I’m lucky to have found so much information about our ancestors. But the problem with that is that there are so many names and dates that it’s overwhelming. Most of our ancestors were ordinary farmers. However, a few were unusually interesting for various reasons. In this section I’ve listed the ones that I think are of special interest. All of these people are our direct ancestors, not cousins or other relatives.
I remember Dowie talking about Catryna Van Rensselaer, who lived from 1691 to 1770. Catryna was Dowie’s 4th great-grandmother. Dowie named her second daughter, Katie, after Catryna. Katie’s full name was Cathryn Van Rensselaer Grier. Catryna was a member of the Van Rensselaer family, a prominent family in the Dutch colony of New Netherland and in early New York.
Kilaen Van Rensselaer (ca. 1585-1643) – Kilaen Van Rensselaer was a wealthy diamond merchant in Amsterdam in the early 1600s. He was one of the first to take advantage of an offer from the West India Company for a large grant of land in the Dutch portion of North America to anyone who would arrange to settle 50 colonists on that land within 4 years. The landowner was known as a patroon. Kilaen Van Rensselaer’s land was called Rensselaerswyck, and was near present-day Albany, NY. His was by far the most successful of the patroonships, and he became one of the most important figures in the history of the New Netherland colony, even though he never traveled there.
Dirck Wesselse Ten Broeck (1638-1717) – He was the fourth mayor of Albany, NY, from 1696 to 1698.
Dr. Joseph Browne (1758-1835) – He was born in England but served as a surgeon for the American army in the Revolution. That made him an officer. After the war he was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, a society of former officers in the Revolution that later became a prestigious hereditary society of the descendants of those officers. George Washington was another original member. Dr. Joseph Browne married a half-sister of Aaron Burr’s wife, apparently in a joint ceremony with Burr. Dr. Browne was a real estate partner with Burr in some land deals in the Bronx (which was much different then than it is now), and made quite a bit of money. After Burr became Vice President, Dr. Browne was appointed the Secretary of the Louisiana Purchase and moved to St. Louis, which was the capital of the Upper District of the Louisiana Territory.
George Wescott (1713-1781) – George Wescott came from England to Philadelphia and became a wealthy coppersmith there. After his death, his family reportedly lived in a house next door to the one where George Washington lived when he was President and the U.S. government was in Philadelphia. Some of the younger Wescott children became friends with the Custis children, the grandchildren of Martha Washington. Elizabeth (“Betsy”) Wescott supposedly visited Washington at Mount Vernon, and he gave her a tour of the plantation on the back of his horse.
Samuel Carter (ca. 1665-1728) – In 1704 Samuel Carter and his second wife Hannah were living in Deerfield, in what is today central Massachusetts. At that time Deerfield was a frontier town. In February 1704, a group of Indians from Canada (which at that time was a French colony) attacked Deerfield, killed many people, and carried off a number of captives to Canada. This became known as the Deerfield Massacre. At the time of the attack, Samuel was away from Deerfield. His 5-year-old son Thomas was killed in the attack, and the rest of the family was carried off. Samuel’s wife Hannah and his daughters Mary and Hannah were killed on the journey. The 4 oldest sons arrived in Canada. Three of them eventually married and remained there. Ebenezer was stolen away by merchants and returned to his father. (Ebenezer was our ancestor.) Samuel left Deerfield, settled in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1705, remarried, and had one more child.
Johann Peter Rockefeller (1682- ca. 1766) – No, he wasn’t rich. He was a farmer who came from Germany in 1723 and settled in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. But he was the ancestor of John D. Rockefeller, who became one of the richest men in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Samuel Runk (1754-1847) – Samuel Runk served in the American Revolution in the Hunterdon County, New Jersey, militia. He lived into his 90s, long enough to get a pension for his service. I have a copy of his pension record that I got from the National Archives.
John Runk (1791-1872) – John Runk, the son of Samuel, was a U.S. Congressman from Hunterdon County, New Jersey from 1845 to 1847. He ran for Governor of New Jersey in 1850 but lost.
Click the button for more information about Samuel and John Runk.
Anneke Jans – Anneke Jans was born in Norway and married in the Netherlands. She and her family came to New Netherlands (present-day New York State) in 1630. She outlived both of her husbands. She became famous many years after her death when some of her descendants, in a series of lawsuits, claimed that Trinity Church in New York City had illegally acquired title to 62 acres of land in Manhattan that had once belonged to her.
Edmund Doty (died 1655) – Our Mayflower ancestor. He wasn’t one of the leaders of the Mayflower settlers, like Miles Standish or William Brewster. In fact, Edward Doty came over as an indentured servant, working to pay his way to America. But regardless of his humble origins, you can still tell people that you had an ancestor who came over on the Mayflower.
Maria Williams Halsey (born 1768) – Maria Williams Halsey was married to Dr. Ichabod B. Halsey, a physician in Staten Island and New York City. Maria wanted to study medicine, and her husband taught her. When he thought she was ready she went before examiners at the Medical Society of Richmond County. That society granted her a certificate to practice medicine on 10 July 1809. That was 40 years before Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from a medical college. At that time, society didn’t accept that a woman could be a doctor. In the New York City directory in the 1820s and 1830s, Maria Halsey is listed as a midwife.