USA > New York > Ulster County > New Paltz > History of New Paltz, New York and its old families (from 1678 to 1820) : including the Huguenot pioneers and others who settled in New Paltz previous to the revolution > Part 4
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June 19, 1700. Andrew LeFevre and Samuel Bevier were received at the table of the Lord in the congregation of the Paltz, by Mr. Bonrepos, minister of the Word of God.
June 19, 1701. Louis Bevier (Jr.) married to Rachel Hasbrouck.
February 20, 1702. Christian Doyo and Mary Leconte were married in this town of Paltz.
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Daniel DuBois has paid 5 francs and 10 - too much. John LeFevre owes 3 francs: Henry Doyo has paid 22 francs and 15 - too much. Louis DuBois has paid 88 francs and 5 - too much. Hugh Frere 3 francs, 5 - too much. Joseph has paid 3 francs, 5 - too much. Abram Doyo has paid 5 francs, 15 - too much.
Recapitulation by translator of names of French Families, or Surnames of the record in their order :
DuBois, Rutamps (or Ruton), Frere, Daillie (Rev.), Vilt- fil, Chut (?), Bęvier, Quantin, Hasbroucq, Clarwater, Doyau, Leroy, Bonrepos (Rev.), Meckel, Petilon, LeFevre, Blancon (Blanjean), Leblance, Lationelle, Vilar, Guimar, Haye, Cot- tin, Reille, Titesorte, Leconte, Tebenin.
The record extends from 1683 to 1702. There is a single entry in Dutch, dated 1718.
There appears at least eight different handwritings in the record. Also the autographs of Abram Hasbrouck and Louis Bevier. The latest entry in the handwriting of Louis DuBois is dated March, 1686. The last notice of Rev. Mr. Daillie is April, 1692. The first of Rev. Mr. Bonrepos, May, 1696.
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CHAPTER IV
THE BLENDING OF FRENCH AND DUTCH AT NEW PALTZ
The question is occasionally raised as to when the first marriages took place between the French settlers at New Paltz and the Dutch.
There has been a wide-spread but very erroneous im- pression that matrimonial alliances between the Huguenots, who came to New Paltz, and the Dutch took place at a very early date and even before crossing the Atlantic.
A careful examination of the records shows that none of the Patentees and not many of their children intermarried with the Dutch. A considerable proportion of the children and grandchildren of the Patentees married people of French descent, not residing at New Paltz. Among these appear the names, Gumaer, LeConte, Blanshan, Vernooy, Mon- tanye, Le Roy, Cantine and Ferree.
Solomon DuBois, of Poughwoughtononk, son of Louis the Patentee, was the first New Paltz man to make the ex- periment of selecting a wife outside the Huguenot fold. In 1691 Solomon and his wife Tryntje Gerritsen, whose name bespeaks her Dutch origin, had a son, Isaac, presented for baptism.
The first young man of Dutch origin to marry a New Paltz woman and locate within the bounds of the Patent was Jacob Clearwater, whose residence was at Bontecoe. In 1699 he and his wife, Mary Deyo, had a son, Abraham, presented for baptism. But Jacob Clearwater did not leave descendants permanently residing at New Paltz.
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There were a few and only a few other marriages between the Dutch and those of the children of the Patentees who located at New Paltz, as follows: Abraham Deyo married Elsie Clearwater in 1702; Roelif Eltinge married Sarah DuBois in 1703; Jacob Freer married Altje Van Weyen in 1705; Joseph Hasbrouck married Ellsje Schoonmaker in 1706; Hendricus Deyo married Margaret Van Bummell in 1715; Solomon Hasbrouck married Sarah Van Wagenen in 1721. Other children of the Patentees, who settled out- side of New Paltz, intermarried with the Dutch to a greater extent.
In the third generation there were quite a number of in- termarriages with the Dutch, in certain families, but fewer, we think, than are generally supposed. In the LeFevre family, out of twenty-one grandchildren of Simon LeFevre, the Patentee, who grew to maturity and married, not one selected a partner of the Holland race. One married Col. Johannes Hardenbergh, Jr., who was of German origin, and one married Jacob Hoffman, who was of Swedish ancestry. All the rest united with people bearing French names.
