r was a tenant farmer, paying rent to the Lord of Philipsburg Manor.|
|1764||The first burial (Sarah Ledew, age 5) took place at what is now called Sparta Burying Ground, where a Presbyterian church once stood, at the junction of Revolutionary Road and Route 9 in Briarcliff Manor.|
|1784||Philipsburg Manor was confiscated by the Commissioners of Forfeitures, by authority of the Confiscation Act of May 1784, because Frederick Philipse III, Lord of the Manor, had remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution.|
|1785||Peter Davis bought 200 acres of his tenant farm, including the Jug Tavern, from the Commissioners of Forfeitures on December 6, for 600 pounds sterling. The Commissioners divided Philipsburg Manor among 287 new owners, including 11 whose land was located near Kemeys Cove and Sparta Brook.|
|1794||Peter Davis defaulted on a mortgage of 70 of his 200 acres. He had owed money to Charles Williams of New York City since 1772, and had given Williams the mortgage in 1789 to cover the debt. Williams endorsed the mortgage over to James Drowley, an English hardware and dry-goods importer who was living in New York City.|
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|1795||April 22: The first known record of the name "Sparta" is an entry in the Record Book of the Town of Mount Pleasant, showing that William Hall was granted a license to operate a tavern in Sparta. (The Town of Ossining was not carved out of the Town of Mount Pleasant until 1845, and Ossining celebrates its 150th anniversary through October 1995.)|
|1795||September 16: James Drowley died before he could fulfill his dream of subdividing his 70-acre parcel of land into house lots for the development of the hamlet of Sparta.|
|1795||November: Drowley's wishes were realized when the executors of his Estate commissioned a survey of the land by J. Harmer, a "painter, glazier, and gilder, from London." Harmer recorded his survey in a subdivision plan, entitled "Sparta, A Town building on the East side of Hudson's River 35 Miles North of N. York." The plan shows more than 200 proposed lots along three already-existing streets, Anna (now Hudson), Olive (now Spring) and Liberty, and two proposed streets that were never built, William and Mary. Sparta prospered because of the dock at White Point, where sloops could load farm products bound for New York City, and unload manufactured goods ordered from the city. Local deposits of marble and silver would later provide jobs in quarries, a mine and a lime kiln.|
|1813||The Village of Sing Sing, now Ossining, became the first incorporated village in Westchester County. The name reflects the original residents of the Sint Sinck tribe.|
|1820||The gradual economic decline of Sparta began with competition from the cheaper docking fees charged at the Sing Sing dock, and the rerouting of the Albany Post Road from Revolutionary Road to its present location along Route 9, which made Sing Sing's dock more convenient to reach than Sparta Dock.|
|1845||The Town of "Ossinsing" was created from the section of the Town of Mount Pleasant that contained Sing Sing, Sparta, and Scarborough. For ease of pronunciation, the third "s" was dropped the following year. The name was a variation of Sing Sing.|
|1849||The Hudson River Rail Road extended its service to Sing Sing and Peekskill, and replaced sloops as the primary means of trade with New York City.|
|1901||The Village of Sing Sing changed its name to Ossining, taking the same name as the Town, in order to distinguish goods manufactured in the village (such as shoes and stoves) from those made by convicts at Sing Sing Prison.|
|1906||The residents of Sparta agreed to have their hamlet absorbed by the Village of Ossining because of the services and other benefits that they would receive from the village.|
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|1919||Frank A. Vanderlip, president of National City Bank in New York, and his wife Narcissa Coxe, who lived in Beechwood (near Scarborough), personally undertook the redevelopment of Sparta by purchasing many of the decaying houses between Revolutionary Road and Hudson Street. 