VAN CORTLANDT, Stephanus

   General Notes:

Children:
Johannes Van CORTLANDT b: 24 OCT 1672 in ,,NY-Note: Ensign, NYC Rgt. He inh Croton River lands, d. w/o male heirs,
land went to bro Oliver

Margaret Van CORTLANDT b: 2 JUL 1674 in ,,NY
Anne Van CORTLANDT b: 13 FEB 1676 in ,,NY
Oliver Van CORTLANDT b: 26 OCT 1678 in ,,NY-Note: Inherited Croton lands but died without heirs and the land went
to brother Philip.

Maria Van CORTLANDT b: 4 APR 1680 in ,,NY

Gertrude Van CORTLANDT b: 18 JAN 1681 in ,,NY

Philip Van CORTLANDT b: 9 AUG 1683 in ,,NY-Note: The second Lord of the Manor. He was appointed to the
Provincial Council in 1729 and made Commissioner of Indian
Affairs and a member of the Commission to settle a boundry
dispute with CT. He inherited the Manor House and 10,000 acres.
He was responsible for building the ferry across the Croton
River and made other improvements to the property. He became a
Freeman of NYC on Feb 2, 1725 and was an Alderman. He was also
a merchant and owned a Coffee House and a Tavern, "The Fighting
Cocks".

Stephanus Van CORTLANDT b: 11 AUG 1685 in ,,NY
Gertrude Van CORTLANDT b: 7 OCT 1688 in ,,NY
Gysbert Van CORTLANDT b: 7 Oct 1688
Elizabeth Van CORTLANDT b: 1691 in ,,NY
Elizabeth Van CORTLANDT b: 24 MAY 1694 in ,,NY-died young.
Catherine Van CORTLANDT b: 24 JUN 1696 in ,,NY
Cornelia Van CORTLANDT b: 30 JUL 1698 in ,,NY

Note: Stephanus was a Co-Director of Rensselaerswyck in 1675. On Oct
14, 1676, he became an Alderman of NYC, with Francis Rombout,
Thomas Lewis, Johannes De Peyster and others and a Provincial
Councillor from 1691-1700. He was the first native born Mayor
of NYC in 1677 and 1686-87 (He was still mayor, when Jacob
Leisler came to power during the Glorious Revolution, but he was
replaced, in Sep 1689, by Peter de la Noy, who was elected, and
proclaimed mayor by Leisler.) He was the Militia Colonel in
Kings County in 1693. He bought 50 acres at Red Hook, Brooklyn,
Aug 10, 1695, which was sold by heirs to Matthyas Van Dyck.

An opponent of Jacob Leisler and supporter of Frederick Philipse
and Nicholas Bayard, he pressed for the prosecution and
execution of Leisler. He was made a Supreme Court Judge in 1691
and was the First Judge in Admiralty and Associate Judge of the
Colonial Court. He was also Chancellor of the Court of Chancery,
Collector of Revenues, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
Justice at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Senior Warden of
Trinity Parish, Commissioner of Customs and Secretary of the
Province.

Stephanus was the first Lord of the Manor of Cortlandt which was
granted Jun 17, 1697, and a Merchant in NYC. In 1677 he got a
licence from Gov Andros to purchase lands from the Indians. In
1683, he excercised that licence purchasing large tracts in what
are now Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess Counties. He continued
buying until his lands stretched from the mouth of the Croton
River to north of Anthony's nose, (near Bear Mountain Bridge) on
the East bank, eastward to the CT border (87,000 acres). He
became an equal partner, with Francis Rombout and Gulian Ver
Planck (succeeded by Jacobus Kip, his widow's second husband) in
the Rombout Patent, in 1683. He also obtained a patent, which
was signed by James II, from Gov Dongan in Oct 1685, and became
First Lord of Van Cortland Manor. A Royal Patent for the manor
was issued Jun 17, 1697, by King William III. The manor house,
erected before 1681, was used by Gov Dongan as a hunting lodge
and still stands in Cortland, NY, just off the Albany Post Road.
The land was partitioned on the death of Rombout, in 1703.
Rombout's daughter Catharyna became the famous Madame Brett,
whose house still stands at Poughkeepsie, near Mt. Gulian, home
of the Ver Plancks, where the Society of the Cincinnati was
formed.

