Cline

Germans, Huguenots, Walloons, Calvinists and Other Emmigrants

Between 1609 and 1664, 150 ships and more sailed roughly 250 voyages between the Dutch Republic and the colony of New Netherland. These ships connected colonial settlements across the North Atlantic Ocean, transporting administrators and colonists, delivering provisions, supplies, and essentials, and conveying missives and other correspondence as the only means of communication. Jonathan Cline's ancestors were some of the first of these brave explorers and immigrants.

Ludwig Lewis Cline was born in 1785 at Reamstown, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania to Matthew Mathias Cline and Catherine Peters. Mathias's parents were German Immigrants. Mathias served in the Pennsylvania U. S. Revolutionary War as a corporal. Ludwig married Jonas Cline's daughter Margaret in 1807 in Ohio. Ludwig's father-in-law JONAS CLINE was born in Rochester, NY, June 25, 1760 to Margareta Kleyn. He enlisted from Ulster county in 1780.Jonas married Ttyntje Roosa on 8 February 1787 in Ulster County, New York. They had seven children: Margaret, Elizabeth, Cathrina, Rachael, Benjamin, Sarah, and Mary. He is buried in a private cemetery near Fairview, Illinois. He was pensioned. (source: "Illinois Revolutionary War Veteran Burials, 1917") Margaret Klyn was born November 11, 1788 in Kingston, Ulster New York.

Jonas actually served 4 times for a total of 16 months as a private in the Revolutionary war. He entered the Service in the Spring of 1789 from Ulster near Kingston in New York. After the Revolutionary War, he lived in the State of New York, until around the year 1805 when he lived in Wayne and Beaver County in Pennsylvania. In 1817 he then moved to the State of Ohio at Richland County, Montgomery Township.

Jonas is found in the 1820 Census for Worthington Township. While the family was living there, his son, Benjamin married Nancy Butler, and daughter Sarah married William Smith, and Mary was wed to John Black.

"Jonas was still in Richland County in 1830, along with a considerable contingent of Clines, i.e. families headed by Adam, Benjamin, Conrad, George, two Jacobs, two Jonas’s and Lodwick, in addition to the families of Jonas’s daughters. Jonathan Cline, Ludwick's son was probably born here in 1825.There is no record of his birth. The Clines of Richland County were an industrious group, setting up numerous farms, blacksmith shops and mills. Jonas, in addition to running his farm, was for many years a " Justice of the Peace for this jurisdiction"

Ludwig Cline's farm is found by going east from London Mills on 116 to township road 16, then south to E Young road. This is the North East corner of Ludwig Cline's farm. It continues south 1/4 mile to the curve where Coal Creek crosses under the road. It was 160 acres so it went a quarter mile west on Young Road then south again 1/4 mile and back east again to Coal Creek corner.

"

Mary Elizabeth "Bessie" is the daughter of Lewis Cline, Jonathan"s brother.

Going directly west from London Mills all the way to the Mississippi River and south just a few miles is Dallas City where the John and Nancy Howard and their family lived. Malinda Howard married Jonathan Cline and they with their daughter Elizabeth lived in 1850 with Anson Seward in Dallas City.

"In the 1830’s the Cline clan began taking up residence in Fulton County, Illinois. Jonas’s only son Benjamin moved to Township SN1E (Farmers) sometime prior to 1840. Ludwick Cline purchased 160 acres (S. E. ¼ section) in Section 23, Township 8N2E (now Young Hickory) in June 1837."

So by some counts being nearly eighty years old, Jonas picked up lock, stock and barrel and travelled across Ohio, Indiana and part of Illinois to settle in Young Hickory Township. The 1840 Census found nine Cline households in Fulton County, in addition to the married Cline daughters and their husbands.

Mary Elizabeth "Bessie" is the daughter of Lewis Cline, Jonathan"s brother.

A particularly large grouping was located in the Coal Creek area of Young Hickory Township, consisting of the families of the two Jonases and Ludwick. They plied the trades of their past experience: farming, blacksmithing and milling. These were the original “Amarguians”, 10 hardworking, fun-loving, native Americans of German extraction. They were known for their network of family support, good neighborliness and community work such as building schools and churches.

