HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 57

outside of the gable fronting the old road. As near as can be ascertained, Claes (or Nicholas) Adriaentse Van Vechten, an emigrant from Norch, in the province of Drenthe, Holland, owned the plantation on which the house is located, and probably erected the building. Previous to, and about the period of, the American Revolution, the property was owned by Nicholas Vechte, grandson of old Claes, the emigrant; and in 1790, Nicholas R. Cowenhoven, one of his heirs, sold the house and a portion of the farm, for the sum of £2,500, to Jacques Cortelyou,1 who resided on the premises until 1804, when, unfortunately, having become insane, he committed suicide by hanging himself from the limb of a pear-tree in the orchard adjoining the house. He was a descendant, in the sixth generation, from Jacques Cortelyou, the surveyor, and first of the name, who emigrated to this country about 1652, and settled at New Utrecht.2 After his death, the property was divided by his sons Adrian and Jacques, the latter taking the portion on which the old house was located, in which he resided until the enhanced value of the property, caused by the rapid spread of the city, induced him to dispose of some to parties who have divided it into city lots.

In this connection we may as well refute the popular tradition which states this house to have been the headquarters of Generals Washington and Putnam, prior to or during the battle of Long Island. The fact is, that Washington’s headquarters were in New York; and although he went over to Brooklyn after the commencement of the unfortunate battle of Long Island, on the 27th of August, 1776, there is no evidence or probability that he went outside of the American lines, which extended from the Wallabout to the Gowanus Mill Creek. Putnam also had his headquarters within the lines, near to the ferry. There was undoubtedly some fighting in the vicinity of this house, as one writer says, “the British had several field-pieces stationed by a brick house, and were pouring canister and grape on the Americans crossing the creek.” This building, therefore, must be the one referred to, as there was no other, answering to the description, in the vicinity.

1 King’s County Conveyances, liber VI., p. 434.

2 See Coll. L. 1. Hist. Soc., I. 127,128.