Biographical and genealogical history of the state of Delaware, Vol. I, Part 14

Author: Runk, J.M. & Co
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chambersburg, Pa.
Number of Pages: 1482

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In 1847-51 he was secretary of state; in 1849, one of the codifiers of the state statutes, and in 1852, United States District Attorney for Delaware. In 1865, by the general desire of the bar, he was appointed chancellor, vice llon. Samuel M. Harrington, deceased, and by his able discharge of the duties of this office amply confirmed the expectations raised by his selection. Owing to failing health, he resign- ed his office in 1873, and, after a brief resump- tion of his professional practice, died in 1879.

Hon. Willard Saulsbury was born in Kent county, Delaware, June 2, 1820. He was the youngest brother of Dr. Gove Saulsbury, who was Governor of Delaware, and of Hon. Eli Saulsbury, who was for eighteen years United States Senator. He was educated at Dela- ware College and at Dickinson College, Penn- sylvania; read law at Dover, and was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1845. He began the practice of law at Georgetown, Delaware, and by his studious habits, native energy and vig- orous intellect soon became known throughout the State as an able lawyer, an eloquent speak- er and a political leader of brilliant promise.

From 1850-55 he was attorney general of the State. In 1859 he was elected as the Democratic candidate to the United States Senate, and was in 1865 re-elected. There he was a conspicuous figure, and served for twelve years with great distinction as an eloquent and powerful debater. In November, 1873, he was appointed Chancellor of the State, which office he filled with great ability and popular- ity until his sudden death from apoplexy in April, 1892. Ilis reported decisions are nu- merons, and are published in the Delaware Chancery Reports. Nature lavished upon Chancellor Saulsbury her choicest gifts of mind, feature and person; a captivating man- ner, a rarely handsome countenance, a robust physique and a superb figure, together with very brilliant and versatile intellectual powers. Very few Delawareans have equalled him in natural endowments.

Ex-Chancellor James .L. Wolcott was a na- tive of Mispillion hundred, and was born about one mile and a half east of Harrington, Delaware, February 4, 1842, and died at his home in Dover, March 31, 1898. His parents were Josiah and Elizabeth Wolcott, and he re-

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ceived his education in the country schools in which he afterwards taught. In 1853 Mr. Wolcott entered upon the study of law with the Hon. Eli Saulsbury, and was admitted to the bar April 23, 1866. After his admission he took an active interest in politics and soon arose to political as well as legal prominence. . The State Senate, at the session of 1871, elect- ed him clerk. In February, 1871, he was chosen counsel for the Levy Court of Kent county, and continued in this position until January, 1879, when Governor John W. Hall appointed him secretary of state for the term ending January, 1883.

Upon the death of Chancellor Willard Saulsbury, Mr. Wolcott was appointed by Governor Reynolds on May 3, 1893, to suc- ceed him, but in November, 1895, resigned in order to devote himself to private practice, particularly to the duties of counsel for the Delaware Railroad.

Mr. Wolcott was a conspicuous figure in the Democratic politics of Delaware. He was the head and front of what was called the Wolcott faction of the party, which was radically hos- tile to the Saulsbury faction, the lines between the two being very distinctly marked in Kent county. In 1888 he entered the lists as an avowed candidate for United States Senator in opposition to the late Eli Saulsbury, whose term was about to expire. After an exciting and memorable primary canvass, Mr. Wolcott carried a majority of the delegates to the Kent county Democratic Convention, and by the application of the unit rule, this convention nominated a complete Wolcott legislative ticket, denying to the Saulsbury faction, in op- position to the custom which had prevailed up to that time, the right to name candidates for the hundreds carried by that faction. This caused an open revolt in the party, and the Republicans elected their legislative ticket in Kent county. They were successful also in Sussex county, by reason of the factional di- vision of the Democrats, and the result was a Legislature with a Republican majority on joint ballot, which sent Anthony Higgins to Washington as the first and only Re- publican United States Senator from Delaware. Mr. Wolcott's last public appearance was as counsel for the Democratie members of the Kent county Board of Canvass, in the legal proceedings growing out of the count of the votes cast at

the last general election in that county. Ho had been in ill health for over a year, but there were no indications of his affection be- coming critical, and his sudden death came as a great surprise throughout the State.

