Robert Edwards.

About Robert Edwards

Robert Edwards was a Welsh buccaneer who descendants claim was given 77 acres (310,000 m2) of largely unsettled Manhattan by Queen Anne of the Kingdom of Great Britain for his services in disrupting Spanish sea lanes. Edwards is said to have leased his New York property to the brothers John and George Cruger for 99 years, with the understanding that it would revert to his heirs after the lease expired in 1877. No distribution to Edwards' heirs of the land was ever made. It is alleged that the Crugers were wardens of Trinity Church, an Episcopal Church—today, one of New York City's biggest land owners. Maybe everything was tangled in a muddle of colonial Manhattan land giveaways. But, according to the alleged lease document, the whole tract wound up in Trinity's hands.