I sit peacefully on the stone wall overlooking bucolic Kniffen’s Cove on Forest Avenue, a location that Ryeites have passed time and again.
It’s serenely beautiful. I breathe in the fresh salt air with my only companion, a lone seagull swimming along the rocky shore seeing his next meal. A buoy bobs in the water, yearning for a vessel to arrive. Reaching out into the dark, briny water is a weathered dock oblivious to the repetitive waves that slowly ripple toward shore. Pine trees and an old elm hug the cove, bowing their limbs in reverence to this lovely vista, which is permeated with the aura of Rye’s history.
Baird’s 1871 “History of Rye” confirms Kniffen’s Cove was the name of this inlet on the eastern side of the Peningo Neck (Milton Point) during “ancient” times. It was a common practice for early settlers to put their family name on certain locales and tracts of land. The Kniffen name appears on multiple land transactions from the 1680s and one from 1660 when a group of settlers known as “The 18 Proprietors of Peningo Neck” came inland a few years after originally inhabiting Manursing Island in 1660.
Between 1663 and 1676, these “proprietors” banded together to buy land on the Neck. They cautiously ventured inland, fearing wild animals and native inhabitants. They agreed to collectively buy land “as tenants in common” from the Native Americans, and subsequently applied to the Court of Sessions of Westchester to confirm title.
“The 18 Proprietors of Peningo Neck,” who included George Kniffen, also known as “George Snuffene of Ry,” created this inland settlement of Milton, where they rebuilt a “mill,” later calling it “Rye.” It was located on the upper part of Peningo Neck along the eastern bank of the Blind Brook, what we now call Milton Point.
Baird notes that a small inlet on the Sound had “anciently a warehouse (or store) and a dock at Kniffen’s Cove.” There also was an “ancient” road that ran across Peningo Neck below the Village of Milton. It led to Kniffen’s Cove which, according to Baird, is above Pine Island on what was the east side of the Neck.
At that time, traveling by water was preferable to traveling by land, and it was common to go to New York and back by “Sloop.” These versatile “market sloops” (sloop from the Dutch meaning “to glide”) would carry 100 tons and were typically 65- to 75- feet long with a “fore-aft rig.” They carried passengers, lumber, grain, and produce to New Amsterdam, later New York. As late as 1803, nine market sloops still ran regularly from Saw Pit to Kniffen’s Cove to New York. The market sloops mostly originated in “Sawpit” (Port Chester) on the banks of the Byram River that the Indians referred to as “the place to buy rum,” thus the river’s name. Sawpit was well known for deep man-made pits used for cutting logs for boatbuilding, in addition to being a commercial hub for produce and grain.
Carrying provisions and people on “Market Sloops” was often risky business, especially during the Revolutionary War. Baird tells of British vessels hiding in places near Manursing Island to intercept and set fire to many market sloops carrying goods to New York. The British were vehemently determined to destroy all commerce, showing little regard for Rye’s being considered to be in the “neutral zone” during the war.
A spiritual sense of Rye’s history continues to permeate Kniffen’s Cove as it lives among us, gloriously adding color to Rye’s exquisite scenery; and, significantly, it reminds us that Rye, founded in 1660, was an intrinsic part of our country’s early history.
