Antill family index [OCR source: The Antill Family by R.V. Pockley]

The Antills ...page 15

Lewis Morris died in 1691: his personal estate, exclusive of the value of the lands, was nearly £5,000. He left no male issue, so his entire American possessions came to young Lewis Morris 11.

William, the second son of William Morris of Tintern, was left the fine property of Denham, in Wales. He was an officer in the Crornwe11ian Armies in the Civil War, and died at sea. One of his sons married a woman named Grizzle Wallace. They had a son named Valentine , who returned to England, where he became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Regular lrmy. He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Christopher Keynell, and later married Elizabeth Wilmot. In 1739 he bought the estate of Piercefield and left it to his own son, also called Valentine , born in 1727. The younger Valentine spent a lot of money on the property, and brought it "to a fine state of improvement". He also became the family historian.

The American Morris family of Morrisania traces its ancestry to:

CAPTAIN RICHARD MORRIS, "of ancient and aristocratic Welsh descent", the fourth son of William Morris of T:intern. Like all his family, he espoused the Cromwellian cause; he entered the military, rose to the rank of Captain, and was attached to the unit commanded by his eldest brother Lewis. After the Stuart restoration he followed Lewis to 3arbadoes, where he married a wealthy young woman named Sarah Pole.

Apparently preferring a more temperate climate, Richard decided to move to New York, which had recently been wrested by the English from the Dutch. With the object of setting himself up on a landed estate, he entered into a partnership agreement with his brother, agreeing that they would share jointly in the purchase, and that "if either of them should die without issue the survivor, or issue of that survivor, if any, should take the estate".

Richard and his bride moved to New York, and on 10 August, 1670, he "A merchant of New York", and Lewis, "A merchant of Barbadoes", bought from Samuel Edsa11, "A certain tract or parcel of land on the North side of Harlem River, commonly called by the Indians by the name of Ranacque , and by the British Bronck's land, lying and being on the maine to the east and over against Harlem Town, and containing about 500 acres or 250 margon, comprising the original lands granted in 1639 by the Dutch West India Company to Joseph Bronck, the first settler in Westchester County".

Richard and his wife took up residence on the estate and he died there in the autumn of 1672; Mathias Nicoll, Secretary of the Province of New York, wrote Col. Lewis Morris in Barbadoes on 29 October, informing him of his brother's death. Richard's wife Sarah died at about the same time. They left an infant son:

(GOVERNOR) LEWIS MORRIS II was born on the BronxLand estate on 15 ...