Ludwick Cline is in the following US Census's.

• 1810 Beaver County Pennsylvania.
• 1820 Richland County, Ohio
• 1830 Richland County, Ohio
• 1840 Fulton County, Illinois
• 1850 Fulton County, Illinois

Author Cliff Williams gave Ludwick the sobriquet of "The Trailblazer" He seems to have been the leader in the Cline Clan's western migration from Northampton/Wayne, Pennsylvania to Beaver County, Pennsylvania to Richland, Ohio, to Fulton, Illinois. The HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, Ohio relates that he was the first blacksmith at Ashland, then known at Uniontown. His shop was located on Wooster Road, 10 miles east of Ashland. One of the documents shows Ludwick as one of the petitioners for permission for opening a "place of entertainment for traveller's on the road to Cleveland."

A farmer and blacksmith in Fulton County, he purchased the 160 acres of the S.E. 1/4 of Section 23, Young Hickory Township in 1837. This area, with Coal Creek running through its souteast corner, became known as the "Cline Settlement" of anarougen and was an center of community and family activity.

Lodwick died some time after the 1850 Federal Census and before the 1855 Illinois State Census and his wife about 10 years later. Probably buried on the family farm but since that time graves plowed over and otherwise destroyed.

Jonathan Cline was a young boy as the Cline Clan made their immigration from Richland, Ohio to Fulton County, Illinois. Conrad Cline's (Jonathan's brother} obiturary states that family moved to Fulton county, Illinois in 1836.. Census records have Jonathan Cline born in Ohio in 1825. I do not have any records of him until his marriage

A letter from Lillie Dell Howard states Jonathan, Malinda Cline and Lillie's father William Howard and wife in early 1840's came up the Mississippi River by steamboat to Wisconsin. They landed near where Maiden Rock now stands on Lake Pepin. They rented a log house there but an Indian scare convinced them to move back to Illinois. The Howard's returned back to Wisconsin in 1845 bringing with them parents on both sides but not sure if Jonathan accompined them.

But from the following I have concluded that his father was Ludwig Cline and mother Margaret Catherine Kleyn. Jacob Cline Jonathan's brother married Sarah Ann Langdon August 12th, 1847 in Des Moines County, Iowa. Marriage records show Jonathan marrying Malinda Howard four months later in Des Moines, Iowa December 23, 1847. Malinda Howard is 16.

The first time his name is mentioned is in the 1850 census in Warren county, Illinois. He is living in the household of Anson Seward with his wife Malinda and two year old daughter Elizabeth. Anson's occupation is farmer and Jonathan's is wagonmaker. Anson J Seward's (1795-1856) brother is Hiram Seward, whose daughter is Caroline who is married to Conrad Cline , Jonathan's brother.

The Howard family lived in Dallas City, Illinois, a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River on the western edge of Illinois. Dallas City is divided by the Hancock county and Warren County line in 1830. At the present time it is divided by the Hancock and Henderson county line as it has changed boundries. The Warren county census could have been for Dallas City northern part in 1850.

1850 census also shows Jacob Cline 1823-1890, Sarah Ann Cline and son Peter Cline living also in Dallas City. Also living in Dallas City are Peter Cline b1816-?, (construction) Elizabeth and Nancy, Lavina, William, and Elizabeth. This shows that Jonathan, his brothers Jacob and Peter and his brother Conrad's wife's Uncle and family were all living close to each other in Dallas City, Illinois in 1850.

In 1853 Conrad Jackson Cline, Jonathan's brother moved to Highland township, Clayton county, Iowa. Conrad Cline is a blacksmith and by 1860 he had moved to Wadena. Cline street in Wadena where he built his home has his name.

Jonathan and Malinda had a daughter born in 1859 and named her Phoebe Matilda.

Phoebe tells of her parents deciding in 1864 to move to Wisconsin to take up a homestead. Not long after they moved her mother died and a few years later her father remarried and she went to live with her grandmother.

