Swimming in Welsh Rabbit and Perfumed Doubts

By Bob Ferris

When I was young my mother would make us Welsh Rabbit or Rarebit (both are correct).  She poured the cheesy mixture on saltines rather than the traditional toasted bread and we liked it that way or did not know better.  I think about this concoction now as I am trying to sort though a chunk of my ancestors originally from Wales.  This process feels a lot like paddling through the aforementioned orange goo mainly because I cannot help but feel that I enter Google hell when trying to sort through those with two first names, particularly when those names are sometimes the same (And, yes, I am thinking about you, probable great-grandfather James James from Llanwrthwl.)  I suspect that it is all right there before me, but it is often covered by something that masks like this melted cheese with white sauce, sprinkled with paprika, and poured on crackers.

I am emotionally and intellectually supported in this by a newly discovered half-fifth cousin who I recently met online while trying to sort out our shared Randolph lines and false family myths about a supposed link to Edmund Randolph.  I say half-fifth cousins because we share a common ancestor in Frances "Frankie" Randolph but descend from Frankie's different husbands: she from Thompson Randolph and me from Samuel James.  But we are more than that too as our two lines from Frances, son Thompson Randolph (Jr?) and daughter Susannah James, married brother and sister Hannah and James Taylor.  This makes us 6th cousins as well.  Confused yet?  (For those of you keeping score that means our degree of theoretical relatedness is 1X2 ^-14 + 2X2 ^-16. This is more than just half-fifth cousins but still well less than half of one percent of relatedness.)

The Welsh preference for two first names and the calculation of the big toe-scale degree of relatedness with my cousin is only the start of the confusion and complications.  But let's digress some.  When my late brother Bill presented his first version of our family tree in 1993 he listed Samuel James' father as Moch James without any explanation.  Roughly six years later he revised the tree and named Samuel's parents as Evan James and Anne Foreman.  In this latter revision he cited work by my grandmother Edna Robb Settles who through most of her efforts was a very solid researcher and actually was able to interview relatives who interacted with those born in the late 18th century and early in the 19th.  My grandmother was a genealogical dynamo but this I only know second-hand because she had a stroke three years before I was born.  I never saw the brilliance and this probably colors my thinking, which in most cases it should not.

I have to admit that there are times when my lens of my grandmother creeps in.  For instance, while I was looking at Jacob and Mary Taylor in North Carolina, the parents of James and Hannah, memories of my grandmother intervened.   My confidence in her work disappeared in my recollection of the cloud of perfume she wore as her senses diminished and my time with her as she descended into the not knowing.  As I started to see several in the North Carolina counties of Onslow and Duplin with the last name James, the Evan and Anne connection felt a little twitchy at times and I got distracted by a James line in North Carolina that had a first name pattern very similar to the one used by Samuel and Frankie in naming their children (i.e., Samuel, Isaac, and Enoch).  But each well I dug seemed to come up dry.  None felt right or possible.  So back I went to Evan, Anne, and the lands around Fort Cumberland and headwaters of the Potomac.

Children of Evan James (1756-1810) and Anne Foreman (1756-1839)

Mary Jane James Deakins (?) b. 1774 (1)
Samuel James b. 1774-1775 (1,2)
Mary "Polly" James Lovitt or Lovett b. June 10, 1776 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Thomas James b. 1778 (1)
John F. James b. 1779 (1, 2)
Grace James Sigler b. 1779 (1, 2, 3, 4)
Susan James b. 1784 (1)
Nancy Ann James Poland b. 1787 (1, 2, 3)
Isaac James b. 1786 (1)
Susannah James Sigler 1790 (1, 2, 3)
Evan B. James 1792 (1, 2, 3, 4)
William F. James b. 1795 (1)
Elizabeth "Eliza" James unk. (1)

Evan and Anne are listed on many websites and are variously credited with having from one to thirteen children with only a few pages showing a child named Samuel.  There is uncertainty.  But here is where history and geography collide with genealogy.  Records show that Samuel James was married in Allegany County, Maryland in 1793 and that Evan James was buried in Westernport, Maryland in 1810, also in Allegany.  So I am thinking: Great, we can go to the census or tax records for 1790 and before to sort this out.  Except we cannot exactly because of the near constant border wrangling between Maryland, Virginia, and eventually West Virginia as well as the War of 1812.  Due to the former Samuel James could have been born in Virginia and married in Maryland without moving an inch from where his crib was rocked.   This made determining which jurisdiction would have kept the family's records difficult to determine and the War of 1812 made them nearly impossible to find because the British put many of these records to the torch.

From here.

But records for Evan James and his family do exist.  For instance, Evan James is listed as someone who settled west of Fort Cumberland prior to 1788 in several publications.  The root source of this information comes from the records collected by Col. Francis Deakins who was tasked with surveying Maryland's western border and creating the so-called Deakins Line perpendicular to the much more famous Mason-Dixon Line.  According to Deakins and his crew Evan James held lots 3542 and 3544 (see page 29 bottom right in the link) and his designation as a settler means that he probably did not serve in the Revolutionary War.  In other publications these "settlers" are described as squatters which seems harsh for these were folks who staked out lands on the edge of civilization when the risks of that action were pretty high.  The lots were generally fifty acres in size so Evan and Anne seemed to have both land and a large family which generally indicates they were farmers which is verified by the piece on grandson Andrew Jackson James above. 

Allegany County Land Records

As time passed Evan's holdings increased as indicated by the typed transcript above.  It is unclear whether this indicates total holdings or recent purchases as neither of the parcels listed in 1787 are included.  Of note are the notations for a property known as "Good and Bad" which is important because Evan James was buried in the Poland Family Cemetery which was derived from these lands.  This knowledge with other clues gives some indication of how the estate of Evan James was divided, the Poland coming from his daughter Nancy Ann's marriage and the subsequent sale of the remainder of this land by John Deakins' who was married to "Margaret" (Margaret was more than likely Mary Jane James) show that other acreage went to another daughter.  Anne, after Evan's passing, went to live with Polly James Lovitt and her family in Ohio.  Additionally, there are Allegany census records from 1800 and 1810 after Evan's death.  The 1800 census shows a household of eleven including three children under ten years of age.  These three could be Evan Jr., William, and perhaps the mysterious and less documented Elizabeth.  In 1810 the household is reduced to four including Anne (Ann).  The three remaining under 26 could also be those three mentioned above.

