USA > New Jersey > Passaic County > Preakness and the Preakness Reformed Church : a history 1695-1902 : with genealogical notes, the records of the church and tombstone inscriptions > Part 6
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north of the church and west of the Upper Preakness school-house. And Garret, who married Ellen or Lena De Gray, was the father of the late Peter G., who was the father of the present Gilbert F., who lives on the homestead; Iddo, who lives in Paterson; and William S., who died young.
Edo Merselis, Sr., appears to have been in Preakness as early as 1759, (we do not know how much earlier), for on November 10, 1759, Robert Hunter Morris, of Monmouth County, sold him 69 34-100 acres of land somewhere in this neighborhood. Also not long after, Theunis Hennion and John Berdan sold him some, the latter March 22, 1769, about 210 acres. He was Freeholder for Bergen county from 1763 to 1784. He was also one of the Dep- uties to the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, from Bergen County, and attended the sessions of May, June, and August, 1775. As an Elder in the old Dutch Church at Totowa, he attended the General Meeting of Ministers and Elders of the Reformed Churches in 1783, at New Paltz, N. Y, and likewise in 1784, at New York. He was never an Elder in the Preakness Church because he died before the congregation was organized. But different ones of the Merselis family have served and are still serving in various official capacities in this Church. The portraits, in oil, of Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Merselis, Esq., can be seen at the house of Charles Haight, of Mountain View, Mrs. Haight being a descendant of theirs. Mindert Maybe bought the farm owned by Edo's son John, at present the Anderson farm, and afterwards his son-in-law, Gar- ret P. Haring, lived with him in another part of the house. Al- bert Voorhees, of Upper Preakness, who married Mary Schuyler, a granddaughter of Esquire Merselis, bought, around 1860, of his father-in-law, about sixty acres east of the homestead, and built on the spot where the present house known as the Meeks-Nelson- Meisterman-Von Wayhe-Hatt house stands, now occupied by William Gavin Scott and family, who came from Paterson in the spring of 1902. Mr. Meeks bought the place of Albert B. Voor- hees, and in the neighborhood of 1870, rebuilt the house as it still is in these days.
The Van Riper family is an old one in Preakness, first repre- sented by Richard, or Derrick, or Dirk, who married Elizabeth Mead May 23, 1762, and who about that time settled, and after- wards lived and died on what for generations was known as the old Van Riper place, in Upper Preakness, at present owned by George Roat. On this place, which lies in from the main road, about a
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mile to the right from the old Hamburgh Turnpike, at Mrs. An- drew H. Van Riper's, or about as far across the flats to the left, from the Andrew P. Hopper place, on Berdan avenue, (the road from \pper Preakness to Oakland, Bergen County), in olden times, shere used to be a grist mill, saw mill, cider mill, distillery, blacksmith shop, and slaves; - but for that matter there were slaves in those days, on nearly all the Preakness farms, so to speak. After the death of the late Andrew Van Riper, born April 15, 1809, a grandson of the original owner, and who, in his day, served as Deacon, and afterwards as Elder in this Church, the place went out of the possession of the family, and has since had several owners. It has been known in later years as the Briggs place, because A. T. Briggs, the father of the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D., of Union Theological Seminary, in New York City, once owned it, and, only a few years ago, after a long and tedious illness, died there. The late Elder Uriah J. Van Riper, father of Mrs. A. P. Hopper, and of her sister, Mrs. C. H. Post, of Lower Preakness, was a descendant by one son, Uriah, who settled on land, in these days, (1901), owned by the Andrew P. Hopper estate; and the late Andrew H. Van Riper, son of Andrew, (the Elder), was a descendant, and his widow, a daughter (Rachel) of Peter Perrine, is a descendant by another son, Richard, of this same first Richard. The A. P. Hop- per farm has been in possession of the Van Riper family, through Mrs. Hopper, ever since Uriah, son of the original Richard, settled on it. The house on the Hopper property is an old-fashioned, long, one and one-half story stone structure, with five lower rooms, (including a frame addition), along the front of it, and was often described by Mr. Hopper as a five-story house on the ground floor.
