Thomas
Pell I
Alternate Last Name(s)
Lord of Pelham Manor
ID
1609,000,111
Gender
Male
Birth Date
1608
Death Date
1669-09-21
Ancestor Notes

Thomas Pell, 1st Lord of Pelham Manor (1608 – September 21, 1669)(link is external)[1] was an English-born (link is external)physician who bought the area known as (link is external)Pelham, New York, as well as land that now includes the eastern (link is external)Bronx and southern (link is external)Westchester County, New York, and founded the town of (link is external)Westchester at the head of navigation on (link is external)Westchester Creek in 1654.(link is external)[2]

Pell was born in (link is external)Sussex, England in 1608. He was the eldest of two sons born to the former Mary Holland, from (link is external)Halden in (link is external)Kent, and the Rev. John Pell, who was from (link is external)Southwick(link is external)Sussex. His younger brother was the mathematician and political agent (link is external)John Pell. His father died in 1616 and his mother died the following year.

He studied at (link is external)Cambridge, but did not finish his course.

In the 1630s he emigrated to (link is external)New England; he lived in (link is external)Fairfield, Connecticut as of 1654.

In 1654,(link is external)[6] Pell signed a treaty with (link is external)Chief Wampage and other (link is external)Siwanoy Indian tribal members that granted him 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) of tribal land, including all or part of what is now (link is external)the Bronx, and land to the west along (link is external)Long Island Sound in what is now Westchester County, extending west to the (link is external)Hutchinson River and north to (link is external)Mamaroneck.(link is external)[4](link is external)[7] There are no contemporary records of the price he paid for the land, but an 1886 source states that the Siwanoy were paid with "sundry (link is external)hogshead of (link is external)Jamaica (link is external)rum".(link is external)[4] He named the area Pelham in honor of Pelham Burton, who had been his tutor in England (Although there is reason to believe this attribution is not correct). (link is external)[7]

Pell was legally challenged by the Dutch courts, who considered the "English were trespassing on Dutch territory".(link is external)[8] This dispute was finally resolved by Pell in September 1664 when the British Navy, supported by a militia invasion force consisting largely of (link is external)City Island colonists and led by Pell himself, entered (link is external)New Amsterdam and forced (link is external)Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor of (link is external)New Netherland, to surrender the colony to the British.(link is external)[7]

Pell died on September 21, 1669 in (link is external)Fairfield, Connecticut. Having no children, he left his estate to a nephew, (link is external)Sir John Pell (1643–1702), son of Thomas's only brother John. His nephew traveled from England to New York and took up residence as the 2nd (link is external)Lord of the Manor of (link is external)Pelham.(link is external)[7]

Thomas Pell I died without heirs in 1669, and Pelham Manor passed to his nephew, Sir John Pell (III), who became second Lord of Pelham Manor.