From here 1998.  John Deakins married Margaret (possibly Mary Jane) on June 8, 1797 

All of this leads to thoughts and questions.  Westernport was once considered for an extension of the C&O Canal that would run upriver from the terminus at Cumberland some 20 miles away.  It never was built.  How much of this figured in Evan's plans?  Moreover, the canal only functioned for a time and then was largely supplanted by the railroad which did come to Westernport, but not in Evan's time.   Ironically, spoils from some subsequent railroad construction in the 1940s covered Evan's grave much like the cheese at the beginning of this piece pouring on the crackers.

Through much of my modest research I often speculate on connections as well as circumstances and motivations.  The how and why being nearly as important to me as the exchange of genetic material.  This brings me back to Samuel James and Frankie Randolph,  a farmer's son in a household filled to the brim with siblings coming together with a young widow with one or more children traveling west over what was originally Braddock Road (see above and Note 1 below).   Since records indicate that Samuel and Frances were married on the same day as her cousin Elizabeth Prudence Randolph wed Jesse Reno in the same county and Frances, Elizabeth, and Jesse were all from Manassas, I tend to believe that the three were all traveling together as part of a larger group.   This fits a pattern as Frankie's brother Thompson had traveled to Kentucky with other families from Manassas and Prince William County roughly a dozen years before.  Elizabeth and Jesse could have been childhood sweethearts or their romance blossomed on the road.  Who knows?

Samuel and Frankie are trickier and more caprice must have been involved.   It seems strange the probable quickness of it all but then I remember that my parents William and Mary Ferris did a soup-to-nut courtship in a week's time in the closing years of World War II.  I remembered too that sisters Grace and Susannah James married brothers William and Peter Sigler just as their step-nephew and niece married the Taylor brother and sister all indicating a challenging dating landscape.  It could also be that things were getting crowded and conflicted for the teen-aged Samuel rubbing shoulders with Evan.  Frankie was also likely sensitive to the fact that she had lost a sister-in-law and nephew in an Indian raid near their destination about dozen years before.  So we have two pre-loaded souls colliding in a land of few opportunities traveling to land with even fewer.   Bubbling cheddar cheese meeting white sauce.  I don't really know as all is supposition until truly proven like many or even most parts of this narrative.  Time may tell or not.

****

Note 1: This route beginning at Fort Cumberland rather than the more southern route through the Cumberland Gap which would have been the obvious choice for the Taylors in North Carolina, but not Randolphs setting out from Virginia is another reason to doubt the North Carolina Jameses.

The Sadness of Tumbleweeds

By Bob Ferris

Tides ebb and flow.  A little more than three years ago there were four males in my line with the last name Ferris and now with the recent passing of my older brother William Ramsay Ferris Jr. there is just one: Me.  I am wrestling with how I feel about this and it is more complicated than simple loss.

From 2014 with my father and brother in the last photo of all three of us.

Certainly all of these passings in relatively quick succession have affected me and that is not helped any by a political and climatic landscape we now find ourselves in that speaks more of end-of-times than vibrancy and optimism.   The processing of this grief is not ameliorated at all while sucking wildfire smoke, watching dismal weather radars, combating Russian bots, and witnessing the potential collapse of the New World enterprise that our collective family has fought for and then served in various capacities for nearly four hundred years.

My father, uncle, brother, and I were dropped from similar genetic molds, but we differed in beliefs, experience, education, and interests.  We did hunt and fish together and we four also held tight to history and family both current and long past, but we were literally and figuratively all over the map.

We were all also named for those in our Morris and Ramsay lines which adds another onion skin to this complex, because my older brother was also the keeper of much in terms of family history and memorabilia.  This will come to me and I have no children myself and limited space in my retirement downsizing to accommodate walls, bookshelves, file cabinets, or other functional equivalents of family museums.

The garage office I am building for writing and perhaps processing what material might come.

While I am anxious to get the genealogical materials assembled by my grandmother Edna Robb Settles, I fear that some of the other materials will be much more like the links in Jacob Marley's chains.  So blessings and burdens both.  It makes me feel a little like a farmer who no longer has a farm, but will soon have bags and bags of seeds some of which are a couple of hundred years old.  This farmer challenge is exacerbated by the fact that most who care about farming in this sense are old like me and also have their own seeds.  And the younger ones seem to care little about farming.

There are reasons why these roots mean less.  For instance, my father and uncle were born in New York state, my brother in Florida, and I started life in California yet my father passed in Annapolis, my uncle in Atlanta, and my brother in San Jose while I now live in Eugene.  Yes, my two sisters and my mother live in Maryland and Virginia near where many of our lineages landed in the 1600's, but all three of them where born in California.  Moreover, my wife and I have lived in Eugene for six years but we have moved seven times in our nearly fifteen years of life together.  In short, we were once a family of trees that now more resemble tumbleweeds.

I bemoan the fact that my nieces and nephews seem to care little about things genealogical or family history, but I suspect that it is hard to truly appreciate family trees and roots when we are rarely anchored to a hometown and are so constantly moving.  I loved my grandfather and father, but it has been more than forty years since I visited my grandfather's grave in Palo Alto and I have only visited my father's once since his ashes were placed in Arlington.  Neither neglect springs from apathy or paucity of feeling, I think of both most days.  But tumbleweeds tumble...sadly.

Me walking in the Warren, Vermont 4th of July parade with some of my "children" and the Ferris Wheel they built.  

But all is not sadness for as tumbleweeds tumble they drop seeds.  I recall sitting with a group of interns at an informal gathering in a past professional incarnation when one of them asked me whether I had any children.  When I answered that I did not she countered claiming that they were actually all my children.  It was a nice thought and I think that I will work to embrace it as I process the pile before me and that which age and circumstance has brought to us all.   

The Day Horror Met Hoodoo on the Columbia

Here

By Bob Ferris

I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for nearly a decade now which made Major Samuel Canby's grave in Vancouver, Washington a curiosity to me.  How did a Brandywine-born Quaker with a Viking last name end his days across the continent in Washington State just days before his 60th birthday?  My interest was also piqued because while I knew quite a bit about all my other ancestors in this generation, I knew next to nothing about Samuel other than his birthplace and where he breathed his last.  It was a mystery, so I dug and found the below which only made it even more mysterious...and tragic too.

July 24, 1897 from here.

Samuel Canby was my great-great-grandfather and he was born in 1837 into a prominent family of millers in the Wilmington, Delaware area.   The Canbys along with the Tatnalls and Prices were big doings in Wilmington and young Samuel carried within him the blood of all three families.  Though identified as Samuel Jr. on many documents his father's name was Edmund so I believe that the junior was added so he was not confused with his uncle of the same name.

