Clason family returns after Lenape Indian threat is quelled
The earliest history of REPRINTED FROM 4-29-2010
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, M BTR ARCH 15-21, 2019 81
BRONX SCENE
Clason Point once boasted one of the biggest and busiest recreation
areas in the borough. Popular dining spots and a thriving amusement
park drew huge crowds. Arthur Seifert provided this photograph of the
Clason Point Inn some time ago and it is a good representative picture of
how the waterfront looked in days long gone.
Clason Point begins in Essex,
England where Thomas and
Rebecca Cornell and their
children prepared for the
long voyage to America. The
family landed in Boston and
were granted permission to
reside there by a town meeting
vote on August 20, 1638.
Thomas purchased William
Baulstone’s house and the
family settled in as innkeepers.
The Cornell’s relocated
to Rhode Island two years
later and Thomas became a
freeman of Portsmouth on
August 6, 1640. The following
year he purchased some
additional property and was
named a constable. When
John Throgmorton chose to
settle in the Vriedlandt with
the permission of the Dutch
governor in October of 1642,
the Cornells were among the
35 families who joined him.
The Throgmorton colony
was attacked by the Lenape
the following year and their
property was decimated,
their livestock burned, and
some colonists were slain.
Some survivors decided to
take the next boat to Holland
while Cornell returned
to Portsmouth where he obtained
a land grant dated August
29, 1644. The Cornell
family obtained even more
land in February of 1646. He
did, however, recall his days
in the Thorgmorton colony in
what is today’s Throggs Neck
with some fondness. When
it appeared that the Lenape
uprisings were a thing of the
past, Thomas Cornell secured
a patent from the Dutch governor,
Wilhelm Kieft, on July
25, 1646 to the area we now
know as Clason Point. It covered
the land mass from what
we now know as Westchester
Creek west to the Bronx
River and extended inland
about two miles. It thereafter
acquired the name Cornell’s
Neck.
Thomas left the land to
his wife who then conveyed it
to her eldest daughter, Sarah
Bridges, who in turn left it
to her son. A new land patent
dated April 15, 1667 confi
rmed that the property was
granted to her eldest son, William
Willett. The peninsula
thereafter became known as
Willett’s Point. When William
passed away, his will
dated April 20, 1733 granted
the land to his sons Thomas
and Cornelius.
Thomas’s vast holdings in
Rhode Island were also left
to his wife, Rebecca. She divided
it up among her children
during her lifetime and
by her will thereafter. Thomas’s
real estate dealings left
the family very well off. They
also owned a substantial piece
of property in today’s Queens
County which is still known
as Willett’s Point. It gets its
name from William Willett
and his sons. The name Clason
Point derives from a later
owner by the name of Isaac
Clason who purchased the
eastern section of that peninsula
in 1793.