Our Travel Blog

Dutch Cousins Trip to NY

Tue, 6 Dec 2011 19:31:03 -0600

Following Dutch Footprints to Nieuw Amsterdam October 2011
By Carla Gerding & Carolyn Leonard

We started our nine-day charter coach trip in reverse of the migration pattern of our Dutch ancestors. We started from Harrodsburg in Mercer Co KY, which was the last stop for many of the Low Dutch in their westward migration. Later, many left Mercer County for the long-awaited Henry/Shelby Co Kentucky Low Dutch Tract, when it was finally safe from Indian attacks.

By 1800, Our Low Dutch ancestors built the Mud Meetinghouse, their place of worship in Mercer County, and it remains as one of the few tangible reminders of these people.

Their second church building in Kentucky, the Low Dutch Meeting House near Pleasureville in Henry Co, called Six Mile meetinghouse, once called Bantatown, is now reconstructed. We visited there in 2007. The story of the Kentucky Low Dutch Tract will have to be told as a separate story later.

BERKELEY COUNTY, VIRGINIA (now WEST VIRGINIA)

Our first stop after leaving Harrodsburg was Martinsburg, West Virginia, which was in Berkeley Co VA, at the time our Dutch lived there. Orange County became Frederick County in 1738, from which Berkeley County was formed in 1772 when our people were there.

The Banta family history tells us that around 1765 some 100 families - about 1000 souls -- walked from New Jersey to the lands they had purchased 150 miles away in the Conewago Creek valley of Pennsylvania, which was then at the western edge of civilization. They followed the well-worn Indian trail along the Opequon Valley . There was no road, barely a footpath. The trip now would require about two or three hours by car - but then several days including “camping” along the way, sleeping in the open in wild country. Geography kept a strong influence on American history and genealogy.

The Cassats (Cossarts,Cozats) and Montforts, two of the first comers had an earlier home in Somerset County, NJ, near Millstone, and an earlier still in New York, the latter family having settled there before 1640. The Van Dykes and Van Arsdales came from Essex County, NJ, near Patterson.

A number of the Low Dutch people migrated about 70 miles further, from Conewago PA to Berkeley County WVA, where we are today.  There is very little to remind a visitor of the Dutch group being there.

The oldest records have not been well researched and there is probably much more of the Low Dutch history to be discovered. Contemporary accounts will be found in the county which had jurisdiction at the time the record was created. Prior to 1863 and the Civil War divisiveness, West Virginia was part of Virginia so even though we know their location is now in WV, the records would be in Virginia. Most Virginia records are arranged by county. The western counties of Virginia, by the Revolutionary War era, had been divided into separate jurisdictions. This limits the number of counties a researcher has to search for evidence of residence.

Because counties were created from older, larger counties, Virginia counties originally had jurisdiction over what is now West Virginia.

The County of Kentucky was formed during the war, only to be broken into smaller units three years later, and finally becoming the state of Kentucky in 1792.

We were greeted by Don Woods, local historian,
at the museum in Martinsburg.

Many of the Low Dutch settled in Berkeley County between 1768 and 1794 on land owned by Jacob Vanderveer, their former neighbor and fellow church member in Somerset Co NJ.

Carla Gerding’s mother said Carla’s sixth great-grandfather, Peter Voorhees, born 1718 NJ died about 1779 in Berkeley County while the Low Dutch were living there. He married Sophia Van de Bogard in November 1750 in New Brunswick NJ. After Peter’s death, Sophia traveled on to Kentucky from Berkeley County with the Low Dutch. She died the next year in 1780 and is buried in Kentucky. Their son Jacobus, apparently stayed in NJ. He was born 1752 New Jersey, married Maria in 1771, and he died 1815. (Ancestry world family tree)

Don Woods said the Vanderveer plantation is now named Allendale, and he said that Mr. Vanderveer’s will in the late 1700s did specify some land be set aside for a church if one was to be built. Historians have found no evidence of such a building, although it is known the Low Dutch held worship services in their homes and Rev. Cosine did visit them there. The Low Dutch Colony was probably just off Hwy 45 between Martinsburg and Shepherdstown. Mr. Woods gave us a brief handout on the Dutch Colony. He said the Low Dutch built stone houses during their stay in the area, and said they probably left Virginia because of interference and harassment by Lord Fairfax.

Here is a little of that history: In 1730, John and Isaac Van Meter secured a patent for 40,000 acres at the South Branch Potomac River, much of it located in present-day Berkeley County, from Virginia's Colonial Lieutenant Governor. The brothers sold the land the following year to Joist Hite (Hans Yost Heydt). In 1732, Heydt (Hite) and fifteen families set out from York, Pennsylvania, passed through present-day Berkeley County and settled near there. (Wikipedia)

It seems the Virginia Governor had granted land to some people, believing he had that right; that land probably included Jacob Vanderveer’s property where the Low Dutch settled.

LORD FAIRFAX
When Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron in Scotland, arrived in Virginia in May 1735 he believed all five million acres belonged to him. It didn’t take him long to learn the Virginia colonial government had issued settlement grants to settlers on his inherited property. In fact, enough settlers had moved onto the land to satisfy the conditional grants. Old Frederick County (Orange County west of the Blue Ridge) was formed in 1743 and claimed by Fairfax in 1745. Litigation went on for 37 years. Lord Fairfax is described as being greedy and overbearing, taking advantage of the settlers, brutalizing them at every opportunity and trying to burn them out. The American Revolution brought an end to Lord Fairfax’s money-making plans. After the war, the new Commonwealth of Virginia sued to obtain lands granted to Fairfax and not conveyed to others. These suits went on for years and undermined the claims of many colonists who had settled Old Frederick Co. Virginia before Fairfax claimed title to the land. When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, Lord Fairfax took to his bed and died soon after his 92nd birthday.

But by that time the Low Dutch had left and were getting settled in Kentucky while hoping for another “Dutch Tract” there. Veterans of the Revolutionary War with at least three years service were eligible for military land bounty warrants.

Mr. Wood also told us an interesting story of Civil War Spy Belle Boyd, for whom the Martinsburg museum is named. She was born in Martinsburg on May 9, 1844, and lived there until the outbreak of the war. Her espionage career began on July 4, 1861 when a band of drunken Union soldiers broke into her Martinsburg home intent on raising the US flag over the house. As the soldiers forced their way into the house (one account has a soldier pushing Belle's mother), Belle drew a pistol and killed him.
A board of inquiry exonerated her actions as justifiable homicide, but sentries were posted around the house and officers kept close track of her activities.
She befriended the officers, and at least one of them, Captain Daniel Keily, shared military secrets with her. She conveyed those secrets to Confederate officers via her slave, Eliza Hopewell, who carried the messages in a hollowed-out watch case. Belle was later arrested by the Union Army for espionage, spent a month in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington DC and was freed in a prisoner exchange. (Wikipedia)

We hoped to view the Dutch Colony land on the way to our motel, but it was dark by the time we finished dinner at the Cracker Barrel and headed to Shepherdstown.

We spent our first night on the road at the comfortable Shepherdstown Comfort Inn.

(to be Continued)

Day 2, Conewago Colony

Sun, 4 Dec 2011 22:05:37 -0600

Day 2, Trip to New York
by Carla Gerding & Carolyn Leonard

Conewago PA is the name of the the Low Dutch settlement located today in Adams County (Gettysburg area) but at the time our Low Dutch ancestors lived there, it was in York County.

Henry Banta and John Montfort owned land there as did most of the Low Dutch group, and the church record book survives. We don't know why they left this prime agricultural land for the lesser quality of Ky land. Perhaps it was the dream of owning more, making their own colony, getting “away” from the Germans and English. . . certainly it wasn't about safety and security. Kentucky was quite dangerous when they arrived and they were forced to settle in crowded but stockaded-up places in Jefferson Co (Beargrass Creek and Dutchman's Lane in St. Matthews) and Fort Harrod (Harrodsburg) which offered a measure of safety.

In any case, most of the Low Dutch did leave Conewago by 1790; some went north to New York, most headed down the Ohio for Kentucky - then a frontier county in Virginia. The Reformed Dutch church membership remaining in Conewago was absorbed by the Presbyterian church, and almost all traces of Dutch colony life have disappeared. They left their dead buried in two Low Dutch cemeteries, and a road still called the Low Dutch Road, which cuts right through the heart of the former Dutch territory.

We enjoyed an afternoon bus tour of Adams County and the Conewago valley with Mr. Arthur Weaner, a local historian. The valley draws its name from the Conewago Creek which flows through here; Conewago from the Lenape language meaning "at the rapids," which are actually on the Susquehanna River. (Photo shows Mary Park, past president of the National Daughters of Holland Dames, Mr. Weaner, and Carolyn Leonard.)

