VAN VLACK FAMILY ORIGIN & MIGRATI0N

An interesting subject to explore is the why and wherefore of our ancestors’ major migrations throughout the Van Vlack family history. To do so it is necessary to follow the course of events that precipitated these moves from the beginning, and along the way narrate some other family history, too.

Painstaking research points to the island of Flekkeroy off the south coast of Norway as the place of origin for our earliest known ancestor. Flekkeroy is an island of approximately four square miles in size, surrounded by smaller islands, and is four miles south of the city of Cristiansand. Norway, which in 1650 had about 400 native inhabitants. Nothing much is written about Flekkeroy before the 15th century. However, the finding of stone axes and javelin heads indicates that stone age people once lived there. Later the adventurous seafaring Vikings inhabited the island and bartered their plunder here with Baltic Sea traders, thus began the port. By the 15th century its sheltered sounds and inlets and accessible deep ports accommodated Dutch sea trade to the Baltic countries. In the year 1497, of 795 ships passing through the North Sea Strait, 567 were Dutch. To protect this trade a fort was built there in 1556 to safeguard the harbor against foreign enemies and pirates, and was an important gathering point for convoys arriving and departing.

Holland, by treaty with the Danish king who ruled the Baltic Sea, dominated the sea trade in the mid-l600’s and their ship visits to Flekkeroy reached a rate of several thousand a year. Holland had an established 16,000 of the 20,000 trade ships for the whole of Europe.

From Norway came much of the timber to build Holland’s ships and wooden houses, as well as sales to other countries. To man Holland’s fleet of ships, they had to hire foreign sailors, many were coastal Norwegians. The Dutch influence on them became apparent in the way they dressed, their language and their manners. Their names and town names were changed to the Dutch language and spelling. Many of the younger generation boarded ship to Holland in search of employment, adventure, or to emigrate. Many old world countries were in constant turmoil because of religious and civil strife and of bad times and crops. The opening of the American frontier beckoned many in Europe to a new life. It was an easy step, therefore, for our pioneer ancestor, the Norwegian, to emigrate to Amsterdam, Holland, and then to colonial America,

The above narration was taken from correspondence in 1982 with Conrad (Ki) Nilsen and his friend Thor Christiansen, historian, who were living at the time on the Island of Flekkeroy.

The writer’s son Bill visited Flekkeroy, Norway in June 1987 and met Kai and Thor and their wives, and toured the area. His comments - in part……

“My first sight of the island was exciting. It’s very beautiful, fourteen hundred people scattered densely over this rocky island - no real town, just small houses with each having one ‘fleck’or small vegetable garden or flower patch between the rocks. Almost all of the houses were wooden and painted white, that color being traditional in the south of Norway. Fishing is its principal industry.

Aboard Kai’s boat (he buys the local fish catch, freezes it and distributes it to the Scandinavian countries and South America) we toured the harbor and saw several iron stakes, placed by the Dutch in the 16th and 17th centuries, for mooring their ships. Upon leaving I concluded that our ancestor should have never left Flekkeroy - it’s so peaceful and beautiful.”

 

1609 - Early New Netherlands

The Dutch laid the foundation of their commercial and colonial empire as a business venture when the Dutch East India Co. was founded in 1602. Their merchants traded in every continent and their vessels captured a major share of the world trade. In 1609 they employed Henry Hudson, an English captain, to explore for the northwest passage to the Pacific. Finding none, he explored the New England coast and up the Hudson River to Albany. Dutch merchants began a trading post at Manhattan Island, buying it for 24 dollars, and at Fort Orange (now Albany) and began the lucrative fur trade, especially for beaver pelts. This led to forming the Dutch West India Co. and founding the Dutch colony of New Netherlands in 1621 covering the lands between the 40^th and 45th parallels. This included all of part of the present states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. They made a treaty with the Iroquois Confederation of Tribes for exclusive trading rights for furs (especially beaver pelts) in the territory and agreed to purchase with trade goods any lands for settlements. This led to a friendly and peaceful co-existence for the most part. With the trading rights in place for pelts, to the exclusion of the English of New England and French in Canada, the merchants prospered and colonization thrived.

 

NEW COLON1STS WERE CLASSIFIED

INDENTURED

A person bound by contract to work for another for a period of time, as an apprentice to a master craftsman or as an immigrant to service in a colony, to pay passage or to earn a plot of land.

