He undoubtedly did a good deal in bringing in inhabitants and stock, between 1683, the date of his first purchase, and 1G97, the date of his Manor-grant. Here it was that he erected the mills, mentioned (in the plural) in his will, dated three years later in 1700, the year of his death, which by both Dutch and English law the Patroons and the Lords of Manors were bound to provide for the benefit of their tenants. Had Stephanus von Cortlandt lived to be seventy-five or eighty years old, like so very many of his descendan ts in every generation, instead of dying at fifty-seven, leaving a large family, mostly minors, it is probable that he would have left his manor as flourishing and as populous in proportion as that of Rensselaerswyck at the same date.

The general franchises "and privileges of a Manor having already been described, those only which were peculiar to this particular Manor of Cortlandt will be mentioned here. The Rent Service on which the Manor was held, was " Forty shillings current money of our said Province " (five dollars), payable "at our city of New York on the feast day of the Annunciation of our blessed Virgin Mary." The peculiar franchises of the Manor of Cortlandt were two only, the Rangership of the Manor, and the right to be represented by its own member in the General Assembly after the expiration of twenty years next ensuing the date of the Manor Grant, the 17th of June 1()97. In this as in all the other Manor-Grants was a clause giving to the Lord and his heirs the right for his tenants to meet and choose assessors and provide for public charges in accordance with the general laws of the Province.