as "Philipse's."
The Manhattan buildings were demolished during the 19th century, when the Financial District was rebuilt; no records remain of what they looked like. After all Philipses’ properties were confiscated and sold by New York’s revolutionary government, the Lower Mills manor hall passed through the hands of several owners and later served as the first Yonkers City Hall, while the Upper Mills manor house became a private residence of the Beekman family.
Both Westchester houses are now museums. The Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site is owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The Philipsburg Manor House is owned and operated by the non-profit Historic Hudson Valley.
In the Upper Mills segment of Philipsburg Manor, Frederick Philipse I had designed, financed, and constructed a stone church, now known as the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. He, his two wives, and most of their children are buried there, in a family crypt under the floorboards of the church. Glenn, Thomas Allen, "Some colonial mansions and those who lived in them: With genealogies of the various families mentioned", H. T. Coates & company, Philadelphia1900
Principal offspring
Adolphus Philipse: In 1697 Adolphus, Frederick's second son, purchased a tract from Dutch traders which received British Royal sanction as the "Highland Patent." Subsequently known as the "Philipse Patent", the roughly parcel extended eastward from the Hudson River at the northern border of Westchester County some 20 or so miles to the Colony of Connecticut.Smith, Philip Henry, General History of Putnam County: From 1609 to 1876, inclusive, published by the author, Pawling, NY, 1877, p. 44 Philip Philipse, the eldest and heir to the Manor, hereditary title, and family commercial holdings, died in either 1699 or 1700.Morris, F.O., Philipse of Philipsburgh, in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 10 (1856), p. 26: "PHILIP PHILIPSE, of Philipsbourg, born in 1656, who married, at Barbadoes, in 1697 (whither he had been sent by his father to an estate he had there, called Spring Head, and where he quickly recovered his health, having been before of a very delicate constitution), Maria, youngest of the four daughters of ? Sparkes, Esq., governor of Barbadoes, by Joyce, his wife, daughter of ? Farmer, Esq., (two of whom had retumed to their father's estate in Worcestershire, and the others accompanied their parents to the island), and, dying in 1700, left a son and successor. She also died in 1700." By predeceasing his father, the legacy that would have gone to Philip bypassed him and was distributed between Adolphus and Philip's son, Frederick Philipse II. By the terms of Frederick Philipse's last will and testament, dated 26 October 1700, proved 1702, Adolphus received all the Manor north of Dobb's Ferry, including the present town. He was also named proprietor of a tract of land on the west bank of the Hudson north of Anthony's Nose and executor of Philip's estate.Glenn, p. 258: "By the will of Frederick Philipse :all that portion of the manor north of Dobb's Ferry, including the present town, became vested in Adolphus Philipse, his second son. This individual "was also proprietor" of a great tract of land north of "Anthony's Nose" and the executor of his brother Philip Philipse's estate, the latter having died in 1714. Adolphus died without issue in 1750, and the whole manor of Philipsborough descended to his nephew, Frederick Philipse, the nearest male heir of the grandfather. This nephew was born in 1698 upon the island of Barbadoes, at an estate called Springhead belonging to his father." Frederick Philipse II, son of Philip Philipse, nephew of Adolphus. After the bachelor Adolphus' death in 1749 (Smith, others 1750), his Manor holdings and the Highland Patent passed to Frederick Philipse II, his only heir-at-law, who became the second Lord of the Manor at Philipsborough.Philipse family history (): "At the death of Frederick Philipse in 1751, the Highland Patent was inherited by his son, Philip Philipse, and three daughters, Susannah (wife of Beverly Robinson), Mary (wife of Col. Roger Morris), and Margaret, who died intestate in 1752. Margaret's portion was, by terms of her father's will, equally divided among her named brother and sisters, and in 1754, after a survey of the whole tract, it was geographically divided into nine Lots; three on the river; three in the interior; three on the eastern (Connecticut) border. Each of the three heirs inherited a lot in each division."Pelletreau, William S. History of Putnam County, New York – With Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men, W. W. Preston & Company, Philadelphia, 1886.