Stephanus, (son of Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt,) was born on the 7th of May, 1643. This distinguished personage, upon the death of his brother-in-law, Jeremias van Rensselaer, A. D., 1675, became one of the three administrators of his estate, during the minority of Killian'van Rensselaer, (then 12 years old.) Stephanus van Cortlandt had charge of the books, for which duty he received one hundred schepels of wheat. ^ Iq the year 1677 he was elected Mayor of the city of New York. He was also a member of the Governor's Council, and a Colonel in the provincial militia.

Stephanus van Cortlandt died in the year 1700, leaving by his wife Gertrude Schuyler, eleven children, who intermarried with the DePeysters, DeLanceys, Beeckmans, Skinners, Bayards, Johnsons, and VanRensselaers.

On the 14th of April, in the twelth year of the reign of William the Third, King of England, «fcc., Stephanus van Cortlandt made and published his last will and testament as follows:

" Know all men by these presents, that I, Stephanus van Cortlandt, of the city of New York, merchant, being distempered in body, but of good, sound and firm memory, praised be Almighty God therefor, do make, ))ublish, and declare ; this my last will and testament, (this 14th day of April, in the yeai* of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, one thousand and seven hundred, in the twelfth year of the reign of our sovereign lord William the Third, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, defender of the faith, (fcc.,) in manner and form following, that is to say, I bequeath my soul into the hands of the Almighty God, my heavenly Father, from whom I received it, and by whom of his mere