Swan and Phoebe Johnson and children

Jonathan and Malinda had seven children, Elizabeth, Rachel Alice, Lola, Mary Viola, Phoebe Mathilda, Robert Ellis, and John Lincoln. 1880 Jonathan Cline died at Thomaston, Wadena, Minnesota

Rachel Alice Cline was born November 30, 1853 in Fairfield, Fayette county, Iowa. On November 27, 1871 in Pierce county, Wisconsin, Rachel married Henry Frederick Etters at Isabel on the 27th of November, 1871. Rachel and Henry made their home in Plum City when the economy was booming in the 1870s. Many pioneering farmers bought Plum City's fencing lumber for farms in eastern Minnesota.

Rachel Cline

Rachel's father Jonathan Cline's maternal grandmother was Tryntje Catherine (Caty) Roosa, who was born on the 15th of November 1766 in Shawangunk, Ulster county, New York. From Ulster county where she married Jonah Klyen, she made the several moves west to Young Hickory township in Fulton County, Illinois where she died on the 23rd of August, 1844.

The Roosa family had lived in Ulster county, New York since 1661 when Heyman Aldertse Roosa and his family packed up their belongings and boarded a ship in Holland, then made the long journey to first New Amsterdam and then on up the Hudson River to the small settlement of Esopus.

" The passenger list of the "Bontekoe (spotted cow) of April 15, 1660 contains the name of Aldert Heymans, Agriculturist, from Herwynen, Gelderland, who came with his wife and eight children. Arie, 17, Heyman 15, Jan 14 Eyke 9, Maritje 8, Neeltje 7, Jannetje 4, and Aert 2. (doc, Hist N.Y. III p 56). No more colorful personage lived at Esopus and his name appears more frequently in the old records of the settlement than that of any other man. That he occupied an influential position in the founding of the city is recognized.

One of our other of our ancestor's families that left Holland were , Mathese Blanchan and his two son in laws families, Antoine Crispel and Louis du Bois. The Dutch ship Gilded Otter in the spring of 1660 brought the Blanchan and the Crispel families over to the little town of New Amsterdam. It was nestled upon the lower end of Manhattan Island. At this time it consisted of two hundred poorly constructed houses giving comfort to some fourteen hundred people. They did not stay long in New Amsterdam and taking counsel of their Walloon countrymen, and getting permission from the governor they went up the Hudson river to Esopus. They were soon joined by the other son-in-law's Louis Du Bois family which came to New Netherland on the ship St. Jan Baptist arriving August 6, 1661.

The spot where after many wanderings our refugees had finally found a home was chosen. It was a short distance from the river and must have reminded them of the Rhine River back home. The plateau upon which the village Wiltwyek stood skirted by Esopus creek. From the banks along the palisades protecting it that had been constructed, the settlers overlooked the fertile lands occupied by the farms of the white men and also the patches upon which the Indian women still raised their crops of maize and beans. The beautiful valley of the Wallkill opened toward the southwest. On the north the wooded slopes of the Catskill mountains were visible.

This is where the Roosa's and Mathese Blanchan and his two sons-in-laws families settled. Meanwhile another settlement started up about a mile west of Wiltwyck. The houses and barns were built inside a fortified enclosure where 15 families were protected from Indians but at this time were peaceful. The Indians though felt this new settlement was on land they still owned and also the governor had sent some of the Indians who had previously caused problems to the island of Caracoa. These two facts plus the selling of Rum to the Indians took away their reason and in time intensified their worst passions.

More Huguenot and Walloon Ancestors

Tjerck Claessen De Witt emigrated from near Esens in Ostfriesland (today the northern coast of Germany) in the early or mid-1650s. Three siblings joined him over the next few years—first a sister, then a younger sister and brother when they got old enough to leave home. The brother, Jan (Tjerck’s only full brother), traveled back and forth from North America to Europe frequently.

On 1 October 1658 (FOCM, p. 410), Eldert Gerbertsen complains that “T’Jerck Claessen” has promised to deliver 200 logs, each at least 6 feet in circumference (about 2 feet thick, or 60 cm); Eldert says he doesn’t have the logs yet, and it’s a big deal to him. Tjerck agrees that he made this promise, and he agrees to get the logs hauled out within two weeks, and not to do any other work until this is done. This gives some suggestion of what Tjerck was doing for a job while he lived in the Fort Orange area.

