168 THE BOROUGH OF THE BRONX 



Leisler sent a constable to the house of Mayor Van Cortlandt 

 to obtain the city charter, seals, records, etc., which would lend 

 dignity to his office. Van Cortlandt was not at home. A committee 

 was appointed to wait upon Mrs. Van Cortlandt and demand them 

 of her. She received the committee politely, but declined to give up 

 anything which had been left in her care by her husband. A ser- 

 geant-at-arms next visited her but when she learned his errand 

 she cooly shut the door in his face and defied his blustering threats. 

 An effort to find and imprison Van Cortlandt was then made, but 

 without success. Stephanus Van Cortlandt lived with his wife, 

 the beautiful Gertrude Schuyler, daughter of the mayor of Albany, 

 on the corner of Broad and Pearl Streets until his estates were 

 erected into a manor by patent from William III., on June 17, 1697, 

 and he subsequently built the first Cortlandt Manor house on the 

 shore of Croton Bay. The main portion of the edifice was the ori- 

 ginal block-house built by Governor Dongan in the early part of 

 his administration as a rendezvous for fishing parties and con- 

 ferences with the Indians. Stephanus Van Cortlandt, who in 1683 

 was appointed by the King of England one of Dongan's privy coun- 

 cil, usually accompanied him on these expeditions, and subsequently 

 purchased land thereabouts from the Indians — 85,000 acres, ex- 

 tending to the Connecticut line. The block-house, which with its 

 solid stone walls three feet thick, and loop-holes for musketry pro- 

 vided for the emergencies of life in a savage wilderness, was con- 

 verted into a commodious dwelling. 



The lords of Cortlandt had the privilege of sending a repre- 

 sentative to the Provincial Assembly, and the manor was held by 

 a feudal tenure, for which the rent of forty shillings (about $10.) 

 was paid annually to the crown on the feast-day of the Annuncia- 

 tion. 



Jacobus Van Cortlandt the third son of Oloff Stevenson Van 

 Cortlandt, and the seventh and younger member of the family, 

 born July 7, 1658, was a member of the first three William and 

 Mary assemblies, and also in 1702-1709. He was the mayor of New 

 York in 1710 and also in 1719. He was a large landholder and one 

 of the most prominent men Of his time. He married Eva, the 

 adopted daughter of Frederick Philipse, the "Dutch millionaire" 

 and lord of the manor of Philipseburgh, then extending along the 

 Hudson River from below the present site of Riverdale, northerly 

 to the mouth of Croton River above Sing Sing. By purchasing 