Elias Ean, whose nationality is not known, was the first man, not the son of a Patentee, to settle at New Paltz and remain there permanently. He married Elizabeth, daugh- ter of Anthony Crispell, the Patentee, and located about four miles north of the village on a farm, that has come down in the family until the present day. Elias Ean's name ap- pears on the tax list of 1712, and when the first stone church was erected in 1718, just forty years after the settlement, Elias Un (in Dutch Ean) was the only person, beside the Patentees and their children, who assisted in the work.
The first man who was certainly of Dutch origin to locate here permanently was Roeliff Eltinge, who married Sarah,
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daughter of Abraham DuBois the Patentee in 1703. It was not, however, until about a score of years later that he moved from Kingston, where he held the office of justice of the peace, and located at New Paltz. His family was the first that was certainly of Dutch origin to take root at New Paltz and flourish here.
The Low family, which was of Dutch descent, had a num- ber of representatives at New Paltz for a long period, both before and after the Revolutionary war, but finally all died out or moved away.
Next to the Eltings, the Van Wagenens were the most prominent among the Dutch to settle and remain perma- nently at New Paltz. But the Van Wagenens did not come until a much later date than the Eltings, the name of Petrus Van Wagenen, the progenitor of the family at New Paltz, not appearing on the church book here until 1766.
Although the French and Dutch at New Paltz no doubt harmonized, yet the line of demarcation is plainly seen in the strife between the Cœtus and Conferentia parties, which for a time split the Dutch church in America into two hostile factions. The Conferentie party, which claimed that each dominie must be ordained by the home church in Hol- land, seceded from the New Paltz church and in 1766 erected a church building near Mr. W. H. D. Blake's present resi- dence, about two miles from our village. This church was called by the old people "the owl church," probably because the woods near by was a favorite haunt for owls. In the list of persons who built the Conferentie church appear the names of four Eltings, three Lows, Petrus Van Wagenen and Abraham Ean. The names of a small portion of the DuBois family, but no other names of French origin, appear in the list of those who built the Conferentie church.
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When the second stone church was built in our village in 1772, the Dutch element, which had seceded and built the Conferentie church, rendered no aid. About ten years afterwards peace came, and in 1783 the Conferentie church organization was, as stated in the church book, "in the fear of God, in love and mutual friendship united with the old congregation of the New Paltz."
Thenceforward there was peace and harmony in the church, and the New Paltz people who bore names of Hol- land origin have been certainly quite as faithful in support of the church as those bearing Huguenot names.
In the blending of races, which took place at New Paltz as well as elsewhere in New York, there were other ele- ments beside the French and the Dutch. The Brodheads were English; the Auchmoodys, Scotch; the Hardenberghs, German; the Ronks and Terpenings from Flanders; the Bruyns, Norwegian. The ancestors of the Wurts and Goetcheous families were Swiss. By the mixture of these various nationalities the people of New Paltz had become a composite race at the beginning of the last century.
In this mixture of races there was little infusion of Eng- lish blood until the Quaker settlement at Butterville, about 1810. The New Englanders swarmed into what is now Orange county, a portion coming by way of Long Island; but on the lower Wallkill they found the ground occupied and did not enter.
The Dutch language was not abandoned at New Paltz because of an influx of English-speaking people. Neither, may we say, had the French tongue been previously aban- doned because the Dutch element had come into the town in large numbers. No doubt the influence of church and school and of surrounding communities brought about a
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change in the language. The father of the writer has told him that he did not learn to speak English till he went to school. This was not an exceptional case. No doubt there were many in this community who knew no tongue but the Dutch until they went to that famous Irish schoolmaster, Gilbert Cuthbert Rice, who from about 1815 to about 1825. taught the young ideas how to shoot in different communi- ties in the vicinity of New Paltz. Quite probably the grand- parents of some of the children who thus learned to talk English had themselves known no tongue but the French until they went to school, and there from a Dutch-speaking schoolmaster and Dutch-speaking children learned to use that language.
A story that has come down to us from the old people re- lates that when the three brothers, sons of Isaac LeFevre,. were living in the three stone houses on the banks of the Wallkill at Bontecoe, a child sent from one of the houses. to another to borrow some article asked for it in Dutch and was indignantly told to go back home and learn to ask for it in French. This was about 1760, and the story shows. that even where the children were of pure French blood, as. was the case at that time with the Bontecoe LeFevres, they had somehow learned to speak in Dutch, but received a stern rebuke for using that tongue.