He first settled in Fort Orange, Beverwokck now Albany but by 1660 Tjerck settles for good in “the Esopus,” an area around present-day Kingston, New York, midway between Albany and Manhattan, where he first appears to live in the town of Wildwyck but eventually starts farming a bit further south, near what becomes called the “Nieuw Dorp” (New Village) and today is called Hurley. (The stone house he eventually built on his land still stands, with several extensions added later, on the banks of the Esopus Creek.) Tjerck, who apparently was making a living from going into the forest and pulling hewn trees out for construction in town, would have known that he was even more exposed to attack than villagers who stayed near the fort all day. It is entirely possible that he worked directly with native people. We know that when he marries in 1656, he picks the daughter of a man (Andries Lucassen) who had translated between European and North American speakers for previous expeditions, and his brother-in-law (Jan Thomasen, based in Beverwijck) is also conversant in local languages. Tjerck was farming in Esopus, 140 or 145 acres (about 57 hectares), a little under a quarter-section.

On 26 December 1660, in Wildwyck, the day after Christmas, a small collection of settlers take Communion for the first time in the brand new church. Most of these are people we will see frequently in the records of the town over the years to come, many of them figuring in our ancestors lives in the little frontier village as it grows: Domine Hermanus Blom (preacher) and his wife Anna, Jacob Joosten, Jacob Burhans, Matthew Blanchan and his wife Madeline Jorissen, Antony Crespel and his wife Maria Blanchan, Andries Barentsen and his wife Hilletjen Hendricks, Margriet Chambrits, Geertruy Andriessen Schout Roelof Swartwout and his wife Eva Swartwout, Cornelius Barentsen Slecht and his wife Tryntje Tyssen, Albert (sometimes Allert or Aldert) Heymanse Roose and his wife Wielke DeJongh. Thir names are inscribed in a memorial plaque today in the Old Dutch Church in Kingston, not on the same site as the original chapel inside the stockade, but the same continuous congregation nonetheless. Names in bold are direct ancestors of Jonathan Cline.

A new town was then built, as the few dozen lots in Wildwyck were taken. This was fertile farmland (and still is 1918?), and it is not clear how well the Esopus tribes understood the Europeans’ intent when they first arranged to use the land, but apparently they were willing to tolerate sharing their good fields with some immigrants. When the Dutch started building a wall around their second new village, though, the natives started raising some concerns. On Tuesday 5 June 1663, the settlers reported, they let the “Indian Sachems” know that they wanted to meet “to renew the peace” When the settlers let the indian leaders know that Stuyvesant wanted to meet with them, and they responded that a peaceful way to meet would be in the field outside the town, unarmed. But on Thursday 7 June 1663, just before noon, they instead mounted a surprise attack, apparently carefully organized in advance.

They came in amicably enough through the open gates of the village, carrying corn and beans as if to trade, and in several bands they made their way through the village. At the same time, a separate group of Esopus must have been on their way to the (still unfenced) new village, not quite three miles away to the southwest. They torched the Nieuw Dorp, attacking the Europeans there. A few settlers got away on horseback and rode for Wildwyck; they came in through the main gate and raised the alarm, at which point “the Indians here in this Village immediately fired a shot and made a general attack on our village from the rear” (p. 39), killing, starting fires, and taking prisoners.

The wind at the time of the attack was coming from the South, so the first fires were set on the south side of the village. “The remaining Indians commanded all the streets, firing from the corner houses which they occupied and through the curtains [the city’s palisade wall] outside along the highways, so that some of our inhabitants, on their way to their houses to get their arms, were wounded and slain” (DHSNY IV p. 40). The wind shifted, saving many houses from destruction. The attack was over almost as soon as it had started, so rapidly “that those in different parts of the village were not aware of it” until they saw the wounded. The village was not large (only a few dozen houses, a handful of city blocks), but many of the farmers were out in the fields when the attack took place, “and but few in the village.”

