[J. Thomas Scharf (1886)] I hear the intent of the Tories was, at Peekskill, to have taken the committee and sent them on board of the "Asia.' I go to-morrow to New York to the Con-gress Thursday night were here to supper and breakfast of Colonel Hammond's Regiment, about three hundred men. They said they drank two Hot-heads 1 of cider." These were stirring times, and to the old house came many distinguished visitors. Franklin tarried here on his way back from Canada, in 177(5; here, too, came La Fayette, De Rochanibeau, Steuben and the Duke de Lau/.un. Washington was here many times while the army lay on the shores of the Hudson, and along the heights of t'le Croton. In more peaceful days the great Whitefield had preached, standing on the broad verandah, to spell-bound crowds on the lawn, who had been summoned from miles around by horsemen sent out by Van Cort-landt. Here Bishop Asbury also preached. Directly in front of the house was the Continental Bridge, where Washington halted for awhile, July 2, 1781, and wrote in his diary of "the new bridge <>ver Croton, about nine miles from Peekskill." I'ntil this bridge was built, the ferry was the only means of transit, and the old ferry house offered shelter to many soldiers of the Revolution. During most of this time the family of l'ierre Van Cortlandt were absent from their home. They rented a farm from their kins-folk, the Livingstons, at Rhinebeck, removing there in 1777.