[J. Thomas Scharf (1886)] 11 building.1 Now Mr. Philipse was not a "lord" in 1682 or 1683, nor for many years later, but simply a plain merchant intent on business. He bought this site in 1672, as the site of Van Der Donck's mill, long established, and he secured the Pocantico site in 1680, as a site for a new mill. And he built the two houses here and at Tarrytown, not for manor-houses, but for plain country residences with the mills. He often wrote of the two sites as " The Upper Mills " and " The Lower Mills," and our theory is, that the house here, near the old Van DerDonck mill site, was built by him in 1682 for his own personal residence, andthat he and his first wife lived in it till the death of the latter, in 1690 or 1691. One reason for this belief is, that this already cleared spot offered the strongest im-mediate attractions for residence. Another is, that even for years before 1682, Philipse had an actual bus-iness going on here, and it would be natural for him to settle in the vicinity of it. And a third is, that for several years after 1682, Philipse's business must have called him almost daily to the city. Ten miles less of drive (his quickest mode of traveling then) would be a great consideration. And still a fourth is, that more money and care were evidently put upon this building at Yonkers than on the one at Tarrytown, as if this were intended to be the better and more serviceable house. What Mr. and Mrs.