As the Legislature was in session at the time of Chancellor Wolcott's death, resolutions of regret and condolence were passed by both houses, and eulogistic remarks were made by senators and members, after which, as a fur- ther mark of respect to the deceased, the Leg- islature adjourned until Monday morning. The funeral, which was held Saturday, April 2d, was one of the largest ever seen in the State, and was attended by all the prominent men of Delaware.

Ex-Chancellor Wolcott married a daughter of the late Alexander Godwin, who survives him, together with three sons, James L., who has been practicing law with his father: Alex- ander G., and Josiah O. Wolcott, a student at college.

SOME OF THE OLDEST FAMILIES.

A large number of the residents of Dela- ware are descended from old and distinguished families, and of many of these old families every link can be traced in the chain of their descent from the first offspring to the present. Vincent, the historian, who wrote in 1870. has thrown much light on the subject of ancestry. From him we learn that amongst these carly and prominent settlers were Augustine Her- man and Gouvert Loockermans (now written Lockerman) whose descendants are numerous and widely scattered.

Many of the most able and intelligent pub- lic men of Delaware have been of Dutch de- scent, either on the paternal or maternal side. Even after the conquest of the State by the English, for many years most of the principal magistrates and other public officers were Dutchmen. Vincent tells us that among the numerous families who are in whole or in part descended from the Dutch patriarchs, in many cases mixed with Huguenot French, are the Oldhams (on the mother's side), the Van Dykes, the Vandegrifts, the Bayards (on the mother's side), the Alrichs, the Stalls, the Vandevers, the Hermans, the Comegys, the Vangezels, the Jaquetts, the Van Zandts, the Vances, the Hyatts, the Cochrans, the Fon- taines, the LeCounts, the Blackstones, the

STATE OF DELAWARE

Kings, the Andersons, and others. There were also families of Van Dykes, Petersons, and Andersons, who were Swedes.

Amongst those who derive their descent from the Huguenot refuges are the Bayards, the Belvilles, the Bouchells, the Dellayes, and others. The Delaware Bayards are de- seended from Nicholas Bayard, who fled from France to Holland, and married Anneke, a sister of Peter Stuyvesant. They had three sons, Balthazar, Peter and Nicholas. Peter left New York and came to Delaware with the Labadists. In 1675 he received a grant of Bombay Hook Island. Four years afterwards he purchased the rights of the Indian owner of the island, for one gun and some other mat- ters. From this Bayard it is believed the Bay- ards of Delaware are descended. They, like many of the other patriarchal Dutch-Hugue- not families, have well maintained their social and political standing. Many members of the family have been distinguished for great tal- ents. Three succeeding generations of them have represented the State in the United States Senate, viz: The celebrated James A. Bayard, who signed the treaty of Ghent; then his sons, Richard and James A., who sat there at different times, and Thomas F. Bayard, the son of the second James A. Bayard, who rep- resented the State in the Senate, having suc- ceeded his brother in the Senate in 1869; he was re-elected for a second term in 1875, and again in 1SS1, served continuously until he became Secretary of State, March 4, 1885. On the day on which he was elected to the Senate for a full term his father was also re- elected a Senator from Delaware to serve for the unexpired part of his original term. This is the only case of a father and son being voted for by the same legislature to fill the senator- ial office. He was a member of the electoral commission of 1876-7, and a conspicuous up- holder in Congress of Democratic doctrines and States' rights, and was voted in national convention as a candidate for the presidency in 1880 and again in 1884. Mr. Cleveland appointed him Secretary of State in 1885. And during the second term of Mr. Cleveland Mr. Bayard was appointed Ambassador to England, retiring in 1897. Including his great-grandfather Governor Bassett, he is the fifth member of his family who has oe- cupied a seat in the United States Senate.

John Paul Jaquett, the second Dutch governor of Delaware, was also a French Protestant, who had fled from France to Hol- land to avoid religious persecution. Before his arrival in Delaware, however, he had re- sided in Brazil. The Jaquetts lived on their farm, inheriting it from Paul Jaquett, the first ancestor, until the time of the celebrated Maj. Peter Jaquett, the last surviving officer of the Revolution belonging to Delaware. He was born on Long Hook farm, near New Cas- tle, April 6, 1754, son of Peter and Elizabeth Jaquett. Commissioned an ensign in Capt. Henry Darby's company, Colonel Haslet's regiment of Delaware State troops, in Con- tinental service, January 17, 1776; Second Lieutenant Colonel Hall's Delaware regiment, Continental Establishment, November 27, 1776; Captain (in same regiment) April 5, 1777, and served to close of war; brevetted Major, September 30, 1783; died on his farm at Long Hook, September 13, 1834, and was buried in Old Swedes' churchyard, Wilming- ton. He was vice-president of the Delaware State Society of the Cincinnati from 1795 to its dissolution. Ilis certificate of membership in the society and his sword are now in the possession of his grand-nephew, Samuel Price Jaquett, Radnor, Pa.

