22 Old Time Gardens 



site page 24) ; it dates certainly to the middle of 

 the eighteenth century. Pierre Van Cortlandt, the 

 son of the child with the vase of flowers, and grand- 

 father of the present generation bearing his surname, 

 was born in 1762. He well recalled playing along 

 this garden path when he was a child ; and that one 

 day he and his little sister Ann (Mrs. Philip Van 

 Rensselaer) ran a race along this path and through 

 the garden to see who could first "see the baby' 

 and greet their sister, Mrs. Beekman, who came 

 riding to the manor-house up the hill from Tarry- 

 town, and through the avenue, which shows on the 

 right-hand side of the garden-picture. This beauti- 

 ful young woman was famed everywhere for her 

 grace and loveliness, and later equally so for her 

 intelligence and goodness, and the prominent part 

 she bore in the War of the Revolution. She was 

 seated on a pillion behind her husband, and she car- 

 ried proudly in her arms her first baby (afterward 

 Dr. Beekman) wrapped in a scarlet cloak. This is 

 one of the home-pictures that the old garden holds. 

 Would we could paint it ! 



In this garden, near the house, is a never failing 

 spring and well. The house was purposely built 

 near it, in those days of sudden attacks by Ind- 

 ians ; it has proved a fountain of perpetual youth 

 for the old Locust tree, which shades it; a tree more 

 ancient than house or garden, serene and beauti- 

 ful in its hearty old age. Glimpses of this manor- 

 house garden and its flowers are shown on many 

 pages of this book, but they cannot reveal its 

 beauty as a whole — its fine proportions, its noble 



