Volume 14 , Issue 45

Van Kouwenhoven Family History

The original seat of the Van Kouwenhoven family in the Netherlands was the Castle of Kouwenhoven on the banks of the Dommel River outside the village of Tongerie (near Eindhoven) in Brabant. This village was once the capital of the old Germanic tribe of the Tongeren, called by Caesar in "De Bello Gallico," the Tungu. From earliest feudal times the family owned the village. In the later half of the 15th century the Dukes of Brabant of the Burgand House became lords of all the Netherlands.

Jan Van Kouwenhoven is the first of the family found in the Province of Utrecht. He was born ca 1440 and in 1472 belonged to the court of the Bishop of Utrecht. He lived in the little village of Schoonhoven, about 30 miles northeast of Rotterdam. He and his wife were parents of at least two sons, Wille Janse and Jan Janse. The brothers were both schepens (magistrates or aldermen), between the years 1504-1520. And were also burgomasters (mayors.))

Willem Janse (NW Okie's 12th great grandfather) (born 1468) was the father of Jan Willemse (NW Okie's 11th great grandfather) who was born in 1495, and according to Dutch records, also served as a schepen. Jan Willemse had a son, Gerrit Janse (NW Okie's 10th great grand uncle), born in 1516 in Amersfoort. Gerrit Janse, like his father and grandfather, was a schepen for ten of the years between 1541 and 1561. He was elected burgomaster of the city on St. Martin's Eve, 10 November 1553, when he was 38 years of age. He was re-elected seven times, the last in 1572.

When the city rebelled against the tyranny of Spain, Burgomaster Van Kouwenhoven, with the support of the whole city, took a stand, declaring himself in favor of the Protestant Church and the political independence of the Netherlands. The Utrecht family coat of arms appears on his seal. In official records he was referred to as "Jonkherr" Gerrit, signifying that he belonged to the gentry. His name was last mentioned in 1588, at which time he was Elector of Magistrates, having held that honorable position since 1575. He married Styne Robertse, and as was befitting a prominent citizen, when he died he was buried in the chancel of the church at Nijkerk on 12 December 1604.

The family name had originally been suppe (or Zuppe) and that name appears even before 1400 in the Veluwe province of Gelderland, according to G. Beernink, a genealogist of Nijkerk. It should be noted that, traditionally, the Dutch used only patronymic names, i.e. Gerrit Janse, etc. Surnames were not important to them because there were usually not enough repeated names in the general population that persons could be confused. The Dutch also derived both male and female middle names by using the first name of the father, followed by "se" or "sen." So, although we do not know the maiden name of Gerrit Janse's wife, we at least know that her father's first name was Robert. Names were spelled differently, at the whim of the recorder. Surnames were often taken from the areas in which the person lived, as as the Van (from) and Kouwenhoven (village name) when the family came to New Netherlands. Wolphert Gerritse Van Kouwenhoven was the son of Gerrit Janse and Styne.

Robertse, and became the progenitor of the Crownover and Conover lines in the United States. He married Neltie Janse on 27 January 1605 in Amersfoort. According to some authorities, they became the parents of five sons, Derick, Jan, Gerrit, Jacob, and Peter, but only three sons came to New Netherlands with them, and only Gerrit, Jacob and Peter, were represented as having an interest in their parents' estates. If Wolphert and Neltje followed the naming patterns that were prevalent at that time, it is quite possible that the other sons did indeed exist, since one of them would have been named for Neltie's father, Jan. In 1624, Wolphert was granted a lease on Bouwerie #3 on Manhattan Island by the patroon Killsen Van Rensselaer, and on 22 April 1625, he sailed with the Fongersz-Hulft Expedition, along with the other four head farmers and the cattle to settle in the New World. The hired hands and supplies had been sent over a few months earlier to prepare the land for farming. Wolphert remained on Bouwerie #3, which was located on the east side of the old Bouwery Toad, later Division Street, in New York city, until his return to the Netherlands in 1629. He was then engaged by Van Rensselaer to mange Bouwerie #7 and other farms at Rensselaennryck. He sailed with his wife and three sons on "De Endract" on 21 March 1630. The family arrived at New Amsterdam on 24 May 1630 and remained at Bouwerie #7 until 1632.

