of the Westchester County Historical Society Vol. 16 1940 No. 3 The Dyckman Family Crest From a print presented to the Society by Mr. Robert Brooke PUBLISHED BY THE WESTCHESTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK

In Memoriam With the death of Miss Anne Stevenson Van Cortlandt the society has lost one of its most esteemed members and loyal friends. Miss Van Cortlandt was born at Croton-on-Hudson, July 14th, 1847, and lived there continuously throughout her long and interesting life. A descendant of Stephanus Van Cortlandt and Philip Schuyler, she was the embodiment of the family tradition. Those of the soc…

Those of the society who were fortunate enough to know her remember the fine dignity with which she always greeted her friends, and the pride with which she showed the Manor House and its store of mementos connected with the Van Cortlandt tradition. Up until her death her mind was keen and active and in spite of her suffering she enjoyed seeing her friends. We shall all feel the death of our frien…

THE STORY OF CROTON By Alvin McCaslin Higgins Editor's Note: The following paper was prepared by the late Mr. Higgins for the Ossining Historical Society in 1938. Nearly three hundred and thirty years ago, upon an October evening, a fantastic little ship floated with the tide into the deep bay that lay south of what is now Croton Point. A few- sailors who spoke Holland Dutch slipped the little …

Henry Hudson sailed up the broad river the next morning, believing he had found the great strait of water which would bring him to China and the Asia of that day. Little did he realize that within a hundred years from the night he gazed up Croton's River, a kingdom would be created there producing more wealth and power than he would ever know. The point of land which sheltered the Half Moon was kn…

wild game, fish, fruits and fertile soil. As the Dutch burghers of New York and Albany prospered and grew more powerful, the choice fowling and fishing attractions of the Croton River region lured the officials and sportsmen of the seventeenth century. Came the Van Cortlandts ! The year the Half Moon sailed up the Hudson and nestled below Senasqua at the mouth of the Kenoten's River, there lived i…

Olaf was then elected Schepen at a salary of two hundred fifty guilders ; sent to Esopus, up the Hudson, to make a treaty with the Indians; then to Connecticut to fix the boundary line; then out to Jamaica to treat with the English who demanded Long Island. Olaf was the burgomaster of New York when the English fleet arrived, and one of six who met with the English to agree upon Manhattan's surrend…

His father's career inspired him ; and at the age of thirty-four, six years after his marriage, he was elected mayor of New York. He must have succeeded beyond question for it is recorded in history that the public life of Stephanus Van Cortlandt was "undoubtedly the first brilliant career that any native of New York ever ran." It is interesting to learn that this man was not only mayor of New Yor…

Four years after the Manor of Philipseburgh had been established, on June 17, 1697, Stephanus Van Cortlandt had secured the entire northern party of Westchester County, from the Croton River to Putnam County and Connecticut--amassing together eighty-six thousand two hundred and three acres with one thousand five hundred acres more across the Hudson on the Haverstraw shore. The only sizable tract t…

By 1697, Stephanus had completed his accumulation of property and obtained from Governor Fletcher and the Crown, the Royal Letters patent of the Westchester acreage, a vast domain which covered the Towns of Cortlandt, Yorktown, Somers, North Salem and Lewisboro, and for which he was to pay quit rent of "40 shillings on the feast day of the Annunciation of our blessed Virgin Mary." Of all the colon…

Johannes' daughter Gertrude had married Philip Verplanck and he had been chosen by the Van Cortlandt heirs to survey the entire manor into thirty lots, to be partitioned among the ten members of the family. It seems strange that the law in vogue in Westchester allotted the share of a female heir who had married to her husband. Thus, Gertrude Van Cortlandt Verplanck's share was deeded by the com…

Philip Verplanck sat in the legislature at Albany as Representative from Cortlandt Manor for thirty-four years--an all time record. He was paid six shillings a day. Philip Van Cortlandt, being the eldest surviving son of Stephanus, became the head of the family and occupied the Manor House on the Croton River upon his frequent visits to the estate from New York and Albany. An eminent merchant, mem…

Meanwhile, his famous son, Philip, was growing to manhood and duplicating his father's renowned career. Member of the Provincial Congress in 1775, lieutenant-colonel and colonel throughout the Revolution, he participated physically in battle after battle; and was made a special target by the Indian Chief Brant, on the Delaware, as he charged with the bayonet at the head of his troops; and was cite…

An outstanding joy of his later years was in 1824 when an express rider galloped up at midnight to the Manor House and awakened the General with the message from the Marquis de la Lafayette, who had landed at the Battery in New York for his farewell tour of America, and wanted his old army comrade to join him. Although the message was received at midnight in far off Croton, the energy and will of …

