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The Birth of the Manor"You Tax me so Severely for not Acquainting You when Sisr Hannah (Joanna) was to be Marryed...I am Surprized you Never heard his Name...Its Pierre Van Cortlandt and a Worthy Gentleman he is. " - James Livingston, Jr. to Henry Livingston, June 16, 1748 In 1749, Pierre Van Cortlandt (1721-1814), the fourth generation in a dynasty of Manhattan merchants, uprooted his wife Joanna and infant son Philip and transported them forty miles to a thousand-acre tract in Westchester County. This young family's journey to the frontier marks the start of the intensive development of the property. Pierre's move to Croton signified a bold break with his forefathers' approach to business. Great-grandfather Oloff Stevense, grandfather Stephanus, and father Philip Van Cortlandt had all based their commercial operations in Manhattan. Oloff Stevense, the first Van Cortlandt in America, immigrated in 1638 as a humble soldier employed by the Dutch West India Company, the corporation that founded the colony of New Netherland. He achieved wealth and power by brewing beer and pursuing politics. Oloff's son Stephanus expanded the family business further by focusing on transatlantic trade. Both men, savvy and prominent players in colonial government, eagerly switched allegiance from the Dutch to the English after England assumed control of the colony and renamed it New York in 1664. The manor of Cortlandt was born in 1697. In that year, King William III publicly recognized the family's political support by granting a royal charter for lands Stephanus Van Cortlandt had purchased from the Kitchtawanc Indians and European landowners. The act was not a gift of land, but rather a bestowing of favor and special privileges. The 86,000 acre tract ran from the Croton River twenty miles north to Anthony's Nose (where the Bear Mountain Bridge crosses the Hudson today) and from the Hudson River east to Connecticut. In a departure from the general practice in other colonies, Van Cortlandt and a few other large land owners leased rather than sold small tracts of land to tenant farmers. This concentrated wealth in the hands of a few powerful manorial landlords who owned much of the Hudson Valley. The enormous manor of Cortlandt existed in its entirety for three decades. Then, keeping with the traditional Dutch pattern of inheritance, the manor was divided among the ten offspring of Stephanus and Gertrude Van Cortlandt. Eldest son Philip, a merchant who traded mainly with the West Indies, received the choicest part of the manor, yet he did not capitalize on it. His lands, including the prime parcel located where the Hudson and Croton Rivers meet, contained only six settlers at the time of his death in 1748. When Philip's son Pierre inherited the property, he harbored plans to exploit this untouched acreage, hoping to make his portion of the manor as profitable as the other family businesses. If Pierre was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, it was a slightly tarnished one. He was still in his twenties when his father died. His older brother inherited the family's established power base, a house, a business in Manhattan; a parcel of undeveloped land upriver fell to Pierre. Sadly, both sons also assumed their father's considerable debt. Considering Manhattan's tight economy circa 1750, ambitious Pierre moved to the hinterland in search of opportunity. At a time when most established Hudson Valley landlords were settling down to live off cash rents, Pierre's vigorous and multifaceted entrepreneurial plan was exceptional. After he had hired workmen to build the stone and brick manor house, he added to the 1,225 acres he had inherited by acquiring 3,138 acres in a single transaction in 1758. Applying the Dutch principle of the soundness of diversification and relying on free and enslaved labor, he worked concurrently as a transportation agent, land developer, rent collector, landlord, commercial farmer, saw-and gristmill proprietor, and tavern owner. Pierre's shrewd siting of the manor house was central to the success of his agricultural and commercial ventures; he fully appreciated the advantages offered by owning land at the confluence of the Hudson and Croton Rivers. In an era when most people and goods traveled by water, the Van Cortlandts conveniently moored sloops, schooners, pirogues at the dock near the front of the manor house. In addition, the then-mighty Croton River provided the power that ran the family's saw- and gristmills. The Van Cortlandts owned a ferry that crossed the Croton a few hundred yards east of the manor house. As Native Americans had before them, the Van Cortlandts and their neighbors reaped the bounty of fish and shellfish from the Hudson. In many ways, people's lives here were tied as closely to the water as the land. As part of his strategy, Pierre rented land to an expanding number of carefully chosen tenants. He considered his wife Joanna an active partner who advised on the suitability of candidates and directly pocketed the earnings from certain leases. Tenants signed agreements granting them farming, fishing, and timbering rights. They, in turn, importantly, cleared and improved his undeveloped acreage. They erected houses and outbuildings, cleared and cultivated land, planted apple and pear orchards, laid walls and constructed fences. Pierre leased large plots for comparatively low rents. His tenants prospered and thus did not join the tenant rebellion of 1766 that immobilized nearby Livingston and Philipse Manors. Even so, Pierre prosecuted tenants who did not fulfill their obligations. He reaped additional profits by collecting rents for absentee owners who were also descendants of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, and by leasing out ferry rights and a tavern at a point where the Old New York and Albany Post Road crossed the Croton River. From the start, Pierre concentrated on commercial, rather than subsistence, farming and wisely controlled the processing his cash crops-wheat and meat-headed for distant markets. He constructed his own mills, rather than leasing the water rights to others, a more common practice. Furthermore, Pierre employed coopers to make barrels for transporting flour aboard vessels bound for Manhattan, Europe and the West Indies. Van Cortlandt also raised herds of cattle and sent processed beef to market on a regular basis. The women in the household, both enslaved and free, also contributed to the business by overseeing the preparation of produce for the New York market and sewing bags for flour.
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