Letters of Mrs Philip van Cortlandt, December 1776 – February 1777
The experiences of a family of New Amsterdam stock during the early months of the American Revolutionary War
Catharine Ogden became the wife of Philip Van Cortlandt on August 4th, 1762. The extract from her husbaud's diary for that day records: "After two years constant visits to Jamaica on Nassau Island" (near New York) "was married to Miss Catharine Ogden, daughter of Doctor Jacob Ogden." Philip Van Cortlandt was a graduate of King's College, New York, who had received his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1758, and his Master's degree in 1761. While still an undergraduate, he had enlisted as a volunteer in a short-lived expedition up the Hudson, hastily recruited in New York on the news that the French were besieging Fort William Henry; later, with the purpose of improving his French, he had lived at New Rochelle in the household of a certain Monsieur de Biez, and had visited Philadelphia, Albany, Lake George, Jersey, Westchester and Long Island.
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