USA > New York > Records of the Reformed Dutch Church in New Amsterdam and New York : marriages from 11 December, 1639, to 26 August, 1801 > Part 1
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Gc 974.7 N424n v.] 1601140
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02199 4048
Gc 974.7 N424n v. 1 Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Records of the Reformed Dutch Church in New
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
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Marriages in the Dutch Church, Uten Porf
OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES OF THE SOCIETY
FOR ISgo.
PRESIDENT GENL. JAS. GRANT WILSON,
FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT
DR. ELLSWORTH ELIOT,
SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT
DR. SAMUEL S. PURPLE,
RECORDING SECRETARY
MR. THOMAS G. EVANS,
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
REV. ROSWELL R. HOES,
TREASURER .
DR. GEORGE H. BUTLER,
LIBRARIAN
MR. GERRIT H. VAN WAGENEN,
REGISTER OF PEDIGREES
REV. ARTHUR W. H. EATON.
Executive Committee.
DR. ELLSWORTH ELIOT, MR. EDWARD TRENCHARD,
MR. GERRIT H. VAN WAGENES, MR. WILLIAM P. KETCHAM.
Trustees.
GENL. JAMES GRANT WILSON, MR. HENRY T. DROWNE,
MR. WILLIAM P. ROBINSON, MR. THOMAS C. CORNELL,
DR. SAMUEL S. PURPLE, MR. CHARLES B. MOORE, MR. EDMUND A. HURRY,
MR. JACOB WENDELL,
MR. SAMUEL BURHANS, Jr.
Committee on Biographical Bibliography.
MR. CHARLES B. MOORE, MR. THEOPHYLACT B. BLEEKER, MR. HENRY T. DROWNE,
Committee on Publication.
REV. BEVERLEY R. BETTS, DR. SAMUEL S. PURPLE,
MR. EDWARD F. DE LANCEY, MR. THOMAS G. EVANS, MR. WILLIAM P. ROBINSON.
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COLLECTIONS
OF THE NEW-YORK GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
VOL. Į .
MARRIAGES FROM 1639 TO 1801 IN THE
Beformes Dutch Church, Ces Port
INC. 18 69
CEDADS
ET PAPRISUS
XXPRICAL
p
ET
h201005
NEW YORK PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 1890
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
E 6.8 62
new york Percaloni bographical Soc.
Lento
V.I.
RECORDS )
OF THE
REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH
IN NEW AMSTERDAM AND NEW YORK
MARRIAGES
FROM 11 DECEMBER, 1639, TO :6 AUGUST, 1801
EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY SAMUEL S. PURPLE, M D.
Opis Bistrotions
NEW YORK PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY
1800
1601140
THEY THROW A FLOOD OF LIGHT UPON THE GENEALOGICAI AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF NEW AMSTERDAM AND NEW YORK.
Edition 100 Copies -- all for Subscribers. No 50.
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TO THE MEMORY OF
Ctr. Stephen Whitney Olenic
WHO GENEROUSLY PAID FOR THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE MARRIAGE AND BAPTISMAL RECORDS OF THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY Dedicated
BY THE NEW-YORK GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
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List of Ministers of the Reformed Dutch Church in New Amsterdam and New York from 1623 to ISoI. With the dates of their birth, death, and time of service.
