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born ca. 1618, Groot Holum, Ostfriesland
died 17 February 1700/1, Hurley, New York
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born in Amsterdam [?], probably ca. 1635
died 6 September 1714, Hurley, New York
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Lucas DeWitt
MVDW 10
TGE 10. ix.
Family 8.
birth date - died 1703
born in Kingston or Hurley, New York
(no baptism recorded)
presumed buried in Kingston, New York; possibly buried in Hurley or Mombaccus (Rochester, Ulster County)
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Annetje Delva
married 23 (or 22?) December 1695
(Leucas de Wit, j.m., and Antje Delval, j.d., both parties born and resid. in Kingstouwn.)
birth date - death date
Her parents are Anthony Delva and Jannetje Hillebrants, per MVDW.
Evans (p. 6) adds, “She was a Roman Catholic.”
Jannetje Hellebrans and Francoeys (François) Lesier baptize daughter Hillebrant 4 Nov 1663 in Kingston, witnesses Antoni Dilvall and Tryntje Tyssen. On 26 July 1665 they baptize twins Jan and Jacob (father’s name spelled Leeseer). On 15 September 1678, Jannetie Hillebrants and Anthony Telba baptize Catharina, no witnesses named. No marriage records for Jannetje exist in Kingston (banns could have been posted in New Amsterdam or Fort Orange/Beverwijck), and the Kingston church recorded no other baptisms with Anthony Telba (or Telva or Delva or Delba) as the father. If he was French and Roman Catholic, perhaps he had some other way of baptizing his children. (At this time and place, it’s more likely he was French and Huguenot, so a Calvinist and content with Dutch Reformed worship?)
MVDW spells Annetje’s family name Delra in some places rather than Delva. In church records it is spelled various ways, indicating that the Dutch ministers struggled to guess at how to approximate the sounds in writing. Rather than Dutch, the name may be French or from some other language.
After Lucas dies, Annetje goes on to marry Gerrit van Bunschoten, posting banns 31 March 1706, and they baptize children Gerretie (19 January 1707) and Antony (11 September 1709). After Gerrit dies, Annetje marries 26 October 1721 Hendrick Rosekrans, a widower.
burial location
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Lucas De Duytser/Roelan
Not in MVDW
baptized 3 June 1694 and location
Mother: Catrina de Duytser
witnesses: Cornelis Masten and Lysbet Aartsen
(see Notes, below)
marriage date and location
burial location
* * *
MVDW 73
TGE 71. i. Family 28.
baptized 7 March 1697 (Evans, p. 9, says 1696) - death date
parents: Leucas de Wit, Annetje Delva
witnesses: Jan Lesier, Rachel Lesier
birthplace (baptized Kingston)
married 19 July 1717 Cornelis Langendyck (1689-???) at location
burial location
Barbara DeWitt
MVDW 74
TGE 72. ii.
baptized 12 November 1699 - died young [before 15 Feb 1703]
parents: Leucas de Wit, Annetje Delga
witnesses: Tjerck de Wit, Sara Roosekrans
MVDW, like TGE, indicates Barbara died young. Anjou says she married 25 March 1715 Johannes van Leuven, who remarried in 1725. Anjou is probably confusing this Barbara DeWitt with Barbara DeWitt MVDW 19 (1689-1715), daughter of Andries DeWitt.
burial location
MVDW 75
TGE 73. iii. Family 29.
baptized 8 December 1700 - death date
parents: Leucas de Wit, Annetje Delba
witnesses: Tjerck Claesse(n) de Wit, Barbara de Wit
[written record has a diacritical mark over the terminal -e in Claesse, indicating the -n to follow. HTML does not make this straightforward to reproduce, but it was a standard way of writing this ending in many notation systems at the time]
married 26 September 1731 Ariantje Oosterhoudt (1712-???) at location
burial location
Jan is a common name, but with Tjerck and Barbara, Lucas’s parents, as sponsors at his baptism, we might guess that Jan is named in honor of Lucas’s uncle Jan, brother of Tjerck, who died in June 1699.