Van Rensselaer had requested that Wolphert move to Castle Rock in the vicinity of Albany, but Neltie evidently did not want to go. In a letter dated 20 July 1632, and addressed to "honorable, discreet Wolphert Gerritse," Van Rensselaer writes, "I had hoped that you would have settled in my colony, but, as I am told,your wife ws not much inclined hereto." (Van Rensselaer Bowier papers: page 218.) so Wolphert was released from his contract and allowed to lease, instead, Bouwerie #6, located on the East River, which formed its northern boundary. It was south of the present Division Street, east of Catherine Street and west of Montgomery Street. The house itself was east of what is now Chatham Square in New York City. Descriptions of the Dutch West Indies Company's Bouweries can be found in the definitive work, Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909, compiled by I. N. Phelps Stokes in four volumes.

The lease on Bouwerie #6 was supposed to run until 1638, but Wolphert was becoming increasingly dissatisfied in the employ of Van Rensselaer. The Dtuch Patroons controlled huge areas of land, but would not allow individuals to become landowners. Van Rensselaer would not even let his tenants or agents engage in fur trading, which was very profitable, lest they neglect their farm duties. On 16 Juen 1636, Wophert and Andries Hudde purchased the most westerly of the three flats of the Indian village of Keskachauge on Long Island. The original Dutch ground brief states that the Indians received "certain merchandise" in exchange and some sources have defined this merchandise as six coats, six kettles, six axes, six chisels, six small looking glasses, twelve knives and twelve combs. In their form of government each Indian tribe held certain territories with fixed boundaries, distinguished by trails and streams. Sometimes stones were set up to mark tribal confines. When at peace, no tribe would encroach on anther's land and would not even chase game across the boundaries. The Indians of the Canarsie tribe, who were in possession of the three flats, were a sub-division of the Delawares. They knew and understood their territory. The original Indian deed, or Dutch ground Brief, is filed in Register of Deeds, Book A, folio 14 of the Flatlands Town Book. The following is a copy of the record made to Hudde and Van Kouwenhoven, as translated by Dr. A. Wiese for the Long Island Historical Society, and found in the Secretary of State's Office, in Book GG, Tranlations of Dutch patents: page 34:

"We director and council of New Netherlands, residing on the Island of Manahatas (Manhattan), and at Fort Amsterdam, under the jurisdiction of their high Mightinesses, the Lords States General of the United Netherlands and the general privileged West India Company of the chamber at Amsterdam, attest and declare hereby that on this dye underwritten, appeared and presented themselves before us, in their proper persons, tenkirau, ketamau, Araikau, Anoachkouw, Warickehinck, Wappittawackenis, and Ehteyn, as owners and in the presence of Penhawits and Kakpeteyno, as chiefs over these regions, and declare that they voluntarily and deliberately by special order of the chiefs and consent of the tribe there, and for rand in consideration of certain merchandise, which they have received into their hands and power, to their full appreciation and satisfaction, in true, lawful and fee ownership, they have transported, ceded, given over, and conveyed, as hereby they do transport, cede, give over and convey to and for the behoof of Andries Hudde and Wolphert Gerritse the westernmost of the three flats, belonging to them named Keskateuw, lying on the island called Sewanhacky (Long Island), between the bay of the North River and the East River of New Netherland stretching length, mostly north from a certain channel entering from the Sea, on till into the wood and that with all interest, right and equity, thereto belonging to them in the aforesaid quantity, constituting and substituting the well-mentioned Andries Hudde and Wolphert Gerritse in their stead, state, real and actual possession of this, the aforesaid land, and with the same giving full and irrevocable power and authority and social order as a doer and manager of his own and proper business, to the aforesaid Andries Hudde and Wolphert Gerritse, or who hereafter might here obtain their interest, peaceable to enter upon , possess, occupy, use and keep the aforesaid land and also to do there with, deal with, and dispose of as they might do with their own well and lawful acquired lands, without they, the grantors, having, reserving or saving any part, right or interest and authority therein in the least whether of ownership, commandment or jurisdiction,but renouncing all of the same, heresy promising further not only to hold firm, valid, inviolable and irrevocable this, their conveyance for all-time, and that which by virtue of this might be done to execute and fulfill the same, but also to deliver and hod the same encumbrance, by anyone intent thereon, all in good faith, without guile or deceit. In witness thereof is this confirmed with our usual signature and our seal below hanging out. Done on this aforesaid Island of Manahatas, this 16 June 1636.