We first saw the Henry Montfort House on Hunterstown Road east of Gettysburg. This circa 1840 dwelling was used as a Confederate Hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg. The barn next to it is quite interesting as it shows the Dutch style of construction with brick and the overhanging level in wood. The design of the ventilation holes are in the shape of wine glasses and the bricks used to make the barn were made from mud across the road. (Photo of Historic Montfort farmhouse and barn)

A creek called Brinkerhoff's Run (Carla’s 9th great grandmother was a Brinkerhoff) where the Confederates rested during the great Civil War battle on July 2, 1863. There is also a slave cemetery there, but no longer any markers.

The road known as the "Great Road" was well known and possibly the route of our ancestors as they traveled to Ky by the Ohio River from the Conewago settlement. The pike was laid out from York PA to Pittsburgh in 1749, even at that time with a 60 foot right of way, running near and thru Hunterstown. We saw the Hunterstown “Square,” just a crossroads today where the Conewago Presbyterian church and cemetery are located. This is the church which replaced the Dutch Reformed church of our ancestors.

On Pine Tree Road, a very large stone two-story house from 1787 called "Cossart's Dream" was the residence of Frances Cassat. He ran a mill which had an undershot wheel. The Cassats were Low Dutch and the house is still beautiful. The Cossart/Cassat/Cozart family moved on to Kentucky.

FATHER HENRY’S CABIN
Specific to our ancestors, is the cabin of Henry Banta, known as "Father Henry" because of his prolific number of offspring. His first wife, Rachel Brouwer, gave birth to six before her early death, and second wife, Annie Demaree/Demarest, presented him with fifteen more. Henry and Annie also raised nine or ten grandchildren, after Henry’s oldest son (also named Henry) and wife Maria Stryker, died young - Henry of smallpox and Maria, killed by a falling tree.

The cabin of Henry Banta and hisfamily is still standing, barely, on Swift Run Road on the right hand side, just up the hill from a beautiful creek (Swift Run). The present owner of the cabin, Darrell Livingstone, was there to greet us. He hopes to restore the cabin.

There is some confusion over the date the cabin was built. Mr. Weaner believes the 1747 date is correct, the local history society disagrees. We do know the cabin is on Henry Banta’s land, known first as the Mt. Misery tract and then Loss and Gain tract. (Photo of historic Banta Cabin)

It is difficult to imagine how they lived in this small cabin with so many children. There was a loft upstairs and an extremely steep staircase to reach the second level. Henry Banta eventually left this lovely farmland and headed with the rest of the group for Harrodsburg and finally to the Low Dutch Tract in Henry County, where he died. Carla’s line descends from Henry's first wife, Rachel Brower/Brouwer/Brewer, and their daughter Gertrud "Charity" Banta wife of Frances Montfort. A copy of the plat of Loss and Gain is in the folder Mr. Weaner gave us with all the survey markings included. (Photo of steep Dutch stairwell)

Charity Banta married Frances Montfort, a Revolutionary War veteran, and they went to Kentucky. In 1805, Charity and her husband Francis Montfort, attended the first recognized meeting of the Shakers religious society in Kentucky at the adjoining farm in Henry County of her half brother, John Banta. Later that year Charity decided to leave her husband of thirty-seven years and live her life as a celibate Shaker. Their youngest daughter, Sarah, also joined the society and they remained members of the Shaker colony at Pleasant Hill, KY in Mercer Co to their deaths.

NORTHERN LOW DUTCH CEMETERY
The northern Low Dutch Cemetery is clearly marked, surrounded by a rock wall and a metal gate with the Low Dutch inscription. It dates from 1765 when the church sat in front of the current site of the cemetery until 1791. The location of the cemetery is 900 Swift Run Road. Although I have not researched it fully, it would seem to me that perhaps the children of our John Montfort and Kniertje Marston are buried in this cemetery and very likely they themselves would have been buried here. We know that Rev. Cornelius Cozine is buried there and many other members of our Dutch ancestry. (Photo - Carla finds an ancestor.)

The Reformed Dutch church there was absorbed by the Presbyterian church, and almost all traces of Dutch colony life have disappeared. Remaining are two Low Dutch cemeteries and a road still called the Low Dutch Road that cuts right through the heart of the former Dutch territory.

THE SOUTHERN LOW DUTCH CEMETERY
The second Low Dutch Cemetery located at 2010 Low Dutch Road which we visited. It is much smaller than the one previously described and I don't believe it contains any of our ancestors, direct or lateral descendants.

WHITE BOTTOM FARM
At the corner of the Baltimore Pike and Low Dutch Road, go down the road a piece on the left of the pike to Peter Montfort's farm and across the pike a bit further down on the left was John Montfort's tract known as "White Bottom", near Whites Run Creek. John Montfort and his wife, Kniertje Marston were Carla’s 7th great grandparents.

We spent the night at the Gettysburg Gateway, Marriott Courtyard which was very nice.
(to be continued)

Day 3, Somerset County NJ

Thu, 1 Dec 2011 23:01:21 -0600

DUTCH FOOTPRINTS IN SOMERSET COUNTY NEW JERSEY
By Carla Gerding & Carolyn Leonard

Our third day on the trip we looked for Dutch footprints in Somerset Co NJ where we visited many historic Dutch sites. None seem to trace directly to the Montfort/Banta family, but many of the Low Dutch who went to Kentucky were here and we found their footprints.

We were greeted by the Somerset Co Historical Society president, and toured the 1720 Dutch-built home called the Van Veghten House. The Van Veghtens were related to Rev. Cornelius Cosine’s wife, Anne Staats, whose mother was a Veghten. The house was occupied by General George Washington and Nathaniel Greene and wife during the Revolution. The Greene’s held a “little frisk” at the house, where Gen. Washington danced for three hours with Mrs. Greene without stopping! A division of Washington’s army camped on the front lawn.

Washington’s march to Yorktown, in conjunction with the arrival of the French fleet from the Caribbean, was undoubtably a military masterstroke. From here Washington’s men victory at Yorktown and brought an end to the long struggle for American independence. The route Rochambeau's French troops followed as they marched from Yorktown across New Jersey is well known from maps, journals and military records. Food for an army of five thousand plus at least one thousand servants and civilian workers, and forage for more than fifteen hundred horses and more. Somerset Court House (Millstone) and a like distance through the Millstone Valley the next day to Princeton

Because this was not enemy territory, the French had to pay for everything in advance. So, in addition to giving Washington a military advantage at Yorktown, the French army provided much needed hard cash into the war-torn New Jersey economy.

More than six thousand French troops of Rochambeau marched directly in front of this house, the Van Veghten house and the Somerset County Courthouse, on their way to the siege of Yorktown in 1781.

THE OLD DUTCH PARSONAGE
We visited the old Dutch Parsonage on 71 Somerset St. in Somerville NJ where Rev Cosine likely studied. The parsonage, now under restoration, is very near the Raritan River. The two-story brick structure was built in 1751 by Rev. John Frelinghuysen and his wife, Dinah Van Bergh, soon after their marriage in Amsterdam’s Nieuw Kirk, and their arrival in Somerset County.
John Frelinghuysen’s father, Theodorus J. Frelinghuysen, was the first Domine, John was the second. The legend is that Dinah brought “good Dutch Bricks” with her as ballast in the ship, and the bricks were used to build the parsonage.
Rev. Frelinghuysen took students interested in the ministry into their home for religious study, a prelude to the Dutch Reform seminary at Queens Classical and Divinity College, now Rutgers, the state University of New Jersey, just a few miles away at New Brunswick.

Dinah, a devoutly religious Christian, was a perfect minister’s wife and everyone seemed to love her. Dinah’s trousseau dress which she wore to a formal college function in the 1780s, a short biography of her, her diary written in 1747-48, and a transcription of a letter from Dinah to her future first husband John (Johannes) Frelinghuysen, January 31, 1750, remain in the archives at Rutgers Library. The dress is silk brocade, cream colored and exquisitely embroidered with small sprigs of flowers in delicate shades of red, burnt orange, pink and yellow, and leaves of green.

After Frelinghuysen’s death in 1754, Domine Jacob Hardenbergh (3rd Domine) married the widow and stayed on at the Parsonage while he served five Dutch Reform parishes: Somerville, Harlingen, Neshanic, Bedminster and Readington. The trustees of the college unanimously elected Hardenbergh as the first president of the college in 1786. He died in 1790 and Dinah lived until 1807.

Our own Simon Van Arsdalen served as the fourth Dominee, 1783-1786.