HISTORY OF NEW PALTZ
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List
CHAPTER V
COLLECTIONS OF OLD PAPERS
From time to time, since the matter of the local history ' of New Paltz has attracted attention, various collections of old papers and documents have been brought to light. Valuable collections of ancient documents are owned in the families of the late Messrs. Edmund Eltinge and Samuel B. Stilwell.
The largest and most valuable assortment of old papers was that in the possession of Mrs. Theodore Deyo. This contained not only papers relating to the Deyo family, but many others. It is stated that when the British burned Kingston, in the time of the Revolution, is was supposed that they would march up the Wallkill and burn New Paltz, likewise. It must be remembered that in colonial days the practice of having valuable papers recorded in the county clerk's office was not as general as it now is. In order to have their papers in a safe place, the New Paltz people brought them to the residence of Captain Abram Deyo, whose house is now owned and occupied by his great-great- grandson, Abm. Deyo Brodhead. Here they were placed in a large chest and buried in the cellar. After the fright was over, and the British had returned to New York, some of the papers were not reclaimed by their owners. The chest containing the papers was taken from the residence of Capt. Abm. Deyo to that of his brother, Philip Deyo, on the Paltz Plains, and remained there during his life time and that of his son, Andries, and also while Theodore Deyo, who was
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the son of Andries, kept the old homestead. When he moved it was taken to the new residence of the family, where it remained.
One of the most valuable collections of ancient documents is that which has come down in the family of Isaac DuBois, the Patentee. Among the papers are the following :
A quit claim from Mary, widow of Isaac DuBois, the Patentee, to her son, Daniel, for her interest in the real estate of her husband. This is dated 1718.
A release from Andre, Isaac and Jean, sons of Simon LeFevre the Patentee, to their sister Mary, wife of Daniel DuBois, for their share in certain lots of land lying in and near the village. This is dated 1713.
A will in French of Daniel DuBois, dated 1729. The handwriting is plain, and each letter distinct from beginning to end of the document. The first page is nearly taken up with a complete and extended declaration of faith in the Christian religion, which is in striking contrast with the plain businesslike form of the wills of the present day.
A paper which is in Dutch is dated 1741 and contains the signatures of Daniel DuBois, Isaac LeFevre, Simon Le- Fevre and Matthew LeFevre.
Another valuable paper is dated 1742 and is a bond given by Jean LeFevre to Garret Kateltas, when the former pur- chased of the latter the land in Kettleborough on which Jean's sons, Abraham and Andries, settled.
A large collection of ancient documents has come down in the Freer family, many of them dating back to the time of Hugo Freer, senior, son of Hugo the Patentee.
Some of the most ancient of these papers have been framed in glass and placed in the Memorial House; others have been placed in a small trunk, in which a portion of
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them had been previously kept. This little trunk is about six inches long and four inches wide. It bears the initials H. F. and has a blacksmith-made handle. There are among these ancient papers about thirty in the French language and a few in Dutch and English. A considerable portion are fully 200 years old. They include letters, wills, receipts, deeds and warrants.
One of the most valuable papers is a copy of a deed of gift in 1689 from the New Paltz people to their schoolmaster, Jean Cottin, of a house and lot. Among the other papers in the little trunk are the following :
A deed from Jean Cottin to Hugo Freer of a house and lot in this village, probably the property above mentioned, dated 1701.
Three receipts in the handwriting and containing the sig- nature of Louis DuBois the Patentee, each dated in 1695, the year before his death.
Two receipts in the handwriting and containing the sig- nature of Abraham DuBois the Patentee.
Two receipts in the handwriting and containing the sig- nature of Moses Cantain, the ancestor of the Cantine family.
A paper containing the signature of Peter du booys, who was a nephew of Louis DuBois the Patentee, and ancestor of the Dutchess county DuBoises.
A warrant, in English, in the handwriting and with the signature of Roelif Eltinge, ancestor of the New Paltz El- tings, who was at the time of writing, 1710, still residing in Kingston and was already a justice of the peace.
A paper in the handwriting and containing the signature of Solomon DuBois, son of Louis the Patentee.
The will of Hugo Freer the Patentee.
The will, in Dutch, of his son, Hugo, senior.
.
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A deed dated 1693 from Anthony Crispell the Patentee to Hugo Freer for a lot of land in this village, probably the first sale of real estate at New Paltz, the pay to be made partly in wheat and partly in flax seed.