(Signed) Wouter Van Twiller, director; Jacobus van Corlaer, Jaques Bentyn, Class van Elsant."

On the same date Jacobus Van Corlaer purchased the middlemost of the three flats and a month later the most eastern of the flats was bought by Wouter Van Twiller. The Hudde and Van Kouwenhoven purchase is estimated in most property records as about 7,000 acres. Wolphert was the only one of the owners who ever resided on his land. He took up residence immediately after the purchase, constructed a dwelling and began to farm. He called his plantation "Achterveldt," for a little village of that name in the Netherlands. The settlement later became knowns as New Amersfoort, and subsequently, Flatlands. here Wolphet and his son, Gerrit, established the first white settlement on Long Island.

The south slopes of the hills overlooked a fertile, wooded plain that stretched to the tidewaters of Jamaica Bay. Each of the three parts of Keskateuw contained at least one miniature prairie surrounded by woods. The prairies extended from the present Avenue G and Amersfoort Place in Flatlands, to King's Highway. Another small prairie, generally called "Little Flats" lay near what is now the Flatlands-Flatbush town line at Flatbush Avenue and Paerdegat Lane. Another prairie lay to the east where Queens Village is located.

According to Gillis Pietersen van der Gouw, master house carpenter, in a deposition dated 22 March 1639, and contained in Colonial Documents, Volume XIV, page 16: "The house of Wolphert Gerritse, standing in the bay, was built by Company carpenters." The dwelling was set around with long round palisades, and the hour, built in the true Dutch style, was 26 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 24 feet deep. The roof was covered above and around with plank, with two garrets, one above the other, and a small chamber on the side with an outlet on the side. The large barn was 40 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 24 feet deep. There ws also a shed consisting of a moveable roof set on five posts about 40 feet long. The roof slid up and down, to shelter hay or grain against the rain or snow. In an inventory recorded in Colonial Documents, Volume XIV, page 10 and dated 9 July 1638, Achterveldt was found to have "16 margins of land sown with summer and winter grain and a garden planted with a number of fruit tees." Also listed in the inventory were "three milch cows, one heifer two years old, one do one year old, two old oxen, one young do, one young calf, two old mares, one yearling do, one stallion three years old, one gelding of four years, one new wagon and appurtenances, one wheelplough and appurtenances, one urn harrow, some farm tools, and a yawl with appurtenances." In 1641 Andries Hudde conveyed a portion of his land to Gerrit in payment of a loan, and by 1647, Hudde had disposed of all his remaining interest in Achterveldt to Wolphert Van Kouwenhoven. On 24 August 1658 peter Stuyvesant ratified to Wolphet alone all of the original Hudde-Van Kouwenhoven purchase. (New York Colonial Manuscripts, Volume VII: page 953-953.)

Wolphert's house appears on the Maitus Maps made in 1639. Tehre are two original copies of these maps in existence - one in possession of the Italian Gvoernment (called the Villa Castello copy) and the other in the Library of Congress (called the Vingboons or Harrisse copy.) The maps are nearly identical and three buildings are shown near the inscribed number 36. Opposite this number on the inset of the Harrissee copy are the words "@ plan en 2 boy, van wolfer Geritz met 2 van Syn Censor."

Experts in the Commissioner of Records Office think the regional Dtuch in this entry means, "Two plantations and two bouweries of Wolphert Gerritse and two associates, probably referring to Hudde and Gerrit Van Kouwenhoven. The difference between plantations and bouweries was explained by Van Winkle, thusly, "A bouwerie was a farm where everything in the line of agriculture was raised, while on a plantation, only tobacco and Indian corn was cultivated, preparatory to turning the land into a farm."

