Dr. Thomas Pell

Biography

Thomas Pell (1608–1669) was a physician famous for buying the area known as Pelham, Westchester, New York. It is believed that Thomas Pell never actually lived in what we now know as Pelham.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pell

Pell was born in Sussex, England in 1608. He was the eldest of two sons born to the former Mary Holland, from Halden in Kent, and the Rev. John Pell, who was from Southwick, Sussex. John Pell (1553-1617 of Norfolk, England), was the Vicar of Southwick, and Mary Holland (ca. 1581-1618).

His younger brother was the mathematician and political agent John Pell. His father died in 1616 and his mother died the following year. He studied at Cambridge, but did not finish his course.[3]

In the 1630s he emigrated to New England; he lived in Fairfield, Connecticut, as of 1654.[4][5]

In 1654,[6] Pell signed a treaty with Chief Wampage and other Siwanoy Indian tribal members that granted him 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) of tribal land, including all or part of what is now the Bronx, and land to the west along Long Island Sound in what is now Westchester County, extending west to the Hutchinson River and north to Mamaroneck.[4][7] There are no contemporary records of the price he paid for the land, but an 1886 source states that the Siwanoy were paid with "sundry hogshead of Jamaica rum".[4] He named the area Pelham in honor of Pelham Burton, who had been his tutor in England (Although there is reason to believe this attribution is not correct). [7]

Pell was legally challenged by the Dutch courts, who considered the "English were trespassing on Dutch territory".[8] This dispute was finally resolved by Pell in September 1664 when the British Navy, supported by a militia invasion force consisting largely of City Island colonists and led by Pell himself, entered New Amsterdam and forced Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor of New Netherland, to surrender the colony to the British.[7]

Family

Dr. Pell married Lucy, the widow of Francis Brewster of New Haven, in 1647, who preceded him in death. They had no children together.

In late September or early October, 1669, Thomas Pell died in Fairfield, Connecticut. His sole heir was his nephew John Pell, son of his younger brother, Rev. John Pell, D.D. (1611-1685).

Will, Abstract of

WILLS OF EARLY RESIDENTS OF WESTCHESTER CO., N. Y., 1664-1784. I. Thomas Pell. "In the Name of God, Amen." " Yt hath pleased ye all wise God, for many years to exercise me with much weakness of body, and having lately taken to himself my beloved wife Lucy " I make my nephew John Pell, living in Old England, the only son of my only brother John Pell, Doctor of Divinity, sole heir of all my lands and houses. Mentions "my brother's daughters." Leaves legacies to Abigail wife of Daniel Burr, Francis French, Nathaniel French, Elizabeth White, Mary White, Nathaniel White, " my ancient maid Katharine Ryster." "I give these poor men their debts, viz. Joseph Patten, James Evens, Tho. Bassett, Roger Percey." Makes Daniel Burr and John Banks, executors. Witnesses. Nathan Gould John Cabell Dated Sept. 21, 1669. Liber i. P. 39. [2

Notes

In addition to his medical practice, Pell engaged himself in several commercial interests. A trader to both the Delaware and Virginia colonies, he frequently acted as an attorney in a region devoid of legal representatives. Shortly thereafter, Pell joined his old friend Ludlow at Unquowa. Bordering New Amsterdam on the farthest expanse of New England, this eight year old plantation was renamed Fairfield for the hundreds of acres of salt marsh that bordered the coast, and which provided a plentiful supply of feed for the livestock and abandoned Indian fields that became the site of the settlers' first agricultural plots.

Thomas Pell's Treaty Oak

Perhaps "Thomas Pell's Treaty Oak" is the only tree ever to merit an obituary on the front page of The New York Times

As part of the New York Historical Manuscripts Series, various papers of Colonial Governor Edmund Andros have been published for the period 1674-1676. That covers a period after the death of Thomas Pell, who acquired the lands that include today's Pelham from Native Americans on June 27, 1654. However, it is within the early years of Thomas Pell's successor to the lands -- his nephew, John Pell.

John Pell is often referenced erroneously as the "Second Lord of the Manor of Pelham." He was the nephew and principal legatee of Thomas Pell, often referenced erroneously as the "First Lord of the Manor of Pelham."