Papers with the signatures of Rev. Pierre Daillie and Rev. David Bonrepos, the two French pastors at New Paltz.
Letters of friendship and business addressed to Hugo Freer from New York and Quebec.
Bills from merchants in New York, showing the high prices for goods in ordinary use and the very low price paid for country produce in those old days.
An order for grain to be delivered at the mill of Johannes DuBois at Greenkill, in the present town of Rosendale, dated in 1701, and showing that there was a mill there at that early date.
Deeds to Hugo Freer, senior, son of 'Hugo the Patentee, from his two sisters, who married and located at Schenec- tady, and from his brother Jean, who located at Kingston, , for their share of their father's estate.
A deed, in English, from Abraham Freer to his brother, Hugo, senior, for his two sittings in the first stone church.
Papers with the signatures of Louis Bevier the Patentee and Abraham Hasbrouck the Patentee.
A tax list of 1712, showing that at that time the Patentees and their children constituted almost the entire taxpaying population of the precinct. Four of the Patentees were still alive.
The oldest paper is dated 1677-the year of the Patent. It does not seem to be a paper of much importance.
Many of these documents are specially useful in deter- mining the original orthography of the names of the early settlers at New Paltz. This can not be determined from
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the church records, because the minister performing the ceremony evidently recorded each name as he thought it ought to be spelled, without asking the parent of the child baptised how he was accustomed to spell it.
Among the more modern papers in this collection are a mass of documents, including a will of Jonas Freer, a letter from Aaron Burr, a letter from Col. Abraham Hasbrouck, of Kingston, and other papers of interest to members of the Freer family.
Most of the papers have not been fully translated, but have been examined to a sufficient extent to give a clear idea of their contents.
THE PATENTEES' TRUNK
For about 100 years, commencing with 1728, the adminis- tration of affairs, in this town, regarding land titles, etc., was in the hands of a board of twelve men, elected annually, who represented the original twelve patentees. The trunk, con- taining records that remain, was for a great number of years at the Huguenot Bank, in this village. About 1850, at a pub- lic meeting, a committee was appointed to examine the old trunk and report what documents it contained. Some of the papers are in French and others in Dutch, but the majority are in English. These papers have since been placed in the safe in the town clerk's office. The most important papers in the Patentees' trunk were as follows :
Ist. A copy of the purchase of the patent, signed by the Indians on their part, and by Louis DuBois and the other patentees.
2d. The confirmation of the title to the patentees by Ed-
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mond Andross, Colonial Governor of New York, given Sep- tember 29, 1677.
3d. A document dated February 13, 1682, with reference to negotiation concerning the purchase of land to the south- ward as far as the "New Indian Fort." This was situated at Shawangunk.
4th. An agreement entered into April 21, 1728, by which the institution of the "Twelve Men" was established to fix the title to lands, previously divided, and to distribute the re- mainder by lot.
5th. Two contracts, one dated 1744 and the other 1774, en- tered into by the owners of the patent, binding themselves to pay all assessments by the "Twelve Men" for legal expenses in defending the claims of title of any of the owners.
6th. An Act of the Legislature confirming unto the owners, the partitions of land made by the "Twelve Men." This is dated in 1785 and is signed by Gen. George Clinton as Governor.
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CHAPTER VI
THE SPELLING OF VARIOUS FAMILY NAMES
The question is sometimes asked as to what is the original orthography of various family names of people in New Paltz and elsewhere in Ulster county. The question can not be answered from the church records, but in some cases can be decided from the original signatures of the Patentees. The earliest records in the Dutch church at Kingston and the Huguenot church at New Paltz show different ways of spelling the same name.
Turning to the translation of the French records of the New Paltz church in the very first entry, October 14, 1683, we find the baptism of two children of Pierre "Doyau." Their godmother was their father's sister, Margaret "Doi- oie," wife of Abraham DuBois. Their baptism was not per- formed by a back woodsman, who did not know how to spell, but by Rev. Pierre Daillie, a learned man, who before he left France was a professor in the university of Saumur. Yet here in the same entry he spells the name of the brother Doyau and of the sister Doioie. In 1686, three years after this first record, we find the name of Anna, another sister of the same family and wife of John Hasbrouck, spelled Doyo. Here are three different methods of spelling the family name now written almost uniformly Deyo.
If there had been any established form of spelling the name the ministers would undoubtedly have spelled it that way.