The late Esquire William Oakley Roat married a grand- daughter, (Margaret), of the first Richard Van Riper, who mar- ried Elizabeth Mead, and hence his descendants also belong to the family.
The genealogy of the Van Riper family, of Preakness, is in part as follows :
The first Derrick or Dirk Van Riper, or van Reypen, was born in Holland June 9, 1734, and died in Preakness April 24, 1807. He married Elizabeth Mead May 23, 1762, who was born May 26, 1739. They had children :
1. Uriah, b. March 26, 1763; d. June 10, 1840; m. February 12, 1786, Mary (Polly) Berdan.
lie
who was ses of.
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2. Jacob, b. January 2, 1765.
3. John, b. August 30, 1766.
4. Henry, b. December 28, 1767; d. October 5, 1792.
5. Garret (1), b. July 30, 1769 ; d. September 1, 1770.
6. Garret (2), b. Nov. 28, 1771; d. June 2, 1794.
7. Mary, b. July 14, 1775 ; married a man named Lydeker, and lived at Oakland. She died May 1, 1807.
8. Richard, b. March 4, 1777; m. Elizabeth Van Orden.
9. Margaret, b. March 7, 1779.
10. Elizabeth, b. April 10, 1782.
We are concerned particularly with only two of these children, Uriah and Richard.
1. The first Uriah Van Riper, sometimes written Uriah R .. eldest son and child of Richard the first, or Derrick, married Polly Berdan, (b. October 4, 1768, d. July 23, 1832), daughter of Jacob Berdan, (b. March 28, 1746), of Upper Preakness, and settled, as we have noted, on the farm occupied by the Andrew P. Hopper family, which originally was Berdan territory. They had children, Jacob B., and Elizabeth. Jacob B., (b. January 3, 1789), son of Uriah, married, December 8, 1810, Mary Van Riper, (b. December 11, 1789), of Belleville, N. J. His sister Elizabeth married Peter De Witt, son of the Rev. P. De Witt, of Ponds. Jacob B. and Mary Van Riper's children were :
(1) Uriah J., b. September 27, 1812; d. February 19, 1879; m. Anna Banta.
(2) Leah Ann, (1), b. June 16, 1816; d. September 7, 1821.
(3) Leah Ann, (2), b. March 25, 1831; m. November 19, 1846, Cornelius Kip.
(4) Mary Elizabeth, b. June 16, 1834; m. October 31, 1855, Nicholas Jarolomon.
Uriah J. Van Riper, son of Jacob B., and grandson of Uriah R., was the father of Mary Anna, Mrs. Andrew P. Hopper, and of Sarah Elizabeth, Mrs. C. H. Post, of Lower Preakness, who, for several years before her marriage, was our church organist. There were three older children, sons, who died young. Mr. Hopper was a native of Bergen County, and came from a family of sheriffs, his father and one brother having served in that county as sheriffs, and one brother has been sheriff also in Passaic County.
2. The first Derrick Van Riper's son, Derrick, or Richard, his eighth child and seventh son, and who died January 22, 1841, mar- ried (we do not know the date). Elizabeth Van Orden, who was
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born March 11, 1777, and who died October 30, 1828. They had children :
1. Richard, b. July 22, 1802 ; died young.
2. Martha, b. October 21, 1804; d. July 4, 1862.
3. Elizabeth, b. December 13, 1806 ; d. -.
4. Andrew, b. April 15, 1809; d. May 23, 1881.
5. Richard, b. October 21, 1810 ; died young.
6. A female child, b. February 7, 1812 ; d. February 16, 1812.
2. Jane, b. January 14, 1813; m. Moses Roat.
8. Margaret, b. July 7, 1817 ; d. April 27, 1871.
Martha Van Riper, the second of these children, June 25, 1831, married Peter Perrine, who was born March 20, 1801, and died November 12, 1870. They were the parents of Rachel, Mrs. Andrew H. Van Riper, of Preakness, and of Catharine, the first Mrs. Gerrit Planten, of Paterson. There were two other children, Elizabeth, the eldest, and Richard Van Riper Perrine, the young- est, who was a Lieutenant in the Union Army during the War of the Rebellion, and who died at Hilton Head, S. C., of typhoid fever. (See Tombstone Inscriptions.)
