Tlie following receipt for manorial quit-rent is endorsed, on the Royal Patent :

Received in quality, as Receiver General of this Province, this 16th day of August, 1720, of Mrs. Gertrude van Cortlandt, executrix of Stephanus van Cortlandt, deceased, the sura of eight pounds proclamation money in full of quit-rents, for all the lands lying within the Manor of Cortlandt, to the 25th day of March last, pursuant to the within patent, as witness my hand.

J. BYVERLY, Collector.

Stephanus van Cortlandt, first lord of the Manor of Cortlandt, was the son of the Hon. Olotf Stevensen van Cortlandt, immediately descended from one of the most noble families in Holland, their ancestors having emigrated thither, when deprived of the sovereignty of Courland.^

The orthography of the surname is properly Corte-landt; the first syllable Corte or Korte, meaning in the Dutch language short; ^ the second, landt, (land) literally the short land, a term expressing the peculiar form of the ancient Duchy of Courland in Russia.

Courland in Russia, (says Schiutzler,) formerly constituted a

a Book of Pat. Alb., No. VII., 165.

b Burke's Landed Gentry of England, vol. IV., 241.

• The use of the letter K in this word is modern, the C ancient.

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To face page 51, vol. i.

PJG1

Ducal Arms. -- Arg. a lion, rampant, gu. crowned or, for Courland, charged ih^ mantle lined ermine, surmounted with a crown. Family Arms. -- Arg. lh4'ml

Mthin a

Right Flon. Ptephanus, nat.=Gertrude Schuyler 7th Mav, I64i; Mayor of New York, 1677 ; first Lord of ihe Mnnor of Cortlnudt, purchased IbK?. patented 17lh Jun. Ifi97; 111). 17(in.