ANDREW CORSA - OBITUARY 1 THE LAST OF THE WESTCHESTER GUIDES

BY JOHN M. MACDONALD

On the evening of Sunday the 21st of November at his residence in Fordham, Andrew Corsa2 departed this life at the age of nearly ninety-one. He was born on the 24th day of January, 1762, where the Roman Catholic College of St. John now stands, on the farm occupied by his paternal an-cestor, a native of Germany, who settled on the Manor of Fordham about the year 1690. Both his father and grand-father were natives of the same spot with himself. The latter was born in 1692, about the time Governor Fletcher's arrival in the colony, after whom he was named Benjamin Fletcher. When the revolutionary troubles commenced, Captain Isaac Corsa,3 the father of the subject of this notice, held a commission under the crown, and like most persons

1 This obituary was published in Bolton's History of the County of West-chester, 1881, Vol. II. pp. 532-4 with following preliminary statement: "Andrew Corsa, who was born at Rose Hill in 1762, afterwards removed to a farm nearly opposite where he died in 1852. The following obituary notice occurs in the Westchester Herald for that year." In the Van Tassel papers in the Hufeland Westchesteriana is a note that the Andrew Corsa obituary was published in the Westchester Herald on January 11, 1853. 2 The Corsa genealogy had been exhaustively traced by Stanley J. Corsa of Brooklyn, N.Y. It is published in Vol. V. of French's History of West-chester County, Lewis Historical Publishing Col., Inc., New York and Chicago, 1927. 3 Among the MSS. in the Secry's Dept. are the original Muster Rolls of the companies which served in the campaign of 1755 against the French; among others is Capt. Isaac Corsa's Comp., Westchester 95 rank.--Doc.