The land comprising the Jaquett farm was granted to Jaquett the immigrant soon after the capture of Delaware by the Dutch. It is now called Long Hook. It is situated at the end of the causeway on the road from Wil- mington to New Castle, about a mile from the bridge at the foot of Market street, Wilming- ton. In 1669 the Labadists (Dankers and Sluyter) crossed the Christiana near to this farm. They speak of it as follows: "We pro- ceeded thence a small distance overland to a place where the fortress of Christina had stood, which had been constructed and possessed by the Swedes, but taken by the Dutch Governor, Stuyvesant, and afterwards demolished by the English. * * * We were then taken over the Christiana Creek in a canoe, and landed at the spot where Stuyvesant threw up his bat- tery to attack the fort, and compelled the Swedes to surrender. At this spot there are Medlar trees (a fruit now extinct), which bear good fruit, from which one Jaquett, who does not live far from there, makes good brandy or spirits, which we tasted and found even better than French brandy."

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BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA

From Johannes de Hayes are descended the Janvier (New Castle) family on the female side. A portrait of that ancestor was in ex- istence fifty years ago, to which Rev. George Foot refers, and says: "He was evidently, as lijs costume shows, either a knight or a military officer of high rank." In 1676 he purchased of Joseph Chew a farm of four hundred acres, described in the New Castle records as being near the old landing on the Appoquinimink Creek, for two pounds of to- bacco, Dutch weight. He was then a mer- chant. He was afterwards a magistrate at New Castle, under both the Duke of York and William Penn.

After the capture by the English of the ter- ritory now constituting the State of Delaware, D'Hinovossa and Van Sweringen, with a num- ber of other citizens of Delaware removed to Maryland. The evidence we have of this is the settling of so many Dutch and Germans in the neighborhood of the Sassafras and Bo- hemia Rivers, and near the town of St. Mary's. They were, no doubt, brought there by the influence of Augustine Herman. Among those families who again settled in Delaware Vincent is of the opinion that there were the Comegys, the Cochrans, the Blackstones, the Le Counts, the Kings, and possibly the Bou- chells. Several of them were naturalized by Maryland law from 1666 to 1684; among these were Peter Bayard, Arnoldus de la Grange, William Blackenstein (Blackstone), Hans Hanson, Cornelius Comegys, Gerrett Van Sweringen, besides Jacobson, Errickson, Peterson, and Le Count, whose Christian names are not given.

In 1666 Augustine Herman petitioned the Maryland Legislature for the naturalization of himself and all his family, viz: Ephraim, Georgius, Gasparous, his sons, and Anna Mar- garetta, Judith, and Francina, his daughters.

The Stalls, now so numerous, were here as early as 1648. The first of the family who is mentioned in the annals of the state was Abraham Stalls, surgeon and elder of the church at Rensselaerswick, New York. He was in 1651 driven from an island in the Schuylkill by the Swedes and had his home burnt by the Indians in New York.

The first of the Comegys came from Vienna. He was undoubtedly the ancestor of the pres- ent Comegys family. Cornelius P. Comegys, who was Governor of the State from 1836 to

1840, was undoubtedly a descendant of his, as he bears the same Christian name. One of his descendants, Joseph P. Comegys, son of the ex-governor, represented the state in the United States Senate. The Labadists, Dankers and Sluyter, give the following account of their visit to him in 1679. He is undoubtedly the Cornelius Comegys we have before spoken of as having been naturalized in Maryland. Ile appears to have been a man of wealth, owning several plantations, and employing several servants. He lived in Maryland near the Sassafras River. They say: "We arrived at Cornelius, the son of Comegys, and called out to him, and he brought a canoe, which re- lieved us, as it was elose on to evening. We thanked the person who had brought us into the canoe. Cornelius, who was an active young man, was pleased to meet Hollanders, although he was born in this country. We found Mr. Comegys on the next plantation, who bade us welcome; and after we had drank some cider, accompanied us with one of his company to Mr. Hosier's, who was a good, generous-hearted man, better than any Eng- lishman we had met in this country. He had formerly had much business with Mr. Moll, but their affairs in England running behind- hand a little, they both came and settled down here, and therefore Mr. Moll and he had a great regard for each other.