In or near the village at the mill gate were Tjerck Claesen de Witt, with his neighbor and fellow town council member Albert Gysbertsen and two servants; the Schout, Roelof Swartwout, was at his house with “two carpenters, two clerks and one thresher,” Cornelis Barentsen Sleght was home with one son; the Domine was home with “two carpenters and one labouring man,” and there were “a few soldiers” at the guard house. At the gate closer to the river were Henderick Jochemsen and “Jacob, the Brewer, but Hendrick Jochemsen was very severely wounded in his house [by the guard house; see below] by two shots at an early hour. These twenty or so men chased the attackers off.” Thomas Chambers, like Tjerck a Schepen, “who was wounded on coming in from without, issued immediate orders . . . to secure the gates; to clear the gun and to drive out the Savages, who were still about half an hour in the village” (p. 40). Men who had been working in the fields arrived back at the village, “and we found ourselves mustered in the evening, including those from the new village who took refuge among us, in number 69 efficient men, both qualified and unqualified.” Immediately work began on repairing the village wall.

In a short amount of time, the attackers had killed 12 men in Wildwyck (including one slave and three soldiers), four women, and two children. Eight men were wounded, one mortally. Many of the dead were apparently burned alive in homes and workshops; a few were killed in front of their homes or in the fields near the village. Five women were taken hostage, and five children. In the Nieuw Dorp three men were killed, and the prisoner count included one man, 8 women, and 26 children. Twelve houses were burned in Wildwyck, and “The new village is entirely destroyed except a new uncovered barn, one rick and a little stack of reed” (p. 44). Domine Blom notes also “a large number of animals” were killed, which has a profound effect on village life and economy, as well as food supply for both villagers and the soldiers who will soon arrive to protect them (DRCHSNY XIII p. 373).

Domine Blom described the scene in an 18 September 1663 letter to the Classis of Amsterdam (Corwin, Ecclesiastical Records, I, 534-35, as cited by Marc B. Fried in The Early History of Kingston & Ulster County, N.Y., p. 63): “There lay the burnt and slaughtered bodies, together with those wounded by bullets and axes. The last agonies and the moans and lamentations of many were dreadful to hear. . . . The burnt bodies were most frightful to behold. A woman [likely Lichten Dirreck’s wife] lay burnt, with her child at her side, as if she were just delivered. . . . Other women lay burnt also in their houses; and one corpse with her fruit still in her womb [Tjerck’s sister Ida], most cruelly murdered in their dwelling with her husband and another child [Jan Albertsen Van Steenwyck and their toddler who had accompanied them to Esens and back].”

Later on he filled in even more language: “the dead bodies of men lay here and there like dung heaps on the field, and the burnt and roasted corpses like sheaves behind the mower”.

The night of 7 June 1663 must have been a somber night on which to stand watch. Of 85 men in town, 15 had been killed and one captured. Nobody could have known where the attackers had vanished to in the dark thick woods, or when they would attack again. Against a continent of towns and villages filled with people who spoke unknown languages and kept unknown alliances, the handful of European families knew only that they were badly outnumbered: They had too many people to evacuate in ships, even if they could get to the riverside, and trying to escape over land would mean hiking directly into the territory of the attackers. (As we see later, they did not even know, at the time, where the attackers’ village was.) The smell of freshly burned wood clings to clothes and skin, and on this night—smells seem stronger in the dark—it would have mingled with the smells of the killed villagers and animals that had been left in the flames by the attackers. Everyone had lost family members, friends, churchmates, people with whom they had argued, worked side by side, shared a history.

Tjerck had been in the village when his sister had been killed, together with her husband and their toddler daughter. (A soldier was killed at their house too, Dominicus; the record doesn’t show whether he was there to buy shoes or to protect them in the attack.) Tjerck’s wife was evidently safe, and his younger sister and brother who had arrived a few short months ago, but his eldest daughter had been snatched and whisked off to an uncertain fate. Taatje DeWitt was born at Albany about 1659 She was carried off by Indians at the burning of Kingston in 1663 and later rescued. In !677 she married Matthys Matthyssen (Van Keuren) She is a direct ancestor of Jonathan Clines.

