[J. Thomas Scharf (1886)] the surrounding devastation, and here for a while Washington dwelt with them. The house was occasionally subject to attack. In the spring of 1777 the British posted themselves on a height a little south of the place; but they were quickly dislodged, and departed, leaving three of their dead on the field. At another time a band of Tories, under Colonel Fanning, came to the house. "We are looking for the old rebel," said one of them to Mrs. Beekman. ' I am Pierre Van Cortlandt's daughter," answered she, "and it becomes not such as you to call my father a rebel." She bade them begone. The Honorable Pierre Van Cortlandt died in May, 1814, at the age of ninety-four. From him the house passed into the possession of his son, Major-General Pierre Van Cortlandt, who, as has already been said, resided in it till his death, in 1848, after which it was sold. In the entrance hall of the manor-house at Croton now hang three curious full-length portraits, which were formerly in the Peekskill mansion. The pictures represent Pierre (afterwards the Lieutenant-Governor) and his brothers, John and Abraham, as children, habited in the costume of the early part of the last 384 HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY. century.