Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/264

236 veyor of public lands in Minnesota, and in 1856 engaged in stock-raising. On 22 July, 1861, he was commissioned as colonel of the 2d Minnesota infantry. He served under Gen. George H. Thomas at Mill Springs, for his part in which action he was* promoted brigadier-general of volunteers on 21 March, 1862. He was disabled by a wound at Stone river, but resumed command of the division on his recovery, was engaged at Chickamauga, and was in command of the post and forces at Murfrees- boro, Tenn., from December, 1863, till 24 Aug., 1865. when he was mustered out, having been brevetted major-general on 13 March, 1865. He was adjutant- general of Minnesota in 18G6-'70, and in 1876-'82.

VAN CORTLANDT, Oloff (or Oliver) Ste- vense, soldier, b. in Wijk, near Utrecht, Holland, in 1600; d. in New York, 4 April, 1684. He came to New Netherland as an officer in the ser- vice of the West India company, arriving there in the ship "Haring" (The Herring), with Director Kieft, on 28 March, 1638. Of the origin of his family nothing is definitely known. He had a good education, and the offices he subsequently held, his seal with the Van Cortlandt arms, still in the pos- session of his descendants, as well as articles of Dutch plate bearing the same arms, show that his position was good, and that of a gentleman. He remained only a short time in the military service, having been appointed by Kieft in 1639 "commis- sary of cargoes," or "customs officer," and in 1643 keeper of the public stores of the West India com- pany, a responsible post under the provisions of the charters of freedoms and exemptions, being the superintendent of the collection of the company's revenue in New Amsterdam, most of which was paid in furs. In 1648 he resigned from this office, was made a freeman of the city, and entered upon the business of a merchant and brewer, in which he was eminently successful, becoming one of the richest men in New Amsterdam. In 1649 he was chosen colonel of the burgher guard, or city train bands, and also appointed one of the " Nine Men," a temporary representative board elected by the citizens. He was previously one of the "Eight Men," a similar body, in 1645. In 1654 he was elected schepen, or alderman, and the next year, 1655, appointed burgomaster, or mayor, of New Amsterdam. This office he filled nearly uninter- ruptedly till the capture by the English in 1664, at which he was one of the commissioners that were appointed by Director Stuyvesant to negoti- ate the terms of surrender, and was active in their settlement, the document bearing his signature with those of the other commissioners. He was also engaged in several temporary public matters as a councillor and commissioner during the ad- ministration of Stuyvesant, notably in the Connec- ticut boundary matter in 1663, and the settlement of Capt. John Scott's claim to Long Island in 1664. He acted in similar capacities under the first Eng- lish governors, Nicolls, Lovelace, and Dongan, and was chosen the trustee of Lovelace's estate to settle it in 1673. He married, on 26 Feb., 1642, Annetje, sister of Govert Loockermans, who came out with Director Van Twiller in 1633, and was so prominent afterward in New Netherland affairs. "Govert Loockermans, after filling some of the highest offices in the colony," says O'Callaghan, " died, worth 520,000 guilders, or $208,000, an im- mense sum when the period in which he lived is considered." Oloff Stevense Van Cortlandt died on 4 April, 1684, and his wife followed him about a month afterward. They had seven children — five daughters and two sons. The oldest of the latter was Stephanus, and the youngest Jacobus, who, respectively, were the progenitors of all of the name now living. The former founded the oldest branch, the Van Cortlandts of the manor of Cortlandt, the latter the younger branch, the Van Cortlandts of Cortlandt House, Yonkers. — His son, Stephanus, statesman, b. in New York, 4 May, 1643; d. there, 25 Nov., 1700, was the first and only lord of the manor, and one of the most eminent men of the province of New York after it became an English colony. Except the governorship, he filled at one time or another every prominent office in that province. When Lieut. -Gov. Nicholson went to England, at the beginning of Jacob Leisler's insur- rection and actual usurpation, to report in person to King William, he committed the government, in his absence, to Stephanus Van Cortlandt and Frederick Philipse. Ihis fact caused Leisler to seek their lives, and forced them to escape from the city of New York to save themselves. Van Cortlandt's career was, perhaps, the most brilliant and varied, in the fifty-seven years it occupied, of any inhabitant of New York in the 17th century. He was a youth of twenty-one when, in 1664, the English capture took place and New Amsterdam became New York. Brought up under the eye of his father, and educated bythc Dutch clergymen of New Amsterdam, whose scholarship was vastly higher than it has pleased modern writers to state, and which would compare favorably with that of the clergy of the 19th century, young Van Cort- landt, long before the death of his father in 1684, showed how well he had profited by the example of the one and the learning of the others. He was a merchant by occupation. His first appointment was as a member of the court of assizes, the body instituted under "the Duke's Laws" over which Gov. Richard Nicolls presided, and which exercised both judicial and legislative powers. In 1668 he was appointed an ensign in the Kings county regi- ment, subsequently a captain, and later its colonel. From 1677, when, at the age of thirty-four, he was appointed the first native American mayor of the city of New York, he held that office almost con- secutively till his death in 1700. When, by the Duke of York's commission and instructions to Gov. Dongan, a governor's council was established in New York, Stephanus Van Cortlandt and Fred- erick Philipse were named by the duke therein as councillors, and with them Dongan was to appoint such others as he deemed fit for the office. Ste- phanus Van Cortlandt's name was continued in each of the commissions of all the succeeding governors down to and including Bellomont's in 1697, and he continued in the office till his death in 1700. Early in this latter year he was appointed chief justice, but he only filled the office till his demise in No- vember of the same year. He had many years be- fore been appointed judge of the common pleas in Kings county, and later, in 1693, a justice of the supreme court of the province. In 1686 Dongan made him commissioner of the revenue, and on 10 Nov., 1687, he was appointed by the king's auditor- general in England, William Blathwayt, deputy auditor in New York, his accounts being regularly transmitted to England and approved. He was appointed also deputy secretary of New York, and personally administered the office, the secretary al- ways residing in England, after the British custom. He was prominent in all the treaties and confer- ences with the Indians as a member of the council, and was noted for his influence with them. His letters and despatches to Gov. Edmund Andros, and to the different boards and officers in England that were charged with the care of the colonies and the management of their affairs, remain to show his