PATROONS AND LORDS OF THE MANOR 47
through long years in the cause of freedom. They
found themselves in a colony adjoining those of
Englishmen who had braved the perils of the wil-
derness to establish the same principles of liberty
and democracy. No sane mind could have ex-
pected the Dutch colonists to return without pro-
test to a medieval system of government.
When the English took possession of New
Netherland in 1664, the old patroonships were con-
firmed as manorial grants from England. As time
went on, many new manors were erected until,
when the province was finally added to England
in 1674, "The Lords of the Manor" along the
Hudson had taken on the proportions of a landed
aristocracy. On the lower reaches of the river lay
the Van Cortlandt and Philipse Manors, the first
containing 85,000 acres and a house so firmly built
that it is still standing with its walls of freestone,
three feet thick. The Philipse Manor, at Tarry-
town, represented the remarkable achievement of
a self-made man, born in the Old World and a
carpenter by trade, who rose in the New World to
fortune and eminence. By dint of business acu-
men and by marrying two heiresses in succession
he achieved wealth, and built "Castle Philipse"
and the picturesque little church at Sleepy Hollow,