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[[underlined]] page 19 [[/underlined]].

[[underlined]] NEW YORK [[/underlined]]

[[underlined]] Van Cortlandt Manor House [[/underlined]]. Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. (1730)

The oldest part of the Van Cortlandt Manor House was standing as a fort as early as 1681. When the danger from marauding Indians was over the fort was turned into a dwelling house by Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the first Lord of the Manor. 

[[underlined]] 34. [[/underlined]] It is believed that the garden took its present form about 1730. Painted at that date is a portrait of Phillip Van Cortlandt standing beside a vase of flowers presumably from the garden -- lilies, peonies, harebells and sprays of verbena. Phillip Van Cortlandt inherited the estate from his father and married in 1748 Joanna Livingston who developed the place into a garden destined to be the delight of generations. She brought from her Rhinebeck home the small yellow poppies which still spring up after all these years in the most unexpected places. 

In 1836 another Pierre Van Cortlandt loved and tended the garden, making it a thing of beauty. He planned and planted without altering the older garden. The older part shows no formal beds but from early spring to fall the old-fashioned pinks, peonies and roses fill the sheltered enclosure with charm and fragrance. 

[[underlined]] 35. [[/underlined]] The formal beds are of a later planting. An ancient locust still stands, having seen style succeed style in the garden, tended by the successive members of the same family.