page_title: History of Briarcliff Manor
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: History of Briarcliff Manor / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: An area of Briarcliff from Pine Hill, before 1905. Image is marked "Country Life in America" in lower right corner. The image shows an area of Briarcliff Manor taken from Pine Hill with Dysart House and Briarcliff Congregational Church visible. The image was taken prior to the 1905 expansion of the church.
context_page_description: The history of Briarcliff Manor, a village in the county of Westchester, New York, can be traced back to the founding of a settlement between the Hudson and Pocantico Rivers in the 19th century. The area now known as Briarcliff Manor had seen human occupation since at least the Archaic period, but significant growth in the settlements that are now incorporated into the village did not occur until the Industrial Revolution. The village, which was incorporated with one square mile in 1902, has expanded primarily through annexation: of Scarborough in 1906 and from the town of Mount Pleasant in 1927.
  Early leaders of village government include President William de Nyse Nichols from 1902 to 1905, President Walter W. Law, Jr. from 1905 to 1918, President-Mayor Henry H. Law from 1918 until his death in 1936, and Mayor J. Henry Ingham from 1936 to 1941.
context_section_description: In 1680, Frederick Philipse purchased the Ossining area from Indian sachem Ghoharius with the consent of his brother Weskora. Weskora became the name of the Hudson River hamlet which was renamed Scarborough in 1864. On August 4, 1685, Philipse purchased about 156,000 acres (244 sq mi) from the Sint Sincks, Philipsburg Manor, extending from Spuyten Duyvil Creek along the Hudson River to the Croton River. In 1765, the Wappingers unsuccessfully attempted to sue the Philipse family for control of the land; their claim died out after around fifty tribespeople, organized into the Stockbridge Militia under Abraham Nimham and his father Daniel Nimham, were killed by British forces in the Battle of Kingsbridge during the American Revolutionary War. The Philipses also lost their claim to the land because of the war; the family, which was Loyalist, had its property confiscated by the New York State Commission on Forfeiture in 1779 and it was sold in 1784–85. The area remained largely unsettled until after the Revolution; in 1693, fewer than twenty families lived in the 50,000-acre (78 sq mi) area of Westchester including what is now Briarcliff Manor. It became known as Whitson's Corners for brothers John H., Richard and Reuben Whitson, who owned adjoining farms totaling 400 acres (0.63 sq mi) in the area. In 1865, a one-room schoolhouse was built on land donated by John Whitson. The building (Whitson's Schoolhouse, District No. 6) became the first schoolhouse and church in the area and George A. Todd, Jr. was the first teacher and superintendent of the school. In 1880 the Whitson's Corners station was added to the New York City & Northern Railroad train schedule, and the first train arrived on December 13. A post office was established a year later; it was renamed the Briarcliff Manor Post Office in 1897.
caption: Part of Briarcliff Manor from Pine Hill c. 1900; Briarcliff Congregational Church (foreground) and Dysart House (background)[nb 1]
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