ISAAC CORTELYOU HOUSE



Foot of Bay 11th Street

	WHEN THE New Utrecht plots were being deeded to the colonists in 1657, Jacques 
CORTELYOU acquired the portion that was known as the Nyack or Najeck tract. 
This is now Fort Hamilton. 

	CORTELYOU also kept for himself the land and meadow that lay southeast of the 
Nyack tract and which bordered on the Upper Bay and on which the house for VAN WERCKHOVEN 
had been built in 1652. 

	This second piece of property lies at what is now the foot of Bay 11th Street. 
CORTELYOU's claim to it was contested in 1670-71 in court but was settled in CORTELYOU'S
favor provided he made no claim to any share in the common woods of New Utrecht. 

	The property passed to CORTELYOU's son Jacques (about 1660 - 3 May 1751) who married 
Altie I. BOERUM 10 January 1706 for his second wife, and from him to their son Jacques 
(b.25 December 170 7- d.6 January 1765) who married Marretje ______ on 20 June 1730. 
This last Jacques left the property with a house on it to his son Isaac 
(b.11 August 1736 - d.3 October 1811). 

	As VAN WERCKHOVEN'S house is supposed to have been burned in the New Utrecht fire of 
1672, one of the CORTELYOUS must have built another house on its site. 

	On 28 June 1766, Isaac CORTELYOU married Altie RAPALJE, widow of Johannes LOTT of New 
Utrecht. They lived for a time in the house on the farm he inherited from his father. He 
was the fence-viewer of New Utrecht in 1772 and one of its overseers of the poor in 1774. 
He was a deacon of its church and a most loyal contributor to that church. 

	Sometime before the outbreak of the Revolution he moved his family to the Nicholas VECHT 
house in Gowanus, probably because his own home was too small to accommodate himself, his wife, 
three daughters, five sons and his distant kinsman, Peter CORTELYOU, who lived with him. 

	On 22 August 1776 the British landed many of their troops on the beach on his property. 
Later, they used his house as a barracks, its lower floor for a bakery. On 11 November 1779, 
when sick soldiers were occupying it, fires were kindled which set fire not only to the house 
but to two contiguous buildings. In August 1783, three of his neighbors testified that the 
"House and Out Houses were Richly Worthe nine hundred Pounds lawful money of New York." 

	In 1787, Isaac CORTELYOU engaged Andrew and Valentine CASPAR (CROPSEY) to build him a 
house "53 feet front and rear and 35 feet in depth, two stories high with a 'Dobelkeept' 
roof and three 'Dorment' windows in front, with stoops and 'Canneppe' in front and rear." 

	This is the CORTELYOU house that stands at the foot of Bay 11th Street. Whether the wing 
was erected on the foundation of the VAN WERCKHOVEN house or whether it was an out-building 
not burned in 1779 and the large part added to it, we cannot learn. It appears to be older 
than the rest of the house. 

	Isaac CORTELYOU was a wealthy man. He gave money to the American cause. In 1790 he owned 
eleven slaves which was an unusually large number for a Long Islander to possess. In his will, 
he left �0 each to two of his daughters and �0 to the other. He divided his property 
among his five sons, three of whom went insane. Before he died he, too, had a mental breakdown. 

	On the Jeremiah LOTT map of 30 May 1804, the land on which his house stood was marked Lot 11 
on the Common Strand Way, property of Isaac CORTELYOU. It went to his son Johannes 
(b.2 February 1777 - d.27 June 1855) who married Catharine LEFFERTS on 3 July 1794. Because of 
Johannes' mental condition the Master in Chancery appointed a relative, Timothy Townsend 
CORTELYOU, custodian of his property in 1828. Timothy sold the house with all of the farm that 
lay north of the Outdrift (Bennett's Lane) to Jacob BENNETT on 21 May 1831. 

	John C. BENNETT was its next owner and in 1889 it was sold to Edward EGOLF. At different 
times it was used by the Melrose Club, the Seymour Club and as a clubhouse for the employees 
of Vanamaker's store in New York. 

	Jacques CORTELYOU, the first owner after VAN WERCKHOVEN, signed his name Ja. CORTELYOU. 
He was born about 1625 in Utrecht in the Netherlands,. the son of Jaques CORTELYOU and Esken 
HENDRICKS. He attended the University of Utrecht and arrived in New Amsterdam as tutor to the 
VAN WERCKHOVEN boys. 

	He married Neeltje VAN DUYN and made their home in the house which he built on his Nyack 
tract. As Surveyor-General of New Netherland he made the map of New Amsterdam for the Dutch 
West India Company in 1661 that was discovered in a castle near Florence, Italy, about 1916. 
As his office was in Whitehall Street, he was no doubt the first regular commuter between 
Manhattan and Long Island. 

	This same Jacques CORTELYOU represented New Utrecht in the Hempstead Convention of 1665. 
He was vendue-master of Kings County in 1672 and was appointed justice of the peace in 1685. 
He died in 1693. His children were :
Jacques, 
Pieter, 
Cornelis, 
Helena, 
Maria and Willem. 

	In September, 1679, Jaspar DANKERS wrote in his "Journal of a Voyage to New York": 

		Jacques is a man advanced in years. He was horn in Utrecht, 
		but of French parents as we could readily discover from all his 
		actions, looks, and language. He had studied philosophy in his 
		youth and spoke Latin and good French. He was a mathema-
		tician and sworn land-surveyor. He had also formerly learned 
		several sciences, and had some knowledge of medicine. 


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