Annie," as she is affectionately known--who graces the old Manor House as the Van Cortlandt women always didd 1! The Van Cortlandts founded Croton-on-Hudson two hundred and fifty years ago. If there is a village shrine in Croton, it is the Manor House. One of the most prominent patrician families of Holland was that of Cornelius Barentse Van Wyck. His grandson Abraham Van Wyck wooed and won Cathe…

Cornelia Van Cortlandt, daughter of Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt, occupied the Van Cortlandt Manor House with her husband, Gerard Beekman, during the Revolutionary days although, afterwards, they settled in the old Beekman homestead at North Tarrytown. She was a typical Van Cortlandt girl, as British officers and Tories ascertained to their discomfiture when they sought to annoy and te…

On that eventful September day in 1780, two Croton men, Moses Sherwood and John Peterson (the latter a colored man who had served in General Van Cortlandt's Westchester militia) , were making cider on the land now known as Orchard Hill and about where the Edward Howard Griggs residence stands. Although the Croton countryside was not occupied by troops, it was, like the rest of Westchester, trouble…

They assembled all the neighbors available to throw harness and trappings on several horses and rode as fast as they could up the Post Road, out the King's Ferry road, to Verplanck's Point where the little fort under Colonel Livingston's command stood sentinel over the Hudson. Colonel Livingston listened to their story, agreed to loan them a four-pounder; and before dark, the farm horses were drag…

In front of the Van Cortlandt Manor House was Croton Bay, into which flowed the rushing waters of the Croton River. It is difficult for the last three generations of Americans to realize that the marshes with their tall reeds, the farm land and meadow dotted with aged apple trees, the Albany Post Road that runs between Harmon and the Ossining side of the Croton River bridge are all on "made" land …

Cheap and easy water transportation, the cheap labor of the day and the proximity of thriving New York made the production of metal work most lucrative. The Van Cortlandts had mills and furnaces not only on the Croton River but on Furnace Brook in the Oscawanna section. The flour mill on the old Phelps estate was built during the Revolution and operated until 1875. Before the Revolution, an Englis…

Small fortunes were made and the clay beds were excavated until all pay clay was moulded into brick. Then the industry centered in Haverstraw and upper river points. Croton Point, the beautiful peninsula reaching far into the Hudson, embracing with its curved shoreline on the side toward Croton village the charming sheet of water known to the Indians as "Mother's Lap," has a history all its own. T…

In its day, Croton Point has been a principality all its own, with seventy-five acres devoted to luscious grapes, large apple orchards and hothouses for the cultivation of roses. William H. Underhill began the manufacture of brick there over a hundred years ago, and for more than fifty years, enameled bricks for tiling and wainscoting made on Croton Point were in great demand. Then the clay stratu…

In 1768, when the Methodist missionary, Thomas Ware, crossed over from Long Island to Westchester to promote the Wesleyan faith, he said, "there was not a Methodist on the east side of the Hudson above New York,'' although the great George Whitefield had preached in Peekskill in 1770 and talked from the veranda of the Van Cortlandt Manor House, too. Bishop Francis Asbury made great progress, thoug…

Its most remarkable pastorate was that of the Reverend A. Vallette Clarkson who served as priest in charge for more than fifty years. The Methodist Episcopal Church of Croton erected its first church edifice in 1780 and has maintained a strong and steady growth all through the ensuing years. Ninety years ago, there were not ten Roman Catholics in all Croton. Today, the Holy Name of Mary Church and…

But after the Van Cortlandt empire had been dismembered, the hum-drum days of trade and the ordinary ways and paths of peace found Croton-on-Hudson aspiring to be a village in the fullest sense of the word. That spirit cultivated an independent citizenry who have left their mark for good upon our village life. John W. Frost was a moving force in the Croton of one hundred years ago. Of Yankee …

More than a hundred years ago, the sprawling little village was designated as Collabergh Landing, but when Teller's Point was christened Croton Point, the natives made it unanimous by changing Collabergh to Croton Landing. Sloops and barges lay at anchor in Mother's Lap, waiting their turn to take on brick and ore for points up and down the Hudson. Steamboats from Peekskill and Poughkeepsie to dow…

The second change came fifty years later, in the period between 1892 and 1905, as a result of the building of the great new Croton Dam to conserve all of the waters of the chain of Croton River lakes. Although the lowest bidder agreed to excavate the enormous pit down to bedrock, divert the river and build the great dam of masonry for a little over four million dollars, delays in acquiring the lan…

Croton Lake rose to its high normal level and the water poured over the spillway to the delight of hundreds of thousands who have viewed it since. "Little Italy" faded away and the colorful pay night became a memory. The cavalcade of wagons and trucks that had rolled and rattled down to Croton Landing every morning to receive the blocks of granite and tons of cement which kept pouring into Croton …

