Jonas Bronck - Bronck's Becomes Bronx

Bronck's Becomes Bronx

Bronck's farm, a tract of 274 hectares (680 acres), known as the biblical Emmaus, Bronck's Land, and then just Broncksland, or simply Bronck's, covered roughly the area south of today's 150th Street in the Bronx in what is today Mott Haven.

Following Bronck's death, and the dispersion of the few settlers, the tract passed through the hands of successive Dutch traders until 1664, when it came into the possession of Samuel Edsall, (who had also acquired large tract on the North River known as the English Neighborhood) who held it until 1670. He sold it to Captain Richard Morris and Colonel Lewis Morris, at the time merchants of Barbadoes. Four years later, Colonel Morris obtained a royal patent to Bronck's Land, which afterward became the Manor of Morrisania, the second Lewis (son of Captain Richard), exercising proprietory right.

Despite Bronck having lived there for only four years, the area was known as "Broncksland" through the end of the 17th century. The modern name of the borough does not come directly from that farmland. However, the river which runs north to south through the area, and which his farm abutted, kept the name Bronck's River, eventually being abbreviated or misspelled Bronx River. This name stuck, and it was this river (which splits the modern borough in two) after which The Bronx was named.