Free previewStop 2 of Sleepy Hollow: The Legend Walk
The Miller Whose Name Survived
You're standing at the Upper Mills of Philipsburg Manor, where the Pocantico River meets the Hudson. Look at the mill and its waterwheel. A stone gristmill once ground grain here for a worldwide shipping business. The water supplied the power. So whose hands kept everything else running?
The manor belonged to Frederick Philipse, a Dutch-born merchant who became one of the richest men in colonial New York. In 1693 the English Crown granted him a royal charter making him lord of a manor of 52,000 acres. He was not a careful speller of his own name: in his will he wrote it Flypsen, Flypse and Flipse.
Part of that fortune came from people. For more than thirty years, Frederick, his first wife Margaret, herself a prominent merchant, and later their son Adolphus shipped hundreds of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 2 of Sleepy Hollow: The Legend Walk (2 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