MVDW 76
TGE 74. iv. Family 30.
baptized Leucas 5 September 1703 - death date
parents: Leucas de Wit, Antje Telba
witnesses:
Andries de Wit, Cornelis Bogardus, Barbar de Wit
married 17 January 1729 Catharine Roosa at location
burial location
Evans, p. 10, adds, “Among the descendants of this Lucas is the Rev. John De Witt [son of MVDW 981], New Brunswick, N. J., one of the Committee on the Revision of the Bible.
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Notes
He is named fifth in his father’s will, as “Luycas”; in addition to his rightful 1/12 share of the estate, Lucas receives half-interest in a sloop Tjerck says he built “last year,” i.e. 1697.
If the name Lucas comes down from Barbara’s (possible) father Andries Lucassen, translator for Peter Minuit when the Kalmar Nyckel sailed over from Sweden to found New Sweden on the Delaware, then it’s particularly appropriate for Lucas to get Tjerck’s share of the sloop. Even if he is named only for his mother’s brother Lucas, who sailed a ship up and down the Hudson, living in Manhattan and serving Fort Orange and points in between (see notes below, and list in Iconography of Manhattan Island), it makes sense for Lucas to get the sloop. It makes even more sense if Lucas himself has become a sailor or sea merchant.
Anjou says (and it shows up in other places too) that the name of the sloop jointly owned by Lucas and his father Tjerck was St. Barbara. I have not found any contemporary record to confirm this, though I have no reason to doubt it.
Evans (p. 6) writes: “Lucas was commander, and joint-owner with his father, of a sloop called the St. Barbara, ‘of about fifty Dutch feet by the keele,’ which in 1698 they sold to Capt. Daniel Hobart, of the Island of Barbadoes, for £200. He died in 1703. On March 31, 1706, his widow married Gerritt Van Benschoten, and removed to the vicinity of what is now Catskill, Greene County, N. Y. Becoming again a widow, she married, Oct. 16, 1721, Hendrick Rosekrans, whose first wife was Antje Vredenberg.”
On 27 September 1693, at a meeting of Justices in Kingston, Catrina de Duyster [sic] “charges that she is with child by Luycas De Witt and that he promised to marry her; he pleads not guilty.” The case is continued to a later session while the Justices cogitate. (National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 4 [December 1972], “Ulster County, New York, Court Records, 1693-1775,” p. 276, translated and edited by Kenneth Scott, F.A.S.G.)
At the regular sessions (there were two general court sessions per year) in March 1693/4, Jacomyn Elting, the midwife who delivered the baby boy, “swears that Catrina de Duyster said that Luycas De Witt was father of her child.” (It was common belief that at the moment of birth, a mother could name only the true father of the child.) “As said Luycas is at present out of the province,” the record continues, “his father Tjerck De Witt is ordered to give bond that the child shall not be a burden to the parish” (Ulster County Court Records, p. 277).
On 3 June 1694, in the Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston, Catrina de Duytser, unaccompanied by the baby’s father, baptized her son Lucas, witnessed by Cornelis Masten and Lysbet Aartsen. The record of baptisms includes the note “(Illegitimate).”
Tjerck was more than familiar with this type of situation, having himself fathered a daughter out of wedlock as a young man in Esens, before he left and came to North America. Details are sparse in public records and don’t show what happened next in family conversations, but it is possible that Tjerck’s father Witt-Claes Johanßen sent Tjerck out to sea in reaction to the news, and it is also possible that Tjerck sent Lucas off on a voyage after the September 1693 hearing.
Unintended pregnancies were no more of a surprise in the 1600s than at any other time in human history. Lucas’s sister Marritje would have a similar issue in 1702, when she gave birth to a son who visibly was not her husband’s child, leading to her divorce, a rarity at the time in the colony. (She remarried not too much later and continued baptizing children with the new husband.) The local court records have more than a dozen similar accusations of “bastardy” from 1693-1775.