We posed for a photo at the Frelinghuysen House- - now the Raritan Public Library at 54 E. Somerset St. in Raritan, on land purchased by the renowned Revolutionary War General Frederick Frelinghuysen, son of Rev. John and Dinah. Many of our Dutch soldiers served under Gen. Frederick. The oldest part (west wing) of the house is believed built around 1700 by Cornelius Middaugh as a tavern on the Old York Road, as well as a public meeting hall and jail for the township of Bridgewater. The road began as a wilderness trail and grew into a major artery connecting New York and Philadelphia. During the pre-revolutionary era, the New World saw many New Jersey towns, such as Raritan, develop along the Old York Road. Frederick Frelinghuysen’s son John, also a general, probably constructed the brick story sometime before 1780.

REV. COSINE/COZINE’s 326-ACRE NJ FARM
In 1753 Cornelius Cosine sold his land in Bushwick (now Brooklyn) and purchased the “326 acre plantation on the West side of the North Branch of the Raritan River in the County of Somerset at Sourland NJ.” where he and his family lived for 15 years until joining the Dutch migration of 165 families (more than 1,000 people) in 1768 for the long journey to their new land in the Conewago valley of Pennsylvania - then at the western edge of civilization.

He sold the NJ farm to Hendrick Vanseveer and the land is described in Vanseveer’s will of 1781, statomg he purchased it from Cornelius Cozine. Sourland/Sowerland eventually became Raritan. The land is flat and lush, close to the river and our guide, local historian and researcher Fred Sisser, showed us the brick house (above) he believed was the Cosine family home in Somerset County.

Cornelius and Anne Cosine baptised their 6th child, Jane, at the Readington NJ church in 1756. She was probably baptised by the Rev. John Frelinghuysen mentioned above. In 1758, Cornelius Cosine was elected a Deacon at the Raritan Reformed Dutch Church, and the next year he was voted Assistant of the Raritan congregation; however the next year baptism of their 8th child, Phoebe, is recorded at Readington.

In 1761 Cosine is again elected Elder at Raritan, and their 9th child, John, is baptised at Raritan that same year. Cosine is re-elected in 1764 at Raritan, and the same year their 10th child, Maria, is baptised at Readington.

In 1768, Cosine inventories the estate of a neighbor, Peter Van Nest.

There are no more children and there’s no more mention of his wife Anne. Researchers believe she died and is buried at Readington around 1768, altho no record has been found. If so, she left eleven children ranging in age from 24 years of age down to 2, when Rev. Cosine moved them all to Pennsylvania later that year. (Drawing of Readington church as it was 1738 to 1833, when the Cosine children were baptised there.)

We visited the current Readington church and cemetery, where I took a photo of our guide, Fred Sisser with the tombstone of his Dutch ancestor, Abraham Voorhees, who died in 1808. Mr. Voorhees married Willempie Wyckoff, the young widow of Cornelius Cosine’s oldest son, Peter Cosine. Mr. Voorhees helped raise the four young children (ages two to eight years old) of Peter and Willempie plus eight more of their own. Dutch women of that time retained their maiden names - a very nice custom for genealogists.

The pastor invited us to tour the church and visited with us just a moment before she had to conduct a memorial counseling session for one of her parishioners. She gave us a copy of the church history book, which has been very helpful in writing this page of the history!

Each of these places we visited gave a glimpse into the life and the area where our relatives lived for a time.

Our third night on the road we stayed at the elegant Embassy Suites Piscataway NJ.

(to be continued)

1. Who are the Low Dutch

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:18:26 -0600

(a summary)
Our ancestors adopted the term “Low Dutch” to distinguish themselves as being from the low countries of Europe and Holland (the Netherlands) rather than High Dutch from Germany, who were also called Dutchmen.

Well-known historian, author and speaker Vincent Akers of Indianapolis, in his book, History of the Low Dutch, copyright 1981, says our ancestors were always very careful to refer to themselves as Low Dutch. Researcher David Smock of Florida, who has studied the Low Dutch and Dutch Reformed Church history, tells me the term Low Dutch in that language is “Nederduitsch.”

Most of the earliest Low Dutch immigrants settled in what is now New York – then it was New Amsterdam.
After the English takeover in the late 1600s, our group of Low Dutch migrated to New Jersey -- my Cosines bought a farm on the Raritan River in Somerset County.

Next the beehive swarmed to Conewago Colony.

The settlement was then in York County, but now redistricted to Adams County, Pennsylvania, just a little northwest of New Oxford and not far from Gettysburg.

From Pennsylvania in the late 1700s, most of the Low Dutch traveled the long hard road over the Appalachians and by flatboat down the Ohio River to the Kentucky frontier, dodging Indian attacks all along the way. Others came down the mountain roads and over the newly opened Cumberland Pass. Like bees swarming to a new hive, our colony was seeking their destiny.

This group of Nederduitsch settlers – 50 families in all – first came to Mercer County KY in in the Spring of 1780 or 1781 and built the Old Mud Meetinghouse in 1800. After a few years around Harrodsburg, they purchased from Squire Boone the “Low Dutch Tract” of eight to ten thousand acres with Bantatown (present-day Pleasureville) at the center. Squire is the younger, less famous, brother of Daniel Boone. Squire Boone’s “Painted Stone Station” adjoined the Low Dutch Tract, and he is very much part of our history.

Kentucky land titles became clouded with conflicting claims, and it was many years before those battles were settled. In the meantime, industrious Nederduitsch people continued carrying their long rifles for protection while struggling to turn the frontier into their homeland dream.

But I am jumping ahead. First we must remember the glory that was New Netherland.

Click the right arrow to learn more about Dutch Cousins. Any time you get lost, just click on *About Me* at the top menu to get back to the index, or on *Low Dutch* to read more about the Low Dutch Heritage.

2. From the Fatherland 1630

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 23:45:02 -0600

Here in the United States, we usually refer to the country as “Holland,” but The Netherlands is actually made up of several provinces, like our states. Holland is really only a small part of the country and that part is divided into North and Holland.

Our story of the Low Dutch on the Kentucky Frontier begins in The Netherlands, on the coast of the North Sea. The little kingdom about twice the size of the state of New Jersey, and at least half that land is below sea level. In fact, I understand there is a glass pillar filled with water in the entrance lobby of the new town hall in Amsterdam. The level of the water rises and falls according to the rise and fall of the tide, and at low tide the water level falls below ground. That demonstrates that if it were not for the sea wall and the dikes Amsterdam would be swamped by the waters of the North Sea twice every day.

“Black death” decimated Leiden in 1635; as many as 1,500 funeral processions per week passed the house where the Dutch Statenbijbel translators were at work. The translation was completed in October 1635 and the first printing was finished in June 1637, although the plague raged on.

GELDERLAND
The Low Dutch who crossed the Atlantic came from all over the Netherlands -- and my ancestors, the Cozines, came from a town named Putten in Gelderland province which is west of Amsterdam.

HISTORY OF HOLLAND IN A NUTSHELL
Here is the history of the Dutch, according to Charles Kesselaer - a Dutchman who still lives there. “About 1700 we called the country Holland that existed of seven ‘states.’ In 1830 Belgium was part of Holland. The king of Holland was Willem 1. The king’s son was a gambler and loved to party. The son married a Belgian Princess and they lived in Brussels. That year (1830) the people of Belgium started a revolution. The Army of Holland campaigned against the revolutionaries and within ten days the war was over. It is known as the Ten Days War. After five years of counseling and talking with the Congress in London, Belgium became a separate kingdon/state and took part of the south of Holland with them. Looking at a map of the Netherland, you see something like a tail; that is Limburg with the Capitol at Maastricht. That part was cut in two pieces left and right of the river. After the war in 1845, from then on the country is known as the Netherlands, meaning land below the sea level. Our language is a mix of Dutch, German and French. because throughout history our capitol was a fortress, we had many armies coming through here -- Germans, French, Romans, Prussian, Scots, English. We say the people north of the big rivers are different from the people in the south of the rivers, where our lifestyle is ‘Man, enjoy your life. It is short enough!’”

FAREWELL TO HOLLAND
In studying the history of the Dutch who came to Kentucky, it is plain they wanted to remain a separate people, to keep their identity and feel free to raise their families in their unique faith. The Netherlands were becoming crowded, there was not ample productive land and coming to a new country where they could own their own land seemed like a great opportunity for them.

2a. What’s in a name?

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:59:48 -0600

A family name, or surname, is the legal tag by which we are all identified now. This is a legal requirement almost everywhere in the world, but it was not always so. Back in the 1600s when the Dutch first came to the new country, most of them had only one name. Later when the English took charge, it became extremely important to have a family name. Name spellings weren't standardized several generations ago, and many people spelled even their own name in a variety of ways. In addition, many people couldn't write, and those who wrote for them when the need arose, sometimes had minimal spelling skills and just spelled phonetically, writing down what they heard.

Besides phonetic spelling, most surnames evolved from four general sources: A man's occupation, his location, his father’s name or a physical characteristic. John may be a baker and in his village he would be known as John de (the) baker. This name would eventually become John Baker. Middle names were quite rare, in fact I have been told that middle names were reserved for royalty. The often-found surname prefix “Van” is Dutch for “from”. Abram born in Wyck, became Abram Van Wyck.

