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. Befikman, 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 
