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New Castle History
This overview of the history of the Town of New Castle is excerpted from
A Bicentennial History of the Town of New Castle: 1791-1991 with the permission
of the New Castle Historical
Society. This web site contains the text from the above publication's first chapter,
"Overview: New Castle Through the Centuries," written by Kenneth Jackson. Further
information
and photographs of the various periods of town history are found in the complete publication,
available for purchase from the New Castle Historical
Society, and also found on display and in the archives
of the Society's headquarters. You may also visit the New Castle Historical
Society's web site at http://www.newcastlehistoricalsociety.org/
For information on town historical preservation and program efforts, contact the Town Historian.
Town History Overview
Town History and American History
American Suburbs
"The United States," according to the late Richard Hofstadter,
"was born in the country and has moved to the city." In fact, the
distinguished historian was only half correct. As Americans
found prosperity, usually in cities, they kept moving. They
sought detached houses, good schools, spacious yards, safe
streets, and homogeneous neighborhoods. More often than not,
they found what they were looking for on the urban edges, in the
place we now call suburbs. This residential shift was so
pronounced that by 1990 more than 40 per cent of the national
population, or more than 115 million people, lived in the
suburbs, a higher proportion than resided either in rural areas or
in central cities. Quite simply, the United State had become the
world's largest, more important and, along with Australia, first
suburban nation.
Farms to Factories, Railroads and Highways
Thirty-five miles north of Times Square, along the line of the
Saw Mill River in Westchester County, the Town of New Castle
illustrates in dramatic fashion the larger demographic patterns of
the nation as a whole. Just as the United States was
overwhelming rural until well after the Civil War, when rapid
industrialization propelled the country to international
prominence, so also was Chappaqua, an isolated country village
until the middle of the 19th century, later transformed by small
factories. And, as the American republic became the world
leader in transportation technology, New Castle was an early
beneficiary of railroads and highways.
An American Town
More importantly, this little town in Westchester is reflective of
what might called the "American ideal." Oriented towards
family, church and school, it is justifiably proud of its beauty, its
spaciousness, and its tranquility. Similarly, as the United States
has become more ethnically and religiously diverse, New Castle
has become more heterogeneous. [Visit the demographics
page for data from the 1990 census.]
But Chappaqua could hardly be described as a typical American
community. Since the early years of the 20th century, it has
been one of the most affluent and attractive of tens of thousands
of the nation's suburbs. Its school system is
consistently ranked
among the top secondary institutions in the country, and its per
capita income has long been far above the national average.
Until recently, its quiet roadways were almost devoid of
apartments of any kind, and its average home
prices were among
the highest in the continent.
The Town of New Castle, therefore, represents in extreme form
many of the larger patterns of the nation as a whole, and its
history will help illuminate important aspects of the American
past and American present.
Town History Periods
At the risk of over-generalization, the history of the Town of New Castle
can be divided into nine periods:
- Pre-history and Indian life
- Colonial purchase and settlement, 1696-1776
- Revolutionary War and Constitutional ratification,
1776-1791
- Rural isolation, 1791-1846
- Transformation of the farm economy, 1846-1872
- Nascent industrialization and declining agriculture,
1872-1902
- Country estates and exurban escape, 1902-1945
- Suburban boom, 1945-1978
- New directions, 1978-present
Pre-history and Indian Life
About 350 years ago, the heavily forested hills and valleys in
what is now the town of New Castle were occupied by one of the
nine Wappinger tribes, probably the Tankitekes. Part of the
larger Algonquin language group, and more particularly the
Mohicans, the local Wappingers were led by the local chief or
Sachem, Wampus, near the present Armonk Road. Other
encampments were in the Chappaqua Hills and below those hills
at the foot of Roaring Brook Road.
The Indians were pushed aside and decimated by the European
colonist in the 17th and 18th centuries, but their legacy remains
in the name of Wampus Pond or in that of the Chappaqua hamlet
itself, which derives from Shapequa, an Algonquin words which
has been variously translated as "running water" or "boundary"
or "place of separation" or "laurel swamp."