FREEHOLDERS

Those who had land or tenement worth 40 pounds currency

YEOMAN

A Freeholder or a class below the gentry who worked his own land.

FREEMAN

Burgers registered with the city or town who were authorized to engage in retail trade and handicrafts (blacksmiths, weavers, stone masons, carpenters, millers, etc.)

 

 

The Dutch influence was not to last, however. England was becoming a sea power by 1650 and wanted control of the contested territory claims to land of their Connecticut and Massachusetts colonies, which over lapped the Dutch colony. Also, they wanted a piece of the lucrative beaver pelt trade exclusively held by the Dutch. Too, the expanding colony would be a profitable market for their manufactured goods. When the English arrived at New Amsterdam in 1664 with two war ships and demanded Gov. Peter Stuyvesant to surrender, the merchants located near the fort were distressed, feeling that to resist meant bombardment and destruction of their property and goods. They urged the governor to surrender without a fight if suitable terms could be reached, and he reluctantly agreed. Negotiation began and the wily diplomat Stuyvesant won permission for uninterrupted Dutch trade, shared political control and beaver pelt territories - also a continuation of Dutch courts, land titles, and state support of the church. This was formalized by treaty and thus the town of New Amsterdam became New York and New Netherlands became New York Colony.

 

1663 - Pioneer Van Vlecker Sails to America

 

Two years prior to the English occupation, Jan Roelofse, the Norwegian, sailed from Amsterdam, Holland to New Amsterdam on the ship De Statyn on Sept. 27, 1663, listed as ‘Jan Roelofsen from Norway’ and was married two years later in 1665 with his name recorded thus: ‘Jan Roelofs Van Vlacker in Noord Wagen. ‘Van’ is ‘from’ in Dutch and “Vlecker” means “Flekkero” This is the first recorded use of Van Vlecker as a surname in New Amsterdam. Dutch court records of 1670-1671 place him as living in Flatbush (now Brooklyn) New York

The next ancestral link to whom this completed adopted surname is ascribed is Marinus Roelofse Van Vlackeren, our proven pioneer ancestor from whom all Van Vlacks have stemmed. He was married in 1702 and living in the Bowery district of New York until about 1710-11. Marinus was appointed constable from the “Out Ward for the Bowery Division” at a meeting of the Common Council in New York, Sept. 29, 1709. (Min. of the C.C. 2:384,387). He later moved to Bloomingdale, a village in the upper part of Manhattan Island, west of Harlem, and bought 150 acres adjacent to Dina’s father’s farm. Later Marinus received for his wife about 1/2 of her father’s large farm, extending from present 89th St. to West 107th St. on the Hudson River (worth millions today).

 

1740 - Migration to Dutchess County, N. Y

 

Although the Dutch constituted a numerical majority in New York City well into the 1700’s, in time, because of English immigration, the Dutch gradually lost their privileged trade, legal status, way of life, and the Dutch church was no longer state supported. Too, land and property became expensive for children becoming adults and wanting to marry and be on their own. Stories came back from up the Hudson of a Dutch community being established with plenty of cheap fertile land and business opportunities serving new settlers there. The effect was that Marinus and his whole family, except for married daughter Jannetje, eventually sold their New York City holdings in the early

1740’s and migrated sixty miles up the Hudson River to an Indian in habited wilderness. They bought land from Madame Catherine Rombout Brett of Dutch ancestry who, in 1707, inherited from her father 26,000 acres called the Rombout Patent, centered around Fishkill, N.Y. She dealt fairly with the peaceful Wappinger Indians who dwelt on a portion of the land, and because of her Dutch ancestry, she encouraged the Dutch customs, language, and church in her settlement, providing a haven for the disenchanted Dutch of New York City.

The earliest to migrate appears to be son Jan, age 29, and Aaron, age 19. They are listed in the Fishkill tax list of 1739. Jan was a blacksmith then, with one son about age 3, and bought land from Madame Brett on August 6, 1743. Aaron was a farmer at the tine and bought 600 acres in East Fishkill. Abraham, the oldest son of Marinus, was 36, married, and had one son when they migrated about 1743. Hendric was age 30, a weaver and a freeman of New York City, when he and his wife Cornelia moved to Fishkill in 1743. They all bought land from Madame Brett. Teunis at age 15 came to Fishkill in 1744 with his parents, Marinus and Dina, who bought 303 acres from Madame Brett. Teunis became a tenant farmer of Madame Brett and later he bought 101 acres from his father and built a grist mill at Gayhead Corners, East Fishkill.

