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Uncle Henry Beekman's influence came, in part, from his large estates and from his presence in the New York legislature as representative for those lands. Henry Livingston, Jr. was a teenager when his father, who had acted as his Uncle Beekman's land agent, had taken one of his uncle's seats in the legislature. Aunt Joanna had married Pierre Van Cortlandt, another huge landowner, when Henry Jr. was four. Pierre was in his mid 50's when the revolution came and he took on the task of Lieutenant Governor of New York, a position he kept for seventeen years, retiring by his own choice in 1795.