Frederick Philipse

Frederick Philipse (born Frederick Flypsen, 1626, Bolsward, Netherlands – December 23, 1702 ), Lord of the Manor of Philipseborough (Philipsburg), was a Dutch immigrant to North America of Bohemian heritage. A merchant, he arrived in America as early as 1653. Through a fortuitous 1662 marriage to a wealthy and driven widow, Margaret Hardenbrook de Vries, the couple combined their industry to amass a fortune.

When the British took over the Dutch colony, Philipse pledged his allegiance to the Crown and was rewarded with a title and manorship. Serving later on the Governor's executive council, he was subsequently banned from government office for conducting a slave trade into New York.

Upon his death, Philipse was one of the greatest landholders in the New Netherlands. He owned the vast stretch of land spanning from Spuyten Duyvil Creek, in the Bronx (then in lower Westchester County), to the Croton River. He was regarded by some as the richest man in the Colony. His son Adolphus acquired substantial land north of modern Westchester sanctioned as the royal Philipse Patent. Stripped from the family after the Revolution for their Tory sympathies, it became the present-day Putnam County, New York.

Frederick Philipse was a self-made man who emigrated from the Friesland area of the Netherlands to Flatbush, New Netherland, on Long Island, and began his career by selling iron nails then rose to become an owner of taverns.

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