294 The Story of The Bronx 



when entail was prohibited by the Revised Statutes of the 

 State. 



Jacobus Van Cortlandt was a distinguished member of 

 the community and was Mayor of the City of New York from 

 i7ioto 1719. About 1700, he dammed Tippett's Brook and 

 erected a grist-mill and a saw-mill, which stood until the early 

 spring of 1903. His house stood on George's Point, a bend of 

 Tippett's Brook, just north of the dam, on the same site as 

 that selected by Van der Donck. The damming of the brook 

 makes a lake about a mile long which is well-known to New 

 Yorkers as Van Cortlandt Lake ; the house disappeared before 

 the Revolution. 



The mills stood during the troublous times of the Revolu- 

 tion, and after the return of peace they continued to be opera- 

 ted by the Van Tassels to within the present generation. 

 During a heavy thunder-storm in June, 1900, the larger of the 

 two mills, the grist-mill, was struck by lightning and was 

 destroyed by fire, the electric fluid at the same time passing 

 over the wires to the mansion, where but slight damage was 

 done. The saw-mill stood in a dilapidated condition, being 

 used as a store-house for the tools of the workmen and for the 

 "stanes" of the curlers, until the spring of 1903, when it was 

 removed by the park authorities, as it was in a tumble-down 

 and dangerous condition. Attempts were made to repair it, 

 but the under beams were so decayed that the whole building 

 threatened to fall upon the workmen. The old mill-stone 

 from the grist-mill has been mounted as a sun-dial and has 

 been preserved in that way. 



Frederick Van Cortlandt succeeded to the estate of his father 

 Jacobus. In 1748, he erected the stone mansion at the lower 

 end of the park, now in charge of the Colonial Dames of the 

 State of New York as a museum of Colonial and Revolutionary 



