Borough of Richmond
The Billop House
For more than a century Staten Island was practically in the control of the Billop family. The Billops for several generations had led active and valiant careers in the service of the sovereign. One, James, in the sixteenth century, is said to have won the friendship of Queen Elizabeth by risking his own life in order to save hers. They had favors also from the Stuart line.
Christopher, born in 1638, received a naval training by command of Charles I. He was commissioned captain and made important and adventurous voyages, in one of which he was wounded, captured by Turkish pirates and abandoned, to be later rescued by a passing ship. In 1667, whether by order of Charles II or on his own account it is not known, he sailed from England in his vessel, the Bentley, and came cruising in the waters of the New Netherlands. The tradition is that the Duke of York, to determine the ownership of the islands in the bay, decided that any island that could be circumnavigated in twenty-four hours belonged to the province of New York, and Billop, having proved that Staten Island was so included by sailing around it in the required time, was presented with 1,163 acres in the southern part of the island. On this tract he built in 1668 the stone house here presented. The stones and lumber were obtained in the vicinity, but the cement was brought from England and the bricks from Belgium.
In the early records his name appears as showing that he had several public positions, but apart from that little is known about him except that he held a military command and had a controversy with Governor Andros to his disadvantage at first, but later he succeeded in having the governor recalled to England.
In the year 1700 he sailed for England in the Bentley, but was never heard of again. By some writers it is thought that he was ordered back, inasmuch as a pension was assigned to his widow by the king. Captain Billop married a Miss Farmer, sister of a Supreme Court judge in the neighboring province of New Jersey. They had one child, a daughter, who married her cousin, Thomas Farmer, and he, succeeding to the manor of Bentley, changed his name to Billop. Both died young and their tombstones are to be seen at the house to-day. Christopher Billop, their only son, born 1735, was a prominent man in public affairs throughout his life. In the Revolution he was intensely loyal to the crown, and became a colonel in the British army. Twice he was captured. The New Jersey colonists were especially bitter toward him, and once by keeping men stationed in the steeple of St. Peter’s Church at Perth Amboy they observed him going into his house. Immediately they took boats, crossed the river and made him prisoner. By order of Elisha Boudinot (Com. Pris. of New Jersey) he was thrown into jail at Burlington, hands and feet chained to the floor and fed only on bread and water. Here his companion in captivity was Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe of the Queen’s Rangers, probably the same Simcoe who was in the engagement near the Van Cortlandt house. Billop was exchanged for a captain who had been on the prison ship. The second time he was taken he was released by Washington at the solicitation of Lord Howe, commander in chief of the British forces.
After the battle of Long Island, Howe thought it an opportune time to offer favorable terms to the colonists if they were willing to lay down their arms. Accordingly he dispatched General Sullivan (then a prisoner) to Congress requesting them to send a committee to negotiate. This committee, composed of Benjamin Franklin, Edward Rutledge, and John Adams, met Howe at the Billop house. “Along the sloping lawn in front of the house, long lines of troops that formed the very flower of the British army were drawn up between which the distinguished commander escorted his no less distinguished guests.”64 The conference was held in the northwest room on the ground floor. It resulted in nothing, the colonists refusing to accede to any terms not involving their independence. About 1783–84 Billop withdrew to New Brunswick, and joined that army of estimable persons who, despoiled of their possessions, were driven from the land for their loyalty to their king. There for years he held prominent offices in the Assembly and in the Council and died at St. John, March 23, 1827, at the age of ninety-two. At his funeral the highest honors of the town were paid to his memory.
Billop was evidently a complete type of the country gentleman and tory squire. According to Mr. Morris, in his “Memorial History of Staten Island,” the following description of him was given by a friend: “Christopher Billop was a very tall, soldierly looking man in his prime. He was exceedingly proud and his pride led him at times to the verge of haughtiness. Yet he was kind-hearted, not only to those he considered his equals, but to his slaves as well as to the poor people of the island. No one went from his door at the old manor hungry. It was his custom to gather the people of the island once a year on the lawn in front of his house and hold a ‘harvest home.’... Passionately fond of horses, his stable was filled with the finest bred animals in the land. He was a magnificent rider and was very fond of the saddle. He was an expert shot with the pistol, which once saved his life when he was attacked by robbers. Christopher Billop was not a man to take advice unless it instantly met with his favor.... Lifelong friends pleaded with him to join the cause of independence at the commencement of the Revolution, but he chose to follow the fortunes of royalty. He was a good citizen, a noble man!”