Name spellings weren't standardized several generations ago, and many people spelled even their own name in a variety of ways. In addition, many people couldn't write and those who wrote for them when the need arose, sometimes had minimal spelling skills or simply spelled phonetically, writing down what they heard.

Be prepared for names to change and evolve into something entirely different.
The Dutch names we are dealing with seem especially unpredictable. For instance, the name Vanarsdale must have at least a dozen different known variables.

3. The First Patroon - van Rensselaer 1630

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:45:59 -0600

PATROONS
By the 1630s, enticements in the form of large land grants were being offered to patroons who would bring 50 or more people to settle in New Netherland. The title of patroon came with powerful rights and privileges, similar to a lord in the feudal period. A patroon could create civil and criminal courts, appoint local officials and hold land in perpetuity. In return, he was commissioned by the Dutch West India Company to establish a settlement of at least 50 families within four years on the land.

Probably the best-known patroon, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, insisted a free trade in fur would provide the most encouragement.

The Van Rensselaer family was one of importance in Holland before coming to America, respected and honored by their countrymen, holding such positions of trust as burgomaster, councillor, treasurer, etc. In the Orphan Asylum at Nykerk, Holland, there still hangs a picture of Jan Van Rensselaer, in which he is represented as a ‘Jonkheer,’ or nobleman, by the distinguishing costume, and he is identified by the small representation of the arms painted on the shield above his head. The original Manor of the Van Rensselaer family, from which they took their name, was as late as 1880 called Rensselaer, and was located about three miles southeast of Nykerk.

The Crailo, as the seat of the family was called in Holland, was a large and productive estate some time before any of the family came to America, and it is believed that the family was related to that of Olden Barneveldt, the famous patriot and statesman, because portraits of John of Olden Barneveldt and of his wife Marie, of Utrecht, were preserved as heirlooms until the Crailo estate was sold in 1830. The Manor of Olden Barneveldt was close to Rensselaer, and about six miles south of Nykerk, between it and Amersfoort.

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer was the first Patroon and the founder of the colony of Rensselaerswyck in America, at the site of Fort Orange. Killaen Van Rensselaer, born 1580, son of Hendrick Van Rensselaer and Maria Pafraet, was born in Hasselt, Province of Overyssel, in the Netherlands, and died in Amsterdam, Holland, in 1644.

His sister Maria Van Rensselaer, married Ryckert Van Twiller, and they were parents of Wouter Van Twiller, the third director-General of New Netherland, 1633-38, a contemporary of my ancestor Cosyn Gerritsen van Putten, the patriarch of the Cozine family in America.

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer was a wealthy merchant of Amsterdam, known to be a dealer in pearls and precious stones, to have had some reputation as a banker and general merchant, and owned large estates in Holland. He was a leader in the famous guild of trading princes which at that time played so prominent a part in the commerce of the world, and it is quite evident that he must have been both shrewd and farsighted. Rensselaer not only had the courage to found a colony in the wilds of an unknown America, but possessed the energy to push the work, once begun and discouraging at times, until it prospered.

The first quota of men sailed from Holland, March 21, 1630, aboard the ship "d'Eendracht," or "the Unity," commanded by Jan Brouwer, and arrived at the island of Manhattan, May 24th, to proceed up the river to the site of Rensselaerswyck, about one hundred and forty-two miles north of New Amsterdam (New York City), now the site of Albany. Although the name is recorded often in history and is still known in New York, authorities believe the the first patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer never visited his colony in America.

The word patroonship was used until the year 1775, when the English redefined the lands as estates and took away the jurisdictional privilege. Rensselaerwyck was dismantled in the 18th century and became different counties and towns in the Capital District among them: Blauvelt, Cohoes, Colonie, Watervliet

(Much of the info on Rensselaer came from the web page of Schenectady Digital History Archive; Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs: Van Rensselaer; who credit as follows: [This information is from Vol. I, pp. 1-28 of Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs, edited by Cuyler Reynolds (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1911). It is in the Reference collection of the Schenectady County Public Library at R 929.1 R45. Some of the formatting of the original, especially in lists of descendants, may have been altered slightly for ease of reading.]
http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/families/hmgfm/vanrensselaer-1.html
updated July 8, 2008 Copyright 2008 Schenectady Digital History Archive — a service of the Schenectady County Public Library)

4. The West Indies Company 1640

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:06:55 -0600

WIC HEADQUARTERS 1623-1647
Long before there was an America, there was the Dutch West Indies Company (WIC), responsible for transporting emigrants from Holland to New Amsterdam. This company of Dutch merchants with headquarters in Amsterdam, would rule the settlement for forty years.

In 1640, because of disputes over various matters between the colony and the Dutch West India Company, the patroons obtained a new charter of privileges and exemptions, some of the provisions therein being that:
★ all patroons, free colonists and inhabitants of New Netherland should enjoy the privilege of selling articles brought from Holland upon payment of a ten per cent duty;
★ they pay ten per cent. export duty on all furs shipped to Holland;
★ they be allowed to manufacture woolen goods and cotton cloth, which had been prohibited;
★ the person bringing five persons to New Netherland as a colony would be entitled to two hundred acres, and might hunt in the public woods or fish in public streams;
★ no religion except that of the Reformed Dutch Church was to be tolerated;
★ the colonists were to be provided with negroes to help them on their farms;
★ appeal from manorial courts might be made to director and council of New Netherland, provided the sum in dispute was equal to forty dollars;
★ the patroon's jurisdiction was not to be affected in any way by the new charter.

On March 6, 1642, Patroon Kiliaen Van Rensselaer requested the classis of Amsterdam to send “a good, honest and pure preacher” to his colony, and that body selected Domini Johannes Megapolensis, Jun., pastor of Schorel and Berg of the Alkmaar classis, who accepted the call of six years, conditioned on a salary of one thousand guilders ($400), that he need not be required to work as a farmer, the same to be paid in meat, drink and whatever he might claim. The dominie was accredited on March 22nd, and June 3rd the patroon sent detailed instructions setting forth where he desired the church, the minister's house and the people to build their homes.

After years of debts, the original WIC folded in 1674, and a new, reorganised company formed. The company abandoned piracy and concentrated mainly on the African slave trade. In 1791, the company's stock was bought by the Dutch government, and its territories were placed under Dutch government control.

4a. Who are the Black Dutch?

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:35:23 -0600

So many people have asked me about the Black Dutch, I looked it up. There are many definitions. There are at least eight quite different groups of people described as "Black Dutch". If you have been told you are Black Dutch or part Black Dutch, you must find out what the name of the German, Dutch or Flemish immigrant was (if there was one), where he or she came from, what their religion was, if any, etc., before you can figure out to which group they belonged.

To the U.S. government, “Black Dutch” means people from the Dutch West Indies (also called the Netherlands Antilles).

Some people in America describe themselves as Black Dutch or Black German.

Gypsies, are another group called Black Dutch in America.Some say that the term Black Dutch refers to Sephardie Jews who married Dutch Protestants to escape the Inquisition, many of their descendants later moving to the Americas, the "black" referring to their dark hair and complexions; perhaps rarely, German immigrants from the Black Forest region, e.g., "For the most part, the Black Dutch came after 1740." Others disagree and say it is doubtful that the Black Dutch were of Jewish or (Holland) Dutch heritage.

The Melungeons are a people of noticeable Mediterranean descent, characteristically dark complexioned, who settled in the Appalachian wilderness as early or possibly earlier than 1560 and intermarried with the local Indians and were called Black Dutch.

So the answer is ... I don't know! Sorry.

5. Tulipomania 1636

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:01:38 -0600

In 1636, the Netherlands was experiencing a period of relative prosperity after having just overcome a depression. This prosperity encouraged spending and one of the things that people started spending money on was tulip bulbs

During the Dutch Tulip Craze of 1636-37 a wealthy buyer purchased a single bulb for the record breaking price of 5,200 guilders, more than the cost of a large house in the most fashionable neighborhood in Amsterdam. This precious flower created the first futures market in history and sparked the first boom and bust in economic history. In 1636 Amsterdam, a time of economic lunacy, tulip bulbs become money. Fortunes were made and lost on the value of a single Semper Augustus tulip bulb.

Under Dutch cultivation tulips evolved from intense red flowers to many brightly colored and varied forms. The most desired flowers, referred to as “broken” colors, were actually infected with the mosaic virus. Dutch nurserymen hired artists to paint catalogs with page after page of tulips painted in watercolors by Rosen, Violetten and Bizarden. Potential bidders inspected the special tulip books.

A French botanist named Carolus Clusius actually sparked the Dutch mania by bringing his collection of the then-unknown bulbs with him when he accepted a post at Leiden in 1593.