JONAS MICHAËLIUS, b. 1577, d. Served from 1628 to 1633 ? EVERARDUS BOGARDUS, b. , d. 1647. Served from 1633 to 1647. JOHANNES BACKERUS, b. Served from 1647 to 1649. JOANNES MEGAPOLENSIS, b. 1603, d. 1670. Served from 1649 to 16;0. SAMUEL DRISIUS, b. 1602, d. 1673. Served from 1652 to 3673. SAMUEL MEGAPOLENSIS. b. 1634, d. Served from 1664 to 1663. WILHELMUS VAN NIEUWENHUYSEN, b. 16.45, d. 1681. Served from 1671 to 1681. HENRICUS SELYNS, b. 1636, d. 1701. Served from 1682 to 1701. GUALTERÜS DU BOIS, b. 1666, d. 1751. Served from 1699 10 1751. HENRICUS BOEL, b. 168g, d. 1754. Served from 1713 to 1754. JOANNES RITZEMA, b. 1708, d. 1794. Served from 1744 to 1784. LAMBERTUS DE RONDE, b. 1720, d. 1795. Served from 175! LO 1784. ARCHIBALD LAIDLIE, b. 1727, d. 1779. Served from 1764 -to 1779. JOHN H. LIVINGSTON, b. 1746, d. 1825. Served from 1770 to ISIo. WILLIAM LINN, b. 1752, d. 1808. Served from 1785 to 1805. GERARDUS A. KUYPERS, b. 1766, d. 1833. Served from 1788 to 1833. JOHN N. ABEEL, b. 1769, d. 1812.
Served from 1795 to 1812.
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INTRODUCTION.
"THE purpose of this Introduction is to present in an accurate and succinct form, the initiative of the discovery and settlement, and the introduction of religious and civilized customs and laws into New Nether- land and New York -- particularly in their bearings upon the status of the marriage question anterior to and during a part of the period covered by these Records. In doing so it will be easily perceived that the task imposed is beset with doubts which learned historians, eminent clergy, and erudite counselors in law have but partially dispelled. Has the want of recorded facts caused this difficulty ? or have the customs and laws been but dimly outlined in history ?
DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT.
THE discovery by HENDRICK HUDSON, the commander of the ship Half Moon, in September, 1609, of the river which now bears his name, was followed by fourteen years filled with adventurous enterprise and frequent visits to the isle of the Manhattans; and although trading posts had been established, and at least one ship's ciew had spent a winter (1613-14) On its shores (during which JEAN VIGNE, or VINGE, the first male child of Europeans in New Netherland, was born)," no attempt at colonization had proved successful till 1623, when the charter of the West India Company went fully into effect. It is true this charter was finally signed on the third of June, 1621, but it did not go fully into effect till the twenty-first of June, 1623, when a mutual agreement was entered into between the Managers and Principal Adventurers of the Company, with the approbation of the High and Mighty Lords States General of Holland .? The completion of this agreement was immediately followed by the most active and energetic efforts to a permanent agricultural settlement and colonization in what was first called New Netherland in 1614. There had, however, in March, 1623, under the quasi authority of the West India Company, sailed from the Texel the ship New Netherland with. CORNELIUS JACOBSEN MAY on board as Super- intendent of the expedition, who became subsequently Director General of the Colony, and thirty Walloon families. MAY had visited New Netherland in
Journal of a Voyage to New York. ... 16;9-80. By Jaspar Dankers and Peter Sluyter. Translated by Henry C. Mur- phy. Brooklyn : 1867, 7. 114; and History of the Huguenot Emigration to America.
By Charles W. Baird, D. D. New York : [1885], Vol. i., p. 176.
2History of New Netherland. . . . By E. B. O'Callaghan. New York: 1846, PP. 99-408.