The Manor House still stands, and is open to the public, by
Historic Hudson Valley, Inc. It is on the extreme SW corner of
the original manor. Upon the death of his wife, Gertrude
Schuyler in 1732, the manor lands were divided between 10 heirs,
with Philip acquiring the lot containing the manor house. His
house on the north side of Pearl St between the Old Slip and
Broad St (then Water St) was valued at $5000, in 1674, making it
a class 1 property.

VAN CORTLANDT, Stephanus (7 May 1643-25 Nov. 1700), merchant and
colonial official, was born in New Amsterdam, the son of Oloff
Stevenz Van Cortlant (Cortlandt), New Netherland commissioner of
cargoes, and Annetie Loockermans. The elder Van Cortlandt, who
had arrived in New Netherland a soldier in the employ of the
Dutch West India Company, rose to become one of the colony's
wealthiest merchants. Through a series of fortunate marital
alliances, the family secured a position among New Netherland's
elite. Stephanus was educated in the collegiate school of the
Dutch Reformed church and in his father's mercantile business.
On 10 September 1671 he married Gertrude Schuyler, daughter of
Philip Pieterse Schuyler of Albany. They had eleven children.

Van Cortlandt followed his father in mercantile ventures. He
established a lucrative fur trade in partnership with his
brother-in-law Jeremias van Rensselaer, director of the
patroonship of Rensselaerswijck. With the death of Van
Rensselaer in 1674, van Cortlandt and his sister assumed de
facto directorship of the patroonship. In September 1675 the
court of Albanv, Rensselaerswijck, and Schenectady appointed him
to represent Rensselaerswijck at the court of assizes, the
supreme provincial judicial body, in New York City. Except for
the years from 1675 to 1677, when the Reverend Nicholas van
Rensselaer served as director, Van Cortlandt retained the
directorship until 1685.

After the 1664 English conquest of New Netherland, Van Cortlandt
became closely allied with the administration of James, Duke of
York. In 1668 he was commissioned an ensign of the Kings Countv
militia, rising by 1692 to the rank of colonel. He was elected
a city schepen (alderman) in 1674, during the Dutch recapture of
New York, and was re-appointed to that position by the English
in 1675 and 1676. In 1677 Governor Sir Edmund Andros appointed
Van Cortiandt to be the first native-born mayor of New York
City; he was re-appointed as mayor in 1686 and 1687. In 1674
Andros appointed him to the governor's council. He was retained
in the council by Andros's successor, Governor Thomas Dongan.
In 1687 he was made deputy auditor general and named a receiver
of the revenue for New York and New Jersey. Van Cortlandt also
served as a member of the admiralty courts, presided at times
over the New York City Mayor's Court, and was a judge of the
Kings County Court of Oyer and Terminer.

Van Cortlandt was closely associated with James II's colonial
administration. In 1683 he served as a representative to New
York's first assembly and was among those who passed the
colony's "Charter of Liberties," which placed New York under
English law. When James consolidated New England, New York, and
New Jersey into the Dominion of New England in 1688, Van
Cortlandt was among the forty-two councilors appointed to the
dominion's council Though a deacon and elder of the Reformed
church, Van Cortlandt became noted for his Jacobite sympathies.
During festivities celebrating the birth of the Catholic Prince
of Wales in 1688, his overzealous rejoicing, including the
burning of his "hat, wig, and clothes," was widely remarked
upon.

When in June 1689, in the wake of England's 1688 Glorious
Revolution, New York City overthrew the dominion government, Van
Cortlandt was among the officials who suffered persecution for
being a "papist" sympathizer. Van Cortlandt's attempt to
maintain control of the administration after the flight of
Lieutenant Governor Francis Nicholson was undermined by a
revolutionary committee of safety. Finding the "Committee opens
all letters" and himself under virtual house arrest, Van
Cortlandt fled to Albany. He remained in Albany during Jacob
Leisler's administration and from there led the opposition to
Leisler's government. As a result, Leisler issued a warrant for
his arrest. Nonetheless, through his extensive patronage
connections in England, most notably with Secretary of State
William Blathwayt, Van Cortlandt was appointed in 1690 to the
council of the new royal governor, Henry Sloughter. Van
Cortiandt returned to New York City in January 1691 with the
arrival of royal troops under the command of Richard Ingoldsby
and was instrumental in the fall and subsequent trial and
execution of Leisler for treason. He thereafter led the
anti-Leislerian faction in New York provincial politics.

