The whole tract was laid out into farms, rectangular in shape, of two hundred acres each as a rule. These were leased for lung terms of years at low rents, the highest not being more than £10 and the lowest about £2 or £3. The rent rolls and map showed the farms, which were all numbered, the tenants' names, and the rent payable by each. It was always understood that the tenants might buy " the soil right," as the fee was termed, at any time the parties could agree upon price. In practice, however, the tenants did not begin to apply for the fee till about the time of the Revolution, and then but rarely. After that event more were sold to applicants, but many farms continued in the families of the tenants till late in this century. The last, which had descended to himself and the widow of a deceased brother, the writer sold in 1ST"), after the expiration of a lease for ninety-nine years. The same system of leasing out their lots in farms was carried out by all the other owners of the manor lands. Some sold the fee of their lands at an early day to relatives, who thus increased their holdings. Others retained them.

Notwithstanding the complete partition of the estate, the " Lordship and Mannour " of Cortlandt, as erected by letters patent front Governor Fletcher in 1697, did not in any respect lose iis original identity or the peculiar privileges bestowed upon it by the terms of that grant. It continued to be a distinct political division, and, indeed, was separated front the remainder of Westchester County in an even more formal way than any of the other manors, since it enjoyed The exceptional right of sending its own exclusive representative to the provincial assembly.