Samuel Junior served in the Union Army during the American Civil War joining less than two weeks after the attack on Fort Sumter.  When you look at his service record you find that young Samuel enlisted at 23 as a sergeant in a New Jersey regiment but soon found himself in units associated with his native Delaware (above).  It was during his switch between state affiliations that he married Rebecca Tilghman Johnston in December of 1861 and then he went to war in earnest.

Depiction of Union charge at Gettysburg

Saying that he served seems like such a simple statement, but I suspect that it is like claiming an atom bomb is just another loud bang.  The newly-married Samuel was at the battles of Shiloh, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Franklin, and Nashville.  He was wounded at Gettysburg and by age 28 he was a major.   He left the Army in 1868 and by then he and Rebecca had three children.  He had as they said at the time "seen the elephant."

Now I have not been able to find much on-line about Samuel and Rebecca for the period between 1868 to 1894 when Samuel seemed to appear sans Rebecca in Vancouver joining his younger brother Edmund.  Certainly Samuel and Rebecca were together and still having children until their last, William Poyntell Canby, was born in 1879.  And they were listed in an 1880 census in Delaware with Samuel's profession given as Civil Engineer--the same as my great-grandfather, William Gouverneur Ramsay, and my father, William Ramsay Ferris, who were both majors too. 

Samuel's profession explains, in part, why he would find himself manager of the nine-year-old Vancouver, Klickitat, and Yakima Railroad.   The other part was that the railroad was founded by his brother Edmund and others associated with the then extant First National Bank of Vancouver.  Hard to say the deciding factor in his hiring and it could have been a chicken and egg situation.  But we do know on that fateful day in July, Samuel was seen off in good spirits by his brothers Edmund and Col. James Price Canby and not by Rebecca who remained in Wilmington.  And this is where the hoodoo enters.

The stern-wheeled steamer Mascot.

The steamer Mascot was built in 1890.  Fast and long-lived for an all-wooden boat (21 years), the Mascot ran a strenuous route from the Lewis River in Washington to Portland, Oregon and points on the Willamette River six days a week starting at 5 AM.  This was a profitable run but the boat seemed plagued with miss-haps including three sinkings, several deaths (two by suicide), and the fire in 1911 that finally ended its service.  For these incidences, rightfully or wrongly, the steamer was labeled as a "hoodoo" or jinxed ship. 

 It was from this "hoodoo" that the troubled Samuel jumped into the Columbia River after throwing his coat on the deck and tossing his hat towards the boiler room doors 121 years ago today.  No one knows but Samuel what was running through his mind as he stood on the rail before launching himself for his last swim, and there is much we do not know about his life and condition at that time, but I cannot think that what he experienced at battlefields like Shiloh and Gettysburg was not somehow involved in the calculus of it all.  Those war days had to have left a mark beyond whatever physical scar he carried from his wounding.

Here is a key written from the perspective of one of the Ramsay girls children of Caroline (Lena) Johnston Canby.  

Some in my family and elsewhere will likely be offended some by this post and see it as a familial stigma that I have exposed to the world.   I do not see it thus but rather a cautionary tale about looking after our loved ones and keeping them from harm as well as a larger story about the value of maintaining peace and the dangers of war.  And it is not necessarily a totally unhappy spinning either as Samuel and Rebecca in spite of this inner storm and consequence produced a pile of Canbys (some above).

I do not know for certain whether or not my lack of knowledge about Samuel was a direct result of how he ended his life, but I suspect it contributed.  We are a family of great men and strong women that seems to respect courage and toughness foremost with not much room allowed those who are born vulnerable or damaged while trying to live up to this ideal.   I would think that a heightened awareness and openness on this topic of suicide could probably prevent some of these occurrences as well as help ease the pain for those left behind when they do happen.

George Britton Compton

Samuel's great-grandson George Compton (above), who we all knew in our household as Uncle George, committed suicide when I was about seven or eight just before his 40th birthday.  To this day there still seems confusion about the root causes of that happenstance but I do not think that people asked adequate questions nor watched him closely enough at the time.  This is also one of the reasons I never met my own grandfather Van Wyck Ferris who left this world similarly.  Perhaps we would do better by Samuel, Van, George, and others not mentioned by employing a different approach that celebrated their victories, recognized and accepted their challenges, and did not ostracize them for the way they passed.    It is something to think about.

Afterword

I believe my late father once identified the young girl at the far left in the Canby photo as Caroline Johnston Canby Ramsay and one of the young boys at the right as Uncle Poynt (William Poyntell Canby) which would date this to the mid to late 1880s.  I suspect that one of the children is also the artist Ethel Canby Peets who was two years older then Poynt.  I do not know, but if others do, please let me know.  The story and picture haunts me.  (Cousin Wyn Evans was kind enough to provide a key above.)

For the Revolutionary War Our Family Turned it Up Above Eleven and Now We Need More

By Bob Ferris

I have butted heads with the so-called "patriot" groups over the years on various matters relating to the US Constitution, conservation practices, and public lands.  One group in particular drives me crazy: The 3 Percenters.  This para-military group claims to be the voice of those 3% of Americans who served in militias during the American Revolution.  This number is a little specious both in terms of a measure of patriotism (i.e., militia members being more patriotic than those in the Continental Army) and gross numbers as overall participation in this conflict was something like 15 percent.  It made me wonder where our family came out in this number and what that means now and in the future.

The Revolutionary War started in earnest 243 years ago.  As male generations are on average 35 years long, or 15 years longer than female generations, that means we should be talking about males in the seven or eight generation or between 64-128 potential soldiers in the Revolution.   As we have at least 17 Revolutionary War combatants in our tree or 13-26 percent of our expected pool that means that we might have collectively served a little less or a lot more than the average population at 15 percent.

But it is more complicated than that.   For one thing, males had to be a certain age (16-55) during a certain window of time (1775-1783) so we might have had some who were alive during war, but too old or too young.  This said we also had instances where both father and son served such as Declaration Signer Lewis Morris and Lt. William Walton Morris (not to be confused with his son Gen. William Walton Morris who served in the Civil War).   And we had a few who were not in the country at this time such as Patrick Ramsay (Scotland), William Poyntell (England), and Joseph Gales Sr. (England), the latter my family's most recent immigrant (1790s). 