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1614 and 1620.' This vessel arrived at the Isle of Manhates early in May, and was followed by the ship Unity (Eendragt ?), commanded by ADRIEN JORIS. This is said to have been the first vessel sent out by the West India Company after its complete organization .? It contained several families, and during the voyage there were four couples married. By whom were these couples married ? If by the commander, ADRIEN JORIS, was the act by vir- tue of his office as Director General,3 or as a Civil Magistrate on the high seas? The charter of the West India Company invested its possessors with extraordinary powers. They could in the name of the States Generai make contracts with princes and natives of the countries comprehended within the limits of its charter, build forts, appoint and discharge governors, soldiers, and public officers; administer justice, and promote trade. The Director General and his Council were invested with all powers judicial, legislative, and executive - subject, some supposed, to appeal to Holland. The will of the Company expressed in their instructions, or declared in their marine or military ordinances, was to be the law in New Netherland, except- ing in cases not especially provided for, when the Roman Law, the Imperial Statutes of Charles V., the edict, resolutions, and customs of the Father- land, were to be received as the paramount rule of action.4 Of the thirty or more families who came out in these vessels many were Walloons from the south of France, domiciled there by reason of past persecution. Of the Reformed Protestant religious belief, frugal in their habits, many were tradesmen, and possessed of that fortitude and daring which the age and circumstances required to lay a successful foundation for the future metropolis of the New World. What were their names? The student of history will find, in searching these Marriage and Baptismal Records, little difficulty in giving a satisfactory answer, in many instances, to this inquiry. The leading facts of their adventure has been told by one who was a participator of their trials and privations, who in 1680 was then seventy- four years old, and whose posterity then numbered one hundred and forty- five souls.5 CATELYNA TRICO, the wife of JORIS JANSEN DE RAPPALJE, states that " as soon as they came to Mannatans, now called N: York, they sent Two families and six men to hartford River, & Two families & 3 men to Delaware River [four miles below the present city of Philadelphia] and 8 men they left att N: Yorke to take Possession, and ye Rest of ye Passen- gers went wth ye Ship up as far as Albany which they then Called fort Orangie When as y Ship came as farr as Sopus which is 1/2 way to Albanie; they lightened ye Ship wth some boats yt left there by ye Dutch that had
History of the State of New York. By John Romeyn Brodhead. New York: 1853, Vol. i., pp. 55-96 and 15c.
2 The Documentary History of the State of New York. Vol. i. ; quarto edition; P. 32.
3 The Register of New Netherland. By E. B. O'Callaghan. Albany : 1865, p. 9. 4 History of New Netherland. By E. B. O'Callaghan, Vol. i., pp. 401-407.
5 Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society. Brooklyn: 1867, Vol. i., p. 342.
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been there ye year before a tradeing wth y; Indians upout there oune accompts & gone back again to Holland & so brought ye vessel up; there were about 18 families aboard who settled themselves att Albany & made a small fort ; and as soon as they had built themselves some hutts of. Bark: ye Mahikanders or River Indians ; ye Maquase : Oneydes : Onnon- dages Cayougas and Sinnekes, wth ye Mahawawa or Ottawawaes Indians came & made covenants of friendship wth ye st Arien Jorise there com- mander. Bringing him great Presents of Bever of oy Peltry and desyred that they might come and have a Constant fice Trade with them woh was concluded upon & ye sd nations came dayly with great multidus of Bever & traded them wth ye Christians, there sd Comman" Arien Jorise Staid with them all winter and sent his sonne home with ye Ship; y" sd Deponent lived in Albany there three years all of which time y' sd Indians were all as quiet as Lambs & came & Traded with all ye freedom Imaginable, in ye year 1626 ye Deponent came from Albany & settled at N. Vorke where she lived afterwards for many years and then came to Long Island where she now lives."" The history of this ancient and remarkable woman, together with that of her husband, JORIS JANSEN RAPPALJE. and their family has been briefly traced by the aid of an original family record, and the Records of the Dutch Church in New York, by one whose labors in the field of family history are worthy of the warmest admiration .?
