Bedford NY History
The town of Bedford was founded on December 23, 1680 when twenty-two Puritans from Stamford , Connecticut purchased a tract of land three miles square known as the "Hopp Ground" from Chief Katonah and several other Indians for coats, blankets, wampum and cloth. Bedford was made a part of Connecticut in 1697 when a patent fixed the boundaries as a six-mile square and only when King William III of England issued a royal decree in 1700, to settle a boundary dispute, did Bedford become part of New York . The town served as the county seat of Westchester County during the American Revolutionary War after the Battle of White Plains until Bedford was burned by the British on July 2, 1779 [ citation needed ] . After the Revolution, Bedford was made one of two seats of County government, alternating with White Plains , until 1870. Westchester County's oldest government building is the Court House in Bedford village, which was built in 1787 and renovated in the 1960s
