the philipse patent

The land that makes up the School Forest, like all of the property that surrounds it, was part of the Highland Patent, purchased by Adolphus Philipse from Dutch traders Lambert Dortlandt and Jan Sybrandt in 1697. Dortlandt and Sybrandt had purchased the land from Wappinger Native Americans. Originally, the deed set an eastern border of the land parcel three miles from the Hudson River. This included the site of the Garrison School and what is now Philipstown. But Philipse extended his land parcel all the way to what is now the Putnam County border with Connecticut. Later known as the Philipse Patent, the Highland Patent was a 250-square-mile parcel of land that became the Putnam County we know today. At the time of the American Revolution, Beverley Robinson owned the land. He had married Philipse's great niece Susannah, who inherited 60,000 acres of the Philipse lands. Robinson was a Loyalist who refused to make an oath of allegiance to the American cause in 1777. The Commissioners of Sequestration then confiscated the Robinson property and later sold it at auction. William Denning purchased a large piece of Robinson's former estate, known as Water Lot 1. He later sold a section to the Nelson family,