Tjerck bore responsiblity in this great wilderness not just for his wife and family but also for the whole village; he had been named one of the council members (the Dutch word is Schepen, and it is translated “commissary” in some translations, “magistrate” in others), and he was one of the officials who signed the letter sent on Sunday 10 June to Manhattan reporting the attack, together with a list of names of those killed and taken hostage.

Louis Du Bois has a wife and three children captured in the Esopus raid; Matthew Blanchan had two children taken; Aert Pietersen Tack's house was destroyed along with twelve other houses and the church. Aert's wife is a direct ancestor. Two of Albert Roosas children were taken captive. His oldest daughter Eyke and and one other. They were later recovered. Evert Roosa,son of Albert was baptized 26 Oct 1679 in Kingston, Ulster, New York, and married Tietje van Etten (the daughter of Jacob Jansen van Etten and Annetje Adriaens-see Van Etten family) 10 May 1702 in Kingston, Ulster, New York, lived in Hurley, Ulster, New York, will dated 5 Mar 1726/7 and proved 3 May 1749.

You can’t tell the players without a scorecard: Albert Heymans Roosa, along with being a member of the church consistory—at times the only member—also has previously been appointed by Stuyvesant as one of the schepens on the town council; he’s not a nobody. (His term as a town council member ended right before the attack.)

He had received a patent for land in the New Village (Nieuw Dorp), which was completely destroyed in the attack; we can guess that he was one of those who had built a house there already. Stuyvesant has appointed him as one of three “overseers” of the new village; it was too small and new to have a full town council yet (see Fried, Early History, p. 55).

Two of his children were taken in the attack. He has waited now a month to see any action taken against the attackers, who haven’t been seen since they melted into the woods with their captives. Instead this bureaucrat sent up from Manhattan insists on patiently chatting with the Indians he has detained. Eventually he gets one of his daughters back on December 3 (see Fried, p. 104), six months after the attack. As late as the following March his other daughter is still unaccounted for; see Fried, p. 107.

After the English takeover of the colony, Roosa is later involved again in conflict with troops quartered in town (Tjerck also is abused by Brodhead and his troops, at roughly the same time); as Fried notes (p. 113), Roosa is sometimes a hero, sometimes a hothead.

In particular see 7 June 1667 (Kingston Papers p. 251, 28 May Old Style), when Wyntie, Allert’s wife, “requests a certificate” from the town council, something along the lines of a letter of recommendation, “concerning the conduct of her husband here at Wildwyck.” Rather than an effusive, flowery description of what a good guy he is, the council describes in some detail what a nuisance he has sometimes been, mentioning only in passing (or in contrast) that he had actually served on the council: 1) He had Pieter Van Hael arrested in 1662, illegally, because Pieter had said he “did not get full weight of some butter received” from Allert; 2) In 1663, he opposed Stuyvesant’s order regarding looking after the town cattle, “on which account an uprising among the burghers could easily have originated.” The certificate goes on to note that after the War Council and town council had promised safe passage “to two highland savages,” Allert went after them “with a loaded gun for the purpose of shooting them dead,” and that on 14 February 1667, “when the burghers here were tumultuous,” Allert “treated [the council] very contemptibly by despising our authority . . . and furthermore has often behaved disrespectfully in opposing decrees.” See further discussion of the conflicts between the town inhabitants and the British garrison, but not all of Albert’s disagreeable behavior might be blamed on unjust provocations of figures of authority.

On this fifth Sunday( 8 July) since the attack, at least the villagers could hope for protection in the fields as the harvest began, but no kidnapped family members had yet been returned to their homes.

And here is another mention of one of our ancestors, Cornelis B Slecht, Sergeant of a military company. He was in Esopus in 1655 and was from Woerden, Holland. He signed an agreement with Governor Stuyvesant to build a stockade and to make peace with the Indians. His son was captured, 1659 and tortured to death and his daughter was captured in the 1663 raid and made to marry an Indian.