Less picturesque today, perhaps, Croton is, nevertheless, a pleasant little modern community with its happy homes, its fine schools, its train service, its churches and its contented people. MISCELLANEOUS EVENTS OF HISTORICAL INTEREST HUDSON RIVER CONSERVATION SOCIETY MEETING The annual meeting of the Hudson River Conservation Society was held at the Dykeman-Cruger House ("Boscobel"), in Crug…

COUNTY SOLDIERS' GRAVES LOCATED A project under the direction of Mr. Thomas F. Hammond, designed to locate the graves of Westchester County men who have served in the thirty-two wars of this country and undertaken as a joint project of the County and the W.P.A., is said to be nearing completion. Work on this project was started January 1, 1939 as the result of a plan conceived at the American Leg…

In accordance with this belief, services were held in the church on June 21 to commemorate its one hundred and fifty-second anniversary. Isaac Van Wart, one of the three captors of Major John Andre, was a founder of the church which has changed its denomination three times, being first Congregational, then Presbyterian and finally from 1850 on, Dutch Reformed. Until the incorporation of Elmsford a…

Preliminary to a pilgrimage touching on points associated with Peter Jay Munro in the general vicinity of Mamaroneck, members of the society and guests met at the Mamaroneck Free Library to hear several talks. Mr. Charles M. Baxter, Junior, president of the Society, and Supervisor Bert McCollock welcomed the group. Mr. Charles M. Baxter, Senior, gave a reminiscent address. Two prize-winning Swope …

SOME RECENT LIBRARY ACCESSIONS BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS Bailey, Rosalie Fellows. The Nicoll family and Islip Grange. New York, 1940. 94 p. (Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America, Pub'ns., no. 29.) Higgins, Alvin McCaslin. The story of Croton, New York. A paper read before the Ossining Historical Society, March 23, 1938. Croton-on-Hudson, N. Y., 1938. 25 f. typewritten. (Gift of Mrs. A. M. Hig…

Also fifteen scrap books of political, biographical and historical clippings pertaining to Westchester County for the period 1884-1913. (Gift of Dr. Nathaniel Mills.) Decorative silver medal inscribed "Presented to Mr. Aaron Arnold by the Tarrytown Monument Association, as a token of their high respect and esteem for the quick and workmanlike manner in which he erected the monument for the pu…

MEMBERSHIP REPORT The following people have been elected to membership in the Society since July 1939: SUSTAINING MEMBERS Mrs. John Hooker Mooers Scarsdale, New York New Rochelle Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Mrs. O. Mueller, Treasurer New Rochelle, New York White Plains Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Mrs. Jules A. Vuilleumier, Regent White Plai…

THE LOWELL THOMAS LECTURE The lecture by Mr. Lowell Thomas, held on the evening of May 16 at the Ridgeway Theater in White Plains, was most successful in every way. Mr. Thomas, who' spoke on the subject of Around the World and on the Air, was introduced by Dr. John A. Krout of Scarsdale. The Misses Claire and Ann Patterson, Peggy Foot and Betty Carter of Scarsdale, and the Misses Sybil Prichard a…

HISTORICAL SOCIETIES' NOTES TARRYTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY Through the gift of Mrs. Worcester Warren of Wilson Park, the Tarrytown Historical Society has acquired a Benjamin Franklin printed version of an Indian treaty executed in Philadelphia in 1742. OSSINING HISTORICAL SOCIETY A meeting of the Ossining Historical Society was held at the Washington School on May 6. Two papers were read: one by…

OFFICE NOTICE Members will be glad to learn that a telephone has been installed at the Society's headquarters in the County Office Building, White Plains. The number is White Plains 9740. The installation of the telephone was made possible through the work of the Women's Auxiliary Committee. WESTCHESTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY STANDING COMMITTEES Annual Publication .... John A. Krout, PhD. S…

Entitles member to receive the Quarterly Bulletin and two copies of all current publications. Life-- $100.00--Open to individuals. Entitles member to receive the Quarterly Bulletin and one copy of all current publications. Life in Perpetuity with right to appoint a successor-- $1,000.00-- Open to individuals. Entitles member to receive the Quarterly Bulletin and two copies of all current publi…

Baxter . Mamaroneck Carlton Brush . . ; Mount Vernon Charles J. F. Decker . North Salem Mrs. Charles J. Dunlap . New Rochelle Miss Mary Schuyler Hamilton . Elmsford Samuel B. Hawley . Yonkers Lorenzo H. Knapp . Port Chester John A. Krout, Ph.D . Scarsdale Hon. Seabury C. Mastick . Mount Pleasant Roger Sherman . Rye Gerard Swope . Ossining Thomas J. Wagner . White Plains William Wait . Peekskill J…