Catharina de Duytser (born in Flatbush) posts banns to marry Jan Roelan, widower of Judick Schirard, on 11 February 1700; they baptize a son Johannes 13 April 1701 and another, Joel, 17 January 1703. She does not appear to have more children in Kingston from that point forward. Her sister (?) Cornelia marries Jan Wels and baptizes several children, starting with Rutsyer on 4 July 1697. Dirrick de Duytser marries 19 November 1699; Roelof marries 17 November 1700. A possible brother David marries in 1714 and also baptizes children in Kingston; Margrieta de Duyster posts banns 19 November 1717 and again in 1725. On 27 January 1740, Harmen Knikkerbakker and Catrina Duytscher baptize a son Louwerens, but that almost certainly is a different Catrina (possibly a niece).
Lucas de Duytser or Roelan (or any of the variant spellings) does not appear in the Kingston church records again, either marrying or baptizing children or witnessing the baptism of others.
* * *
Lucas’s will is dated 15 February 1702/3 (written in Dutch), and his executors appeared before the Kingston court March 9/10 1703/4. His will does not mention his daughter Barbara (presumed to have died before the will was written), and it does not name his youngest son, Lucas, although it notes that Annetje is “nu swanger,” now pregnant. (The will is in Gustave Anjou’s collection of Ulster County wills, Vol. I, pp. 65-66. Anjou indicates that it is in Ulster County’s Book of Deeds, Liber I, p. 296.)
It is not clear why Lucas wrote his will in the winter of 1702, but it was unusual at the time for someone to write a will unless death seemed imminent. A fairly young man, Lucas may have been ailing. (The will as published by Anjou is excerpted from the complete document, which may explain why it was written. Lucas died within the year, so his concern regarding his longevity was well placed.)
Mostly the will divides Lucas’s property among his wife and children. It does not specify that Lucas owned any slaves, as many wills at the time did (including his father’s). The will gives half of Lucas’s estate to his wife, and divides the other half among his two living children and the one not yet born. (Anjou translates this somewhat differently.) Lucas specifies that if Annetje remarries, she should appoint a guardian for the children (a common practice to make sure the rights of his children are protected, in case the new husband has designs on Lucas’s wealth), and her half of his estate should then be divided among his children.
Lucas in his will refers to the 1/12 of his father’s estate that is coming to him: His father, Tjerck De Witt, wrote a will that divided his estate equally among all his children but stipulated that for the lifetime of his wife, Lucas’s mother Barbara, she would retain control of the estate. So in 1703 Tjerck’s estate had not yet been divided. Barbara died in 1714, and it was Lucas’s brother Jacob, the following spring, who petitioned the court to appoint appraisers to survey the real property left behind by Tjerck, so that it could be equitably divided. (National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 4 [December 1972], “Ulster County, New York, Court Records, 1693-1775,” p. 281, translated and edited by Kenneth Scott, F.A.S.G.)
Even then, Tjerck’s estate was not resolved right away. In March 1715/16 (Ulster County Court Records p. 282), Major Johannes Wynkoop, executor of the estate of Lucas De Witt, dec’d., states that of the five appraisers appointed two are ill and a third refuses to serve. Three new ones are appointed in their places. |
Pix
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Sources
I’m just beginning to list sources here. Apologies for not being more complete. I will continue to add to this list as I have time. There are many sources of information on the DeWitt family line, some better than others.
Printed sources:
The DeWitt Genealogy: Descendants of Tjereck Claessen DeWitt of Ulster County, New York; compiled by Mary V[eldran] DeWitt (b. 1895) (privately published; no year indicated). This volume includes only names and dates, no attributions or locations or other stories or information are included. It includes nearly 2800 DeWitt descendants, some with more details, some fewer. It also includes some information on spouses and their parents. The laboriously typewritten volume came from years of personal research, often onsite in Ulster County; the current location of notes from this research is not known, but some of them may have gone to the Genealogical Society of Bergen County (New Jersey), where Mary DeWitt grew up and lived much of her life.
