Early History

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, today's Yonkers was in the northern part of the territory of the Lenni Lenape, or "true people". The Lenape clans in the area were called the Wickquasgeck. When the Dutch West India Company founded the colony of New Netherland in 1624, the colonists came to rely heavily on the natives for the fur trade, mostly in beaver pelts. When New Amsterdam became an important trading post between the Dutch and the Native Americans, a trail called the Wickquasgeck trail, leading from the south of Manhattan to the current area of Yonkers, became the main thoroughfare across the wilderness of the island, frequently used by both natives and colonists. Through the years, this trail became Broadway.

Although many of the colonists realized the importance of maintaining good relations with the local clans, both because of the lucrative trade and for their own safety, their leaders didn't always see it that way. Director Willem Kieft, against the advice of most of his subordinates, started what is known as Kieft's War against the Native Americans. After two years, under pressure to end this ill-advised war, Kieft called in the help of a young Dutch lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck. Van der Donck had a thorough knowledge of the region and spoke the languages of the natives with whom they would negotiate. A treaty was achieved in 1645, and as a reward for his assistance Kieft gave van der Donck the patent to a vast tract of land just north of Manhattan. It covered much of what is today the Bronx and southern Westchester County. Van der Donck called his estate Colen Donck, and ordered a house and a sawmill built. The sawmill became so important to the community that later the river on which it stood was named after it.

When van der Donck became a landowner, people began to refer to him as the "Jonker", a title usually reserved for nobility, although he was not officially a nobleman. Thus his estate became known as "Jonker's land". In the English period, this became "Yonkers." Director Kieft's predecessor, Peter Stuyvesant, would later come to regret Kieft's generosity, when van der Donck became an active advocate for independence of the colony from the West India Company, even travelling to The Hague to argue his case before the Dutch government as the leader of New Amsterdam's Board of Nine.

After the English took over the colony in 1664 and called it New York, the estate came into the hands of another Dutchman, who had changed his name from Flipsen to the more English sounding Philipse. Frederick Philipse worked his way up from a carpenter to the richest man in the colony, and had the present Philipse Manor Hall erected at the junction of the Hudson and Nepperhan Rivers. This strategic location at this junction became the driving force that resulted in Yonkers' growth into a major trading center. Early settlers of Yonkers, including Native Americans, English and Dutch, created the flavor of a diverse cosmopolitan population that remains through the present day.

The Village of Yonkers was incorporated on April 12, 1855, at that time extending approximately two miles along the Hudson River with an average width of about one mile and a population of approximately 7,500. On June 1, 1872, the charter establishing Yonkers as a city was signed by Governor Hoffman; by this time, the population had swelled to about 20,000 and was well on its way to the nearly-tenfold number of residents in Yonkers today.

Its notable residents over the years have included William Boyce Thompson, copper magnate, C.C. Dula, former head of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, Ella Fitzgerald and W.C. Handy, two of the world's most beloved cultural figures, and John E. Andrus, head of the New York Pharmaceutical Association (later Arlington Chemical Company in Yonkers) a mayor of the City, a U.S. Congressman (1905 to 1913) and philanthropist whose trust funds have established the Julia Dykman Andrus Home for Children, John F. Andrus home for Aged and St. John's Hospital. Some widely renowned people who worked in Yonkers were John Masefield, poet laureate of England; Charles P. Steinmetz, noted electrical wizard; Leo H. Bakeland, inventor of Velox paper and Bakelite, Elisha Otis, inventor of the safety elevator, and Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio.

Suggested reading:
Russell Shorto's book "The Island at the Center of the World"
Burrows & Wallace's "Gotham"
Van der Donck himself wrote "A Description of New Netherland", published in 1655, which was translated and republished in 2008 by Diederik Willem Goedhuys.
 

For more information and photos of early Yonkers, visit the Yonkers Historical Society site.

This history was written by Jeroen Jelsma, who lives in Amsterdam where he works as a computer programmer. He is an amateur historian, who first discovered New York as a tourist, and immediately fell in love with Manhattan and Coney Island. His fascination grew when he noticed that most of the places in the NYC area have Dutch-sounding names, and was furthered when he realized that he passes the old headquarters of the West India Company every day on his way to work. His research began some ten years ago, and hasn't stopped yet.