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Van Cortlandt Manor

By Lee Northshield

The Van Cortlandt Manor, as it is restored today, provides a clear view of life at the manor during its most colorful and prosperous period and of the Van Cortlandts at the heights of their historic eminence and contribution to the development of the manor at Croton. As the manor and its lands were acquired, settled, developed, and dispersed, the parallel political, social, and economic importance of the Van Cortlandt family can be seen.

The first Van Cortlandt in America, Oloff, came to New Amsterdam in 1638 as an employee of the Dutch West India Company. When the Company permitted independent businesses, he left the Company and began a career as a merchant, achieving both wealth and prominence as a merchant and politician. After the English took control of New York, he became an alderman and deputy Mayor. In 1642, he married Annette Lookermanns, the daughter of a well-to-do Dutch merchant. Their children married into other large Hudson Valley landholders' families and soon the Van Cortlandt family was connected by marriage with most of the eminent New York families of the day.

The manor had become a self-sufficient community with a position of social and economic importance to the Hudson River Valley. With the flaring of hostilities in the fall of 1776, the flour mill on the river was requisitioned to make flour for the Continental Army. It was during that year, that the Van Cortlandts evacuated the manor house and moved to Peekskill (and later farther up river to Rhinebeck), taking many of the Van Cortlandt family possessions. This turned out to be fortunate; the manor house was plundered by the British as they advanced up the Hudson in 1779. While Pierre was busy with the legislature during the Revolution, his son, Philip, was active in the military.

Philip Van Cortlandt had an outstanding military career. He began as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Fourth Battalion of the New York Infantry. In 1776, General Washington made him Colonel of the Second New York Regiment. He briefly served as an aide to Washington and commanded troops under Lafayette, fought at the Battles of Saratoga and Yorktown and was a member of the military court martial that tried Benedict Arnold. After the American victory, Brigadier General Philip Van Cortlandt and Lieutenant Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt, his father, attended ceremonies celebrating the grand entry of George Washington into New York. With the war's end, General Van Cortlandt returned to the manor house. Because of the manor's plundered state, Pierre and Joanna remained in Peekskill until 1803.

The Dining Room

Soon after the war, the various enterprises on the manor were once again thriving. New mills were built on both sides of the Croton River. Both sawmills were back in operation. The ferry house came into its own, as the linking-up of local roads had created a continuous roadway from New York to Albany. Weekly service on the stage coach was established on the Albany Post Road in 1784. The Van Cortlandt Ferry House provided refreshment and lodging to the travelers on these stages as well as a meeting place for local tenants and landholders.

During this period of rebuilding after the war, Philip became the first Supervisor of the Town of Cortlandt, a State Assemblyman, a State Senator, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and a Presidential Elector in 1812. It was Philip Van Cortlandt, with his sister Catherine Van Wyck and her children, who had been responsible for the rebuilding of the manor house. When Philip died unmarried in 1831, he left a share of his property to Catherine's son Philip, his favorite nephew. Philip Van Wyck and his family lived in the manor house until Pierre III, son of Philip's brother Pierre, came of age. Pierre III had been a young boy during the Revolution. In 1836, he moved into the manor house with his bride Catherine Beck. They lived a quiet life at the manor and in 1895 the house passed to their living children, Catherine Van Cortlandt Matthews, James Stevenson Van Cortlandt, and Ann Stevenson Van Cortlandt. They remained until Ann Stevenson Van Cortlandt died in 1941 and willed the manor to her nieces (Catherine Matthews' daughters), Catherine Matthews and Mrs. William V. Mason and Mrs. Mason's daughter, Mrs. Robert Browne. In 1945, the manor house was sold outside the Van Cortlandt family for the first time in 250 years. Otis Taylor bought it in 1945. Upon his death in 1948, Jerome Britchey acquired it. He took down the barns and built the Starlite Drive-In where they had stood. In 1953, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. acquired the manor house and 5 acres of land and began the restoration of the manor house and grounds. As the restoration of the manor as it appeared in the 1800's was undertaken, he acquired more of the manor lands, obtaining approximately 17 acres.

In 1836, the manor as it existed was ordered to be mapped by Pierre III. These maps show the manor house, the outbuildings, lawns, orchards planted by Pierre I, the Bethel Chapel built in 1795 on the old Albany Post Road, and the adjacent cemetery, the mills, the ferry and the ferry house, and existing bridges. Insofar as the dam was begun at this time and the width of the Croton River was considerably diminished, it is now possible to see the original sites of the mills and dams and bridges which were once on the water's edge but which are now on dry land. During the lifetime of the manor a number of bridges were built across the Croton River, but due to floods and high waters, only remnants of them remain to show their location.

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