David Deschler

Joseph Tatnall

Benjamin Chew

Also mainly through my great-grandmother Caroline Johnston Canby Ramsay on my father's side, there is a strong Quaker connection.  Three of note were David Deschler, Joseph Tatnall, and Benjamin Chew.  Interestingly, all three hosted George Washington in their homes at times, but they dealt with their pacifism and the war in different manners.  David was perhaps the most involved providing supplies, money, and eventually serving as the Commissary of the Army in 1780.    David was also a man of principle supporting the Revolution, but also once defending a British officer who was traveling with his family from an angry crowd of militia members in Philadelphia.  Joseph Tatnall, a mill owner, also worked hard to keep the Continental Army in flour and had constant contact with Washington.  Benjamin Chew stuck to his material neutrality offering only legal advice to those serving in the Continental Congress and advocating for protest leading to a peaceful resolution rather than declaring independence.  While David and Joseph retained the full goodwill of their neighbors and new countrymen, Benjamin's road, because of his why-can't-we-all-be-friends approach, was rougher.

Those who served were old and young.  Though my mother has told me often of a little drummer lad in the family who went to war I have yet to discover that intrepid boy.  The youngest I have been able to find is Ensign John DePeyster Douw who joined at 19.  The oldest was Colonel Samuel Coit who led his Connecticut regiment for a year before being replaced at age 73.  They also came from nearly every colony so there was diversity in this regard if not in other areas.

"Mrs. Johnston died in that city, but we have no record of the date of her death or where interred."  In Some Pennsylvania Women during the War of the Revolution (1898 see here).

But what about the women?  The above quote says a lot about that issue.  The Mrs. Johnston in question was Alice Erwin Johnston wife of Colonel Francis Johnston and she broke with her Quaker community and worked hard to get food and supplies to soldiers during the war.  This was particularly true about Valley Forge where her husband served with Washington and another Francis (Chaffin) who died there of small pox even with the efforts of Alice and her allies.  Luckily, we actually do know where Alice was buried and then reburied, but even in a book dedicated to acknowledging the role of women in the Revolution details about women were omitted or overlooked.  Odd that.

This walk through history is interesting but how do we judge it and our collective role?  What does it mean for the future?  In essence, what is the point?  My sense is that revolution is much like soil tilling in that it gives a clean slate on which to grow dreams like those expressed by Gouverneur Morris in the Preamble.  Perhaps we should not be measured by the quality or quantity of our disturbance as I have documented above, but by the crops ultimately produced.   And even there my desire would be that we evaluate ourselves more by the flowers nourished and enabled rather than just in terms beets and broccoli.

Alexander Johnston Cassatt by Mary Cassatt.  Alexander helped his sister promote her art in the US.  They are both great-great grandchildren of Alexander Johnston who immigrated from Ireland and was father to Francis.  

Our families have a lot of these exceptional "flowers" growing from various branches.  I bumped into two, in addition to Alice Johnston, while writing this piece.  The first was the impressionist painter Mary Cassatt who called Colonel Francis Johnston great-great uncle.  I knew of her connection to the Johnston line but not of her brother's efforts on her behalf.  The other was Lillie Hitchcock Coit of San Francisco's Coit Tower fame who was married for a time to Benjamin Howard Coit great-great-great grandson of Colonel Samuel Coit.  In this in-laws count just as transplants do in a garden.

Illustration from one of Mary Lanman Douw's books.  The Rapelye (Rapalje) cradle was where Sarah Joris Rapalje was rocked after being born in the New Netherlands in 1625.  She was the first female child born in the new colony at Fort Orange (Albany).

In addition to a painter and fire-chasing, trouser-wearing philanthropist in our extended family we also have writers.  One such was Mary Lanman Douw who wrote much about history, genealogy, and the early Dutch experience in the New World.   Nina Chandler Murray is another author who penned a book about an epic family cruise to the Galapagos Islands.  I would also include Winifred Marshall Gales, the first female novelist in North Carolina, within this group too even though she was in England during the Revolution, because her public sympathy to this revolt and breaking away led to her and her husband Joseph Gales Sr. being chased out of England one step in front to the law.   The fact that the Gales entertained folks like Thomas Paine of Common Sense fame in their home and printed some of his material probably helped along this process of moving from liking the American stance to being American.

Award-winning teacher Lauren Bergland Rosenberg at work.

My grandmother Edna Dora Robb also was one of these flowers.  She wrote about her experiences in post-World War I Alaska in Field and Stream Magazine, but she is better known as a school teacher who as a single woman went to the relative wilds of Seward to teach before marrying my grandfather at the start of the Roaring Twenties.  And there are other teachers too like second cousins once removed Lauren Bergland Rosenberg (above) and Patty Lavarias who are both probably going to look at my grammar. 

In closing, I will say that we are living in dark times, but the strength, creativity, and sensibility of the women in our families and lines gives me hope.  I gain this feeling, because these women might be the ones who inspire or lead this next revolutionary adjustment or needed democratic booster shot.  Maybe they can do so in a better and more enlightened manner than our more recent forbearers did in the mid-1800s.  It might also be good time for those of us not women to model Alexander Cassatt by recognizing this talent, however different, and supporting it.

The above is something that we should think about this July 4th as we celebrate the work of our Founding Fathers and simultaneously mourn how far we have drifted away from our founding principles and the vision expressed in the US Constitution.  We need to return to protecting all within our country from the corrupting forces of a too-empowered elite, over-entitled corporate interests, and the dangerous re-emergence of the functional equivalent of a state church or religion.  We should recognize this trio for what they are: the catalysts for the original Revolution.  So enjoy the fireworks, but get your shoes ready to march on as the fife and drum are calling!
 

Uncle Pat

By Bob Ferris

I was cleaning out my book case this morning and was stalled by the above.  It is a self-published book written by my uncle Morris Patterson Ferris who recently passed.  My cousin Patty and I had made a side trip to see him, but he died before the wheels of my plane touched the tarmac in Atlanta. I got the news as I was settling into my hotel room.

My uncle was a writer.  He wrote nearly every day.  He wrote about his garden and his sweet potatoes.  He wrote about his dogs like Beaver.  He wrote about what he shot hunting, netted shrimping, or gigged floundering.  He wrote a lot and most of it was not sterling prose or exciting, but it was all pure Pat.  (For a recording of Uncle Pat telling stories and oral history visit here.)

"Ground Swell" by Edward Hopper (1939)

Uncle Pat and my father sailed in a 25-foot catboat from Long Island to South Carolina in 1938 right before a hurricane hit the southern coast and the world exploded in war.  He wrote about this trip (which always reminds me of the Edward Hooper painting Ground Swell above painted about the same time) and was frustrated because he could not get it published.  He sent it to me with an entreaty to help him edit the piece.  I read it and gave him what feedback I could given my other projects.  My sense was that it needed more context and commentary.  It needed some life blown in it.  The most interesting things about that trip could not have been my father constantly fixing the make-n-break, one-lunger that drove them in ports or how much they spent on their various purchases.  These were the things of day diaries, but not gripping sea stories.  Now I wished that I had spent more time with the Ferris brothers reconciling the two stories and adding the fabric of the tale where needed.