Before the Revolution the house was noted for its hospitality and gayety in the Colonial society of the day. The owner entertained lavishly and at the time of the war he received there Generals Howe, Clinton, Knyphausen, Cleveland, Cornwallis, Burgoyne, and many others. The interior of the house is extremely plain. Presumably in the year 1668 the house decorator had not made his appearance. The walls are three feet thick and the woodwork as sound as on the day it was built. There is of course a ghost room, with “that spot on the floor that cannot be washed out” where murder is said to have been done. Below there is a dungeon with massive iron gate, and the marks are still visible where prisoners, American and then British, tried to cut their way out through the three-foot wall and arched ceiling.65 It is said there was an underground passage leading to the river.
In the basement Fenimore Cooper laid one of the scenes in his novel of the “Water Witch.”
The grounds, once laid out with parklike lawns and flower beds, are now in the last stages of dilapidation.
Footnotes
1 Built some years before the Revolution by Captain Archibald Kennedy, R.N. (later Earl of Casillis), who married Miss Watts. It was the headquarters respectively of Generals Howe, Cornwallis, and Carleton.
2 The property of William Walton, brother of Admiral Walton, built in 1752. It was one of the best, if not the best house in town. The gardens extended to the river. This house was mentioned in the debates in Parliament to indicate the ability of the colonists to pay more taxes. What might in some respects be called the mate to this house, the Walter Franklin house, occupied by Washington during his Presidency, stood at the north end of the square. It was taken down in 1856, “and the only bit of it known to exist is the President’s chair of the N. Y. Historical Society, which is made of wood taken from the old house” (“Historic New York,” p. 298).
3 Depau Row was an attempt to introduce the Parisian dwelling or hotel. The houses were entered by driveways, running through them to large interior courtyards. They were taken down to make way for the Mills Hotel for men.
4 It is a little remarkable that none of our multimillionaires have added this feature to their new houses uptown.
5 It seems rather strange that some architect has not taken this façade or some portion of it (as, e. g., the east or west end) as a design for the front of one of the palaces that are now springing up throughout the land.
6 “Old Merchants of New York City,” vol. II, p. 318.
7 Before and after the Revolution, the Hall of Records lately removed was used as the debtors’ prison. There were usually about one hundred and fifty prisoners. It is said that they were allowed only bread and water by the State and depended largely on the kindness of benevolent people to relieve their wants.
8 “Lamb’s History of the City of New York,” II, p. 735.
9 “The Old Merchants of New York,” vol. II, p. 319.
10 New York Herald, May 6, 1906.
11 “Domett’s History of the Bank of New York.”
12 Robert Emmet, member of an old English family that settled in Ireland during Cromwell’s time, was one of the purest and most disinterested of rebels. He is now believed by his family, and with very good reason, to have been instigated to rebellion by a secret emissary of Pitt in Paris, where he had resided since leaving college, as part of an evil scheme to withdraw attention from the disordered condition of English politics at the time. (Vide “Ireland under English Rule, or A Plea for the Plaintiff,” by Thomas Addis Emmet, 1903.)
13 Richard Montgomery, son of Thomas Montgomery, of Convoy House, Donegal, had been a captain in the British army in the French and Indian War. “On his return to England he is said to have formed friendships with Fox, Burke, and Barre, and became strongly imbued with their ideas about the rights of the colonies, and when he was superseded and disappointed in the purchase of a majority, he left England forever.” When in America it had happened that on their way to a distant post, he had come on shore with all the officers of his company at Clermont, the Livingston place on the North River, and there met Janet Livingston for the first time, and on his return, with the full approbation of her parents, he married her in July, 1773. Soon after his arrival he bought a farm at Kingsbridge, near New York, but after his marriage he arranged to build a house at Barrytown-on-the-Hudson on the Livingston property.
The house, known as “Montgomery Place,” was built from designs of his nephew, an architect, son of his sister, the Viscountess Ranelagh. Some relics of the general, including his sword, etc., are still preserved there. When war broke out, Congress appointed him a brigadier general, and such was the confidence in him that he was given carte blanche as to all the officers under him. He fell at the head of his troops in the assault on Quebec, December 31, 1775, at the age of thirty-seven. The estimation in which he was held by his wife’s family continued to the time of his death. In July, 1818, when the State of New York had his remains brought from Quebec, they were interred under the monument now seen at the east end of St. Paul’s Chapel. Forty-three years had elapsed since Mrs. Montgomery had parted with her husband at Saratoga. She was notified by Governor Clinton of the day on which the steamer Richmond, carrying the remains, would pass down the river. She was left alone upon the piazza of the house. The emotions with which she saw the pageant were told in a letter written to her niece:
“At length they came by with all that remained of a beloved husband who left me in the bloom of manhood, a perfect being. Alas! how did he return? However gratifying to my heart, yet to my feelings every pang I felt was renewed. The pomp with which it was conducted added to my woe; when the steamboat passed with slow and solemn movement, stopping before my house, the troops under arms, the Dead March from the muffled drums, the mournful music, the splendid coffin canopied with crepe and crowned with plumes, you may conceive my anguish!” After the vessel had gone by it was found she had fainted.