Colonial Purchase and Settlement
In 1624, The Dutch West Indian Company established a
permanent trading post on the southern tip of Manhattan, and
within a few years Peter Minuit had "purchased" the entire
island from the Indians. Initially known as New Amsterdam, it
as renamed New York City after the English conquered it in
1664. The area which is now Westchester County was settled by
families moving north from Manhattan in the 17th century.
The "white" or "European" history of New Castle begins in
1696, when an affluent and well-born Englishman, Colonel
Caleb Heathcote, purchased virtually the entire area from the
Indians for 100 pounds. At the time, land ownership as a mark
of status, a way of advertising success and influence. For this
purpose, it was sufficient to own land and not at all necessary to
live on it. Not surprisingly, Colonel Heathcote preferred
bustling New York City, where he served as mayor between
1711 and 1714, to the dark and empty forests of Westchester.
The first European settlers to begin farming in New Castle area
were Quakers, a deeply religious people who espoused non-violence and pacifism in all their
human relations. Small groups
came in the early 1720s, and by 1752 they were sufficiently
numerous to begin the Meeting House which still stands on
Quaker Road.
Revolutionary War and Community Beginnings -
1776-1791
Two hundred years ago, when survival itself was a constant
struggle in a primitive environment, national events had a rather
small impact on the isolated homesteads and tiny communities
of the forested interior. The Revolutionary War and the contest
over ratification of the Constitution were no exceptions. New
Castle, however, was a battleground in both struggles.
Despite the neutrality of the Quakers and the so-called "neutral
status" of the area, Chappaqua was directly in the line of fire
between the British to the south and the American forces to the
north, beyond the Croton River. From their base in New York
City, the redcoats often contested with patriot raiding parties for
control of the area. Equally important, at various times during
the Revolution, the main field armies of both sides marched
through the town. Indeed, practically every important character
in the conflict, from George Washington and Alexander
Hamilton to French General Rochambeau and Major Andre,
spent time in the community.
In 1788 North Castle and other communities were incorporated
as towns in New York State. Historians of the period tell us that
this governmental reorganization was related to the opposition
of then Governor George Clinton to the proposed Constitution of
the United States. Apparently, he felt he could best defeat
ratification by creating more rural towns. The governor was
wrong, and the decision of the New York State in favor of the
Constitution was a major factor in its successful adoption.
In 1791, the Town of North Castle was split into two
communities; one retained the original name and the other
became New Castle.
Rural Isolation - 1791-1846
After the establishment of the Constitution, the United States
entered a sustained period of expansion and prosperity. After
the creation of the two towns, New Castle entered a half century
of relative torpor. Farmers practically broke their backs clearing
the lands with primitive saws and axes. And even after the
enormous trees had been felled and their roots removed, the
rocky soil was unforgiving and infertile. Finally, even if a cash
crop could have been raised, it was difficult and expensive to
transport agricultural goods overland to market.
Not surprisingly, the population was virtually stagnant, actually
declining from 1800 to 1830. But it has increased steadily since
that time.
The Transformation of the Farm Economy -
1846-1872
When the New York and Harlem Railroad reached the
Chappaqua hamlet in 1846, it had an immediate and lasting
effect on the community. It shifted the focus of local activity
two miles eastward from the area of the Quaker Meeting House
to the land near the railroad station.
Second, it transformed the rural economy of the town.
Previously, agricultural goods had to move by expensive
overland stage either to Ossining or to Darien, and thence by
water to the New York City. The railroad, however, reduced
travel time to the Hudson River metropolis by 95 per cent and
the cost of shipment by almost as much..
The result was that farmers could send apples (mostly russets),
as well as mild cider and vinegar to the big city. With the largest
metropolis in the western world easily accessible by rail, New
Castle's rural families prospered, and more land was cleared.
