Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site, a museum housed in the original Philipse Manor Hall in downtown Yonkers, was built in the late 17th and occupied by four generations of the Philipse family, who came to own thousands of acres of land in Westchester County.
“We tell the story of the Philipse family,” said Michael A. Lord, historic site manager. “They were very wealthy landlords, merchants, they were enslavers. We go into our whole history here, but we try to be as inclusive and equitable as possible, talking about the Dutch and English settlers, talking about the native indigenous Munsee Lunaape, who had been here for thousands of years prior to the Philipses, and talking in great detail about the enslaved community, both here on this property that ran this site, ran their industrial milling operation, and also enslavement in colonial New York in general.”
After the Philipse family escaped to Great Britain as loyalists after the Revolutionary War, the mansion was eventually used as Yonkers Village Hall and then Yonkers City Hall until a new city hall was built in the early 20th century.
Today, the historic site is managed by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
Exhibits include the site’s new permanent exhibit examining the history of the Philipse family, the Munsee Lunaape who originally occupied the land that became Philipse Manor, and enslaved Africans, whose labor enabled the Philipse family to amass great wealth and land in Westchester County.
Information about visiting the site can be found at www.philipsemanorhall.com.
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This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Explore Yonkers NY landmark Philipse Manor Hall, a State Historic Site in Westchester
Reporting by Seth Harrison, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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