op Kip,

"among great proprietors. We can trace them from the city of
New Amsterdam to the northern part of the State. In what is
now the thickly populated city were the lands of the
Stuyvesants, originally the _Bouwerie_ of the old governor.
Next above were the grant to the Kip family, called Kip's
Bay, made in 1638. In the centre of the island was the
possessions of the De Lanceys. Opposite, on Long Island, was
the grant of the Laurence family. We cross over Harlaem
river and reach Morrisania, given to the Morris family.
Beyond this on the East river, was De Lancey's farm, another
grant to that powerful family; while on the Hudson to the
west, was the lower Van Courtland manor, and the Phillipse
manor. Above, at Peekskill, was the upper manor of the Van
Courtlands. Then came the manor of Kipsburg, purchased by
the Kip family from the Indians in 1636, and made a royal
grant by governor Dongan two years afterwards.

"Still higher up was the Van Rensselaer manor, twenty-four
miles by forty-eight; and above that the possession of the
Schuylers. Farther west, on the Mohawk, were the broad lands
of Sir William Johnson, created a baronet for his services
in the old French and Indian wars, who lived in a rude
magnificence at Johnson Hall."

The very names of places in some cases show their history. Such for
instance, is that of Yonkers. The word _Younker_, in the languages of
northern Europe, means the nobly born, the gentleman. In Westchester,
on the Hudson river, still stands the old manor house of the Phillipse
family. The writer remembers in his early days when visiting there,
the large rooms and richly ornamented ceilings, with quaint old formal
gardens about the house. When before the revolution, Mr. Phillipse
lived there, lord of all he surveyed, he was always spoken of by his
tenantry as the Yonker, the gentleman, _par excellence_. In fact he
was the only person of social rank in that part of the country. In
this way the town, which subsequently grew up about the old manor
house, took the name of Yonkers.

The early settlement of New England was very different in its
character. Nearly all the emigrants were small farmers, upon social
equality, cultivating the fields with their own hands. Governors
Carver and Bradford worked as diligently with hoe and plough as did
any of their associates. They were simpl