Baptismal and Marriage Registers of the Old Dutch Church of Kingston, Ulster County, New York (formerly named Wiltwyck, and often familiarly called Esopus or ’Sopus), for One Hundred and Fifty Years from their commencement in 1660. Transcribed and edited by Roswell Randall Hoes, Chaplain U.S.N., corresponding secretary of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, etc. New York 1891; original publication De Vinne Press, New York; available today from Higginson Book Co., Salem, Mass., 508-745-7170. Detailed information about baptisms has been filled in through the end of 1687, marriages through 1701. More information is available. Records begin 1660. Other baptisms may have taken place in Hurley and other locations nearby; also from time to time itinerant ministers would travel through and perform various rites, not always entered in the books.
This is available online at archive.org.
Thomas Grier Evans, The De Witt Family of Ulster County, New York (reprinted from the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, October 1886), New York: Trow’s Printing and Bookbinding Co., 201-213 East Twelfth Street, 1886. Available online from archive.org.
Evans’s work, reprinted in 1886 up to the point where it left off in Volume XVIII of the Record, was continued in 1890 (Volume XXI, commencing on p. 185) with additional names and family numbering. The reprinted portion includes names of descendants to the fourth generation; the extension shows their descendants, the fifth generation, with considerable further biographical information on some. This later addition to Evans’s work (he also published details on other families that intermarried with DeWitts in Ulster County, including Crispells, Bruyns, and others) extended into Volume XXII (January 1891, pp. 3-6). (I include here links to some publicly available copies of the individual issue and articles from the Record, but a better way to get access to it and a wealth of other genealogical resources, in addition to supporting genealogical research in general, is to join the NYGBS itself.)
Ulster County, N. Y., Probate Records, In the Office of the Surrogate, and in the County Clerk’s Office at Kingston, N. Y., compiled, abstracted and translation by Gustave Anjou, Ph. D., 1906. Privately published (?) in New York, but available at genealogical libraries (NYPL and others). Subtitle: “A careful abstract and translation of the Dutch and English wills, letters of administration after intestates, and inventories from 1665, with genealogical and historical notes, and list of Dutch and Frisian baptismal names with their English equivalents.” Introduction by Judge A[lphonso] T[rumpbour] Clearwater, LL.D. This is available in reprinted form. Note that there are two distinct volumes included in this work, sometimes combined into one physical book.
Online sources:
Record of early marriages in the Dutch Reform Church in Manhattan, available in printed form or online
Record of early baptisms in the Dutch Reform Church in Manhattan, available online
English translations of Dutch colonial records, also known as “The Kingston Papers,” available online. These are the Dingman Versteeg translations. The originals are available on microfilm from the Ulster County archivist, who can be found through the same link. A cross-reference indexing the archive pages to the microfilm frames to the pages in the printed translation can be obtained from Donald Lockhart, dlockhart at rcn dot com, who includes an entertaining introduction about the misadventures of the original manuscript records in the 1800s, before they were at last safely ensconced with the Ulster County archives.
Also see The History of Kingston, New York, by Marius Schoonmaker (1888), a volume thick with detail and transcribed original records.
Ulster County, N. Y., Probate Records, In the Office of the Surrogate, and in the County Clerk’s Office at Kingston, N. Y., compiled, abstracted and translation by Gustave Anjou, Ph. D., 1906. Privately published (?) in New York, but available at genealogical libraries (NYPL and others). Subtitle: “A careful abstract and translation of the Dutch and English wills, letters of administration after intestates, and inventories from 1665, with genealogical and historical notes, and list of Dutch and Frisian baptismal names with their English equivalents.” Introduction by Judge A[lphonso] T[rumpbour] Clearwater, LL.D. This is available in reprinted form. Note that there are two distinct volumes included in this work, sometimes combined into one physical book.
National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 4 (December 1972), hard to find in print form except in libraries, apparently not on archive.org, but available from the NGS online for paid members.
Reproduced herein:
Wills of Tjerck Claessen DeWitt and his brother Jan, who died unmarried in Kingston, 1699 (1906 Anjou edition; see link above)
Very cursory look at public records from Albany, NY, regarding Tjerck Claessen DeWitt and possible relatives.
The Peltz Record (1948)
The History of Ulster County, New York
The Oberholtzer Genealogy
Research assistance:
Notes.
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