View No. 7: Philipse Manor Hall, Yonkers

Watercolor on Linen / 14“ X 20”

At the start of day three Hudson approached the Village of Napekamak and the Nepperhan River, now called Yonkers and the SawMill River. Where an Indian village had been a young Dutch lawyer, Adriaen Van der Donck, built one of the first water-powered mills in the New World and a house. Later owners Margaret and Frederick Philipse expanded the house into a Georgian-style mansion that became the model for a parade of mansions going up the river in the following centuries. Now a museum, Philipse Manor Hall is largely restored and is one of America’s oldest buildings.

In recent years a section of the formerly polluted and culverted SawMill River that led up to the mill was opened up (or daylighted) and reconfigured within a beautiful new park dedicated to the founder of Yonkers, Adriaen Van der Donck.