On the map a heart-shaped figure drawn with a dotted line is supposed to represent the prairie. Another dotted line representing a road or trial, goes from Wallabout Creek to the northerly side of the heart-shaped figure and then enters it and runs to the house in the edge of the figure, supposed to have been Wolphets. The pond depicted on the map was east of the house and was used to water cattle. Ina southwesterly direction from the house, and outside the heart-shaped figure is another building which is thought to have been the clapboard house where Gerrit and his lung family lived. To the southwest, and near the heart-shaped figure is a representation of a long structure in connected sections. To the west, the words, "Di fasten Hysen Bewonen de wilder Kaskachane," appear and are translated as, "This type of houses the Indians of Keskachane inhabit."

The Ban Kouwenhovens seem to have lived peacefully among the Indians until the outbreak of what has been called "Kieft's War in 1643. director Kieft was detested by the Dutch and disliked even more by the Indians who remembered Wouter Van Twiller's pacific rule and hated his violent successor. On 5 November 1643 Gerrit was one of the so-called "eight men" who sent a report tot he Staats General Assembly at the Hague, describing the desolate conditions of the Dutch settlements in the New World - conditions brought about by Kieft's inciting war with the Indians. J. H. Innes in his book New Amsterdam and its People says, "It is difficult to describe the character of this man (Kieft) or to decide which was its leading trait - his hypocrisy, his self-importance, his administrative incapacity or the rancorous venom of his disposition - " The motives, which caused him to order the cruel massacre of the Weckquaskeek Indians in 1643, seem to have been nothing more than the easy possession of lands occupied by them. The tribe had abandoned their village on the Hudson, near the present Hastings in Westchester County, after being attacked by their enemies, the Mohawks. They fled in the middle of a cold winter to Pavonia on Manhattan Island where they encamped on the west side of the Hudson River. They were without food and shelter, and many of the Dutch settlers took pity on them and provided supplies to keep them from starving. To Kieft, however, it seemed like a great opportunity to settle old scores and to facilitate the expansion of the colony by exterminating the Weckquaskeeke.

Lon February 1643 he ordered the attack that killed more than a hundred Indians - men, women and children. Other tribes in the area retaliated swiftly. Even the great Sachem, Penhawits, of the Canarsies, who had always maintained friendly relations with the Dutch, joined with the Marechkawicks under their chief, Nummers, and nine other tires to rise in open warfare. Most of the outlying farms on Manhattan Island were devasted.

the Indians illdd or carried the settlers into captivity Only four or five of the estimated forty farm dwellings were left standing. In March of 1643 Kieft was obliged to take all the colonists into the pay of the company, to serve was soldiers for two months. The Van Kouwenhovens were not pressured into serving. According to the Journal of the netherlands, believed to have been authored by Cornelius Van Tienhoven, hostilities were temporarily halted when there Indians from the Sachem, Panawits' wigwam appeared at Fort Amsterdam with a flag of truce. No one from the fort was willing to go to the Bruecklen (Brooklyn) side of the river to confer with the Indians, so Wolphert's second son, Jacob, crossed the river in a hollowed-out log and went with the Indians to Rockaway to meet with the tribal council.

Jacob reported that he was treated in a kind and considerate manner and he was able to persuade the Indians to go with him to place themselves within the power of the authorities of the fort. Van Wyck's Keskachauge says that this "seems to confirm the fact that the Van Kouwenhovens had a clear conscience with respect to the Indians, and the Indians had known them long enough to have formed an opinion of the family and to make an estimate of the characters of its members."

If Wolphert's oldest son, Gerrit, was indeed killed by Indians, as has been rumored, it was most certainly not by the local tribes. No concrete evidence had come too light to support this rumor, but the fact that he died in 1645 at age 35, when Indians were still hostile, probably laid the groundwork for the supposition. He left a widow, Altie, (daughter of Cornelius Lambertse Kool) and four small children.