Elizabeth Van Riper, the third child, and second daughter of Richard the second, married Thomas Blake. We are not interested in them.
The fourth child, Andrew, we are interested in. He married March 28, 1832, Bridget Hennion, and in his day served first as Deacon, and then as Elder in this Church. His children were:
1. Richard, b. March 19, 1834; lives at Haledon.
2. Andrew H., b. December 25, 1835; d. September 17, 1882 ; m. January 20, 1857, Rachel Perrine, second daughter of his Aunt Martha.
3. Elizabeth Jane, b. November 25, 1837; m. May 18, 1861, Martin J. Myers, and lives in Pascack, N. J.
4. Sarah Matilda, b. September 9, 1839.
5. Martin Raymond, b. May 5, 1845; m. Margaret Andrus.
6. Thomas Henry, b. August 14, 1846 ; d. August 8, 1867.
7. John Henry, b. October 10, 1850; m. May 28, 1873, Emily Roome, of Pompton Plains, and was killed at Erie R. R. cross- ing on Straight street, in Paterson, May 23, 1893, leaving three children, Percy Roome, Arthur E., and Mortimer Leslie.
The children of Andrew H., son of Andrew Van Riper, are Martha Elizabeth, Peter Perrine, Garret Planten, Catharine Plan-
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ten, Richard Perrine, dec'd, Margaret Andrus, Annie Planten, and Bertha Jane.
Jane Van Riper, seventh child of the second Derrick, married December 3, 1834, Moses Roat. She died December 12, 1895. Moses Roat, by a former marriage, was the father of William Oak- ley Roat, Esqr.
Margaret Van Riper, eighth and last child of the second Derrick Van Riper, m. December 1, 1841, William Oakley Roat, afterwards for many years, until his death, Justice of the Peace, whose father therefore was also his brother-in-law. The children of this union were and are Richard, Andrew, Elizabeth, Henry, Nelson, Charity, Ira, Charles, and George.
When Samuel Van Saen bought of C. H. Doremus, in 1769, what is now the Aaron Laauwe farm, and other land, he appears to have come to Lower Preakness to live. Shortly after his settle- ment here he built a new house, identical with the old part of the house in which Mr. Laauwe at present (1902) lives, and on the very spot, as Mrs. Ann (Hopper) Jacobus, (d. January 28, 1902), has told us, where the house before it had stood; and this house at the time Washington was at the Dey House, in Revolutionary days, was the headquarters of Gen. M. de Lafayette,-a fact established not only by tradition,-Samuel Demarest, of Paterson, a grand- son and namesake of the said Samuel Van Saen, being our au- thority,-but because the initial letters "M. de L." are also scratched with a diamond, not by the General himself, since they are not in his handwriting, but by some one else, either at that time, or in 1825, on two of the window panes in the sashes of different windows in the old front room, sashes which were removed in 1900, to give place to new ones, although the old ones are laid away in the attic of the house for preservation. It is said that Lafay- ette twice occupied this house as the guest of Samuel Van Saen, probably to correspond to the times when Washington was at the Dey House ; and that in 1825, when he was again in this country, he visited the old scenes in Preakness, and was once more in his former headquarters. We have it from Mr. Nelson, however, that the General, in 1825, simply drove by on the public road, and did not alight from his carriage at this place. Mr. John Neafie, of New York, thinks that the initials on the window panes above referred to could not have been put there as early as 1780, since the sashes are not old enough style for that date, and whoever inscribed them must have done so not earlier than in 1825. But, we ask, could not the old panes have been put later in new sashes ?
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THE SAMUEL VAN SAEN HOUSE (LAFAYETTE'S HEADQUARTERS IN 1780), MODERNIZED.
