YONKERS  , a

city of Westchester county, New York, U.S.A., on the E. bank of the Hudson river, immediately adjoining New York City on the N . Pop . (1900) 47,931, of whom 14,634 were foreign-born and 1005 were negroes; (1910, U.S. census) 79,803 . Yonkers is served by three divisions of the New York Central & Hudson River railway, and is connected with New York City and other places E. and N. by interurban electric lines . It has also during most of the year steamboat service on the Hudson . There are two principal residential districts: one in the N., including Amackassin Heights and (about 1 m . W.) Glenwood, where are the old Colgate Mansion and " Greys stone," the former home of Samuel J . Tilden; the other in the S., including Ludlow, Van Cortlandt Terrace and Park Hill (adjoining Riverdale in the borough of the Bronx), a park-like reserve with winding streets and drives . The business and manufacturing districts occupy the low lands along the river . Among the public buildings are the City Hall, the High School and a Manual Training School, and Yonkers is the seat of St Joseph's Theological Seminary (Roman Catholic; 1896), the Halsted School (founded 1874) for girls, and a business college . It has a good public library (established 1893; 25,000 vols. in 1910), and the Woman's Institute (1880) and the Holly-wood Inn Club (1897; for working-men) have small libraries . Philipse Manor Hall, built originally about 1682 as the mansion of the son of Frederick Philipse (1626-1702), the lord of Philipsburgh, and enlarged to its present dimensions in 1745, is of some historic interest .

It was confiscated by

act of the legislature in 1779 because its owner, Frederick Philipse (1746-1785), was suspected of Toryism, and was sold in 1789 . In 1867 it passed into the possession of Yonkers, and from 1872 to 1908 was used as the city hall . In 1908 it was bought by the state, and is now maintained as a museum for colonial and revolutionary relics . It is one of the best examples of colonial architecture in America . In the square before it stands a monument to the soldiers and sailors of the Civil War . Yonkers is an important manufacturing city, and in 1905 the value of its factory products was $33,548,688 . On the site of Yonkers stood an Indian village known as Nappeckamack, or town of the rapid water, at the time of the settlement of the Dutch in New Amsterdam; and a great rock, near the mouth of the Nepperhan Creek, was long a place of Indian worship . The territory was part of the " Keskeskick purchase," acquired from the Indians by the Dutch W . India Company in 1639 . In 1646 the tract was included in the grant to Adrian van der Donck, the first lawyer and historian of New Netherland, author of A Description of New . Netherland (1656), in Dutch . His grant, known as " Colen Donck " (Donck's Colony), embraced all the country from Spuyten Duyvil Creek, N. along the Hudson to the Amackassin Creek, and E. to the Bronx river .

Some squatters settled here before 1646 . Van der Donck encouraged others to remove to his lands along the Hudson river, and in 1649 he built a saw-

mill near the mouth of the Nepperhan Creek, which for many years was called " Saw-Mill river." The whole settlement soon came to be called " De Jonkheer's Land " or " De Jonkheeas "—meaning the estate of the young lord, as Van der Donck was called by his tenants—and afterwards Yonkers . Subsequently the tract passed largely into the hands of Frederick I'hilipse and became part of the manor of Philipsburgh . Early in the War of Independence Yonkers was occupied for a time by part of Washing-ton's army, and was the scene of several skirmishes . The town of Yonkers was incorporated in 1788 and the village in 1855 . In 1872 Yonkers became a city; at the same time the southern part was separately incorporated as Kingsbridge, which in 1874 was annexed to New York . See Frederic Shonnard and W . W . Spooner, History of Westchester County (New York, 1900); J . T . Scharf, History of Westchester County (New York, 1886) ; and Allison, History of Yonkers (New York, 1896) .