The most famous newcomer to Chappaqua during these years
was Horace Greeley, the fiery, crusading editor of the New
York Tribune, the most influential newspaper in the entire
country. Greeley's regular residence was in the city, but he
sought a place for weekends and the summer months where he
could engage in gentleman farming. He found his dream home
in Chappaqua in 1854, and for the next 18 years, he head for the
northbound train whenever he had a few extra hours. His
residence in the community gave rise to the term
"Chappaquacks" in the 1872 Presidential campaign, when
Greeley was defeated by Ulysses S. Grant
Nascent Industrialization and Country Retreats -
1872-1902
After the Civil War, the agricultural economy of New Castle
went into a prolonged and permanent decline. The extension of
the railroads into new areas of the South and West opened up
vast new farmlands which were more fertile and productive than
anything in the Northeast. Moreover, the number of farmers
increased rapidly as hundred of thousands of Civil War veterans
took up the plow. Prices for farm commodities fell, and the
value of farmland both in New Castle and in the nation as a
whole declined.
Some of the slack in the local economy was taken up by the
development of a number of small industrial enterprises in New
Castle. A pickle factory, a glass works, a shoe company, and
various other small industrial enterprises provided work for
underemployed farmers.
The most important of these local enterprises was the Spencer
Optical Factory, which ranked as the largest manufacturer of
eyeglasses on earth in the last part of the 19th century. Between
1872 and 1890, it was located on the Kisco River in the tiny
community of Kirbyville in what was then the northeastern
corner of New Castle. No longer part of the town, the area is in
the general vicinity of what is now the Northern Westchester
Hospital The company moved its two hundred employees to
New Jersey in 1890.
Country Estates and Exurban Escape -
1902-1945
Some factories managed to survive until the Great Depression
and some local residents received building permits for pig pens,
barns, chicken houses and stables as late as the 1930s -- but New
Castle became a fundamentally different kind of community by
the middle of the 20th century.
The first few decades were particularly notable for the building
of elaborate country estates by people like Moses Taylor, who
inherited great wealth and added substantially to it, and Henry
Berol, president of the Eagle Pencil Company. Taylor's 600-acre grounds included most of what
is now Lawrence Farms
East and the Mount Kisco Country Club. Berol's 500-acre
estate, used primarily as a game preserve, was broken up after
1966 into Whippoorwill park (169 acres) and the Stornawaye
residential area.
Other estates, many of them smaller and less ostentatious were
established by families attracted by the natural beauty of the area
and the regular train service to the beautiful new station opened
in 1902 (perhaps because A.H. Smith, then president of the New
York Central Railroad, lived in town).
Although New Castle remained residential, a major employment
shift in the area came in 1939 when Lila and DeWitt Wallace
moved their fledgling Reader's Digest operation (which
had been founded in Greenwich Village in 1919 and housed for
a few years in Pleasantville) to the Roaring Brook Road area
after plans to develop a model community on the site, replete
with shopping facilities and a railroad station, had to be
abandoned because of the Great Depression.
The most important development in New Castle in the first half
of the 20th century was the opening of the Saw Mill River
Parkway in 1934. This beautiful, controlled-access
thoroughfare, which was designed for pleasurable, recreational
driving rather than for commuting, gave Chappaqua a quick and
easy link with New York City and paved the way for the vast
suburban expansion after World War II.
Even before Pearl Harbor, however, Chappaqua had become
locally famous for the unusual quality of its schools, which made
the area particularly attractive to families. As a result, many
new real estate developments took root, among them Lawrence
Farms, Treeholme, Pinecliff, Brevoort Road, Stanwood, Kisco
Park, Chappaqua Ridge and Seven Bridges. The services, roads
and infrastructure of the community were set in those decades
and the big period of growth was between 1910 and 1920.