Bill and Pat riding a sleigh in New York.

And the Ferris boys, Bill and Pat, had adventures and tales that should have been told.  They both "ran away" to sea on a four-masted, timber schooner the Annie C. Ross and they both served in World War Two in the Pacific...one in the Army Air Corps and the other in the Coast Guard.  Though they were born in the north, they were formed, in part, as they roamed their grandmother's Cat Island Plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina where so many of us since spent time with the mosquitoes and gators while pursuing ducks and deer along with sipping Aunt Mary Morris' "home-made" corn whiskey.  Now they are both gone.

Screen shot of photo of someone walking the deck of the Annie C. Ross while under sail.

Both my father and uncle passed in their nineties with Pat making it closer to the hundred mark than my father who died just short of ninety-five.  They had full lives with big stories and small.  I cannot say that I ever had a meaningful discussion with my uncle about politics, science or religion let alone feelings or philosophy, but that is not to say we shared nothing.  We had experiences and memories.  We had those aplenty and my cousin Scott reminded me of that recently when he mentioned a time when the two of us found ourselves bootless and asked to join a deer drive on Cat Island.  Each of us stood at the side of the muddy roadway in loafers while Uncle Pat played dog.  All was quiet for a time and then the swampy forest was filled with crashing and Uncle Pat shouting "Owooo, Owooo, don't shoot boys it's your Uncle Pat.  Owooo."  Those of you who knew him will probably chuckle at this and understand that while my cousin and I tried to remain appropriately vigilant and maintain our hunter visages both of us were likely incapacitated by laughter.
 

My Brother-in-law Rob and I book-ended by my father and uncle after a hunt on Cat Island.

We Should Remember the First War on Christmas and the Knickerbockers who Fought It

By Bob Ferris

It is interesting to see the current rhetoric about the "War on Christmas" which is being promoted by the most self-righteous and intolerant among us.  These are those who shake, rattle and roll with religion and cannot seem to have any conversation that does not ultimately swing around to some mention of God, Jesus or being saved.   They also seem to be the ones who festoon themselves with all manner of symbols proclaiming their Christianity from cross-shaped earrings and necklaces to devotional t-shirts much as the Puritans wore black and the simple as overt signs of their devotion.

We live in a country with freedom of religion, so fine...great for you.  The operative word being "you." But problems arise when the "you" seeks to include and control "me" and others not "you."  It is instructive to remember that the first War on Christmas on this continent was waged by the Puritans who banned the celebration in 1659.  These folks, unbridled and in full control of government, followed up that enlightened action a generation and half later by hanging witches including one of my long-ago grandmothers, Mary Towne Estey, on my mother's side.

Now I will admit to having double-dipped Puritan roots in that both my mother and father descend from families on the Mayflower so I cannot escape genetic responsibility but I am likely more proud of those who resisted this prohibition and understood the social value of a time-honored and frequently-pagan celebration at this time of year to chase away the frozen cobwebs of our souls.   Perhaps the laughter and frivolity of it all was a type of early Vitamin D surrogate.

Enter ancestors Annetjie Loockermans Van Cortlandt and her daughter Maria.  The former is rumored to have celebrated Christmas openly in the New Netherlands colony and the latter certainly did as we have the above receipt from Walter the Baker (Wouter Albertsz) from 1675 which includes types of cookies that were essentially Saint Nicholas treats.  It is important to note here also that the wife of Clement Moore, Catherine Elizabeth Taylor, who wrote "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (now know as "Twas the Night Before Christmas") also descended from Annetjie and her husband Olaff Van Cortlandt.  Way to go knickerbockers!

For me there are number of lessons in all of this.  First, is that there is an almost universal need throughout cultures and belief systems to celebrate something when the skies are darkest and the days most short.  We should do so regardless of our beliefs.   It matters less what you celebrate and more that you do celebrate.  So kick up your heels and do something.

Moreover, these celebrations work best on a landscape of honesty and tolerance not one that waits anxiously to pounce on the newest Starbuck's cup design or a friendly, more inclusive seasonal greeting.   Sure you can emulate the Puritans and push for a "pure" Christmas but you should also remember that you probably do so while talking about some variant of Saint Nicholas which in its purest form includes mention of the walking-lump-of-stocking-coal known as the Krampus marching in the above video.

Your celebration also likely involves a decorated tree with complicated and convoluted roots both in Paganism and Christianity.  Sure Martin Luther is credited in some circles with this "tree" idea but golly the Vikings, Romans, Egyptians, and Chinese used it also in pre-Christian times.  (And don't even get me started on the Druids.)  Even the two Judeo-Christian holy days are named either for the sun or for the god Saturn.  My point being that no matter how pure we think ourselves, we are products of many cultures and beliefs (take a DNA test).  So why not celebrate the season with curiosity and wonder rather than hatred and spite?

Theodore Roosevelt, also a descendant of Annetje Loockermans (as are the acting Fondas and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton), was one of at least three presidents who was not holding a Bible while sworn into office.

And, finally, patriotism in this nation, which seems to be incorrectly connected with religion far too often, should start with knowing your county's history not rewriting it to conform to your beliefs.  The Founding Fathers and early settlers were from families that generally had suffered when a church or churches had too much power over them.  They were often Huguenots persecuted by Catholics.  They were also Catholics or Quakers chased out of Virginia and other colonies by Anglicans and Presbyterians.  Or even Jews and so-called Musselmen (Muslims) that took hits from all sides. Therefore, the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to provide for religious freedom regardless of religion.  We should honor that and fight efforts to pull that principle asunder.

"Oh blessed Season! Lov'd by Saints and Sinners/ for long Devotions, or for longer Dinners." Benjamin Franklin 1739

I am with old Ben: Celebrate the season for whatever reason, whoever you are, and in your own manner.  For me my inner knickerbocker seeks some ancient memory more than a century before the sleigh lithograph (at top) when Captain Petrus Douw and his wife Anna Van Rensselaer (granddaughter of Maria Van Cortland) lived at Wolven Hoeck (Wolf Corner) and drove sleighs on the frozen river where their son Volkert Petrus Douw later raced his famous horse "Sturgeon" to victory across the softened ice.  I wonder what it was like to spend Christmas in this manor house (see below) where Indian treaties were signed, a barrel of spiced wine sat, and the stone above the entry door was incised with the initials PD and AVR.  Happy Holidays all!