The earliest known drawings of tulips are found on tiles excavated from a thirteenth-century palace in eastern Anatolia. Pious Muslims treated the flowers almost as holy relics and often wore blooms in their turbans and on their underwear. They said that when in full bloom, the tulip, called tulipan by the Turks, bows its head in modesty before God. When the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople and re-named it Istanbul, they built a myriad of gardens filled with tulips planting the most beautiful bulbs next to the Hagia Sophia Mosque. Later, the sultan planted tulips in great profusion at his Topkapi palace within the Abode of Bliss beside the harbor known as the Golden Horn.

At first the buying and selling of bulbs occurred only when the tulips were out of the ground and could be physically exchanged, but gradually in spite of warnings from professional traders, the bulb trade changed to buying and selling flowers still in the ground. The only thing changing hands became a promissory note which could be resold several times at escalating prices before digging season. The price of a particular bulb might double or triple within a week for no apparent reason. Flowers once valued for beauty now became nothing but commodities for profit. First the bidding took place only in the auction house but within a short time taverns across the Netherlands offered their own brand of Las Vegas style entertainment. In “Tulipomania”, the author describes the cold dark smoky atmosphere of the taverns and the sophistication of the Dutch traders.

One day the auction opened and no one made a bid. It was all over. Flowers that had been worth thousands a day before could not be sold for any price. People were ruined, debts went unpaid.

We are not certain if this atmosphere caused our ancestor Cozyn Gerritzen van Putten to decide to leave the Netherlands, but it was about this time we begin to find his name recorded in Nieuw Amsterdam. The Netherlands were becoming crowded, there was not ample productive land and coming to a new country where they could own their own land seemed like a great opportunity for them.

6. They came in Ships 1624 -1637

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:34:30 -0600

I have not been able to find the name of the ship that brought my Cozines to the new land, but it was most probably very similar to this replica of the Half Moon, which was commissioned in 1609 for the Dutch West Indies Company. Ships passenger lists even for that early time are often still in existance.

The first Dutch colonists in 1624 settled where Pearl Street is now in NYC, right by the water.

Soon 30 families of Walloons came and settled on what is now Governor’s Island.

We believe Cozyn arrived by 1633 because there is a record of him mowing his Bowery # 41 (farm) in 1637 and erecting his house & barn. At that time the population of Manhattan Island was 400 souls.

7. Fort Amsterdam 1626

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:48:42 -0600

THE DUTCH FORT -- FORT AMSTERDAM
To build the fort, Peter Minuit needed laborers, and in 1626 he got just what he needed. The Dutch West India Company sent the first African “bondsmen” to New Amsterdam. Some of their names described their origins: Antony Congo, Paulo d’Angola, Pieter San Tomé, Anthony the Portuguese, Jan Fort Orange. Many of the men had been captured from Spanish or Portuguese ships.

For 10 years the men worked to build the fort. They dug up tree stumps, hauled dirt, mounded it up over the fort walls, and battered it down firmly. Finally, the Africans covered the earthen walls of the fort with sod. But as soon as it was finished, the fort began to crumble. The settlers didn’t usually fence their animals, so goats, sheep, and cattle strayed onto the weedy slopes to graze. Pigs went there to dig or rout in the dirt walls. In the words of one settler, the fort soon looked “like a molehill or a tottering wall.”

The site of Fort Amsterdam, once used as a refuge for white settlers from Native Americans, is now occupied by the Museum of the American Indian.

For more info: http://maap.columbia.edu/place/31.html

The position of the fort at the end of the island naturally meant that the town would develop around it, the streets radiating northward from it and from the East River frontage.

Fifteen streets or so, depending on how you count them: that was the capital of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. At its southern end, Manhattan Island tapered to a smoothed point, rather like a sock, with the toes sticking out toward the harbor.

New Amsterdam was the name of the “city” at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. During Dutch-Colonial times the city only extended as far north as “the Wall”, where Wall Street is today. Beyond that was the forest and the natives.

8. Cozÿn’s Wagon Way 1647

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:35:10 -0600

Cosÿn Gerritsen, wheelwright, born 1606 Netherlands, died ca 1687 New York. He was my ninth great grandfather.

This second image shows a wagon maker (wagenmaker) boring the hole for the axle of a wagon, coach or cart.

Doing this he is being a wheelwright (radermaker), a sub-trade of wagon making. Both trades were considered skilled. They were recognized as artisans and organized as a Guild in Europe.

Cozyn is listed as a wheelwright at the 1641 baptism of Thomas Sanders.

June 1643, Albert Cornelysen Wantenear let himself (to learn the trade) as a wheelwright to Cosÿn Gerritsen for one year.
(see New York, Records of Nieuw Amsterdam, Vol III, page 291; Vol IV, Page 53, Vol. V, page 230 and Stokes, the Iconography of Manhattan Island, Vols. IV and II.)

One of the earliest settlers in New Netherland, is my ancestor, Cozÿn Gerritsen van Putten. (Cosÿn, son of Gerrit, from Putten in the Gelderland, Netherlands) Cosÿn's formal patent on New Amsterdam dates from 1647, which means that he had ‘sowed or mowed’ the land as early as 1637.

Before 1665 Cosÿn came into possession of the 10-acre lot and farmhouse built in 1633 for Director Gen. Wouter Van Twiller. See 1665 “Court Minutes of New Amsterdam” Cousÿn Gerrizen (sic), plaintiff, vs Eghbert Wouterszen, defendant. Plaintiff demands possession of a farm of Wouter van Twiller’s, according to act executed to him by Gerrit Rees.”

Van Twiller’s house on this land was built for him by Dutch West India Company carpenters in 1633 when he arrived to take up his post as Director of the colony. The house stood at the corner of today’s Eighth Street and Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village for 160 years. It was last seen on Taylor’s Map of Nov. 2, 1795. Wouter van Twiller, Director of the Colony from 1633-1638 and the nephew of Patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer, was a contemporary of Cosÿn, both being born about 1606 in the Gelderland. They may have been childhood friends, or even relatives. Wouter may have encouraged Cosyn to emigrate because he needed a wheelwright in his neighborhood.

Cosÿn's ‘Bouwerie’ (bouwerie is the Dutch word for farm) is designated on the earliest maps, his land fronting the Hudson River on Manhattan Island. (the Manatus map). The 78 acre Cosÿn farm was approached along “Cosÿn Gerritsen’s Wagon Way,” known today as Astor Place & Eighth Street on the site of New York University and Washington Square Park.

Cosÿn farmed, was a wheelwright, & dabbled in real estate.
The image shows 16th Century wheelwright apprentices plying their 3,000 year old trade. The workman at far left mortises felloes which have been shaped with side axe and adze. At center we see spokes being driven home in a hub which had been aged for 10 years before being turned and mortised. In the background an apprentice uses a spoke shave to round off square edges. At right a skilled workman measures and trims oversized spokes before doweling the felloes together.

Cosÿn and Vroutje Gerretsen are not found in the records of New Amsterdam after 1686, the year he and Vroutje appear on Domine Selyns’ list of Reformed Dutch Church members. He would have been 80 years old, and quite elderly by that time. They had five known children
Gerrit (COSYNSZEN) (1640-1703)
Grietje (Margrietje) COZYNS (1641-1724)
Hendrik (COUSINS, COZYN) (1647-)
Geertje COUSINS (1649->1705)
Elsje COUSINS (1652-)

See the detailed article 'Cosyn Gerritsen van Putten: New Amsterdam's Wheelwright' by Firth Haring Fabend in the Summer 2007 issue of de Halve Maen [The Half Moon] pub. by the Holland Society of New York. Online:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cozine/Cosyn/Cosyn Gerritsen van Putten.htm

9. The Dutch Women - bless ‘em

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:36:19 -0600

An interesting thing about the Low Dutch, is that women had more rights and privileges than in other national groups. Under the Dutch system, a woman did not change her name upon marriage. This practice is a great help to the researcher. Since a result of the patronymic system is that many unrelated men had the same "surname", many times the only means of identification can be made through the wife's use of her maiden name.

In the baptismal records of the Dutch Reformed Churches, the record gives the mother by maiden name sometimes up through 1800. My guess is that the practice gradually died out as the descendants of Dutch colonial families found themselves more and more living in an American English-speaking culture.

Dorothy Koenig, editor of New Netherland Connections, had this to say:
“Women in the early Dutch colonial time used their father's patronymic or their own family surname, if one had been established. After the English took over in 1664 -- and later in the 1700s -- women were often recorded in the English fashion, i.e. with their husband's surname.

“In the baptismal records of Conewago Colony, it gives the mothers maiden name, up through 1793. The Conewago baptisms have been published in several places, e.g. Somerset County Historical Quarterly. They are a transcription of the original records and include the original spelling -- often variants of the same name in various records.