On 9 October 1663, Cornelis Barentsen Slecht, “representing his son Hendrick Cornelissen Slecht,” says he is not required to comply with these rules, adding that the only council with proper jurisdiction here is “the Supreme Council” in Manhattan. (Slecht is the one whose wife called Heer de Decker a bloodsucker; see her court case above.) He also refuses to cooperate with the court in trying to sort through the inventories of the people who died without heirs. The court orders him to be confined until he agrees to cooperate. (While the court is still sitting, apparently a long session, he sends a written request to be allowed permission to return home to check his accounts for the estate inventory;)

In council at this 23 October 1663 session (Kingston Papers, p. 91), Tjerck also makes the complaint against Evert Pels that Pels “at harvest time caused one of [Tjerck’s] pigs to be shot.” Pels demands proof. The court instructs Tjerck to produce this proof. Both of these men are ancestors of ours. In September 1664 the British took control of New Amsterdam and renamed it after the Duke of York; Colonel Richard Nicolls took over as Governor. Fort Amsterdam was renamed Fort James, for the King’s brother, the Duke of York (and future King).

In the following paragraph there are three of our ancestors mentioned, Tjerck, Evert Pels, and Allert Heymans. In a regular court session on 7 October 1664, Roelof Swartwout, former Schout, and Tjerck have some disputes to settle (Kingston Papers, pp. 163-164). Tjerck wants to be paid for pasturing three cows for Roelof, in a repeat of a demand going back to 29 June. Roelof says he agrees he owes for two cows, but that Tjerck was supposed to pasture two more cows “in payment of the fine due from him,” according to the 29 June agreement. The court refers the matter to the arbitration of Evert Pels and Allert Heymans, “good men.” Then Roelof says that Roelof has legally attached 15 schepels of wheat that belongs to Foppe Barents but is in Tjerck’s possession, but that Tjerck assigned his claim to the wheat to his brother-in-law Jan Tomassen in Fort Orange.

On January 11, 1665, Jacob Jansen Von Etten married Annetje Arians in Kingston, NY (Kingston Church Records). Since Jacob Jansen had been born in Etten, it was natural for he and Annetje to adopt the name von (from) Etten as a surname. The "von" was soon changed to the English form "Van". Thus began the Van Etten family of America.

The children of Jacob and Annatje grew up and each married a Dutch neighbor. A few remained near home, but others sought their fortune by moving" - The Van Etten Family of America, Leslie Van Etten Oath of Allegiance to England in 1689, in Marble town, NY. First appears in records as "Van Etten" in 1670 when son Adrian, their third child, was baptized. Annetje and Jacobs first child, daughter Tryntje Van Etten was born in 1684 and married her neighbor Evert Ariensen Roosa.

13 May 1664 Aert Pietersen Tack's wife Annetje Ariaens prepares to sell the farm and other personal property to pay off debts “because her husband Aert Pietersen Tack has absented himself.” On 7 October 1664 (Kingston Papers pp. 543-544), the effects of Aert Pietersen Tack are sold at auction in Wildwyck. Aert apparently left town, probably knowing he was broke. He left behind his wife Annetje Ariaens, a house and lot inside the Wildwyck stockade, farmland outside the town wall adjacent to Tjerck’s at the Groot Stuck, and various goods. Tjerck bids on the farmland, but it’s bought by Sweerus Teunissen (1,130 guilders for 20 morgens;

Antony Crispel and Tjerck Claessen De Witt are mentioned in a Kingston paper and I am including it here as it is an interesting interaction between two of our ancestors in 1668.

An entirely different type of house is a building, on a lot, where people live and frequently, particularly in the early days, these were made of wood, essentially they were very large crates, and they could be moved from lot to lot. In real estate transactions: Sometimes a person buys a lot; sometimes a house and lot; sometimes just a house. January 1668/9, in Kingston town council (Kingston Papers, p. 421), when Tierck Claesen complains that Antony Crispel bought “a house, situated across the bridge, for 12 pounds of flax” and never paid for it. Crispel agrees he bought the house, but his impression was that Tjerck would deliver it. Tjerck says the house is across a bridge; moving it is Crispel’s problem.

George Washington Etters is a grandson of Rachel Alice Cline.

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November 12,2022