 

Mistaken in Maryland

The Mark of Richard Johns on a piece of pottery from Angelica Knoll in Maryland (Note: He was a Quaker rather than a Catholic)

By Bob Ferris

I might have, once or twice, when I first moved to Maryland called Johns Hopkins University incorrectly John Hopkins thinking it titled after a person named John rather than someone named Johns Hopkins honoring the melding of two early Quaker families in Maryland.  I was corrected and learned.  Fancy that.  Then I filed away this information until I started looking at the collection of ancestors that I had in Maryland--many of them from the Society of Friends or Quakers.

This took me to Richard Johns, Elizabeth Kensey (Kinsey) and a place called Angelica Knoll.  The Johns were very active Quakers, but at the same time not strict in all their beliefs and practices.  Richard Johns (1) was devout enough to help establish a Friends Meeting House (1,2,3) near their home called the Clifts or Cliffs close to Calvert Cliffs which was visited by Quaker Founder George Fox.  Yet Richard consumed hard cider and brandy as well as having an extensive library.  Richard also did not dress drably as others of the sect did.

Initials on a "bodkin" found at Angelica Knoll that likely belonged to Margaret Johns (Is could be Js.) 

Elizabeth and Richard also had children which made the Clifts and Angelica Knoll something of a familial epicenter of sorts.  Why a family epicenter?  Well, Richard and Elizabeth (1) had two daughters, Pricilla and Margaret.  Pricilla married Robert Roberts (the elder) who went north from Maryland and is an ancestor of my father William Ramsay Ferris.  Pricilla married into a line that eventually connected with the Canbys (1,2) and my great-grandmother Caroline Johnston Canby who many of us knew as Nana.  Nana remained a Quaker and in this light it is interesting that she married into so military a family as the Ramsays.

And Margaret Johns married Gerard Hopkins who are ancestors on my mother's side.  The Hopkins' line moved west appropriately marrying into the West family and eventually connecting to the Settles family in Pike County, Missouri.   My mother was born Mary Robb Settles.

The Descendants of Pricilla and Margaret Johns reunited in a single family after more than three centuries (Front Row (L-R): William Ramsay Ferris and Mary Robb Ferris [Settles]. Rear Row (L-R) William Ramsay Ferris Jr, Mary [Gales] Ferris Siebert, Caroline Robb Hall [Ferris], Robert Morris Ferris.) 

As both my parents had ancestors on the Mayflower their families had nearly 400 years to mix and create common ancestors. It is interesting given this time and opportunity that Richard and Elizabeth Johns seem to be my parents' only common ancestors on this continent.  (There may be more, but I have not found them.)

Johns Hopkins

Of note in the beginning context are Margaret and Gerard (Gerrard) Hopkins.  This couple celebrated both their families by naming one of their sons Johns Hopkins.   That first Johns Hopkins also had a grandson of the same name born in Crofton, Maryland in 1795 who attended the Anne Arundel Free School in nearby Davidsonville, Maryland for a time (1807-1809).   Johns Hopkins was an astute businessman and investor who became very, very rich and was able to retire at the age of 52.

That later Johns Hopkins ended life childless having fallen deeply in love with his first cousin Elizabeth who he was forbidden by their religion and custom to marry.   In fact, neither of them ever wed and John Hopkins took his money--some seven million dollars--and put these funds and others towards Johns Hopkins University and the hospital that also bears his name as well as an orphanage specifically for children of color.   This latter action is of significance as Johns Hopkins' family owned slaves which they released in 1807 and Johns Hopkins was a prominent Abolitionist.

“...slavery was perfectly acceptable provided that slave owners attended to the spiritual and material needs of those they enslaved.” On Quaker attitudes towards slavery in Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776 by Betty Wood

My sense is that we cannot heap praise on Johns Hopkins for his actions and attitudes without at the same time acknowledging that many of our ancestors, including those of a Quaker or "friendly" persuasion like the Johns, Chews and Galloways in Maryland, owned slaves.  They were not alone as something like 70% of Quakers owned slaves near the turn of the 18th century.   And, yes, the Quakers were among the first in the Colonies to push back on the practice reducing ownerships to 10% by the mid-1700s and very early on joining the Abolitionist cause.  But they were owners regardless of how benignly they treated those removed from their homes in Africa and elsewhere.  And perhaps while we argue for all to model Johns Hopkins' philanthropy and tolerance we should also offer up a certain openness to discuss this other difficult topic as well.  Seems like all these actions are need now more than ever.

Iron Mom Competition—New Netherland Version

New Amsterdam skyline circa 1653.

By Bob Ferris

I am sure that most are aware of the Ironman completions around the world or have seen strongman contests on TV or at the Scottish Games.  Well that is all fine, but what about something for women designed for women?  I think about this type of contest as I look at the challenges faced by women who were early European settlers on this continent.  Seems like they had to be tough and strong just like these modern-day, spandex-clad competitors but at the same time reproductively robust and a little crafty.  Although the natural tendency here would be to think immediately about Puritans and those of Mayflower origin, I think I will examine instead those settlers in New Netherland who often seem forgotten in this mix.  And isn’t that, after all, a female burden as well?

We tend to think that the early settlers in New Netherland were Dutch but many were not. A good portion of those coming to this section of the New World in the early to mid-1600s were Walloons or French-speaking Protestant refuges from the Spanish Netherlands or others with similar religious leanings who sought refuge in this area of modern-day Belgium or in the Netherlands.  Certainly we know them from their Dutch names but anyone who has looked at records of this type and from this time understands that Pierre can become Pieter or Petrus as easily as it can become Peter.

In scanning through the Ironbranches lineages for candidates from this time period (1600-1660) in the Dutch colony I come up with four semi-finalists: Adrienne Cuvellier, Catalyntje Trico, Penelope Van Princis and Aeltje Stryker.  These four come to mind because they were not only reproductively prodigious but they also brought a little something extra to their game.    

Contestant Number One: Adrienne Cuvellier (AKA Ariaentje Cuvilje)

We know a good bit about Adrienne but there is also some mystery as well as a little controversy with her.   We know, for instance, that she was born around 1589 northeast of Paris in the city of Valenciennes, France (Swan Valley) on the border of present-day Belgium.  She was a Walloon married first to Guleyn (Guillaume or William) Vigne in 1608 or 1610.   The couple and their children sailed to the New World in 1624 on one of two ships: Eendracht (Unity or Concord) or the Nieuw Nederland (1,2) .   We know too that they had a son named Jean (Jan).  But here is were it gets murky.  Jean was interviewed in 1679 and was thought to be 65 as well as being born in the colony.   

