Abraham Isaacsen Verplanck

Abraham Isaacsen Verplanck (1606–1690), also known as Abraham Isaacse Ver Planck, [lower-alpha 1] was an early and prominent settler in New Netherlands.[1] A land developer and speculator, he was the progenitor of an extensive Verplanck family in the United States. Immigrating circa 1633,[2] he received a land grant at Paulus Hook (in today's Jersey City) in 1638.

He was one of the driving forces behind the bloody Kieft's War against the Native American population, set off by their retaliation to the Dutch's 1643 Pavonia massacre. His losses were so great at Pavonia he was forced to mortgage his Paulus Hook plantations.

A property owner on a smaller scale on Manhattan for the remainder of his life, he died with outstanding debt, settled by his family in 1699 by sale of one of his holdings.

Family

Verplanck was the son of Isaac Ver Planck, born in Edam in Dutch Republic (Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden) in 1606.

He married Maria de la Vigne in 1632. His children were Abigael Van Lear (1635-1672), Gulian (c. 1636 - 1684), Callyntje(1639-1708), Isaac (b. 1641), Susanna (b. 1642), Jacomyntjie (b. 1644), Ariantje (b. 1646), Hillegondt (1648-1724) and Isaac (1651-1729).[3][4]

Some of his children relocated to what has become known as the Capital District of New York.[5][6] He died at Albany, New York in 1690.

He was the father of merchant, fur trader, and land grant applicant Gulian Verplanck (c. 1636 - 1684), whose widow Henrica inherited a one-third interest of the expansive Rombout Patent in today's southern Dutchess County, New York. His daughter Callyntje, sometimes spelled Catharina, married David Pieterse Schuyler.

Paulus Hook
Map (c1639) Manhattan situated on the North Rivier with numbered key showing No. 31, three plantations at Paulus Hook[7]

Bergen, along the west bank Hudson River and Bergen Hill would become contemporary Hudson County, New Jersey. Though it only became independent municipality from 1661 with the founding of a village at Bergen Square, Bergen began as a factorij at Communipaw circa 1615 and was first settled in 1630 as Pavonia, with settlements at Harsimus, Paulus Hook, Hoboken and Vriessendael in the following years. They were along the banks of the North River (Hudson River) across from New Amsterdam, under whose jurisdiction they fell.

In 1630, Michael Reyniersz Pauw purchased two tracts from the Lenape Hackensack tribe: Hopoghan Hackingh (Hoboken) and Ashasimus (Harsimus), covering the entire peninsula between the Hudson River and Hackensack River now known as Hudson County, New Jersey (and later a third purchase of Staten Island.)[8] The patroonship (established under the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions) was given the Latinized form of his surname (which means "peacock"), Pavonia. It is said it was sold to him by the Manhattans after they had retreated there after the sale of their home island to Peter Minuit some years before. Pauw failed to fulfill the other conditions set forth by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) (which included populating the area with at least fifty adults) and was later required to sell his interests back to it.[9]

The area was an island at high tide. In 1638, an agent/superindentent for the WIC, a man named Micheal Paulez (Pauluson, Powles)[10]) was assigned to the land. He built a hut, operated an occasional ferry and traded with the local native population. (His name was eventually anglicized to Paulus, and given to the hook jutting into the river and bay.)[11][12][13]

By permission of Director of New Netherland Willem Kieft Verplanck acquired land at Paulus Hook on May 1, 1638.[14] The Manatus Map of 1639 depicts a land holdings in the nascent province; number 31 is described as the "plantations at Paulus Hook".[7]

Twelve Men and "Kieft's War"

On August 29, 1641 he was elected a member of Director of New Netherland Willem Kieft's advisory board, the Twelve Men. In 1641, his relationship with the director was so contentious that he was threatened with banishment if he continued to insult the company's officers. The following year Kieft disbanded the council because it disagreed with his military ambitions.

In 1643 Verplanck took part in a Shrovetide dinner meeting at the home of Jan Jansen Damen, with other guests including Kieft, Cornelis van Tienhoven and Maryn Adriansen.[15] During dinner, the men discussed the Indian situation and Van Tienhoven produced a petition advocating the massacre of the Native American population. All those in attendance signed the document and Kieft agreed. The Pavonia Massacre took place, February 25–26. Eighty Native Americans were brutally massacred. Kieft ordered Adriaensen and a band of volunteers to go to Corlaers Hook to attack the refugees assembled there. Retaliation was swift, and the colonists suffered greatly that winter from Native American attacks during what is known as Kieft's War,[16][17] which lasted until 1646.

Verplanck's losses were so great in the Pavonia action that he was forced to mortgage his property, which he did on April 27, 1643 to Jan Damen and Tienhoven, to serve as security for a loan from the Dutch West India Company.[18]

New Amsterdam

Kieft's War forced the Verplancks in 1643 to seek the safety of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island where they later bought a lot from brother-in-law Van Tienhoven near the present-day Pearl and Wall Street in New Amsterdam and later purchased a house in the Smit's Vly (along the shores of the East River[19] at the foot of today's Maiden Lane[20][21]) and in 1649 built a house there.