14 By resolution of the Vestry, August 26, 1803.
15 Removed in 1835.
16 “Nat. Cyclo. of Am. Biog.,” vol. VI, p. 360.
17 “King’s Handbook of New York,” p. 38.
19 Magazine of American History.
20 The British took possession of the City Hall and “they also plundered it of all the books belonging to the subscription library, and also of a valuable library which belonged to the corporation, the whole consisting of not less than sixty thousand volumes. This was done with impunity and the books publicly hawked about the town for sale by private soldiers” (“Lamb’s History of the City of New York,” vol. II, p. 134).
21 Mrs. Cruger spent her summers at that quaint castellated structure, Henderson House or Home, seven miles from Richfield Springs, the grounds being part of twenty thousand acres received by letters patent from the English crown.
22 “Bulletin of Metropolitan Museum,” January, 1907.
23 Named after the three daughters, Countess of Abingdon, Lady Southampton (Fitzroy), and Mrs. Colonel Skinner.
24 “Natl. Cyclo. of Amer. Biog.”
25 “Natl. Cyclo. of Amer. Biog.”
26 “Diary of Philip Hone,” vol. II, p. 101.
27 “Natl. Cyclo. of Amer. Biog.”
28 “Natl. Cyclo. of Amer. Biog.”
29 “In Old New York,” by Thomas A. Janvier.
30 Remembered as the writer of that popular poem, “’Twas the night before Christmas,” etc.
31 “Natl. Cyclo. of Amer. Biog.”
32 “N. Y. Standard Guide,” p. 112.
33 Joseph Alston became Governor of South Carolina. Mrs. Alston, the daughter of Aaron Burr, met with a tragic fate. On December 30, 1812, she sailed from Charleston in a small schooner, The Patriot, accompanied by Mr. Green, a friend of her father’s, her physician and her maid. The vessel never reached its destination. Forty years afterwards, three men, two in Virginia and one in Texas, made deathbed confessions that they had been members of the crew, that the crew had mutinied and murdered all the officers and passengers, Mrs. Alston being the last to walk the plank. The expression of her face, one man said, haunted him the rest of his life.
34 Pintard was a very prominent man in the first part of the last century, the founder of the New York Historical Society and many other city institutions.
35 The author of “The Old Merchants of New York City” gives this account of Hogan, written in his peculiar style: “Now look back forty-eight years ago to 1805, and there was but one Hogan in New York. His name was Michael Hogan, and he had only landed in the city a few months, but what attention he received from all the leading men of that day! Robert Lenox at that time lived in good style at 157 Pearl Street. He sent an invitation to the distinguished stranger the second day of his arrival. He was such a man as did not arrive in the then small city of New York every day. Michael Hogan brought with him in solid gold sovereigns four hundred thousand pounds, equal to two million dollars, and he had a wonderful history. What would I not give if I could write it all out! All these 160 Hogan families alluded to above, mostly Irish, are kith and kin of the great nabob, for such he was when he arrived here in 1804, with his dark Indian princess wife. Michael Hogan was born at Stone Hall, in the County of Clare, Ireland, September 26, 1766. ‘So he was thirty-eight years old when he landed in New York, with his dark-skinned lady and his fabulous amount of gold. But what scenes he had been through in these eventful thirty-eight years! He had been a sailor; he had commanded ships bound to ports in every quarter of the world—in Asia, Africa, America, and Europe; he had been to North as well as South America; and he had voyaged to the West as well as to the East Indies; he had made successful voyages to the almost then unknown land of Australia. In the East Indies he had married a lady of great wealth. This was the story that was talked about when Captain Michael Hogan came here.”—Fourth Series, p. 115.
36 Who lately died at the age of ninety-eight.
37 “The Hudson from the Wilderness to the Sea,” p. 388.
38 It has been suggested that these trustees, being relatives, held the property in trust during the minority of Gulian C. Verplanck, who in later life became the noted Shakespearian scholar.
