In 1689 Jacob Leisler, serving as agent for a group of French Protestant refugees known as Huguenots, bought from John Pell 6,000 acres bordering Long Island Sound. The Huguenots named the settlement New Rochelle for La Rochelle, their previous home on the west coast of France. It became a town in 1788, was incorporated as a village in 1857, then as a city in 1899.

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Deeds Related to the Settlement of New Rochelle, 1689 and 1694

Hays Family Papers, 1813

McDonald Papers, 1844-1850

Glen Island Advertising Card,
1881

Personal War Sketches and Minutes from the Flandreau Post #509, Grand Army of the Republic, 1897 - 1909

Blueprint of the City of New Rochelle Approach Sings,
Oct. 11, 1922

Portraits of World War II Soldiers by New Rochelle Artists and Illustrators, ca. 1940s

Letter to the Editor regarding Thomas Paine, “New-York Spectator,"
July 15, 1806

Letter from Charleston, SC City Marshall re George Markinson (freed slave),
May 25, 1816

New Rochelle Principal's Black
Book, 1871-1890

Charter Members of the Relief Engine Company, Photo Montage, Aug. 16, 1883

Chief Hollow Horn Bear Photograph, 1901

New Rochelle Yacht Club Photograph, 1925