In December, 1624, which was after the formal installation of CORNELIUS JACOBSEN MAY as Director General, ADRIEN JORIS returned to Holland and reported " all was in good condition" in New Netherland. He brought back a valuable cargo of furs, which yielded, on public sale, to the West India Company twenty-eight thousand guilders. This stimulated the confidence of the Company in their adventures, and led to renewed efforts towards developing the capacity of the country for cultivation and produc- tion, and in the spring of 1625, one of the members of its Board of Directors, PETER EVERTSEN HULST, undertook to convey to the Colony, at his own risk, such necessary articles as should be offered for the purpose. Two ships were provided, and loaded with cargoes consisting of one hundred and three head of cattle, of which there were horses, cows, sheep, and swine, all well provided for on shipboard -- almost as well as on shore. He added a third ship to the expedition, laden with all sorts of seed, ploughs, and agricultural implements, to carry out more effectively the designs contemplated in the enterprise. The Company also fitted up a vessel on their own account, which carried out six families with their house- hold furniture, and also several unmarried people, so that forty-five new- comers were added to the Colony. The expedition was successful, the
I Documentary History of the State of New Yore. By E. B. O'Callaghan, M. D. Albany : 1850. Quarto edit .; Vol. iii., P. 32.
" The Bergen Family: or The Descend- ants of Ilans Hansen Bergen, one of the Early Settlers of New York and Brooklyn, L. I. By Teunis G. Bergen. Albany : 1876, p.24.
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vessels all arriving safely before July. The Colony had now increased to two hundred souls.1
On the ninth of January, 1626, the Sea Mew, Captain ADRIEN JORIS, con- mander, sailed from Holland with PETER MINUIT on board, one of the , deacons of the Walloon Church of Wesel, in Westphalia, He had been appointed Director General by the Company, to succeed WILLIAM VER HULST. This vessel arrived at Manhates, on the fourth of May. The ship Arms of Amsterdam, in a few weeks followed the Seo Mew, and arrived at the Manhates on the twenty-seventh of July. On the twenty- third of September following, she sailed down the bay of the River Mauritius on her return to Amsterdam, in Holland, where she arrived on the fourth of November, 1626, laden with the samples of the summer harvest, consist- ing of wheat, rye, barley, cats, buckwheat, canary-seed, beans, flax, and also bcaver skins and furs, valued at more than thirty-eight thousand guilders. She conveyed the news of the purchase of Manhattan Island from the natives, soon after the 27th of July, 1626, with goods of the valve of sixty guilders (or twenty-four dollars of our currency), and that the Colony was in a prosperous state, and the soil was fruitful, and wives of the settlers had borne some children .? Who were these mothers ? and what were the names of some of the children ? Here again, in these Records of the Dutch Church may be found the answer.
CHURCH ORGANIZED.
DURING the summer of 1626, the carpenter of the colony, FRANÇOIS MOLEMAECKER ( Francis the mill-maker) was employed in building a horse- mill, with a spacious room above to serve for a place of worship; and a tower was to be added in which the Spanish bells captured at Porto Rico the year before, by the West India Company's fleet, were intended to be hung .? Here for two years either SEBASTIAN JANSEN KROL (CROL) or JAN HUYGHEN, " Krank-besoeckers," " Zieken-troosters," or Consolers of the Sick, according to the custom of the Fatherland read on Sundays to the congre- gation assembled " some text out of the Scriptures together with the Creads." Until a somewhat recent period, this custom was kept up in the Reformed Dutch churches in this city. Here in April, 1628, Dom. JONAS MICHAËLIUS organized the first church. He and his wife and three chil- dren (two of them daughters) sailed from Holland on the twenty-fourth of January, and arrived at Manhattan on the seventh of April, 1628. His
I Wassenaer, in Documentary History of New York. Vol. iii, p. 27.
2 Documents Relative to the Colonial His- tory of the State of New York. By John. Romeyn Brodhead. Vol. i, Albany, 1856,
P. 37; and Collections of the N. Y. Historical Society. Vol. ii, New Series, 1849, p. 363. 3 Wassenaer, in Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. iii, p. 27.