“My guess is that the practice gradually died out in the 1800s as the descendants of Dutch colonial families found themselves more and more living in an American or English-speaking culture. It is interesting that with the ‘women's liberation’ movement in the late 1900s, it once again became fashionable for many married women to retain their maiden name.”

10. Anneke Jans & the Preacher 1640

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:46:42 -0600

ANNEKE JANS 1605-1663
Anneke Janse is one of New Netherland’s most famous citizens, and many families – including my Cozine ancestors – spent years of letter-writing time and mounds of money trying to reclaim property on Manhattan for land they felt they should have inherited, and thought Trinity Church had illegally obtained title. Just Google the name of Anneke Jans, and settle back for a nice long interesting read! Just keep in mind, there are probably more inaccurate, fanciful, misleading, or outright wrong reference materials on Anneke Janse, than accurate ones.

Anneke Jans is well known today and the focus of much genealogical attention not because she was particularly notable in her time, but because of two controversies which surround her, one before she was born, and one after she died. There was a legend Anneke descended from royalty (not!) and a second controversy about the 62 acres of land she owned on what is now Manhattan.

Anneke, the merry widow of Roelof (Ralph) Jansen, once owned most of Manhattan, but now only a small marker on the fence of a tiny pocket park remains. Few New Yorkers today ever heard of her. We walked all over the East Village before we finally located the address of this tiny memorial park.

Roelof Jansen and Anneke Jans were among the first immigrants to New Amsterdam (now New York City). Roelof Jansen was commissioned to farm in the new colony for $72 a year.

They arrived in 1630 with their two daughters and soon went to Rensselaerwyck (the patroonship of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, now the Albany, New York, area); their last two children were born there. In 1636 Roelof Jansen obtained a grant from Governor Van Twiller for a farm or Bowerie of 31 morgens (about 62 acres) on Manhattan Island. He died shortly thereafter and Anneke inherited the land.

Two years later she married Rev. Evardus Bogardus and the land eventually become known as ‘the Domine's Bouwerie’ (looking south across Manhattan).Rev. Bogardus was the head of the Dutch Church in New Netherland and they lived at what is now 23 Whitehall Street in New York City.

The Dutch were both quite religious and also quite litigious. Their church was the center of their community life, but they really enjoyed the benefits of law. Those very interesting lawsuits are still of record in the archives and many have been transcribed to help researchers.

For instance, when the wealthy widow Anneke Jans married the New Amsterdam minister or Dominie, Evardus Bogardus, some people spoke ‘behind the hand’. One Dutch woman jealously gossiped that the Domine’s bride, Anneke, had lifted her petticoats more than necessary and had shown too much ankle when crossing a muddy street.

The Reverend quickly filed a lawsuit for slander and won. The guilty party was forced to publicly apologize to both Anneke and the Dominie. Bogardus had arrived in New Amsterdam aboard de Soutberg in April, 1633, to be the Domine of the church. He was at odds with both Director Generals, Wouter Van Twiller and William Kieft, and in a final effort to settle the matter, he and Kieft boarded a ship back to The Netherlands for a hearing. The ship went down and both men lost their lives. He was 40 years old; Anneke died a few years later at age 58.

(Photo of Rev. Evardus Bogardus 1607-1647)

See a copy of "Anneke Jans Bogardus and Her Farm", a 14-page article—with pictures—which appeared in the May, 1885, issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine. In particular, page 837 shows a picture of the farm looking south, page 842 shows the farm superimposed on a 1890s map of Manhattan.

11. Five Dutch Towns on Long Island by 1660

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:37:54 -0600

FIVE DUTCH TOWNS ON LONG ISLAND IN KINGS COUNTY

A decade after buying Manhattan Island, a group of Dutchmen began to make the first purchases of land on the place the Indians called Sewanhackey, the land of shells -- Long Island.

While Long Island was cleared and flat, Manhattan was rocky and hilly. The Dutch purchased the land from the Indians for what amounted to throwaway trinkets and everyday household items -- duffel bags, knives, axes, awls, kettles and other cooking appliances; and seawan -- shell beads which passed among the Indians as money. Seawan was of two kinds; wampum, white, and suckanhock, black or purple, -- the former having half the value of the latter.

One of the original five Dutch towns on Long Island, given the right to local rule by Peter Stuyvesant in 1661, this neighborhood was originally known as Nieuw Amersfoort, after the Dutch city of Amersfoort, but became known as “Flatlands”.

Kings County was the area comprising the western end of Long Island. It contained 5 Dutch towns -- Bushwick, Brooklyn, New Utrecht, Flatbush, and Flatlands -- as well as the “English” community founded by Lady Deborah Moody in 1645 -- Gravesend. The Dutch West India Company lost little time in chartering the six original parishes (listed here first by their later, more common English names):

▪ Brooklyn: as "Breuckelen" in 1646, after the town now spelled Breukelen, Netherlands
▪ Flatlands: as "New Amersfoort" in 1647
▪ Flatbush: as "Midwout" in 1652
▪ New Utrecht: in 1657, after the city of Utrecht, Netherlands
▪ Bushwick: as "Boswijck" in 1661

▪ Gravesend: in 1645, settled under Dutch patent by English followers of the Anabaptist, Lady Deborah Moody

The Flatbush name derived from Vlackebos (Dutch for flat and plain). Jacobus Cosine, son of Gerrit Cosynszen and Belitje Quick, was born in Manhattan in 1687. By 1715 at age 28 he is named on “A True List of the Respective Officers and Soldiers Belonging to the Regiment of Militia in Kings County 1715 in Capt Frances Titus’ co. Jacobus is listed in 1738 on “List of all inhabitants of Flatbush both of whites and blacks, males and females.”

On Long Island, across the river from Manhattan, the settlers founded the Brooklyn Reformed Dutch Church and the Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church.

In 2009:

11a. Staten Island 1661

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:40:47 -0600

Although the first Dutch settlement of the New Netherlands colony was made on nearby Manhattan in 1620, Staaten Eylandt remained uncolonized by the Dutch for many decades. This island at the mouth of magnificent New York harbor, rich with trees and pasture land, is nearly sixty square miles in size

From 1639 to 1655, the Dutch made three separate attempts to establish a permanent settlement on the island, but each time the settlement was destroyed in the conflicts between the Dutch and the local tribes.

In 1661, the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Oude Dorp (Dutch for "Old Village"), just south of the Narrows near South Beach, by a small group of Dutch, Walloon, and Huguenot families. But the Dutch plantations on Staten Island didn't fare well. In 1641, after the new director general, Willem Kieft, decided to levy a tax on local Indians, the Raritan tribe attacked the Staten Island plantation of the Dutch adventurer David de Vries, killing four people.

Today, the last vestige of Oude Dorp exists as the present-day neighborhood of Old Town, adjacent to Old Town Road.

In 1683, the colony of New York was divided into ten counties. As part of this process, Staten Island, as well as several minor neighboring islands, were designated as Richmond County. The name derives from the title of an illegitimate son of King Charles II.

In 1687 and 1688, the English divided the island into four administrative divisions based on natural features: the 5100 acre (21 km²) manorial estate of colonial governor Thomas Dongan in the central hills known as the "Lordship or Manner of Cassiltown," along with the North, South, and West divisions. These divisions would later evolve into the four townships Castleton, Northfield, Southfield, and Westfield. In 1698, the population was 727.

The Staten Island Census 1707 The census is extracted from Stillwell, John E. Historical and Genealogical Miscellany, Data Relating to the Settlement and Settlers of New York and New Jersey. Although Stillwell misidentifies the census, this is obviously a census of Staten Island, dating from about 1707.

During the American Revolutionary War, Staten Island played an important part. In August 1776, the British forces crossed the Narrows to Brooklyn and routed the American forces under General George Washington at the Battle of Long Island, resulting in the British capture of New York. Three weeks later, on September 11, 1776, the British received a delegation of Americans consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Edward Rutledge, and John Adams at the Conference House on the southwestern tip of the island (known today as Tottenville) on the former estate of Christopher Billop. The Americans refused the peace offer from the British in exchange for the withdrawal of the Declaration of Independence, however, and the conference ended without an agreement.

(Note: In 1964, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connected the eastern portion of Staten island to Brooklyn and accelerated a new era of development.)

12. New Netherlands before 1664

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:54:56 -0600

We usually think of New Netherlands as being just in New York City area. It is true that the island of Manhattan was the first place they settled, and they built their Fort Amsterdam right at the tip of that island. The town of New Amsterdam first huddled against the fort walls, then gradually grew into fifteen streets out to the “walled” street with the two gates.

However, that was only New Amsterdam (now Manhattan). New Netherland covered quite a bit more territory,
1. extending south to Delaware Bay,
2. north past the present town of Albany, with
3. New Amsterdam and Manhattan Island as its capital.

