The peninsula of Verplanck's Point was devised to his eldest son Johannes, and all the rest of his property of all kinds was divided equally among all his surviving children, eleven in number, including Johannes. The devise of Verplanck's Point was all that Johannes received in addition to the others in virtue of his being the eldest son.^ Had it not been for the terms of surrender and the treaty this eminently just will could not have been made, nor could the action under it which the widow and children adopted, have been taken.

Before describing that action and its results, it is necessary to state who Stephanus Van Cortlandt was, who was his father, what his family, and who were his children.

Stephanus Vau Cortlandt was the eldest of the two sons, Stephanus and Jacobus (Stephen aud James), of Oloff, (or Oliver), Stevens Van Cortlandt, the first of that name in America, by his wife Annetje (Ann) Lockermans. He was born at his father's house in " Brouwer," now Stone, street, in New Amsterdam on the seventh of May, 1643, and was baptized three days later, or the eleventh, in the Dutch church in the Fort. He married on the tenth of Sei)teniber, 1671, in his 28th year, Gertrude, daughter of Philip Pie-

I II. V. S. Laws, Ch. 1459, p. 576.

'The win ia recorded in the N. Y. Surr. Off., Lib. 2 of Wills, p. 78.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

terse Schuyler, of Albany; and died, as has been stated ou the twenty-fifth day of November, 1700, at the comparatively early age of fifty-seven years, leaving hiui surviving his wife and eleven children.