THE TOWN OF MOUNT PLEASANT. 525 



The Beeckmans who succeeded the Philipses in this portion of the 

 manor of Philipsburgh, Willem or William Beekman, Lieutenant-Gov- 

 ernor of the South River (Delaware). His ancestors had been respected 

 for their talents and virtues, and had suffered much persecution for re- 

 ligion's sake. He was the son of Henry Beeckman and Maria Bandartus 

 (a celebrated name among the clergy of the Reformed Church in Hol- 

 land), and was born at Hasselt in Overyssel, April 18th, 1623. We are 

 indebted to the Evening Gazette for the subjoined notice of this remark- 

 able lady : " Cornelia Beeckman was the second daughter of Lieutenant- 

 Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt, by his wife, Joanna Livingston, whose 

 birth took place in the old manor house, by the banks of the Croton, on 

 the 2d of August, 1753. Here her infancy and youth glided away, and 

 but a short time before the war, she left its scenes for a life- in New 

 York, whither she removed upon her marriage with General Beeckman. 

 When the Revolutionary troubles ran high, she came back to the old 

 house at Peekskill, where part of her family resided. Exposed, of course, 

 to all manner of insult and aggression, well-known herself, and in con- 

 nection with her father, subsequently Lieutenant-Governor of this State, 

 under Clinton, (but at that time, president of the Committee of Public 

 Safety,) with her brother serving in the army, and many relatives and 

 intimates, all zealous Whigs and devoted Americans, her unconquerable 

 will and high spirit bore her safely and uncompromisingly through those 

 trying scenes. We copy from a graphic skeLxh, by an able and we fancy 

 well-known pen the following notice of her life during this disastrous 

 period. 



" One little incident we recollect to have read in a letter written by 

 herself, in 1777. A party of royalists, under Colonels Bayard and Fan- 

 ning, came to the Peekskill house, and commencing their customary 

 course of treatment, one insultingly asked her, ' Are you not the daugh- 

 ter of that old rebel Pierre Van Cortlandt ? ' She replied, ' I am the 

 daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt, but it becomes not such as you to call 

 my father a rebel.' The tory raised his musket, when she, with great 

 calmness, reproved him for his insolence and bade him begone. The 

 coward turned away abashed, and she remained uninjured. The nar- 

 rative thus continues : — ' Her letters written about this time, many of 

 which are now in existence, abound in patriotic spirit. Excited by 

 personal wrongs and the aggressions she witnessed all around her, she 

 gave vent to her feelings in most severe reproaches upon the enemy, 

 and in frevent prayers for the American success. But although thus 

 exposed, she refused to leave her home, and continued to reside in the 

 same place until the close of the war. Mrs. Beeckman possessed a 

 powerful memory, and to the close of her life could relate with exact 

 minuteness, the interesting events of which she was cognizant ; and the 