"Mr. Comegys was from Vienna and had a Dutch woman for a wife, who had taught her children to speak the Dutch language; they therefore had a kind disposition towards Hol- Janders. After her death he married an Eng- lish woman, and he had himself learned many of the English maxims, although it was against his feelings; for we were sensible that he dared not work for us with an open heart. He told us that he would rather live at the Cape of Good Hope than here. . How is that,' said I, 'when there is such good land here?' 'True,' he replied, 'but if you knew the people here as well as I do, you would be able to understand why.'"

Augustine Herman hereafter ceases to take part in Delaware history, save in a grant of land to the Labadists. Of all his children only the issue of his son Gasparus are now alive. From him are descended the Oldhams and the Bouchells. James R. Oldham, who resided at Christiana Bridge, was the only male descend- ant now residing in the State. He is seventh

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STATE OF DELAWARE

in descent from Augustine Herman. This is one of the few families that can be traced by their descent without a break in the line. It runs thus:

Gasparus Herman left issue, a son named Ephraim Augustine Hlerman, who left a daughter Catharine, who married Peter Bou- chell, a descendant on one side from Hendrick Sluyfer, one of the founders of the Labadists. A man named Joseph Enser or Inser married Mary, their daughter. They had one son, who was killed while celebrating his twenty- first birthday. He had given an entertain- ment to some young men, and while they were racing their horses for amusement he was thrown and killed.

Col. Edward Oldham, one of the Maryland line of the Revolution, grandfather of J. R. Oldham, married Mary, daughter of Joseph and Mary ( Bouchell) Enser. There are sey- eral, both in Delaware and Maryland descend- ed in the female line from Colonel Oldham and Mary Enser. In 1679 the Labadists visi- ted Augustine IIerman. They found him sick and his family broken up by a termagant wife, who had driven his children away. They say:

"He showed us every kindness he could in his condition, as he was very miserable, both in soul and body. His plantation was going much to decay, as well as his body, from want of attention. There was not a Christian man, as they term it, to serve him-nobody but ne- groes. All this was increased by a miserable, doubly miserable wife; but so miserable that I will not relate here. All his children have been compelled on her account to leave their father's house. He spoke to us of his land, and said he would never sell or hire it to English- men, but would sell it to us cheap if we were inclined to buy."

At a second visit they described his wife as the most artful and despicable creature that can be found, They also called Herman "a godless person." We must, however, receive with great allowance the account of the Laba- dists, who took peculiar views of life.

Augustine Herman died a short time after this, and was buried on the Manor. His death must have occurred about the last of Decem- ber, 1669, as on the 14th of December, after they left him, while visiting his son Ephraim, they were informed that he was very sick and at the point of death, and that his daughter

Margaret had gone there to attend upon him in that condition.

The Bayards, who afterwards came into that portion of the Manor on which was situated the grave of Herman, took the tombstone for a door for their family vault. The inscription on it is as follows: "Augustine Herman, Bo- hemian, the first founder and seater of Bo- hemia Manor, Anno 1669." In this vault lie buried the remains of Richard Bassett, a for- mer governor of Delaware, a member of the convention that framed the Constitution of the United States, and the father-in-law of the first James A. Bayard.

A curious incident is related of Herman, but no documentary evidence of its truthful- ness is known to exist, although Ledmun in his "Rise of Methodism in America," refers to it. Rev. George Foot, who died at Odessa in 1868, mentions it also in a little book which he published in 1842.

Ledmun thus speaks of the affair: "It is said that the Dutch had him a prisoner of war at one time, under sentence of death, in New York. A short time before he was to be exe- cuted, he feigned himself to be deranged in mind, and requested that his horse should be brought to him in the prison. The horse was brought, finely caparisoned. Herman mount- ed him, and seemed to be performing military exercise, when on the first opportunity he bolted through one of the large windows that was some fifteen feet above ground, leaped down, swam the North River, ran his horse through New Jersey, and alighted on the bank of the Delaware opposite New Castle, and thus made his escape from death and the Dutch! This daring feat, tradition says, he had trans- ferred to canvas-himself represented as standing by the side of his charger, from whose nostrils the blood was flowing. It is said that a copy of this painting still exists. He never suffered this horse to be used afterwards, and when he died had him buried, and honored his grave with a tombstone."

