FORDHAM, formerly a village of Westchester county, New York, U.S.A., and
now a part of New York City. It lies on the mainland, along the eastern
bank of the Harlem river, E. of the northern end of Manhattan Island. It
is the seat of Fordham University (Roman Catholic), founded in 1841 as
St John's College, and since 1846 conducted by the Society of Jesus. In
1907 the institution was rechartered as Fordham University, and now
includes St John's College high school and grammar school, St John's
College, the Fordham University medical school (all in Fordham), and the
Fordham University law school (42 Broadway, New York City). In 1907-1908
the university had 96 instructors and (exclusive of 364 students in the
high school) 236 students, of whom 105 were in St John's College, 31 in
the medical school, and 100 in the law school. In Fordham still stands
the house in which Edgar Allan Poe lived from 1844 to 1849 and in which
he wrote "Annabel Lee," "Ulalume," &c.
The hamlet of Fordham was established in 1669 by Jan Arcer (a Dutchman,
who called himself "John Archer" after coming to America), who in that
year received permission from Francis Lovelace, colonial governor of New
York, to settle sixteen families on the mainland close by a
fording-place of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, near where that stream enters
the Harlem river. Between 1655 and 1671 Archer bought from the Indians
the tract of land lying between Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Harlem
river on the east and the Bronx river on the west, and extending from
the hamlet of Fordham to what is now High Bridge. In 1671 Governor
Lovelace erected this tract into the manor of Fordham. In 1846 it was
included with Morrisania in the township of West Farms; and in 1872 with
part of the township of Yonkers was erected into the township of
Kingsbridge, which in 1874 was annexed to the city of New York, and in
1898 became a part of the borough of the Bronx, New York City.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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