Van Cortlandt House is a mid-18th century Georgian dwelling  that once served as the focal point of a large and prosperous grain plantation and milling operation. At the peak of its productivity, the plantation contained a variety of livestock, farm buildings, and two mills on Tippett’s Brook.  It is likely that smaller dwelling houses for farm workers or slaves stood on the property though, to date, none of these buildings has been found.

    The Van Cortlandt family were prominent members of New York’s mercantile class and its social and business milieus.  The business of trade connected the Van Cortlandt’s with mercantile families in the West Indies, European ports, and other American port cities.  Additionally, their Dutch heritage linked them with many wealthy and powerful New York families. Marriages forged strong ties between the Van Cortlandt’s and the Schuyler, Phillipse, Jay, DePeyster, and White families of New York.

     Dutch merchants such as Oloff Stevense Van Cortlandt, founder of the American line of the family, traditionally built their fortunes through trade.  The Dutch acted as factors, or middlemen, in the purchase, transport, and resale of goods.  In the 17th century, the Dutch invested heavily in ships, storehouses and buildings such as breweries where raw materials could be converted to consumer goods.  By the 1660’s the lucrative fur trade which brought the Dutch to New Netherland was in decline.  This brought about a shift in the investment priorities of the Dutch.  Rural land ownership became more important as a means to grow and ship grain.  Van Cortlandt House represents the full flowering of this shift to investment in large-scale farming and the trade of farm products through well-established Dutch shipping connections.  This shift to agrarian investments continued through a natural extension into the control of raw materials.  This fit well with the earlier Dutch tradition of investment in concerns which converted raw materials to consumer goods.  Through shrewd investment, the Van Cortlandt’s were able to control both the production of raw materials like wheat and timber, into finished consumer goods such as flour and milled lumber - two irreplaceable commodities in the ever-expanding Colonies. 

    As early as the mid-17th century, the land on which Van Cortlandt House sits was recognized for its fertile soil and proximity to river transportation.  In 1646 Adrian Van der Donck, the first European owner, purchased land from local Weckquaskeck Indians from the Mohegan tribe of the Algonquin nation.  The Weckquaskeck had used the level ground between the wooded ridges to the east and west as a campsite.    The land was favored by the Indians for its proximity to the Harlem River.  Archaeological excavations in the 1890’s ad 1990’s unearthed Native American fire pits containing oyster, clam and mussel shells as well as charred animal bones and fragments of early pottery from these camp sites. 

     Dutch governor William Kieft confirmed Van der Donck’s land grant which extended 16 miles along the Hudson River from Spuyten Duyvil north to Yonkers and east to the Bronx River.  While Native Americans favored this land for its rich game and fishing resources, Van der Donck sought the available water power for milling and access to water transportation to the Harlem River.  Tippett’s Brook runs north to south through the land, and it may once have been navigable at high tide below Van Cortlandt’s mill dam.  The brook empties into Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Harlem River a mile south of the property.  Though we know that Van der Donck planted the level fields between the ridges, the extent of early European settlement on the land is unknown.  After Van der Donck's death in Holland in 1655, Van der Donck’s land was divided and sold in smaller plots.

     Participating in a growing trend toward rural land ownership, Oloff Stevense Van Cortlandt’s sons, Stephanus (b.1643) and Jacobus (1658-1739), bought large tracts of land with water sources for milling in Westchester County.  Stephanus became the lord of Van Cortlandt Manor and founder of the Croton line of the Van Cortlandt family.  Shortly after marrying Eva Phillipse (b.1660), Jacobus purchased a portion of Van der Donck’s original grant which had Tippett’s Brook running through it.  Jacobus had been trained as a mercantile apprentice in his family’s warehouse in Boston and in their trading enterprises in the West Indies.  Though he continued to add to the property throughout his lifetime, Jacobus did not live in any of the houses purchased with his lower Yonkers (now Bronx) tract.  He maintained his primary residence and shipping house in New York City.  Jacobus traded staples such as flour, bread, bacon, and butter to the West Indies and hides, specie, and tropical woods to England and Madeira.