New Netherland got underway at about the same time the Pilgrims were settling Cape Cod and the Jamestown colony was establishing itself in Virginia, but most history books fail to report the early Dutch settlement. (click here for a virtual tour of New Netherland.)

The Reformed Dutch Church, organized in New Amsterdam, New Netherland, in 1628, is still a living organization. The first services were held in an empty loft room above the Dutch colony's mill. All of the Reformed Dutch Church records are kept in one record book. The Church was formed in 1628; baptismal and marriage records start in 1639.

As the Low Dutch people started new settlements in the area, they wanted to worship close to home. Churches sprang up on Staten Island, and along areas of the Hudson River Valley.

Many have the idea that the Dutch people stayed put in one place. Nothing could be further from the truth. They might have had their children baptized in the Schraalenburgh Reformed Dutch Churchwhile living in New York City, selling land in Bergen County. The Dutch parent might go to one church for one child's baptism and another Church for another child's baptism. So several churches in that area may have to be consulted - such as Hackensack and Schraalenburgh, for example.

12a. Wampum as Currency

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:09:26 -0600

THE FIRST CURRENCY

For centuries before the white men came to America, the Indians of New York had a currency of their own which they called seawan and wampum. Look closely at early paintings of the Native Americans; notice the wampum beads around his neck and wrist. If he is carrying a musket, powder horn, or wearing silver armbands, those would have come to him through the fur trade.

Seawan, or black money, was the red man’s gold and it was worth twice as much as wampun - white money, the red man’s silver coin.

The currency was made of sea shells collected off the banks of Long Island. They broke off little pieces from shells, polishing and boring them with a stone awl to make beads.

The Indians strung these beads for convenience, just as we make rolls of coins. The beads were strung on strong thread made of animal sinew. The black “money” came from the dark purple inside of the clam shell; white beads from a particular type of snail. The Dutch and English traders valued three small black beads and six white ones at one penny.

Settlers in New Amsterdam bought food and dress goods and paid fares for a ferry with wampum. They also bought land and paid taxes and custom duties with wampum. The value of furs, grain and coin were valued in wampum throughout the 1600s.

13. The Walled Street 1644

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:56:39 -0600

Wall Street is born ...
New Amsterdam was exclusively a trading colony. Beaver pelts, in particular, were in high demand in Europe. By 1644, Manhattan had a couple thousand Dutch settlers living below Wall Street, and the Dutch did not even need to do the trapping themselves, but could trade with the local indians who were much more adept at it. The Dutch provided the indians with liquor, guns and ammunition in return for beaver pelts and other goods.

The city was clustered at the southern tip of the island, and the settlers decided to create a wall across the northern reaches of town to protect them from invasion. Thomas Baxter was charged with the task of producing logs for palisades. The wall was to be twelve feet high and eighteen inches thick. The wall stretched from the East River straight across to the “North” River.

31 March 1644: “Resolved: that a fence or park shall be made beginning at the great bouwery and extending to Emanuel's plantation, and every one . . . is warned to repair thither next Monday beginning the 4th of April at 7 o'clock . . . with tools in hand to aid in constructing said fence. Let everyone take notice hereof and communicate it to his neighbor.”

They built a gate at de Heere Straat. Later, the North River became better known as the Hudson and de Heere Straat the Broad street or Broadway.

The Walled Street, which we recognize now as Wall Street, was built of logs standing on end across the width of Manhattan Island for defense from the English and the Indians. The wall eventually had two gates to allow citizens to go outside the wall in times of safety.

Of course, that wall lasted in history -- not for its defensive purpose but because of the street that took its name from it, and because of a large buttonwood tree. The Buttonwood, often confused with Sycamore, is a massive tree typically 90 to 100 feet high or more. The footprint of the NYSE is where the buttonwood stood, and in the shade of that tree is where the Dutch bartered food, wood and furs with the Lenape and other natives. So our Low Dutch gave birth to the financial district.

The Buttonwood Agreement on May 17, 1792, started the New York Stock & Exchange Board, now called the NYSE. This agreement was signed by twenty-four stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under that buttonwood tree. Early the next year, the first Stock Exchange Office opened, at 22 Wall Street.

Located just off Wall Street, the Museum of American Financial History is housed in what was once Alexander Hamilton’s law offices.

14. The first Church in New Netherland 1643

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:38:39 -0600

When the Dutch came to America, the first Church organized in New Netherland was the Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam (New York City). The church was founded about 1628 and a plain wooden building appeared in 1633 on present-day Pearl Street. But even before there was a church, or a minister hired, there was a congregation. From the time the first settlers arrived, limited religious services were conducted by laymen in an empty loft room above the Dutch colony's grist mill, in a location on what is now William Street.

About 1643 the plain wood building was replaced by a stone church built within the walls of the Fort. The church's spire and weathercock towered over the walls of the fort, so that they were the first sight seen as ships sailed into the harbor of New Amsterdam.

This picture shows Fort Amsterdam, and the Dutch Church built within it, behind a row of houses.

As the Dutch spread out in their settlements, new churches sprang up on Long Island, Staten Island, and along areas of the Hudson River Valley. Another church that formed was the Brooklyn Reformed Dutch Church and also the Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church on Long Island. (Flatlands) As the Dutch moved into New Jersey, the first church formed there was the Bergen Reformed Dutch Church. (now Jersey City) Churches sprang up in upper New York State, such as the Albany Reformed Dutch Church.

The website ‘Reformed Dutch Church Records by Donna Speer Ristenbatt gives a list of the early Dutch churches and their date of organization.
http://www.ristenbatt.com/genealogy/dutch_ch.htm

Another good reference:
http://www.upword.com/collegiate/church.html

15. Life in New Amsterdam 1647

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 20:56:37 -0600

Between the Walled Street and the Fort, citizens built their homes and businesses.

Gerrit Cozyn lived north of Bowery Road “Over Het Verch Water” beyond the fresh water, close to what is now Centre and Leonard Sts in lower Manhattan, NY. North of Bowery Rd in NYCC there was once a fresh water pond where part of Centre St is now. That quarter of the city is still called the “Collect from Kolk” Dutch word for small lake. There is a plaque in Foley Square noting that as the site of the COLLECT POND, the largest body of water on the island now called Manhattan.

He was granted a 5-acre lot & a smaller one on the west side of Broadway in 1647. Gerrit was awarded two 50x225 foot lots on lower Broadway in Manhattan by the Dutch West Indies Company on 13 Mar 1647. Defended the title against Egbert Wouterson and won. Sold one of the lots to Hendrick Hendrickson and the other to Teunis Nyssen between 1654 & 1658. At the time of his death he owned three houses and contents on lower Broadway in Manhattan.

1649: 4 Jul; Cozyn Gerritszen; Geertje; Thomas Hall, Geurt Koerten, Herman Smeeman, Pytie Jans, Geertje Koerten Baptised New Amsterdam (New York City) New York Reformed Dutch Church Baptisms 1646 - 1655 (Olive Tree Genealogy)

1653 - Geurt Koerten vs. Cosyn Gerritszen, default of payments. (NYG&B Vol 70 p 20.)

The dutch houses and their stoops were immaculate, but the streets were filthy. That is where they dumped their garbage and sewers.

A visitor’s letter written in 1796, says: “Almost all the inhabitants speak Dutch, and they fed us well, principally fruits which … tasted delicious.”
However he was disgusted to find pigs and cows running about the public streets.

The Dutch built very large barns, because food was the most important thing, and these barns could hold many farm activities. On the other hand, the Dutch built very small houses. Perhaps this is because they didn't know how long they could live here. Whatever the reason, most of the Dutch pioneers and their neighbors built houses with only 1 or 2 rooms, and steep roofs.

Both barns and houses were built of large beams of wood, put together to make a giant H. This method is so strong that some of these buildings are still standing — 300 years later!

16. New Amsterdam 1660

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:02:41 -0600

CASTELLO MAP 1660
This is a lovely map, but I have to point out the mapmakers of that day did not necessarily orient their maps with north at the top.

Because the WIC required frequent censuses of New Amsterdam, we know who resided in every house. In Block C, on this Castello Map of 1660 we found our ancestor Cozyn Garretsen with three lots and his house facing present-day Broadway.

Go to this website to find a “clickable” map indexing the lot owners.
The "interactive" map of New Amsterdam - circa 1660.
http://www.teachout.org/vna/map.html

Inside the earthen fort the Dutch built their Church, and on the wall nearest the river stood a giant windmill, and next to that a very high flagstaff to signal arrival of ships. An ancient Indian hunting trail ran through the colony, that the Dutch called Heere Straat, the Gentleman’s street. It was not until the English renamed everything in 1664 that the street became Broadway.