Van Cortlandt continued to serve on every governor's council
after 1691. In 1691 he was also elected to the New York
Assembly as a member for New York County. He represented the
county in the assembly until 1695 and was re-elected in 1698,
serving until his death. In September 1696 he was made register
and principal surrogate for New York, which gave him the sole
right to grant letters of administration during the governor's
absence, and the following November was made chancellor of the
court of chancery. When the judicature Act of 1691 established
the New York Supreme Court, Van Cortlandt was named an associate
justice. He served as an associate justice until his elevation
to the post of chief justice a month before his death.

In order to establish the Church of England in New York, and
because there were so few prominent Anglicans in the province,
in 1693 Governor Beniamin Fletcher appointed Van Cortlandt, who
was an elder in the Dutch Reformed church, as a member of the
first board of vestry of Trinity Anglican Church and in 1696 as
a church warden. In 1694 Van Cortlandt was among the
commissioners to frame a treaty with the Five Nations. In 1698
he was appointed commissioner of customs and collector of
revenue for New York, but his health rapidly deteriorated
thereafter. Just prior to Van Cortlandt's death, Governor
Richard Coote, earl of Bellomont, was proceeding to have him
removed from office for having "grown very crazy and infirm."

Van Cortlandt owned extensive properties in New York City, in
Suffolk, Richmond, and Kings counties, as well as north of
Rensselaer and in New jersey. In 1677 Governor Andros granted
Van Cortlandt a license to obtain land from the Indians. In
1683 he began purchasing land on the east bank of the Hudson
River in present-day Westchester County. In 1695 these
approximately 87,713 acres extending ten miles along the Hudson
and twenty miles east to Connecticut were consolidated, and in
1697 he was given a patent to form them into the Manor of
Cortlandt. Van Cortlandt would be the only lord of the manor.
He followed Dutch practice in his will, distributing his
properties among his children, but his widow delayed the
division of the estate until her death in 1723. Disagreements
among the heirs further delayed the estate's settlement, and the
manor lands were not finally divided until 1753. By that date
the lordship had been abandoned.

Van Cortlandt's extensive writings, though biased, give a fairly
accurate accounting of current events. Moreover, his letters
provide a valuable window into the emergence of an aristocratic
class in early New York.

Van Cortlandt's papers can be found in the New York Historical
Society, New York City; the New York State Library, Albany, N.Y;
and the Blathwayt papers, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Van
Cortlandt's correspondence with his brother-in-law and sister
have been published in Correspondence of Jeremias Van
Rensselaer, 1651-1674 (1932) and Correspondence of Maria Van
Rensselaer, 1669-1689 (1935), both edited by A. J. F. Van Laer.
Additional correspondence may be found in Edmund B. O'Callaghan,
ed., Documentary History of the State of New York, vols. 1 and 2
(1849), and Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New
York, vols. 3 and 4 (1853-1854); and in Edward Randolph
including His letters and 0fficial Papers, ed. Robert Noxan
Toppan (7 vols, 1898-1909; repr. 1960). Biographical sketches
include L. E. DeForest, The Van Cortlandt Family (1930). For
more on Cortlandt Manor, see Katherine M. Beckman and N. M.
Isham, The Story of Van Cortlandt (1 917).

DAVID WILLIAM VOORHEES - American National Biography

   Marriage Information:

Stephanus married Geertruj VAN SCHUYLER, daughter of Philip Pieterse VAN SCHUYLER and Margareta VAN SLICHTENHORST, on 3 Oct 1671 in "The Flatts", Rensselaerswyck, NY. (Geertruj VAN SCHUYLER was born on 4 Feb 1654 in Rensselaerswyck, Albany, NY and died on 1 Nov 1723 in New York.)