Why is this important?  If Jean was somehow born in the colony in 1614 while his parents were on a trading rather than settling trip then he would be the first Christian child born in New Netherlands.  And even if his age claim was a typo of sorts and he was born in 1624 when they landed, he still could claim that title if he was born before Sarah Jorise Rapalje (see below) who then would simply be the first female Christian child born in the New Netherland.  Either scenario could be true or neither.  We will never know.   

Adrienne had at least eight children which qualifies her for this version of the Iron Mom contest but what gives her true notoriety and “kicks” her into the semi-finals is her near Machiavellian political machinations and her sometimes gruesomely-rowdy side which seemed to emerge after her first husband died prior to 1632.  In that year she married Jan Jansen Damen who being born in 1607 was nearly twenty years her junior.  This seemed to be when the fun started.   

In New York Night: The Mystique and Its History by Mark Caldwell. 

It is hard to encapsulate the chaos of this time but perhaps it can be characterized as too much ambition, liquor and people in too small a space.  Our Adrienne clearly had a plan to marry her daughters off to men of power and influence and she wanted to keep them close with two of her married daughters—Christine and Maria—with their husbands and their children living in the newly-formed Vinge-Damen household.  Jan actually had to sue to remove his step-children from their home.  There were also stories of some drunken parties and more than one knife fight associated with this household. 

From here.

And by the 1640’s when then Director-General Kieft was in power and the Council of Twelve Men established to deal with the Indians Adrienne was married to one of the twelve (Damen) and her daughter Maria was married to another—Abraham Isaacsen Verplanck.  Sometime in this period, probably 1639, Adrienne’s sixteeen-year-old daughter Rachel married Cornelis Van Tienhoven the somewhat sleazy and always brutal Secretary of New Netherland.  Which leads us to the notorious Shrovetide Dinner mentioned above.  

"Van Tienhoven's mother in law [Ariaentje Cuvilje], forgetful of those finer feelings which do honor to her sex, amused herself, it is stated, in kicking about the heads of the dead men which had been brought in, as bloody trophies of that midnight slaughter” in "Ariaentje Cuvilje [Adrienne Cuvelier], Matriarch of New Amsterdam," by Herbert F. Seversmith, National Genealogical Society Quarterly, vol. 35 [1947], pp. 65-69.

What role Adrienne, or Ariaentje as she was then called, played in the Shrovetide Dinner is not noted but she was clearly in sympathy as she notoriously played soccer at Fort Amsterdam with a head or heads of Indians slain in this massacre catalyzed, in part, and led by her extended family in 1643.    The resultant, unpopular conflict from this action was known as Kieft’s War.  Kieft was eventually called home in 1647 to answer for his actions.  He died en-route and was replaced by Peter Stuyvesant.  

Although Adrienne had this “violently rebellious” streak she also evidently had good genes as she counts Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Edison as her descendants, along with us. Adrienne through her second husband Jan Damen was also the second European owner of the site of the future World Trade Center .   While married to Jan, Adrienne also owned part of a privateer with a crew of 50 men named La Garce (I have seen this translated as “The Wench” but also “The Bitchy Girl”).  This ship preyed on Spanish merchants sailing near the West Indies making Adrienne—at least for a three-year period—one-sixteenth Privateer of the Caribbean (Ha).  But karma and her son-in-law Cornelis were not kind to Adrienne in the end as her children were sued by the Dutch Reformed Church for non-payment of burial expenses.  Basically Van Tienhoven took the money and ran.  Or did he? His hat and cane we found next to the Hudson River and he was never seen again.

* Van Tienhoven was replaced by our ancestor Nicasius DeSille who was a soldier, statesman and poet.  

Contestant Number Two: Catalyntje (Catalina) Trico (Tricaud)

"M. de la Grange came with his wife to invite me to accompany them in their boat to the Wale Bocht, a place situated on Long Island, almost an hour's distance below the city, directly opposite Correlaers Hoeck...He had an old aunt and other friends living there...This aunt of de La Grange is an old Walloon woman from Valenciennes, seventy-four years old.  She is worldly minded, with mere bonte, living with her whole heart, as well as body, among her progeny, which now number 145 and soon will reach 150.  Nevertheless she lives alone by herself, a little apart from the others, having her little garden, and other conveniences, with which she helped herself..." From the diary of Jasper Danckaerts, a Labdist Thursday, 30 May 1680 writing about Catalina Trico.  

Catalyntje Trico was born in the Prisches Province of Flanders which is within walking distance from Valenciennes where her husband Joris (Jean or George) Rapalje (Raparielliet) was raised.  The two married in 1624 four days before boarding a ship for New Netherland.  Caralyntje and Joris are the parents of Sarah Jorise Rapalje at the very least the first Christian female born in  Netherland and ten other children.  Three of their children are our ancestors—Sarah, Jenetie and Daniel.  

Marriage Certificate for Joris and Catalyntje.

Catalyntje and Adrienne have a fair amount in common in that they gave birth soon after arriving in the New World, grew up in the same region, shared a religion and both their husbands were members of the Committee of Twelve Men.  But they seemed of different minds and temperments.  Joris, unlike Jan, was against waging preemptive war on the Indians.  This was tragically ironic as the only one of the Rapalje’s eleven children who did not marry was Jacob who was killed by Indians in 1643 when the war Joris opposed was raging.  She also steadfastly supported her illiterate husband acting as bookkeeper and recorder for the inn and taproom they ran.  

In 1646 after Jacob was killed the Rapaljes obtained a lot closer to the Fort Amsterdam.  The land was near the southeastern corner of the fort.

She also apparently stood up for her children.  There is a story that she got into an argument with Director-General Peter Minuit (the man who "bought" Manhattan) when he and some others ate a biscuit while she was with her young child working in the fields.  As the biscuit was intended for her young child she berated the hungry visitors.  Minuit reportedly asked her if she knew who he was and then apologized offering to give her a milk cow and the land to graze it on in recompense.  Doubt has been cast on this story because it was not believable because she would have known the Director-General. I am not absolutely sure that was the case because she and Joris started out at Fort Orange not New Amsterdam where this happened and Minuit was fairly newly arrived at this point. Speaking of children, Catalyntje and Joris are the ancestors of a pretty impressive group themselves including Humphrey Bogart, the Wright Brothers, Dewitt Clinton, Gloria Vanderbilt, Howard Dean, Tom Brokaw, Michael Douglas and Mary Cassatt.