39 Miss McEvers married Sir Edward Cunard.
40 “The Battle of Harlem Heights,” by Thomas Addis Emmet, M.D., Magazine of American History, September, 1906.
41 During the War of 1812, defenses were erected in this section as a protection against anticipated attacks by the British. Mrs. Lamb says (“History of the City of New York,” vol. II, p. 661): “On the bank of the Hudson, near the residence of Viscount Courtenay, afterwards Earl of Devon, was a strong stone tower connected by a line of intrenchments with Fort Laight.” Fort Laight was at the north on an eminence overlooking Manhattanville.
42 Mrs. Hamilton was the daughter of General Philip Schuyler.
43 Some time before this his eldest son had lost his life in a duel.
44 This is one of the best examples of a Colonial manor house now standing with wainscoted walls, ornamental ceilings, carved staircase, mantels, etc. The establishment was a large one for the time, maintaining thirty white and twenty colored servants.—“Bolton’s History of Westchester County.”
45 “Bolton’s History of Westchester County,” vol. II.
46 At the outbreak of the Revolution the manorial families of the province held various sentiments regarding the relations with the mother country. Families like those of Philipse and De Lancey were loyal to the crown and lost everything. Others, like those of Livingston and Schuyler, espoused the cause of the “rebels” or “patriots.” Again, there was a third class, embracing families like those of Van Cortlandt and Morris, that had representatives on either side. The Patroon, being a minor, was legally incapable of choosing and saved his vast estate.
47 The Government of France had certain claims against this Government. An agreement was made to release these claims upon the express consideration that the United States would pay their own citizens the claims that they had against France.
48 Mrs. Lamb’s, “History of the City of New York.”
49 This picture is from a sketch by permission of the New York Herald.
50 While living in Philadelphia during the war he was thrown from his carriage in trying to control a pair of runaway horses. The accident necessitated the amputation of a leg.
51 Diary, p. 2.
52 Commissary’s, Quartermaster’s, and Medical Departments.
53 A laconic entry in the diary gives a hint as to the life of terror which the ill-fated family were leading: “Go to court this morning (August 5th). Nothing remarkable, only they were up all night expecting to be murdered.”—Diary, p. 569.
54 M. Esmein quotes Taine: “Quatre observateurs, écrit Hippolyte Taine, ont dès le début, compris le caractére et la portée de la Revolution française—Rivarol, Malouet, Gouverneur Morris et Mallet du Pan, celui—ci plus profondement que les autres;...” but Esmein says “contre l’auteur illustre et respecté des Origines de la France contemporaine, j’oserais revendiquer pour Gouverneur Morris, la plupart des titres qu’il reconnait a Mallet du Pan.” (“Gouverneur Morris, un temoin American de la revolution Française,” by A. Esmein, membre de l’Institut, Paris, 1906.)
55 “Partout où il a porté ses pas, en Angleterre comme dans l’Europe continentale, il etait accueilli avec une faveur marquée par les hommes d’État les plus en vue; les ministres en charge, les ambassadeurs les plus influents, le consultaient voluntiers et le renseignaient en meme temps.
“Il a su recueillir partout des information abondantes et sûre, et très souvent ses prédictions se réalisaient.... Voici le compliment que lui adressait le 2 Juillet, 1790, M. de la Luzerne, ambassadeur de France à Londres—‘vous dites toujours des chose extraordinaires qui se réalisent’” (idem).
56 The king: “Pray, Mr. Morris, what part of America are you from?” Morris: “I am from near New York, sir. I have a brother who has the honor to be a lieutenant general in your Majesty’s service.” The king: “Eh! what! You’re a brother of General Morris? Yes, I think I see a likeness, but you’re much younger.”
Diary, vol. II, p. 135. Some years prior to the Revolution, his elder brother, Staats Morris, had married the Duchess of Gordon and was a lieutenant general in the British army. He was the first lieutenant colonel of the Eighty-ninth Regiment of Highlanders, the duke being a captain, and his brothers, lieutenant and ensign.
57 “Life of Morris,” vol. I, p. 477.
58 Diary, vol. II, p. 418.
59 “The Homes of America,” p. 119.
60 The house was taken down in 1905 to make way for the tracks of the New York & New Haven Railroad Company.
61 Surrogate’s Office, New York, fol. XVIII, 62.
62 “Bolton’s History of Westchester County,” vol. II, p. 622.
63 Daughter of Lieutenant Robert Feake, patentee of Greenwich, Conn., and his wife Elizabeth, niece of John Winthrop.
64 Morris’s “Memorial History of Staten Island.”
65 New York Herald, April 15, 1906.