This old one-story, or one-and-a-half-story house, built of or- dinary field stone, laid up in straw mortar, or clay and straw, and fronting south, since its erection, in 1770, has undergone many changes. Originally there was a low stone kitchen on the east end, when evidently the west room of the house, now used as a sitting room, was the best room. Some years ago this old east end kitchen was removed, and a new frame kitchen was put on the west end of the house; and the best room now is the east room. At some time beyond the recollection or knowledge of any one living, most likely early in the last century, or probably yet in the eighteenth century, this house was made considerably deeper, sev- eral feet being added on the back, the whole length of the main part of the building. The cellar or foundation walls and arched fire- places are massive. All the beams are of heavy timber. These in all the rooms until recently were left exposed ; but except in one room, which is left as it was, they are now all covered up, which was done by the present owner. Everything in this old structure has been put there to stay, so far as the ravages of time may affect them. The windows with heavy sashes, small panes and deep re-
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cesses and sills were left, until 1900, as they were. But now new sashes, with large panes, have replaced the others, and outside blinds have been added. In 1875, or earlier, the roof of this old house was raised and made very steep, with dormer windows, as you see in the picture. The double or half doors also have been made to give way in the front hall to a modern single door. There was, as we believe, no piazza in front until of late years.
Samuel Van Saen's daughter, Hannah, the second of the name, (the first having died early), married David D. Demarest, who, through his wife, succeeded his father-in-law, as resident and pro- prietor of the old place. David D. Demarest was the father of Samuel Demarest, of Paterson, and also of David Demarest, Jr .. who lived on the Albert Bensen, Jr., farm of this day (1902). Samuel Demarest, and his mother, (b. June 9, 1779), he says, were both born in this house. At one time, there were two mills, a saw mill and a grist mill, near the house on this farm.
The first Van Saen in this country, who spelled his name, Van Zauen, was Jacob. He came from Ransdorph, near Amsterdam, in Holland, we do not know just when. But, on August 18, 1678, in New York City, he married Jannetje Lucas, who was born in New York, and was baptized October 17, 1657. This couple had a son Jacob, baptized in New York, April 7, 1684, who, on August 25, 1705, at Hackensack, N. J., married Rachel Bougaert (Bogert). They had a son Isaac, baptized May 5, 1717, at Hackensack. Isaac married Maria, or Marytje Demarest, at Hackensack, September 20, 1739. These were the parents of the Preakness Samuel Van Saen.
Samuel Van Saen, or Van Saun, of Preakness, was born De- cember 25, 1743, and was baptized the next day, the 26th. On July 25, 1765, he married Leah Zabriskie, daughter of Albert Za- briskie, and Annetje Kip. Leah Zabriskie, the twin sister of Rachel Zabriskie, was baptized July 15, 1744. Her baptism and marriage occurred at Schraalenburgh. She died March 8, 1796. Her husband, Samuel Van Saun, died April 5, 1809.
The children of Samuel and Leah Van Saun were:
1. Isaac, b. August 16, bap. September 7, 1766, at Schraalen- burgh.
2. Albert, b. June 8, bap. 25th, 1769.
3. Maria, (Mary on tombstone), b. August 31, 1771, (the first of their children born in Preakness).
4. Annaetje, (Hannah), (1), b. August 15, bap. October 1,
HISTORY OF PREAKNESS
1775, at Totowa ; d. October 4, 1775, (inscription on tombstone in old Kip burying ground, A. N. V. S.).
5. John, b. September 1, bap. 22nd, 1776, at Totowa ; married and afterwards lived on Pompton Plains; died there September 28, 1831. Wife's name Rachel Van Gelder.
6. Annaetje, (Hannah), (2), b. June 9, bap. July 4, 1779, at Totowa. This was Samuel Demarest's mother, who married David D. Demarest.