A blow up of the above plat map shows the southeastern point of the fort touching the Rapalje's lot which is right next to their son-in-law's Hans Hansen's land. A rod is 16.5 feet or 5.5 yards.  You can also just see the plot of ancestor Isaac De Forest who is associated with the Stout line which follows. 

Contestant Number Three: Penelope Van Princis (Kent, Thompson, Van Prinzen, etc.)

Penelope Stout ever the subject of fact and fiction.

The woman who would become Penelope Stout and is known today as the Mother of Middleton or Monmouth is a heroic figure that emerges from the mists in a swirl of dates and names.  Most accept that she was born about 1622 and then married someone named Kent or Van Princis in or around 1640.  They sailed to the New World intent on reaching New Amsterdam but their ship grounded off the coast of present-day New Jersey near Sandy Hook.  Penelope stayed on the beach with her ill and incapacitated husband while the rest stuck off on foot to find New Amsterdam.  Her companions left quickly for fear of Indian attack.  It seems their fears were well-founded.

Accounts of what transpired vary.  We do know that the attacking Indians killed Penelope’s new husband and wounded her enough that they left her for dead.  Some accounts are graphic and others seem like they want to save people’s sensibilities.  But most indicate a head injury that could have included a fractured skull and partial scalping.  They also indicate a left shoulder injury serious enough to affect the future use of her arm and a slash to her abdomen that exposed her intestines.  And she was stripped naked.  Yet she crawled Hugh Bass-like (think The Revenant) to shelter in a hollow tree where she was eventually found after a week or so by at least one Indian with more friendly intensions who took her to his village where she recovered for a year before he took her the rest of the way to New Amsterdam for sale or reward. 

There are a lot of unknowns here.  Was Penelope Dutch or was she English having fled to the Netherlands because of her Baptist beliefs? What happened to the rest of her party and the crew?  Some sources say they were slaughtered.  What was the name of the Indian who saved her and his tribe?  And who took Penelope in when she eventually landed in New Amsterdam?  There are no answers to these questions so let’s shift gears.

Sometime in the 1630s in Burton Joyce, Nottinghamshire, England a young lad named Richard Eli Stout wanted to marry a woman that his father did not favor.  They argued and Richard ran away to sea.  He served in the British Navy for about seven years and in 1643 he ended up in New Amsterdam and became a member of that colony.  Richard met Penelope and they were soon married as their first child was born in 1645.  They settled at Gravesend on Long Island where they produced eight children (some say ten) before moving in the mid-1660s with a small group to New Jersey near the Indian village where Penelope recovered from her injuries.   Here they founded Middletown.  Of note the same Indian who rescued Penelope two decades before also warned their new town of a pending attack which they were able to to repulse.   

Penelope and Richard prospered here eventually garnering 1800 acres which they passed on to their children.  Richard, though illiterate, became a leader both militarily and in negotiations with the local Indians.  He passed on in 1705 at the age of about 90.  Penelope outlived her husband by nearly 30 years eventually taking her last breath at the age of 110 years surrounded by some of her nearly 500 descendants at that time.  From here she passed into legend with books being written, a commemorative coin and even a spot in the Sunday papers with a piece in Ripley’s Believe it or Not (with the wrong dates and questionable images).  

Contestant Number Four: Aeltje Strycker

Artist concept of what the Dutch Reformed Church in Midwout (Flatbush) would have looked like when Aeltje Strycker and Abraham Brinckerhoff were married there.  Jan Strycker was instrumental in getting the Church finished two years before they were wed.

When my soon-to-be wife first lived in Santa Barbara she rented a little apartment on a street called Brinckerhoff near the beach.  When she told me that it rang a tiny bell which I ignored at the time thinking it one family surname among hundreds.  It wasn’t until later when I started to study my Dutch antecedents that I realized that we had a lot of Brinckerhoffs in the mix.  And it all started in earnest for us in the New World pretty much with a young woman named Aeltje.    

Captain Jan Strycker painted by his brother Jacob or Jacobus  

Not much is known about Aeltje beyond key dates except that she was the daughter of Capt. Jan Strycker (above) a gunsmith and armorer who helped found Midwout (Middle Woods) which is now called Flatbush.  She was probably named for her paternal aunt and had more than nine children, possibly as many as eleven during her lifetime.  This production alone would not have earned her spot on this list except that we from this Ferris line descend from five of those Brinckerhoff children.  And just to make this more confusing and harder to document, two of those five offspring married the children of Sarah Joris Rapalje mentioned above.  

Aeltje married Abraham Brinckerhoff who was the son of Joris Brinckerhoff the first emigre of that name and spelling.  It is interesting to note that the Brinckerhoff's originally went to purchase land on Staten Island but when they visited the property to cut trees for a home Abraham's brother Dirck was shot with an arrow and killed. This was in 1643 during Kieft's War.  Following the episode the family sought safer land in Brooklyn in 1646 which put them nearer to Widwout (Flatbush) where Aeltje eventually lived.  

Aeltje lived for roughly 57 years but I believe they we full and interesting ones.  She came as a young girl from the Netherlands with her father following her uncle to New Amsterdam.  She was there for the founding of Midwout, the Peach Tree War, the finishing of the local church, and watched the fall of the colony as it was surrendered to England a handful of years after she was married.  Only her first born named for her father-in-law was born while her adopted land was still Dutch soil.  She and Abraham settled in Flushing to the northeast where they raised their family and ended their days.

The above reference to Capt. Jan Strycker illustrates further how all were connected as Aeltje's daughter Margret married Johannes Theodorus Polhemus' grandson Theodorus Van Wyck (see page 6). 

Who Would Win?

I vacillate in terms of favorites here.  My sense is that Adrienne wins the prize for toughest and also meanest, but when looking at Jan Jansen Damen and Cornelis Van Tienhoven I suspect that there might just have been plenty of mitigating circumstances.  But Adrienne would have a hard go on the toughness measure with Penelope.  And Penelope, Catalyntje, and Aeltje would all likely be neck and neck in a race for whose mitochondrial DNA was better represented in the current US population.  

It is not without meaning that these women all enhanced our Ferris line (Via Van Wyck, Douw, and Storm marriages) as Ferris means nothing more than iron (ferrous).  Our Ferris line is believed to be descendant from those who came from Normandy with William the Conquerer and were associated with horses and horseshoes (farriers). What do you think? Who is your favorite Iron Mom?