     In 1732, Jacobus added the last plot of land to his estate.  This was the plot on which his son Frederick (1699-1749) built Van Cortlandt House in 1748/49.  When Jacobus purchased the land at the south end of today’s Van Cortlandt Park, the dwelling house and family cemetery of its owner, George Tippett, occupied this site.  Though the location of Tippett's house is not certain, the cemetery can still be seen at the southeastern edge of the Parade Grounds. 

     Jacobus’ will of 1739 suggests the extent to which his Yonkers property functioned as a producing farm.  He left Frederick “my Boat Anna”, With the Canoo and all other Tackle and Apparell to her Geese Ducks Doves Turkies and all the Poiltry which at my decease shall be on … the farm” and “all the Waines Carts Sledges and all other implements utensils household goods and furniture (Plate and Silver Excepted) … belonging … to the said Farm or …Mills…”

     In 1748/49, Frederick Van Cortlandt built the family home on his Yonkers estate.  During construction Frederick fell ill and died as the house neared completion.  In his will of 1749, Frederick states he is “now about finishing a large stone dwelling house on the plantation on which I now live, which with the Plantation will, by virtue of my deceased father’s will, devolve upon my eldest son, James Van Cortlandt …”  Frederick’s will adds more detail to Jacobus’ earlier description of the Yonkers plantation.  Frederick leaves James (1727-1781) “ … my Mill Boat with Canew and appurtenances … also my Negro Man Levelle the Boatman and … my Waggon Carts Ploughs Harrows Tools and Utencils of Husbandry … “  Eleven slaves in addition to Levelle are listed in Frederick’s will.  Among them are Piero, the miller, and his family.  Frederick requests to be buried in  “… a Family Vault which I intend to Build on my plantation on a little Hill which lies to the Northeastward of Tuttle Brook …”  The Vault was completed shortly after Frederick’s death and holds the remains of many family members interred before Woodland Cemetery was built.

   By 1749, Frederick and Frances’ three sons were between 19 and 22 years of age, and his daughters were 12 and 13.  Their new stone dwelling house had two parlors, two second-floor chambers, and two smaller third-floor chambers, one of these unheated and unfinished.  This left three bed chambers for a family of seven people.  At the age of 50, Frederick may have had two reasons for building on his plantation.  Though his two sons had reached maturity, his younger daughters were just approaching  the age of courtship.  Van Cortlandt House would serve  his daughters as a genteel country home in which to entertain young friends, and it would later be a comfortable home and profitable plantation for the next male heir to Jacobus Van Cortlandt’s Yonkers property.

   After Frederick’s death, his oldest son James married Elizabeth Cuyler (1731-1815) and moved into Van Cortlandt House in 1754.  Frances Jay Van Cortlandt lived with the couple until her death in 1780.  During James Van Cortlandt’s occupation, the turbulent years of the  American Revolution brought troops to lower Yonkers and threatened the security of local residents and their property.  The House hosted numerous military encampments by both the Americans and the British.  General Washington set up headquarters in the House in 1776 and in 1783 at the beginning and end of his campaign.  During much of the war, Van Cortlandt House sat behind or near enemy lines in an area often described as no-man’s land between the British in New York City and American troops to the north.

   With the arrival of Augustus at Van Cortlandt in 1783, the war drew to a  close and life returned to normal.  Augustus and Catharine, and their daughters Helen age 15, and Anne, age 17, moved into the House which had probably been expanded with the rear wing by this date.  Catharine died in 1808  after a long illness and Augustus’ will manumits his slave Dinah for the great care she gave Catharine during her illness.  Presumably, Dinah lived in an unfinished upstairs chamber during this period.  As late as 1810, Augustus still runs a large-scale farming operation on the property as evidenced by the number of slaves listed in the Federal Census of that year.  Augustus survived his wife by fifteen years and died at the age of 95.