[J. Thomas Scharf (1886)] CHAPTER XII. NEW CASTLE. BY JOSEPH BARRETT, ESQ., Of Katonal), Bedford. The town of New Castle is thirty-five miles north of the city of New York, and is bounded north by Cortlandt, Yorktown and Vomers, east by Bedford, south by North Castle and west by Ossining and Mount Pleasant. It was set off from the town of North Castle, and given its present name, March 18, 1791. Its territory was increased by the act of the Legislature, May 12, 1846, which annexed to it all that part of Somers lying south of the Croton River. Early History and Boundaries. — Although there are references, more or less obscure, to lands extending eighteen or twenty miles north of the Sound, said to have been bought of the Indians in 1660, by John Richbell, who purchased at Mamaro-neck in 1(561, there is no definite record of the transfer of the lands now comprised in the town of New Castle, until Col. Caleb Heathcote bought of Wampus and his associates the tract lying west of the By ram River and Bedford, and within the angle formed by the boundaries of the Van Cortlandt and Philipse Manors, in 1(59(5. It is probable that the Richbell purchase was understood to affect this tract, for Colonel Heathcote thought it prudent, before taking title, to obtain from Mrs. Anne Richbell, widow of John Richbell, permission to purchase from the Indians lands which might have been in-cluded in giants previously made to her husband.