7. Rachel, b. November 6, bap. November 12, 1786.
Isaac Van Saun, oldest son and child of Samuel Van Saun, June 23, 1792, married Catharine Merselis, born about 1770. Both father and son, at different periods, were Elders in the Preakness Church. Their remains lie in the old Kip burying ground, as it is called, in Lower Preakness, just south of where they lived and died. Isaac Van Saun, known as Major Van Saun, because he had been a major in the State Militia, was also the first man we can hear of, who served as sexton and chorister in this Church, these two positions in those days, and for years thereafter, going to- gether. He was likewise the last, and probably the first and only voorlaeser this Church ever had, a position which he filled, it is said, until his death. His children were:
1. Samuel, b. January 6, bap. February 3, 1793; d. February 2, 1843 ; m. Ellen Banta. Children.
2. Jenneke, b. September 23, bap. October 12, 1794; m. Chris- topher Van Riper. No children.
3. Leyeu, b. February 17, bap. March 12, 1797; d. November 17, 1832 ; m. Abram Van Winkle. Children.
4. Arreyeuntje, b. November 19, bap. December 16, 1798; m. Cornelius Van Wagoner. Four children.
5. Marea, b. February 11, bap. March 8, 1801; m. Henry Yer- eance. No children.
6. Edo, b. June 27, 1804; d. June 21, 1882; m. Hannah Blauvelt, b. July 31, 1810; d. January 7, 1848. Children, three daughters and one son :
(1) Rachel Ann, m. Ira Ryerson.
(2) Caroline, d. September 5, 1902 ; m. John Quackenbush.
(3) Maria Elizabeth, m. Jacob R. Berdan, of Lower Preak- ness.
(4) John Blauvelt, m. Adeline Jacobus, of Montville.
7. Ann, m. Garret Blauvelt, brother of Rev. C. J. Blauvelt, (b. 1813).
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8. John, b. 1807; d. March 24, 1833 ; m. Mary Ann Doremus, b September 1, 1806, d. September 20, 1898, daughter of John G. Doremus.
Mrs. Jacob R. Berdan (Maria Elizabeth Van Saun) is there- fore the granddaughter of Isaac, and the great-granddaughter of Samuel Van Saun, the first Van Saun who came to Preakness.
In 1808, Isaac Van Saun built the old stone house yet standing. on the lower part of the Preakness Race Course property. Back of this house, a little northeast of where the present horse barn is situ- ated, once stood a much older stone house, the ruins of which have almost entirely disappeared; but whose house it was, or who oc- cupied it, we have, up to our writing, no means of knowing. The house was almost positively located on the 600 acre tract, acquired in 1723, by George Du Remos and Cornelis Kip, the said Du Remos- being a younger brother of Johannes De Riemer. Isaac Van Saun may have lived for a little while in this house before he built the house that now stands on the property. Albert Van Saun, younger brother of Isaac, January 19, 1794, married Jane Van Houten. He left Preakness and removed to Totowa, where he died in 1837. Maria, a sister, was the first wife of Richard Neafie, of Two Bridges, who lived in the house at the Essex County end of the farther bridge, and was the great-grandmother of John Neafie, of New York, one of the authors of the Neafie Genealogy. She died Janu- ary 20, 1792. John married Rachel Van Gelder, and went to. Pompton Plains to live, where also he died. His son, Esquire Ewout Van Gelder Van Saun, died at Pompton Plains March 26, 1897, in his ninety-second year, and was a noted character. Han- nah, the second, as we have seen, married April 16, 1797, at Ac- quackanonk, D. D. Demarest, who afterwards lived on the Laauwe place, previously his father-in-law's, Samuel Van Saun's, residence. She died May 3, 1838. Peter Quackenbush, who married one of Mr. Demarest's daughters, also lived there later. He was the father of David Quackenbush, hardware merchant, recently deceased, of Paterson, and of Peter Quackenbush, of Quackenbush & Co., whose large department store is one of the attractions of our neighboring city. Rachel married Jeremiah Ryerson, whose names are the first we have on our membership roll, among those rendered to Rev. J. A. Staats, in 1843, there being no record of Church memberships to be found here at that time. Rachel died March 16, 1867.