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wife died seven weeks after his arrival. Writing under date of the eleventh of August, 1628, he says :
"We have first established the form of a church (gemeente); and as Brother BASTIAIN CROL very seldom comes down from Fort Orange, be- cause the directorship of that fort and the trade there is committed to him. it has been thought best to choose two, Elders for my assistance and for the proper consideration of all such ecclesiastical matters as might occur, in- tending the coming year, if the Lord permit. to let one of them retire, and to choose another in his place from a double number first lawfully presented by the congregation. One of those whom we have now chosen is the Honorable Director himself [PETER MINUIT], and the other is the store- keeper of the Company, JAN HUYGHEN, his brother-in-law, persons of very good character, as far as I have been able to learn ; having both been formerly in office in the church, the one as Deacon and the other as Elder, in the Dutch and French churches, respectively. at Wesel.
We have had at the first administration of the Lord's Supper full fifty communicants - not without great joy and comfort for so many -- Walloons and Dutch; of whom, a portion made their first confession of the faith before us, and others exhibited their church certificates. Others had for- gotten to bring their certificates with them, not thinking that a church would be formed and established here; and some, who brought them, had lost them unfortunately in a general conflagration, but they were admitted upon the satisfactory testimony of others to whom they were known and also upon their daily good deportment, since we cannot observe strictly all the usual formalities in making a beginning under such circumstances.
We administer the Holy Sacrament of the Lord once in four months, provisionally until a larger number of people shall otherwise require. The Walloous and French have no service on Sundays, otherwise than in the Dutch language, of which they understand very little. A portion of the Walloons are going back to the fatherland, either because their years here are expired or also because some are not very serviceable to the Company. Some of them live far away and could not come on acccount of the heavy rains and storms, so that it was neither advisable nor was it possible to appoint any special service for so small a number with so much uncertainty. Nevertheless the Lord's Supper was administered to them in the French language, and according to the French mode, with a preceding discourse, which I have before me in writing, as I could not trust myself extempo- raneously.
I keep myself as far as practicable within the pale of my calling, wherein I find myself sufficiently occupied. And although our small consistory em- braces at the most -- when Brother CROL is down here- not more than four persons, all of whom, myself alone excepted, have also public business to attend to, I still hope to separate carefully the ecclesiastical from the civil matters which occur, so that each one will be occupied with his own sub- ject. And though many things are mixti generis, and political and ecclesi- astical persons can greatly assist each other, nevertheless the matters and offices tending together must not be mixed but kept separate, in order to prevent all confusion and disorder." I
1 The First Minister of the Dutch Re- Henry C. Murphy.] The Hague [ 1858], pp. II to 14.
formed Church in the United States [ By Hon.
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On the nineteenth of August, 1628, two ships sailed from Manhattan for Holland, one the Three Kings, commanded by Captain JAN JACOPSON, and the other the Arms of Amsterdam, commanded by Captain ADRIEN JORIS, the first Director General in 1623. These ships were laden with valuable car- goes of ship timber, furs, and other products of the country, the aggregate value of which to the Wes: India Company, according to Wassenaer, ex- ceeded sixty-one thousand guilders. They conveyed the intelligence that the Colony at Fort Amsterdam had been increased, by reason of hostilities among the Indians, by the removal of the families of the settlers who had been residing at Fort Orange, South River, Verhulsten Island, and Fort Nassau, and that " their Colony at Manhattan now numbered two hundred and seventy souls, including men, women, and children." Many of these were Walloon families -- the names of some of whom we find upon these Records, among which are DEFOOREST, DE LA MONTAGNE, DE TROU, or TRUEX, DU FOUR, LA NOY, LESQUIR, RAPPALJE, VINJE, etc., etc. It was also reported that the colonists subsisted chiefly by their farming. "Their winter corn had turned out very well; while the summer grain, being pre- maturely ripened by the excessive heats, was very meagre. But the cattle and beasts which had been sent from Holland three years before, had thriven, and everything wore an air of progress and improvement.": The fort which was commenced in 1626, under the supervision of KRIN FRED -. ERYCKE was completed with four bastions and a facing of stone, and the settlers were comfortably domiciled in their huts and houses, built mostly of wood and situated outside of the walls of the fort.
We have now reached a period when it can be said that the settlement and colonization of New Netherland at Fort Amsterdam had become per- manently fixed. Let us now turn to the history of some of the customs and laws that governed its inhabitants.
