due to the progress of art or invention, all tend to give objects a picturesque aspect and frequently, in addition, an educational and scientific value, by the time they are old enough to be called "historic."

Thus we find a strong human interest in the landmarks of the country which lies at the basis of the growing movement for their preservation.

Now let us consider briefly the reasons which more particularly justify not only such generous private gifts as that made in the Manor Hall case, but also the appropriation of public moneys for the same purpose; for although the means have been forthcoming for the acquisition of the Manor Hall property, the State will in the course of time be requested to provide the funds necessary for its maintenance.

In the case of the United States v. Gettysburg Electric Railway Company, decided January 27, 1896, Mr. Justice Peckham affirms the constitutionality of an act of Congress authorizing the purchase of land for the Gettysburg National Park, on the ground that "any act of Congress which plainly and directly tends to enhance the respect and love of the citizen for the institutions of this country and strengthen his motives to defend them, and which is germane to and intimately connected with and appropriate to the exercise of some one or all the powers granted by Congress, must be valid." Now, battlefields are not the only objects that inspire good citizenship. Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. And the argument may legitimately be extended to embrace any object which, by reason of association of ideas, tends to incite interest in and devotion to the State. The preservation of physical object lessons is almost as essential to a proper understanding of our national life and to a vital patriotism as it is to teach book history in our schools and universities. Chancellor Henry M. MacCracken of New York

University has very appropriately called them "unsalaried teachers which never die, never ask to be retired on pensions and whose voices grow stronger and more convincing with increasing age."

There is, perhaps, no more eloquent evidence of the power of landmarks to excite national pride than the instinctive sense of proprietorship which the public feels in them, even while they are in private ownership. Landmarks, like men, when they become famous, may be said to belong in part to the nation. The man who wins fame gives hostages to the people. He is no longer the independent individual that he was before. He finds that he belongs somewhat to his fellow men, that he must make concessions to them and that he must honor the claims which they make upon his time and consideration.

The same may be said of famous buildings. It does not matter who owns the little house in Devonshire Terrace, on the Marylebone Road, London, in which Charles Dickens lived every lover of Dickens may claim a moral proprietorship in that building. The national government of Great Britain holds title to the building in Stratford in which the Bard of Avon lived; but whoever speaks the English tongue, wherever he may dwell, is bound by an indissoluble tie of sentiment as strong as an indenture of title to the home of the immortal Shakespeare.

Who has visited some literary shrine in Salem, or Concord, or elsewhere, and not been conscious of this instinct, which is a perfectly natural one and which every one feels to a greater or lesser degree the feeling that the people have a sort of right to the houses made famous by the residence of famous men? The pilgrim approaches the author's home with tender feelings of love and gratitude for the works which have delighted himself and thousands of others. He wants to see the house where the writer lived and the woods through which he walked and the

pond beside which he sat. He wants to be where the author's spirit dwelt, and to place himself in the environment which once inspired the writer's thoughts. The pilgrim really feels as if he has a right to do this. Of course he has no legal right to trespass on the grounds if they be private. On the contrary, and equally of course, the heirs of the famous man's property have a perfect legal right to post up signs reading: "Trespassing on these grounds is forbidden under penalty of the law;" Beware of the dog," etc. And when one knocks respectfully at the front door and asks a very civil question it is the inalienable privilege of the owner of the place to regard the call as an intrusion and to resent it as such. Nevertheless, one goes away from such an experience with the feeling that he has been cheated out of something that was his due; that something within him that was very tender and loving has been unjustly rejected and crushed. It is difficult under the circumstances not to feel that those who inherit the property and fame of distinguished men inherit also the moral obligation which goes with the legacy, to show a certain respect to this natural, justifiable, and even laudable interest which the public takes in the visible mementoes of their great ancestors.

But since this feeling does exist, with respect not only to literary shrines but also other historic buildings; since it is by common consent acknowledged to be an elevated sentiment; and since the private owner is under no legal obligation to pay deference to it, it remains for the municipality, or the State, or the nation to purchase and maintain the property and thus devote it to the satisfaction and encouragement of this very proper interest.

The application of this principle to the Yonkers Manor Hall is this: This building, for reasons more fully to be stated presently, is a famous building. It is widely known throughout the United States. It is known in Europe. The world at large is interested

in it. The people of the United States who know anything about our national history have a peculiar interest in it. To the people of Yonkers, it is the cradle of their city, for although the Patroon of Colen Donck gave the city its name, it was the Lord of Philipse Manor who really laid the foundation of the city. To the people of the State of New York it stands as one of the conspicuous monuments of their social and political development. Upon these grounds, briefly, when the building was threatened with mutilation, it was urged upon the Common Council of Yonkers that morally they were not the sole owners of the building and that they could not permit the disfigurement or destruction of the property without shocking a public sentiment which extended beyond their local jurisdiction. And it has been in deference to public sentiment which would regard as a sort of violation of popular rights the return of the building to private ownership, with consequent risk of mutilation or possible destruction, that private generosity and the public spirit of the Common Council have erected the property into a public monument; and it will be in justifiable deference to this same sentiment that the State in future years will make appropriations for its proper main

tenance.

Anglo-Saxon civilization in the new world is just 300 years old, and if we are correctly informed as to the date of the erection of the oldest part of Manor Hall, that building represents precisely three-fourths of the whole period that has elapsed since the advent of English-speaking people upon this continent. That fact in itself is very remarkable and gives the building a distinction. We have, as it were, 225 years of history invested in it. It is a capital which will increase in value as time goes on. It is an enviable distinction of our Atlantic coast, upon which the westward moving wave of civilization first broke, that it has such landmarks. What would not the communities of our Western

States give if they had the old buildings, and the battlefields, and the old civic traditions of the Atlantic States to stimulate their local pride and patriotism?

But with these three centuries of our seaboard history in which the Eastern States take such pride, have come dangers to the monuments which time has dedicated. Here, where civilization has been rooted the longest, the population is the densest and commercial enterprise is the most active; and the pressure of those two factors-population and commercialism—is threatening to sweep away these cherished landmarks. Whenever, then, the rescuing hand is put forth and a valuable landmark like the Yonkers Manor Hall is saved, a benefaction is conferred upon the public which is deserving of the most cordial appreciation.

In the following pages, no attempt has been made to follow, in all of their ramifications, every line of tradition and history radiating from this venerable pile, for there is hardly a phase of the pioneer and colonial life of New York and adjacent Commonwealths that is not connected, either directly or indirectly, with the site, the building or its occupants. But enough has been recalled, it is hoped, to show the ground for the great popular interest taken in the Manor Hall and to indicate the value of the gift to the State of New York.

PHILIPSE MANOR HALL.

Chapter I. Nappeckamak.

When, in 1609, Henry Hudson sailed up the Mahicanituck1 he found the mouth of almost every tributary of any considerable

1 Ma-ha-ka-negh-tuc or Mahicanituck was the Mohican name for the Hudson River, which was called Ca-ho-ha-te-a by the Iroquois and Shatemuc by other Indians. Other names for this historic stream were: Una Grandissima Riviera (Verazzano, 1524), whence Rio Grande, Riviere Grande and Grand River; Rio de San Antonio or River of Saint Anthony (Gomez, 1525);