Vincent, in his "History of Delaware," pub- lished in 1870 (p. 469), says that he once saw the painting. It was then in the possession of James R. Oldham, and was as represented by Ledmun.

The old mansion house of Herman was oc- cupied by Governor Bassett and soon after his death in September, 1815, it was burned

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BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA

down. Ledmun further says: "Many okdl val- uable paintings were consumed with this house. One of its large halls was lined with them. Many of them had belonged to Augus- tine Herman, the founder of Bohemia Manor. His likeness and that of his lady per- ished; also the painting representing the flight from the Dutch in New York by means of his famous war charger. * * * Herman was the great man of the region; he had his deer park; he rode in his coach, driven by liveried ser- vants."

Margaret, the daughter of Herman, is the first Delaware young lady of whom history records a description. The Labadists met her just before she left her brother Ephraim's to attend the death bed of her father. They said: "She showed us much kindness. She was a little volatile, but of sweet and good disposition." Again speaking of her they said: "She possesses a good disposition, al- though a little wild, according to the nature of the country. She complained that she was like a wild and desolate vine trained up in a wild and desolate country; that she had always felt an inclination to know more of God quietly, and to serve him. She treated us with great affection, and received thankfully and acceptably what we said to her."

The Cochrans, now so numerous and influ- ential. it is alleged, are descended from Derick Kolehman, now changed to Cochran, who was one of those concerned in founding the Laba- dist colony.

The Alrichs, one of whom (Lucas Alrichs, of New Castle Hundred) holds the land on which he lives from his first ancestor, have from the time of the first governor of that name (1657) been numerous and influential. Their blood flows in the veins of large num- hers of the most respectable citizens of Dela- ware and other States; for like most old Dela- ware families, their descendants are scattered over most of the states of the Union.

Of the Delaware Knickerbocker families none, it is believed, have so complete a claim of descent as the offspring of the celebrated Gouvert Loockermans, the sturdy leader of the citizens of New Amsterdam, and colleague of Augustine Herman. From him the Lock- ermans of Dover are descended. One of his descendants still occupies the family mansion at Dover, which was built in 1742, by Nich- clas Loockermans. The line of descent, show-

ing the number of generations, link by link, that has existed in the State since its first set- tlement, is given briefly as follows:

Gouvert Loockermans, the progenitor of the Lovekermans, came from Holland to New Amsterdam with Wouter Van Twiller, the Di- rector-General or Governor of New Nether- lands, in the caravel St. Martin or Hope, com- manded by Juriaen Blanck, in the month of April, 1633, in the service of the West India Company. At the time of his arrival he was aged about seventeen years. Ile married Maria Jansen, daughter of Roelf Jansen and his wife Annetje or Annecke Jans, who after the death of her husband, married the Rev. Everhardus Bogardus, and was by that mar- riage brother-in-law of Oloff Stevenson Van Courtlandt, whose son founded the Van Court- landt Manor in the State of New York; also of Jacob Van Couwenhoven, sometimes writ- ten Covenhoven. Ife filled some of the high- est civil and military offices in New Amster- dam. He was dispatched by Stuyvesant with Jan Davitz in May, 1664, across the Green Mountains to arrange peace with the Mohawk Indians. At Warrington he concluded a treaty with them. About the same period he commanded a small armed vessel. He drove the English from a fort they had erected up the Hudson River; also at the head of an armed force he surprised and utterly extir- pated a tribe of hostile Indians on Staten Is- land, who had greatly annoyed and injured the settlers in New Amsterdam. It is said that the memory of this indiscriminate slaughter of this tribe of Indians, although approved by the popular sentiment of his day, occasioned him much disquietude of consci- ence, after his retirement from active life, in his last hours. He was dispatched at one period of his life, at the head of an armed force, to expel the Swedes and English, who had encroached on territory claimed by the Dutch on the Delaware River near the pres- ent city of Philadelphia.

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Biographical and genealogical history of the state of Delaware, Vol. I, Part 14

Author: Runk, J.M. & Co Publication date: 1899 Publisher: Chambersburg, Pa. Number of Pages: 1482

Author: Runk, J.M. & Co
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chambersburg, Pa.
Number of Pages: 1482