Sumner Law LLP

About White Plains

White Plains is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is the 29th-largest municipality in the state of New York, an inner suburb of New York City, and the county seat and commercial hub of Westchester County, a densely populated suburban county that is home to about one million people. White Plains is located in south-central Westchester County. Its downtown (Mamaroneck Avenue) is 25 miles (40 km) north of Midtown Manhattan. The city's total population was 59,599 in the 2020 census, up from 53,077 at the 2010 census. According to the city government, the daytime weekday population is estimated at 250,000. == History == === Early history === At the time of the Dutch settlement of Manhattan in the early 17th century, the region had been used as farmland by the Weckquaeskeck tribe, a Wappinger people, and was called "Quarropas". To early traders it was known as "the White Plains", either from the white balsam (Gnaphalium polycephalum) which was said to have covered it, or from the heavy mist that local tradition suggests hovered over the swamplands near the Bronx River. The first non-native settlement came in November 1683, when a party of Connecticut Puritans moved westward from an earlier settlement in Rye and bought about 4,400 acres (18 km2), presumably from the Weckquaeskeck. However, John Richbell of Mamaroneck claimed to have earlier title to much of the territory through his purchase of a far larger plot extending 20 miles (32 km) inland, perhaps from a different tribe.