In Revolutionary days, a fine, large, double, double-pitched or gambrel-roofed, stone house stood on, or about on, the site of the
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house on what has since been known as the John Campbell place, at present owned by the Cassidy Brothers. This property was then owned by a Mr. Haring, and Washington is said to have made it, in 1780, his headquarters for about three weeks ; also that a portion of the American army was encamped for a while east of the woods south of this house, on what is now the Garret Berdan, and perhaps the C. D. Bensen farms. On this ground, for many years, when being plowed, silver buttons, and buckles, and copper coins, of fit- ting dates, have frequently been picked up. West of the Campbell house is a large rock still called Washington's rock, from which he is reported to have addressed his soldiers. We cannot, however, reconcile all these statements with what is known of Washington's whereabouts. The probability is that while what is otherwise said inay be true, this house of Mr. Haring was not Washington's head- quarters, but only a house in which he was entertained more or less while stopping at the Dey House in Lower Preakness. The original entrance to this place was by a private road running due west to the house from the road to Lower Preakness; and there are those yet living, (1899), who remember a large swing gate at that entrance, a little below where the parsonage stands, and not far north of the house of Albert Bensen, Sr. The old house, after Mr. Haring's time, was altered and fixed over by a Mr. Dey, no doubt either General Richard Dey, or his son, Pierson, the latter of whom once lived there. After this, Peter A. Voorhees, whose wife was a half sister of the first Garret Berdan, and who gave to the Church half the parsonage lot, (Mr. Berdan giving the other half), owned the prop- erty a great many years, having bought it of the Deys April 5, 1812. After Mr. Voorhees, a Mr. Westervelt owned it. David Tomkins, of New York, who, with his family, when here, was a great help to Preakness Church, bought the farm of Westervelt, and came to Preakness to live May 9, 1848, remaining until 1862, when he went to Dover, N. J. On July 4, 1849, the year after Mr. Tomkins moved to Preakness, while the family were out for a drive, the old house and all that was in it, was burned. It was supposed that the premises were first robbed, and then set on fire, as no melted silver was found in the ruins, which should have been the case had the fire been a pure accident. The old house consisted of a main part, which was two storied, and had four large rooms and a wide, roomy hall on each floor, while a rather extensive kitch- en addition, also two storied, stood back of it. The stones of the
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old building, as far as needed, were used in the erection of the new or present structure.
John Van Winkle was one of those mentioned to whom Edo Marselis deeded the acre on which the Preakness Church stands. He was also probably the first treasurer this Church ever had, and if 'so, he must have been one of the original Consistory. He lived on the present (1902) David Bensen place, on the very spot where the Bensen house of to-day is, in an old gambrel roofed stone house, long since removed, somewhat like that now on the Preakness Race Course property. There are people yet living in Preakness who remember the old structure. John Van Winkle's wife was Margaret Elizabeth Ryerson. According to the Schanck MS., in the Historical Society's rooms, in Newark, she was the sixth child of Joris Ryerson and Mary Du Bois, and was born November 5, 1755. John, or Johannes, Van Winkle and his wife had two daughters and two sons that we know of. The oldest child was a daughter, Maria De Boos, (Du Bois), b. April 5, bap. May 9, 1793. The second child was a son, John George Ryerson, b. November 1, bap. December 6, 1795. The other two children were Martin and Elizabeth Jane. Martin was born October 4, 1797. Elizabeth Jane was probably the youngest of all. She died young, and is buried back of the Preakness Church, although no tombstone marks her resting place.
John Van Winkle died in Preakness, as nearly as we can tell, about 1830. His elder son, John George Ryerson, afterwards built and lived in the old one-story, or story-and-a-half stone house, on the Ira A. Mitchell place, toward Mountain View, the house that stood there before Warren Mitchell, Ira's father, added to it, and built it higher, which house, remodelled, was burned on Saturday, February 11, 1899.
Martin remained, after his father's death, on the homestead, and built the large stone part of the house that is still on the prop- erty. He died in that house, April 10, 1857. John G. R., in 1858, left these parts, and went to Kalamazoo, Mich., to live.
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