In 1646, Gerrit's widow married Captain Elbert Elbertse Stoothoff, who had come to New Netherlands when he was eleven years old to work in the service of Wouter Van Twiller. Stoothoff had never had any land of his own, but when he promised to take responsibility for rearing Gerrit's children and teaching them to read and write, their grandfather, Wolphert, and uncles, Jacob and peter, agreed to allow Stoothoff a share in achterveldt. A copy of the settlement of Gerrit's estate, with the children's portions noted, and dated 28 November 1646, can be found in colonial Manuscripts, Dutch, Volume II: page 152. An excerpt followss, naming the children as "Willem Gerritse, At present then years old; Jan Gerritse, seven years: Nieltje Gerritse, five years; Marritje Gerritse, age two-and-one-half years," and further states, ". . . the reason why this Jan Gerritse draws and is allowed one hundred guilders more, is because he is not possessed of as good health as the others, and is weak in his limbs, and to all appearances will not be a strong, able-bodied man. . ." (Dr. O'Callaghan's translation.) This agreement did not include the widow's share in the estate. Wolphert had married Neltie Janse in Amersfoort on 17 January 1605 and she was the mother of his three sons. She died someimte before 1656. Court records show that Wolphert was alive in much of 1662, but had died by June of that year. At that time Jacob and peter sold their inherited interest in Achterveldt to Elbert Elbertse Stoothoff. Gerrit's children had land reserved from them. Nieltje's parcel seems to have been in Van Twiller's prairie in the northeasterly corner of Canarsie Land and King's Highway and was known to have been in possession of her son, Martin Schenck, in 1707. Willem's lands were on the easterly side of the FGreat Flat and upland of Vriesen's Hook on the original bowery of Van Coriear's Flat.

Jan lived at Broklyn Ferry and a large part of Bensonhurst is included in his original holdings, which were added to by his marriage with Gerardina De Sille. Marritje was about 19 when her grandfather died and still under Stoothoff's guardianship. her mother, Altie, had three more children from her marriage to Stoothoff, and probably died about the same time as Wolphert, since Elbert married again in 1663. Although he was a very prominent citizen and evidently had good qualities of leadership, Elbert comes off sounding like a lout in Danker's and Stryker's Journal of 1670-1680, as quoted in Stiles' History of King's County, "The house (Stoothoff's) was constantly filled with a multitude of godless people. This Elbert Elbertse, being the principal person of the place, and their captain, there was always a multitude of farmers, children and a continual concourse at his house." Quoting further" . . . The farmers called out uncivilly and rudely (with the minister, Domine Van Sauren present) . . . He had a chatting time with all of them. He sat prating and gossiping with those who talked foully and otherwise without a single word of reproof." elbert evidently kept the promise he made to look after his stepchildren. He had profited a great deal by his marriage to their mother, and went from being a person with no assets of his own to become a major landholder of the colony, with valuable property to leave his own children. In his will, dated in 1686, Stoothoff left Gerrit's children, Marritje, and Willem each 50 pounds. The deceased Neltje's children, Martin (1661, Annetje (1663), Jonica (1665), Marike (1667), Jan (1670) and Gerrit (1671) received 50 pounds to be shared among them. The will mentioned that Jan had received a like amount of "his mother's goods." In the same document Elbert made an attempt to entail his estate to his son and male descendants bearing the Stoothoff name, but he failed in this effort, and the estate later passed into female hands.

The burial place of the early Van Kouwenhovens was the Flatland churchyard, situated just beyond the garden spot that had been planted with fruit trees on the Bouwery of Achterveldt. Here later the church was built. According to an ancient survey, the church stood in the present burying ground, close to the part in which so many of the Kouwenhoven family lie buried. The school came still later and was built west of the church and the burying ground. It seems fitting to close this section of the Van Kouwenhoven family History with excerpts from Van Wyck's Keskachauge:

"The part of Flatland Neck where the old Kouwenhoven homestead was located was the pleasantest part of the Flatbush Plain, with trees sloping to the brook, Bergen Island in the distance and the ocean beyond. Here, and in other homesteads on the Kouwenhvoen estate, lying on both sides of the kill and stretching a full mile along the King's highway, was the admirable family, oldest in the Borough oldest on Long Island. Here, in two of the homesteads on the part of this old estate .. . still live lineal descendants of Wolphert Gerritse Van Kouwenhoven, who with his son, Gerrit, established the first white settlement on Long Island."   |  View or Add Comments (1 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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