MARRIAGE.
AND here on the threshold of our inquiries we are met with doubts arising from want of written contemporaneous ordinances or recorded customs in our colonial annals. To determine what were the essential requisites of marriage, and who performed the ceremony, from 1623 to 1639, at which latter date the earliest form is recorded, we must refer briefly to collateral history. In January, 1654, the Director General, and the Council which was instituted in 1626, by MINUIT under the authority of the West India Company, called the attention of the magistrates of Gravesend, Long Island, by letter,? to irregularities in the customs of marriage which were I Brodhead's History of the State of New 2 Documents Relative to the Colonial York. Vol. i. p. 183. History of New York. Albany : 1883. Vol. xiv, p. 243.
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" in direct contradiction to both the Civil and Ecclesiastical Low of the United Netherlands, and also all other colonies within this Province," and to the fact that the following ordinance had been enacted :
ORDINANCE OF . THE DIRECTOR AND COUNCIL OF NEW NETHERLAND REGULATING THE PUBLICATION OF BANS OF MATRIMONY. Passed 19 January, 1654.
The Director General and Council of New Netherland,
To all who hear or see these presents read, Greeting make known,
That we understand and are certainly informed by the report of our Fiscal and others as well as by letters from Gravesend. dated 18 January, 1654. that the Magistrates there have presumed and undertaken publickly to post notices of Marriage in regard to persons both of whom are, and for a long time have been domiciliated in and about this city of New Amster- dam, far beyond the district of the aforesaid village, and whereas such is in direct contradiction to both the Civil and Ecclesiastical Law of the United Netherlands, which, not only the abovementioned Magistrates of Graves- end, but also all other Colonies within this Province, are by contract and oath bound to observe; Therefore, the abovementioned Director General and Council order and notify the aforesaid Magistrates of Gravesend and all others within the Province, to annul such posting of intentions of Mar- riage, and on sight bereof to withdraw the same, and in all cases to proceed with and confirm no such Marriages, either privately or publickly, before and until such persons, according to Netherland style, have entered and received their bans and proclamations of marriage where they are dwelling and have resided the last years.
Thus done in the Assembly of the Director and Council of New Nether- land, this 19 January, Aº 1654, New Amsterdam."
The irregularity here complained of was that of the publication of bans in the village of Gravesend, L. I., when the parties contracting were domi- ciled in New Amsterdam. The Custom and Law of the United Nether- lands or Fatherland were, according to the eminent Dutch historian, VAN LEUWEN, " that the persons who may contract a marriage must be young men above the age of fourteen years, and young women above the age of twelve years, and who are not insane, or imbecile, or idiotic." Accordingly . after 1496, it was provided that no marriage should be held to have been completed until after three publications of bans in the churches or before the Court Justice, according to the rule and order prescribed on the subject by the Political Ordinances.2 Comment on Grotius, Introduction, 1. 5: " The essential requisites of a marriage with us are as follows: All persons who desire to marry must appear before the Court of Justice, or minister of
1 Laws and Ordinances of New Nether- land, 1639-1574, Collected and Translated from the Original Dutch Records. By E. B. O'Callaghan. Albany : 1868. P. 152.
: Commentaries on Roman Dutch Law. Translated from the Dutch [edition 1578]. Revised and edited by C. W. Decker. Svo, 2 volumes. London : 1881. Vol. i, p. 100.
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the church of their place of abode, where they have had their last fixed residence for a year and a day, and there request the publication of bans on three Sundays or market days, in the church. or court house, or other place where the court is held, so that those who wish to raise any objections may do so in the mean time on pain of forfeiting their right to object." Vide Ord. Van Huwelk's Zaken of the town of Amsterdam, Art. I.': Banns of marriage were not granted to young men under 25, and young women under 20, without proof of the voluntary consent of parents or the survivor of them is given.'
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