The peninsula was called
Vriedelandt, "Land of Peace", by the
New Netherlanders. The current name comes from
John Throckmorton, English immigrant and associate of
Roger Williams in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Dutch allowed Throckmorton to settle in this peripheral area of
New Amsterdam in 1642, with thirty-five others. At this time, the peninsula was also known as Maxson's point as the Maxson family (Richard, Rebecca, John, etc.) lived there. Many of the settlers, including
Anne Hutchinson and her family, were murdered in a
1643 uprising of
Native Americans. Throckmorton returned to Rhode Island. In 1668, the peninsula appeared on maps as "Frockes Neck". The peninsula was virtually an island at high tide. In 1776,
George Washington's headquarters wrote of a potential British landing at "Frogs Neck". At the bridge over Westchester Creek, now represented by an unobtrusive steel and concrete span at East Tremont Avenue near Westchester Avenue, General Howe did make an unsuccessful effort to cut off Washington's troops in October 1776; when the British approached, the Americans ripped up the plank bridge and opened a heavy fire that forced Howe to withdraw and change his plans. The engagement became known as the
Battle of Throgs Neck (or Throg's Point). Six days later Howe landed troops at
Rodman's Neck to the north, on the far side of Eastchester Bay. A farm in the area owned by the Stephenson family was sold in 1795 to
Abijah Hammond, who built a large mansion (later the offices of the Silver Beach Garden Corporation). In the 19th century, the area remained the site of large farms, converted into estates. In about 1848, members of the Morris family purchased a large parcel of land there. They built two mansions and many cottages and service buildings. The Morris estates had a private dock in Morris Cove, at the end of what is now Emerson Avenue, where they had nearly a mile of shoreline. After the Civil War,
Collis P. Huntington, the railroad builder, owned an extensive parcel, which his heirs held until they were almost the last estate on Throggs Neck. Huntington's property was previously owned by Frederick C. Havemeyer Jr., a sugar magnate, and the Havemeyer-Huntington mansion is now home to
Preston High School, New York. Throgs Neck Park, a public park that faces Throggs Neck from the opposite shore at the end of Myers Street, was acquired as a public place in 1836. From 1833 to 1856, the construction of
Fort Schuyler brought in laborers and craftsmen, many of whom were immigrants from
Ireland, to settle in the area with their families. By the late 19th century, the area had developed into a fashionable but more public
summer resort, which also contained large German
beer gardens, to which the residents of
Yorkville arrived by steamboat service up the East River. The 19th-century steamboat landing at Ferris Dock on Westchester Creek stood at present-day Brush Avenue north of Wenner Place; the road to it bore the name of the steamboat
Osseo. The Ferris family were 18th-century residents, whose Ferris Point at the south-east corner of the Throggs Neck neighborhood now supports the
Hutchinson River Parkway (formerly Ferris Lane) overhead ramp to the
Bronx-Whitestone Bridge and
Ferry Point Park. In the decades after the 1898 incorporation of the Bronx into the
City of Greater New York, transit lines were extended to the neighborhood, bringing in many Italian farmers and tradesmen. In the 1920s the large estates largely became converted into smaller row homes and densely built
bungalow lots. The last two of several large and handsome 18th-century Ferris houses in the neighborhood lasted until the 1960s, when the James Ferris house overlooking
Eastchester Bay was hastily demolished in 1962 and the Watson Ferris house was demolished in 1964 by its occupants, the Tremont Terrace Moravian Church. The James Ferris house had been commandeered by
Admiral Richard Howe as his headquarters in October 1776, when James Ferris was sent to the
prison hulks in New York harbor, where he died in 1780. ==Demographics==