In the treaty with the Indians, made in 1677, Pierre, the
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Patentee, wrote the name Doyo, his father, Christian, did not write his name, but makes his mark and the name is written de Yoo.
Another yet more striking instance of different ways of spelling the same family name is that of the two Hasbrouck brothers. In the treaty made with the Indians for the pur- chase of the patent, Abraham Hasbrouck writes his name Hasbrocq, and his brother, Jean, writes the name Brocq, without the prefix Has. In the same paper we find that the name of the leader of the band of Huguenots is spelled Lowies DuBooys, and that of his son, Abraham, is spelled . in the same way; the name of the LeFevre brothers is spelled Lefebre, and Freer is spelled as at the present day. In the agreement among the owners of the patent in 1728 we find the three sons of Simon LeFevre, the Patentee, each spelling the name LeFevre; two of the Hasbroucks wrote the name Hasbrocq, while another had the present spelling ; the DuBoises and Beviers spelled the name as at present ; Freer is written Freer, while the three signatures of Deyos are all spelled differently-one writing Doio, another Doiau and another Doyo.
Rev. Randall R. Hoes in the preface to the translation of the records of the Dutch church at Kingston speaks thus of the orthography of the various family names :
"The orthography of the proper names in these Registers is quite in keeping with a practice of the early times in which they were written .- It never seems to have occurred to these university-bred Dutch Domines of the Kingston church to inquire how various persons presenting them- selves for marriage, or their children for baptism, spelled their own names, but these names having been pronounced
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in their hearing, they recorded them phonetically, according to the prompting of their ears, or arbitrarily, according to the dictates of their fancy. This practice, however, in- volved no unusual inconsistency, for the orthography of the Dutch language, even in Holland, as respects both common and proper names, was not wholly settled until late in the eighteenth century. Some of our most familiar family names of to-day are recorded on these pages in half a dozen or more different ways, and in many instances varia- tions in spelling occur even in the same baptismal or marriage entry. It is therefore impossible in any case whatever to state, at least by the aid of these Registers, the exact original or- thography, even if any existed, of particular family names among our Dutch settlers .- This remark applies, moreover, to all of the early civil and ecclesiastical records of the Dutch, whether in this country or in Holland, and to a large extent also to those written in English, as it was not before the com- mencement of the present century that any marked degree of uniformity was observed in the orthography of a very large number of proper names.
"The variations in spelling in the Kingston Church Registers are even more involved and confusing than usual, owing to the fact that Domines Mancius, Meyer, and Doll, and also Domine Cock, of East Camp, an advisory friend of the King- ston church, who during the "Coetus" and "Conferentie" diffi- culties, repeatedly officiated there at baptismal and marriage ceremonies, were not Dutchmen, but Germans, and naturally displayed German tendencies in their orthography."
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CHAPTER VII
MOVING OUT AND MOVING IN
Isaac LeFevre, son of Simon LeFevre, the Patentee, Hen- drick Deyo, son of Pierre, the Patentee, and Jacob Freer, son of Hugo Freer, the Patentee, located about 1720 in what is still known as Bontecoe, about four miles north of this village, the last named nearly on the north bounds of the patent, and their descendants have continued to the present day to occupy, in great part, the land settled on at this time by their ancestors. The name Bontecoe was, perhaps, bestowed in remembrance of the Dutch vessel Bontecoe, called in contemporaneous Eng- lish history "Spotted Cow," which made several voyages from Holland to America, bringing over a number of Huguenot emigrants, though we have no certain information as yet that any of the people who located at New Paltz crossed the ocean on the Bontecoe.
There is equally good reason for supposing that the proper orthography is Bon-ter-cou, meaning "neck of good land" and applied to the fertile necks of land on the banks of the Wallkill.
About the year 1720, Roelif Eltinge, son of Jan Eltinge, a native of Drenthe, in Holland, came from Kingston to New Paltz. He married the daughter of Abm. DuBois, the patentee, and from that day to this the Eltinges have been men of influ- ence and greatly respected in New Paltz.
Although the Paltz patent included about 36,000 acres of land, yet the sons and grandsons of the original settlers were, from time to time, obtaining fresh grants of land to the south of the original grant, while others emigrated to Duchess,
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Orange and Greene counties, likewise to other parts of the State, and to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Wherever they settled the Huguenot stock usually took root.
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