The 20-year-old Colonial-style three-bedroom isn’t her own home, but it does sit just a few minutes from her family’s weekend place in the pastoral heart of New York’s Westchester County.

They established the colony of New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan. When the British took control of the area in 1664, they renamed it New York, and it became one of the original 13 colonies.

From 1619 on, not long after the first settlement, the need for colonial labor was bolstered ... 1741: Fires break out in New York City, which has the second-largest urban population of blacks.