House Surveyor Silver Beach, NY

The peninsula was called Vriedelandt, “Land of Peace”, by the New Netherlanders. The current name comes from John Throckmorton, English immigrant and associate of Roger Williams in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Dutch allowed Throckmorton to settle in this peripheral area of New Amsterdam in 1642, with thirty-five others. At this time, the peninsula was also known as Maxson’s point as the Maxson family (Richard, Rebecca, John, etc.) lived there. Many of the settlers, including Anne Hutchinson and her family, were murdered in a 1643 uprising of Native Americans. Throckmorton returned to Rhode Island. In 1668, the peninsula appeared on maps as “Frockes Neck”. The peninsula was virtually an island at high tide.

In 1776, George Washington’s headquarters wrote of a potential British landing at “Frogs Neck”. At the bridge over Westchester Creek, now represented by an unobtrusive steel and concrete span at East Tremont Avenue near Westchester Avenue, General Howe did make an unsuccessful effort to cut off Washington’s troops in October 1776; when the British approached, the Americans ripped up the plank bridge and opened a heavy fire that forced Howe to withdraw and change his plans; six days later he landed troops at Rodman’s Neck to the north, on the far side of Eastchester Bay. A farm in the area owned by the Stephenson family was sold in 1795 to Abijah Hammond, who built a large mansion (later the offices of the Silver Beach Garden Corporation).

In the 19th century, the area remained the site of large farms, converted into estates. In about 1848, members of the Morris family purchased a large parcel of land there. They built two mansions and many cottages and service buildings. The Morris estates had a private dock in Morris Cove, at the end of what is now Emerson Avenue, where they had nearly a mile of shoreline. After the Civil War, Collis P. Huntington, the railroad builder, owned an extensive parcel, which his heirs held until they were almost the last estate on Throggs Neck. Huntington’s property was previously owned by Frederick C. Havemeyer Jr., a sugar magnate, and the Havemeyer-Huntington mansion is now home to Preston High School, New York.