Suburban Boom - 1945-1979
After two decades of relative quiet, owing to the Great
Depression and World War II, the pent-up American demand for
new homes finally found an outlet in the unprecedented building
boom of the 1950s. New Castle reflected these larger trends and
it became nationally renowned as "the Scarsdale of the North",
with as fine a public school system as existed anywhere. The
area continued to strengthen its affluent image. Building permits
often included garages (once a luxury), tennis courts, swimming
pools, and expansive decks.
As T.H. Breen has noted in his "Imagining the Post East
Hampton Histories", American communities have always
contained men and women intent on maximizing their own
welfare and exploiting the environment and their neighbors to
achieve that end. New Castle was no exception, but the spirit of
volunteerism -- reflected in the founding of the Town Club, the
League of Women Voters, the Drama Group, and the Senior
Activity Group, and other organizations -- indicated that many
hundreds of local residents were willing to give their time and
energy for the benefit of their fellow citizens.
Nothing better illustrates this point than the town government
itself. For two centuries it has been heavily reliant upon
volunteers to staff its many boards and commissions. Fireman
and ambulance worker have never received financial
compensation for their often heroic efforts, and even the position
of supervisor, the town's most important elected official,
remains a part-time post.
New Directions - 1978-Present
By 1980, New Castle was a mature community. An important
political change came in 1979, when Mount Kisco, part of which
had been within the boundaries of the two for almost two
centuries, officially separated from New Castle and became a
wholly independent community. The immediate result was that
New Castle lost about 5,000 citizens, or 25 percent of its total
population.
At about the same time, the most important legal controversy in
the town's history established a significant precedent for the
state of the nation. The much-publicized Berenson case for
multi-family housing resulted in a 1979 judicial order for the
community to encourage multi-unit housing developments with
more affordable prices and higher density lot coverages.
Moreover, as in much of the rest of the United States, the town
of New Castle began to experience the beginning of various
demographic, environmental, and energy crises. As waste
disposal became one of the most obvious serious ecological
concerns, thoughtful citizens began to worry about the
community dangerous dependence on automobiles and imported
oil. For the first time, a no-growth philosophy took hold, with
many residents actively opposing any new corporate or retailing
development, even that of the much respected IBM Corporation
which had proposed a new research facility in the western end of
town on Pinesbridge Road.
The increasing opposition to corporate and business growth,
however, has been coupled with a greater acceptance of
population growth and ethnic diversity.
In the early years of the 20th century, the influx of some groups
had been carefully restricted, sometimes not too subtly. A real
estate pamphlet of 1930, for example, assured prospective
buyers that restrictive covenant had been adopted "in order to
protect the social environment of the community by rendering
impossible the purchase of property by objectionable people."
In recent years, population and attitudes have begun to change,
and some of the credit should be given to New Castle's churches
and religious organizations. Over the years they have worked
together to help the community and to help each other. Many of
the denominations now well established in town began by
holding services in space borrowed from existing churches.
When the old St. Mark's Episcopal Church was demolished in
1915, the timbers were donated to the African Methodist Zion
Congregation which used them to build its first church. The
building that is today's Baptist Church once housed, at different
times, Congregationalists, Lutherans, and the original Temple
Beth El. The Baptists, on taking over the building from the
Jews, decided to retain the Ark of the Torah in the Church as a
reminder of their historic religious heritage.
In recent years, many of New Castle's religious organizations
have helped to settle Eastern European and Asian refugee
families. These newcomers received financial aid, help in
finding jobs. Their children were assisted in getting started in
the schools, where their quick success augurs well for the parts
they will play in today's complex American community.
Population of the Town of New Castle
1800 1555 1900 2401
1810 1291 1910 3573
1820 1368 1920 5176
1830 1336 1930 6792
1840 1529 1940 7903
1850 1800 1950 8802
1860 1817 1960 14338
1870 2152 1970 19837
1880 2297 1980 15425*
1890 2210 1990 16489
*Village of Mt. Kisco separated from New Castle in 1977
Provided as a service by the Town of New Castle.
Your comments and suggested changes
are welcomed and encouraged.
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