1662: “In the year 1662 sixteen Dutch Farmers living at the Bowery on Manhattan Island began negotiations to buy a large tract of land between the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers, near Tappen Creek. One of those famers is GERRITSEN COZYN, a wheelwright from Putten in North Holland.”

(from the intro to COZYN / COZINE volume I, by Mrs. E. T. Dorr, ©1983)

17.The First English Takeover 1664

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:07:52 -0600

#30, DUTCH TO ENGLISH – FOR ABOUT NINE YEARS
When an English Fleet arrived in what is now New York Harbor and demanded surrender of the fort in 1664, Stuyvesant refused. He fumed and fretted and swore and stamped his wooden leg. He tried to organize his militia for defense of the island, but the people were not behind him. They knew the old fort building was crumbling, and they had no military force. In addition, they were tired of Stuyvesant’s tyrannical government.

Old Pegleg had to give in. Fort Amsterdam was surrendered without bloodshed, and the English renamed it for the Duke of York. All of New Netherland, including the Delaware Valley, passed to English control. The city of New Amsterdam, forty years old, became New York, named for the English Duke.

Life continued much as it had before for the Dutch inhabitants in former New Amsterdam, but the people where definitely split in its loyalties. Stuyvesant and his council negotiated with the English for provisional Articles of Transfer, which might ensure the residents could continue to enjoy their freedom of religion. Although the English had promised to allow the Dutch to follow their religion, after a few years the governors began attempting to establish the Church of England with power over other religious denominations. The Dutch did not like that.

Life goes on ...
1667: The Court Minutes of New Amsterdam for 1667
“The Overseers of the Public Fences, pltfs(plaintiffs)
v/s
Bastiaen the wheelwright and Cosyn Raemaker, (wheelwright) defts. (defendants)

Pltfs. demand from Deft. the sum of fl.20. according to the 17th Article of their instructions etc. on the inspection of Cosyn Gerritsen's fence. The W. Court decide, that the fine must be paid by the deft. Bastiaen de Raedamaker and condemn him therefore with a fine of fl. 10 with costs.”

18. Dutch New Amsterdam footprints

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:06:32 -0600

DUTCH STADT-HUYS
Jon and I visited New York a few months ago and hunted for evidence of the Low Dutch past. We found plenty on Manhattan – and on our next trip we will spend time in Brooklyn and find many more I am sure.

If you have been a tourist in New York, then you will be familiar with Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan, where you catch a ferry to the Statue of Liberty. This area is abundant with marks of Dutch history. This Dutch Statehouse itself is no longer there, but the footprint is marked on the sidewalk near the Museum of the American Indian.

BOWLING GREEN PARK
Just across the street from the Indian museum, is a tiny picturesque park, as popular with today’s New Yorkers as it was with the Dutch.. Oddly-shaped and strangely named, Bowling Green, was the first public park. The park was used as a parade ground by the Dutch Colonists, and as a cattle market, and one reference says they played a game of duckpins there, called Bowling. The British put up an iron fence after their takeover in 1771, with tiny British crowns topping each post and a statue of King George in the center of the green. The fence is still there, but the statue and all the tiny Crowns are gone – said to have been pulled down by the “Rebels” to make bullets in the Revolutionary war.

DUTCH FLAGPOLE
This ten-foot-tall granite and bronze-sculpted flagstaff pedestal looks as if it could have been here for 300 years. However, it actually was a fairly recent gift of the people of the Netherlands to New York City in 1926. The inscription reads: “in testimony of ancient and unbroken friendship.” Either someone forgot – or they glossed over some of the details.

FRAUNCE’S TAVERN
The familiar history of Fraunce’s Tavern goes all the way back to our Dutch colonists. Back then, Broad street was a stream with pathways on each side and a boat landing, so this was a convenient place for a tavern. The Dutch built the first Inn right there on the path that is now Pearl Street, where a stream cut in from East River. The Tavern was always popular, and was a favorite of George Washington after the Revolution.
Samuel FRAUNCES (a black-American) opened this tavern in 1762.

#25, TRINITY CHURCH
Usually the church comes first, and the burial ground follows, but the opposite is true for New York’s best known Episcopal church. The burials were already established when Trinity construction began in 1696. The first building, at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Streets, fell during the Rev. War in the Great New York City Fire of 1776. It was rebuilt soon after.
For many years the church spire was the tallest building on the skyline, now it is dwarfed and surrounded by skyscrapers. By land grants, gifts and purchase, Trinity became very wealthy. The parish currently lists among its holdings 26 commercial buildings in Lower Manhattan and 470 acres of land. Trinity was the setting for the movie “National Treasure.”

#26, ST PAUL’S CHAPEL
St. Paul’s, a couple blocks from Trinity, is the oldest public building in continuous use in Manhattan, and is a parish of Trinity Church. George Washington worshipped here in 1789. Located directly across the street from the World Trade Center, the chapel was home to many volunteers after the 9/11/2001 attack.

#27, SEVEN DUTCH TEACHERS
On the NYU building at the NE corner of Washington Square Park, this brass plaque honors early Dutch and Walloon schoolteachers 1633-1674. The plaque was mounted in 1909 as part of the 300th anniversary celebration of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River. The plaque reads: “In honor of the Seven Public School-Teachers who taught under Dutch rule on Manhattan Island. Free public education was available in the Netherlands, but the WIC refused to build a schoolhouse in New Amsterdam. They did appoint teachers and the Dutch Reformed Church oversaw direction. Their pay was meager. Mr. Roelandsen took in washing to supplement his salary; VanHoboken and Pietersen married well-to-do widows.

STUYVESANT
Peter Stuyvesant, who lost his leg in a military battle as a young man, ruled the colony from 1647 to 1664 as the last Dutch Director-General. He built the first pier on the East river, opened the first post offce, and allowed formation of municipal government for New Amsterdam.

However, the peg-legged director was a tyrant. While the Netherlands had enjoyed freedom of religion for the previous hundred years, Stuyvesant forbade all religious observances in New Amsterdam except Dutch Reformed. He tried to prevent Jews from entering the colony and was hardest on the Quakers, making it illegal to even invite a Quaker into your home.

Gerrits Cozine (my 8th great grandfather born 1640 New Amsterdam) and his family resided on the path of a road leading to Peter Stuyvessant's farm, Bouwerie Number 1, the largest farm in the area. The Church of St. Marks-in-the-Bowery sits on the approximate site of Petrus Stuyvesant’s family chapel, and Stuyvesant himself is entombed within its walls.

ST MARK’s CHURCH
Peter Stuyvesant built a family chapel in 1660 on his bowery, and he is buried in a vault under the Episcopal church built on the site -- St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery at 2nd Avenue and East 10th Street.

Ironic that old Stuyvesant’s home would be in a diverse area Bohemian area like East Village when he tried to prevent diversity in New Amsterdam, and ironic he would be buried and honored in an English-based church when he prohibited the practice of any belief other than Dutch Reformed.

Stuyvesant’s re

mains are in the old vault below the church a little south of the entrance, which formed part of the original chapel. His house stood just to the west of the church near Tenth Street until it burned to the ground during the Rev. War. The churchyard can only be entered by appointment, but we found some history posted on the iron fence around the ancient landmark.

19. Back to Dutch 1673

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:59:31 -0600

DUTCH FLEET
The Dutch government sent seven Men O War ships with troops to New York in a surprise attack and successfully regained control of the city in 1673. A Man-Of-- War was the most powerful type of armed ship from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The term often refers to a ship armed with cannon and propelled primarily by sails, as opposed to a galley which is propelled primarily by oars.The vessels pictured here would be similar to those used by the Dutch at that time.

In July, 1673, a Dutch squadron under two grim old sea-dogs, Admirals Evertsen and Binckes, suddenly appeared in the lower bay. The English commander in the fort endeavored to treat with them; but they would hearken to no terms save immediate surrender, saying that “they had come for their own, and their own they would have.” The Dutch militia would not fight against their countrymen; and the other citizens were not inclined to run any risk in a contest that concerned them but little. Evertsen's frigates sailed up to within musket-shot of the fort, and firing began on both sides. After receiving a couple of broadsides which killed and wounded several of the garrison, the English flag was struck, and the fort was surrendered to the Dutch troops, who had already landed, under the command of Capt. Anthony Colve. So ended the first nine years of English supremacy at the mouth of the Hudson.

The Dutch renamed their recaptured city New Orange, instead of New Amsterdam.

This term of Dutch rule lasted only a little over a year before going back to the English. Thus the province of the New Netherlands had been first taken by the English by an attack in time of peace; it had then been reconquered by the Dutch, in fair and open war, and fourteen months later again surrendered to the English because of an agreement between the countries.

The citizens throughout these changes played but a secondary part, the fate of the city and province being decided, not by them, but by the ships and troops of Holland and England.