The territory north of the island early attracted attention, and energetic and far-seeing men set about acquiring title and adding acre to acre until great estates were created. In Westchester County, which then bounded the city of New York on the north, six manors, including the greater part of its territory, were granted; that of Fordham leading the way in 1671. The largest of these manors were Phillipsburgh and Cortlandt, and Tarrytown became the residence of a great landowner who secured manorial rights in 1693. This territorial magnate, a true lord of the manor so far as greatness of estate was concerned, was a man of humble birth, and a carpenter by trade. He came to New Amsterdam in 1647, and being a man of sagacity and foresight, soon found his chance in the opportunities of the new world, became a fur trader, married a rich widow, and in course of time became probably the richest man in the Colony. Vredryk Flypse, or Frederick Philips,[25] knew how to take occasion by the hand when English rule was established in New York. He foresaw the increased value of the lands along the Hudson, and in 1680, by the first of a series of grants, pieced out by various purchases, he became the owner of a noble domain, stretching from Spuyten Duyvil to the old Kill of Kitchawong, or Croton, and from the Hudson to the Bronx. The Dutch settlers in the new world were less adventurous than their fellows of English and French blood, but they had early established trading-posts as far north on the Hudson as the present site of Albany, and they had crept quietly up the eastern shore of the river, and small farms were beginning to break the long line of forest. The beginnings of Tarrytown probably date back as far as 1645, but of its earliest history no authentic records remain. In 1683, when Frederick Philips began the building of a manor-house on the quiet Pocantico, he found a small community of farmers, living in a quiet, frugal way, and carrying on the business of life with thrift and industry but in a spirit of great tranquillity. The broad waters of Tappan Zee could hardly have caught the reflection of the primitive farm-houses hidden among the trees. These houses were unpretentious in dimension and appearance, but they had a substantial air. There was nothing provisional in the aspect of the scattered settlement; it struck tenacious roots into the soil from the very start.