In 1664, when the English fleet appeared in the Upper New York Bay to claim the colony, Verplanck was one of the signers of the petition requesting that Peter Stuyvesant surrender. Sometime after February 27, 1699 a parcel of land having belonged to Verplanck, located on King Street in Manhattan was sold by his heirs, apparently to settle his estate.

Rombout Patent
The Hudson River shore of the Rombout Patent in the town of Wappinger, New York

Abraham Isaacsen Verplanck's son Gulian was one of three men granted what is today known as the Rombout Patent. In 1685 King James II of England issued a royal grant for some 85,000 acres (340 km2) of land to Francis Rombouts, Stephanus Van Cortlandt (both former mayors of New York City) and Verplanck purchased from Wappinger Indians on the east bank of the Hudson River in what is today's southern Dutchess County, New York.[22] However, Verplanck died in 1684 and his widow married Jacobus Kip, grandson of Hendrick Hendricksen Kip, and the family's share of the patent passed down through that line.[23]

See also

References
Notes
  1. Abraham Verplanck, Abraham Isaacsen Ver Planck, Abraham Isaacsen Ver Planken, Abram I. Ver Plank and Abraham Isaacsen Ver Planck.
Sources
  1. "Welcome to Mount Gulian Historic Site!". mountgulian.org. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  2. "RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: Kings Highway". wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  3. "Abraham Isaacsen VERPLANCK". www2.potsdam.edu. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  4. "Early New Netherlands Settlers". freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  5. Williams, Edwin Melvin; Chester, Alden (2004), Courts and Lawyers of New York: A History, 1609-1925, 1 (reprint ed.), The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., ISBN 9781584774242
  6. O'Callaghan, Edmund (1846), History of New Netherlands: Or, New York Under the Dutch, 1, Harvard University
  7. "Earliest known Manhattan map made in 1639" (PDF). The New York Times. March 25, 1917. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  8. Winfiled, CHarles (1874) History of the county of Hudson, New Jersey : from its earliest settlement to the present time pp.13-25
  9. "The Dutch and English on the Hudson: Chapter 3". www.kellscraft.com. Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  10. A Map of that part of the Town of Jersey, Commonly called Powles Hook [scan]  (Map). P. Desobry's Lith. 1804.
  11. History of Hudson County and of the Old Village of Bergen
  12. "Paulus Hook". www.njcu.edu. Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  13. Harevy, Cornelius Burnham (1900), Genealogical History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, The New Jersey Genealogical Publishing Company, ...under the stimulus of the bill of " Freedoms and Exemptions," one Michael Pauw, then burgomaster of Amsterdam, was impelled, for speculative purposes no doubt, to obtain from the Director General of New Netherland, in 1630, grants of two large tracts, one called " Hoboken Hacking " (land of the tobacco pipe) and the other " Ahasimus." Both of these tracts were parts of what is now Jersey City. These grants bore date, respectively, July 13 and November 22, 1630. The grantee gave one place the name of " Pavonia," Pauw failed to comply with the conditions set forth in his deeds and was obliged, after three years of controversy with the West India Company to convey his "plantations" back to that company. Michael Paulesen, an official of the company, was placed in charge of them. It is said he built and occupied a hut at Paulus Hook early in 1633. If so, it was the first building of any kind erected in either Bergen or Hudson County. Later in the same year the company built two more houses : one at Communipaw, afterward purchased by Jan Evertse Bout, the other at Ahasimus (now Jersey City, east of the Hill), afterward purchased by Cornelius Van Vorst. Jan Evertse Bout succeeded Michael Paulesen as superintendent of the Pauw plantation, June 17, 1634, with headquarters at Communipaw, then the capital of Pavonia Colony. He was succeeded in June, 1636, by Cornelius Van Vorst, with headquarters at Ahasimus...
  14. "Jersey City History - Old Bergen - Chapter VIII". www.cityofjerseycity.org. Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  15. "BILL'S BROWNSTONE - Maiden Lane, A Walking Tour of New Amsterdam". www.billsbrownstone.com. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  16. "Maryn Adriaensen". www.courts.state.ny.us. Historical Society of the New York Courts - New York Legal History / Colonial New York Under Dutch Rule: 1609-1664; 1673-1674. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  17. Ruttenber,E.M.,Indian Tribes of Hudson's River, ISBN 0-910746-98-2 (Hope Farm Press, 3rd ed, 2001)
  18. Versteeg, Dingman; Vermilye, Thomas Edward, eds. (1913). Bergen Records: Records of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Bergen in New Jersey, 1666 to 1788. Translated by Versteeg; Vermilye. Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 300. ISBN 9780806307121.
  19. A Maritime History of New York. Going Coastal, Inc. 26 May 2017. ISBN 9780972980319. Retrieved 26 May 2017 – via Google Books.
  20. Pound, Arthur; Huffman, Philip (1935), The Golden Earth: The Story of Manhattan's Landed Wealth, Macmillan
  21. "T. Smit's Vly [or, "Smith's Valley"] in early times. (Present foot of Maiden-lane, 1861)". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  22. "Vest Pocket Tours of the Hudson Valley". Fishkillridgecommunityheritage.org. Archived from the original on 2012-03-09. Retrieved 2012-10-03.
  23. Genealogies of the State of New York: A Record of the Achievements, Volume 2, p. 744

Further reading
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