Previously published accounts of Hart Island have treated its early history inadequately. Land, probate, and other records familiar to genealogists help in tracing the ownership of the island prior to its purchase by New York City.
First known as Lesser Minneford Island, Hart Island was included in the 9,166 acres that the Siwanoy indians sold to Thomas Pell in 1654. Great Minneford is now known as City Island. The Minneford comes from the indian word minneweis, said to have meant mulberry. The island, originally two mounds connected by an isthmus, was also called Spectacle Island. No connection with the Hart family has been found, and an island that resembles spectacles would not also resemble a heart. It has been suggested that the name came from the presence of hart/deer on the island, but that is unproven.
Ownership
The Pells still owned the island on 28 March 1713 when John Pell (1644-c. 1719), Second Lord of Pelham Manor, transferred both Minneford Islands to his son, Thomas Pell (c. 1675-1739), later Third Lord of Pelham Manor. There is no registered deed by Thomas Pell selling the island. However, on 7 November 1775 Oliver Delancey, Esq. of New York City sold the 85 acres of Spectacle or Hart Island to Samuel Rodman of the Manor of Pelham, yeoman, for £550 (Westchester Co. Deeds 674:443). The island, described as one of the Minneford Islands, included buildings, orchards, fields and woodland. Samuel Rodman [Sr.] had married Mary Pell, granddaughter of John Pell. (On the Pells see Christy Hawes Bond, Gateway Families, 1994, pp. 318-19, 357-58, and other sources cited at Newsletter 11:14; see also Charles H. Jones, Genealogy of the Rodman Family, 1886, p. 32.)
Leslie Corn
At the time of the sale, the island was already in Samuel Rodman's possession because he and John Wooley of Great Neck, Queens County, had been leasing it from Delancey since 25 June 1755. That lease had contained a condition that Rodman and Wooley would transport Delancey over the Sound to and from the island. This must be a reference to the ferry established in 1755 by Samuel Rodman from Pelham Neck to Hempstead Harbor (J.H. French, Historical and Statistical Gazetteer of New York State, 1860, p. 704).
Oliver Delancey, Esq. was a very wealthy Loyalist whose extensive land holdings were confiscated after the Revolutionary War and sold by the Commissioner of Forfeitures.
Samuel Rodman retained the island until his death, and passed half of it in his will to his eldest son, Joseph Rodman. Unfortunately, he neglected to say who was to inherit the other half of the island.
In a lengthy recounting (Westchester Co. Deeds U:106) his other sons, William Rodman and Samuel Rodman Jr., maintained that they owned the other half because they had joined with their father and paid half of the £550 when he bought the island. Perhaps this was why Samuel did not mention the other half. William said he subsequently bought the share of Samuel Jr., but William's name wasn't on the deed and his half wasn't mentioned in his father's will, so he had no proof of title. Joseph was aware that William owned half the island. In a deed (not registered) dated 28 August 1780, Joseph agreed to sell William the half of the island that Joseph had received in their father's will. Shortly thereafter, on 4 May 1781, Joseph leased the island to Benjamin Farranton and Samuel Norse for a term of three years, but when the lease ended Joseph moved back to the island and lived there until his death in 1792. His widow, Leah Rodman (later Leah Huestis), and his daughter, Mary (Rodman) Haight, wife of Nicholas Haight, were his only heirs. Leah had a right of dower that she relinquished 21 September 1802 after her remarriage. Mary and Nicholas Haight lived on the island until 6 January 1819 when they sold it to John Hunter [Sr.] for $3,250 (Westchester Co. Deeds U:106-112).
John Hunter Sr.
Besides the purchase of Hart Island, John Hunter [Sr.] bought farms on the nearby Pelham mainland, Hog Island (formerly known as Sheffield Island), and Hunter's Island (formerly known as Henderson's or Appleby's Island). It was on Hunter's Island that he built the mansion in which he lived in great style until his death in 1852.
He left his son, Elias Debrosses Hunter, a life interest in many of his lands, but bequeathed the bulk of his estate to his grandson, John Hunter (Westchester Co. Wills 34:219-239). If grandson John, who lived on Bayard Farm near Throggs Neck, moved to Hunter's Island he was to inherit Hart Island and many other properties. If he stayed on Bayard Farm, Hart Island and the other properties could be sold and the proceeds divided equally among John and his three sisters.
John did stay on Bayard Farm, where he raised race horses and became a founder and chairman of The Jockey Club. On 16 May 1868, as executor of his grandfather's will, he sold to The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York “all that certain island called Hart Island surrounded by waters of Long Island Sound and in the Town of Pelham. . . .” for $75,000 (Westchester Co. Deeds 674:447). The island had been expanded to 100 acres in size from the 85 acres of a century earlier. Three of the acres had been leased to the U.S. Army but the Army assigned their lease to the City of New York. To clear the title for the sale to the City, the deed acknowledged by Oliver Delancey in 1775 and a 1802 quitclaim from Joshua and Leah (—) (Rodman) Huestis were finally recorded on 27 May 1868, decades after the fact (Westchester Co. Deeds 674:443-6; 446). (There is a moral here for family researchers: even though your person has died or moved away, research all deeds of the surname up to the present!)
by Anita A. Lustenberger, CG
Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Summer 2000
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