Research notes

• Has an entry in Great MIgration Directory, separate from two entries of men by the same name who arrived in 1635 with Great Migration sketches.
• Note N39 Came to America from England on ship "Speedwell" in 1635
• John and Thomas were orphaned at a young age--the overseer of their Father's will was Pelham Burton and they were reared by their cousin Sir Anthony Pell & wife Judith Brereton
• Page to Prince Charles I, then Master of the Bedchamber to the King (Charles?)
• 1654 made treaty with Indians (Siwanoy) and became first proprietor of the Manor of Pelham, Westchester County, NY

References

1. Thomas Pell, 1st Lord of Pelham Manor (1608 – September 21, 1669)[1] was an English-born physician who bought the area known as Pelham, New York, as well as land that now includes the eastern Bronx and southern Westchester County, New York, and founded the town of Westchester at the head of navigation on Westchester Creek in 1654.[2].
2. “Brief Biographies of Thomas Pell, First Lord of the Manor of Pelham, and His Nephew, John, Published in 1912.” < link >
3. Early History of the Village of Pelham: Thomas Pell's Purchase of Lands from the Siwanoys
4. [http://www.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/bxhist.html]
5. Roberts M, Vilinskas J, Buterfield WC. Thomas Pell (1613-1669), Connecticut's first physician and surgeon. Conn Med. 1973 Jul;37(7):363-4. PMID: 4605379.
6. Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum < link > Originally inhabited by the Lenape since ca 1,000 A.D., Lenapehoking was acquired in 1654 by Connecticut physician Thomas Pell through treaty with five Lenni Lenape Sachem: Shawan Orochquot, Poquorum, Annoke, Wawhamkus and Mehumow that included 50,000 acres of what is today the Bronx and lower Westchester County. The property was passed briefly to the LeRoy family before Robert Bartow, a Pell descendant, and his wife, Maria Lorillard, purchased a portion in 1836 and completed the mansion by 1842. …
7. Updated from WikiTree Genealogy via father John Pell by SmartCopy: Aug 17 2015, 14:44:21 UTC
8. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Pell-27
9. “Dr. Thomas Pell” < link >
10. https://ia801407.us.archive.org/21/items/earlywillsofwest00pel/earl...
11. Torrey, Clarence Almon. Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. Baltimore, 1985) PELL, Thomas (?1612-1669) & Lucy (____) [BREWSTER], w Francis; ca 1647; New Haven {Tuttle liv; NYGBR 6:59, 46:6, 7; Bennett etc. (1931) 19; TAG 12:207, 13:8; Reg. 57:197; Fairfield Fam. 1:101, 471; Fairfield Prob. 21; Sv. 1:244; Whipple-Wright, Chart betw 68 & 69; Thomas (#4) 458; Yates-Terry 16; Barlow Anc. 184} < AmericanAncestors >
12. “Connecticut Witches.” New Haven, CT: Families of Ancient New Haven. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Originally published as New Haven genealogical magazine. vols. I-VIII. Compiled by Donald Lines Jacobus. 8 vols. Rome, New York: Clarence D. Smith, 1923-1932. Page 955. < AmericanAncestors >
13. Great Migration Newsletter, V.1-20.(Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2018.) Vol. 13, p. 20. (2004) “Focus on New Haven Land.” < AmericanAncestors > “…. Thomas Pell having married the widow sometime in 1647.”
14. “No Witch Trials in Colonial Eastchester: Sarah Sanford Shute and Nathaniel Brewster.” By Richard Forliano, Eastchester Town Historian. < link > Thomas Pell, who sold a large portion of his land to his Fairfield neighbors, knew firsthand about the damage from witchcraft trials. The wife of Thomas Basset, who fought with Pell during the Pequot War, was executed in Stratford, Connecticut in 1651. By 1653 Pell and his new bride, the widow Lucy Brewster, were living in Fairfield. There the first wife of Roger Knapp was convicted of and executed in 1653.5 About a half decade after Thomas Brewster left Eastchester for Setauket, Long Island where he would preach for twenty five years until his death in 1690 (Setauket is the place where the AMC Series Turn: Washington Spies is based). Early in his tenure as a preacher there, a local husband and wife, Ralph and Mary Hall were accused of practicing witchcraft and harming local residents who became sick. There is strong circumstantial evidence that Brewster brokered an agreement with his stepfather, Thomas Pell, to allow the Halls to flee to Minneford Island, (today City Island), part of Pell’s land. The noted Pelham historian, Blake Bell, speculates Thomas Pell’s pangs of remorse about his community of Fairfield earlier involvement in witchcraft hysteria played a role in allowing Mary Ralph and Mary Hall settle on his land.7