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Tappan Patent
The Original patent, which included 5,000 acres (20 km2) is dated 1694.
The History of Old Tappan
"From the Hudson River it was across the salt meadow and through the narrow valley of the Tappan Creek (present day Piermont, New York) that the first inland settlement to the west was made. Land was purchased from the Lenni Lenape Indians on March 17, 1682."
"Five years later, in 1687, legal title to the land known as the Tappan patent, was granted by Governor Thomas Dongan of New York to thirteen Dutchmen and three free Negroes. The Tappan patent is believed to be the only land grant of its kind in the country to include both blacks and whites on an equal basis. They were all prosperous farmers from the settlement called the Bouwerie which grew up around Peter Stuyvestant's farm in what had been New Amsterdam. As their farms became crowded by the late 17th Century, they came together to purchase new unsettled lands in the wilderness." (check for accuracy, that is, were the blacks from right next to Stuyvesant's bouwerie or, rather, from some distance from it? ~• For instance, Jan de Vries, (II) lived by the "Fresh Pond" which is a considerable distance from Stuyvesant's Bouwerie.
Often overlooked
There were connections from within the Stuyvesant household to the Tappan Patent. A woman of complex status (mulatto = both white, Portuguese,& black) named Lare (or Hilary) Criolyo was part of the Stuyvesant retinue. She had ties to Stuyvesant by virtue of her marriage/slave bondage to a white DWIC official, Jan deVries . She later was married to two additional men who were partially freed blacks. Even more intriguing is the fact that, in late life, Lare Criolyo lived at Stuyvesant's Bouwerie. Jan and Lare's son, Jan De Vries (II), was one of the original patentees.
The child of Lare and her second husband, Lucretia Lovyse , was also associated with other original patentees. Lucretia married Nicolaes Emanuel van Angola .
Part of the reason blacks had to leave land they owned in Manhattan was because land there wasn't permitted to be legally transferred to other blacks. This regulation came into effect under British colonial rule. It had not been so under the Dutch West India's Companie's dominion, that is, up until the late 1660's. Thus, in an unseemingly guaranteed way, the freed blacks lost their foothood in Manhattan, In the 17th century, they collectively held what became a virtual bonanza of real-estate wealth. Another example being the land of Simon Congo, immigrant slave . Simon held 40 morgens (c. 45 acres) of land directly across the Bowery Lane from Stuyvesant. His descendants lost their opportunity for wealth and did not move to Tappan.
"Should you go exploring the older roads of the region around the patent, there is one called Angola Road to this day... Angola Road is a section of Old NY Route 9 in Cornwall. Admittedly, this is at some distance from the Tappan Patent but is is an intriguing nontheless." NY Route 9's name changes as it wends it way down south towards the Tappan Patent region.
'~• {MMvB, vol, curator, Jan 2022}