Margriet Hendrickse (abt. 1620 - 1675)

Born about 1620 in Nederland

Wife of Mathijs Jansz — married about 1641 in Fort Orange, New Netherland

Wife of Thomas Chambers — married about Dec 1648 (to about 1675) in Rensselaerwyck, New Netherland [uncertain]

Descendants

Died 1675 at about age 55 in Kingston, Province of New York

Problems/Questions Profile managers: New Netherland Settlers WikiTree [send private message], Margaret Simons [send private message], and Doug Lockwood [send private message]

Margriet Hendrickse was a New Netherland settler. Join: New Netherland Settlers Project Discuss: new_netherland

Biography

Little is known of the life of Margriet Hendrickse. Even that small amount of knowledge was reduced by the discovery that her first husband, Mathijs Jansz Van Ceulen, was not, in fact, the same person as the Director of the Dutch West India Company.

We know that she married Mathijs about 1641. ^{[1] [2]} From this, we can infer that she was born before 1623--Van Curen estimates before 1620 ^[3] --probably in the Netherlands. Some have suggested that she was born at Fort Orange in 1624, but the first recorded birth of a European child was in 1625. ^[4] An earlier version of this profile suggested that she was born in 1618, but without citation. Still others have suggested that she was born in Brazil, but that guess would have been founded on the now-discarded hypothesis that Mathijs was a Director of the DWIC. We can be fairly sure that her father had the given name of Hendrick, because of Dutch patronymic customs.

An earlier version of this profile suggested that she arrived in the New World about 1639, but cited no evidence.

As noted above, Margriet married Mathijs about 1641 (estimated from year of birth of first child), probably at Fort Orange, but Rensselaerwyck is also a possibility. Unfortunately, there are no church marriage records from that time.

They had four children, probably born at Fort Orange: ^[5]

• Catryntje, about 1642 (so as to be 18 at time of marriage)
• Annetje, about 1645 (so as to be over 21 at time of estate division)
• Jan, about 1646, (so as to be under 21 at time of estate division)
• Matthys, about 1648 (because he was at yet unborn upon his father's death)

Her first husband, Mathijs, died on 13 October 1648. ^[5] About two months later, she married her second husband, Thomas Chambers. ^[5] He had a property dispute with the managers of Rensselaerwyck and they removed to Esopus about 1653, becoming the first white settlers of Wiltwyck. Chambers was very successful there, eventually being made the equivalent of the Lord of the Manor of Foxhall, his home.

On 26 December 1660, she was one of sixteen receiving the first communion in the new Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston. ^[6]

There is a record that a "Margrita Clabbort" owned a house in Wiltwyck in 1661. ^[7] "Clabbort" was an alias for Chambers, so the record probably refers to Margriet.

Chambers had no children with her, nor with his second wife. Hoping to preserve his family name, he granted a portion of his coat-of-arms to Margriet's two sons, Jan and Matthys, on 28 Jan 1679. Margriet did not see this, though, having died in 1675 in Kingston. ^[3]

Notes

1. ↑ Van Curen, 2016, p. 2-3; citing Van Rensselaer Journals.
2. ↑ Evans, p. 254.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Van Curen, 1998, 1.
4. ↑ Source needed.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2} Van Curen, 2016, p.3.
6. ↑ Van Curen, 1998, p. 10.
7. ↑ Banta, p. 120.

Sources

• Banta, Theodore M. "Names of Dutch Settlers in Esopus." Year Book of the Holland Society of New York (1897 [but imaged outside cover says "1906"]). Online page images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=nbwTAAAAYAAJ : 2019. Translated and compiled from old court records of Wildwyck.

• Evans, Thomas G. "The De Witt Family, of Ulster County, New York." New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 17 (Oct. 1886). Online page images. HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924061993378 : 2019.

• Van Curen, "Van Keulen/Van Keuren, Van Kuren/Van Curen," (Baltimore : Gateway Press, 1998).

• Van Curen, D. G. RTF file on CD accompanying book, "Van Keulen/Van Keuren, Van Kuren/Van Curen," (Baltimore : Gateway Press, 1998).

• Van Curen, D. G. The Descendants of Mathijs Jansen van Ceulen: A history of the Van Steenberghs, Peersens, Jansens, Van Keurens and related families, from their beginnings in Kingston, Ulster County, New York. Chesterfield, MO: Mira Digital Publishing, 2016.

Acknowledgments

This profile was rewritten, 3 March 2019, by Jim Moore. The prior profile apparently resulted from the merger of five GEDCOM imports.