It is from these sons that five Van Vlack branches of the family tree were firmly established, and all together, in a few years, they owned nearly a thousand acres of Rombout Patent. Marinus’ progeny, from these five sons, was twelve grandsons and 23 great grandsons by the late 1700’s, to carry the name forward.

Our adopted Dutch heritage stemmed from Marinus and Dina and their family. For over a century they belonged to the Dutch Church, they spoke Dutch, lived amongst Dutch neighbors and adopted their customs and manners. So our heritage is Dutch at this period in time, with a touch of Viking to boast a little.

Dutchess County, New York, and in particular the Township of Fishkill, is truly the ancestral home of Van Vlacks from whence they Spread all over America, Their roots are deep there. The historical documents about the area and at the court house attest to their contributions in the founding, the religion, the culture and to the enterprise of the area from the beginning onward. A visit to the graveyard of the Hopewell Dutch Reformed Church, and others nearby, attests to the hundreds of Van Vlacks who lived their lives there. Many descendants are still found there.

 

1775-1800 - Migration of Loyalist Van Vlacks to Canada

 

After the Dutch surrender to the English in 1604, there began a movement of English from New England into eastern New York. Many Van Vlacks took English husbands or wives. Some spouses were Loyalist (Tories) favoring allegiance to England in the Revolution, having close family ties still in England; and some such families fled to Canada along with their parents and other kin. Some endured the Revolution, but left soon afterward, thus establishing Van Vlack families in Canada. One such Van Vlack was Mary Van Vlack (11422) who married Obadiah Cooper, a Tory. He was forced to sell his flintlock to the “Committee of Observation” in Fishkill and move to Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada in 1775. Her brother Hendric ( who married Catherine, the daughter of a Loyalist Gilbert Palen (who also went to Canada) left Poughkeepsie in 1800 because of his wife’s Loyalist beliefs, went to Athol, Canada with his son Elias (M53) and daughter Sarah (M55). Elias raised two sons, Henery (M61) and George (M65) who settled in Waupoos (Bay of Quinte) Canada to continue the line there.

The (numerals) reference those individuals so numbered in the Genealogical outline that follows.

At the time Loyalists were scorned by the patriots revolting against English oppressions and restrictions but in retrospect they were admirable people having a belief just as strong as the patriots, and with a determination to live as their conscience directed.

The writer traveled the Loyalist Parkway (Route 33) for fifty miles beginning at Kingston on the St. Lawrence River to Route 401, visiting the landmarks of their heritage along the way. I read the Book ‘Pioneer Life on the Bay of Quinte’ and spoke to a few Van Vlack descendants too. They are proud of their place in history and rightly so. Many Van Vlacks and Palens (Mary’s progeny) still live there.

 

1800 - Migration Westward

 

After living in Dutchess County nearly a century, there again was the pressure of families and limited land available, for children growing into adults. Besides, the English from nearby New England states migrated west, crowded the area and became the numerical majority, dictating their social forms. So after a century in Dutchess County, it was time for some Van Vlacks to move again. The land and businesses that the Dutch owned could bring a handsome price to get all members of the family established elsewhere. The west beckoned. About 1790 after the Indian Wars and the Big Tree Council Treaty, the Holland Land Co. in western New York was formed by a group of Amsterdam bankers investing large sums to buy and sell lands to settlers. This opened up a frontier area of 3.7 million acres in New York and 1.5 million in northern Pennsylvania, extending from Lake Ontario on a line north and south of Rochester, N.Y. The land office building still stands in Batavia, N.Y. By 1821 the Holland Purchase had a population of 100,000 people.

Settlement west of the Ohio began after the treaty of Paris in 1783 establishing the Mississippi River to be the western boundary of the new nation. However, it was only after General Anthony Wayne defeated the hostile Indians at the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 that settlement began in earnest and land companies advertised glowing inducements. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 extended the west and south further. The flood of settlers began m with the opening of Erie Canal, as well as the railroads and lake steamships pushing west. this provided cheap transportation of the settlers’ harvests to the urban eastern cities in exchange for their manufactured goods to settlers who now had cash to spend.

If history served us right, our ancestors must have experienced the apprehension of leaving family behind, the hazards of the road, storms, hostile Indians and highway robbers, offset by the adventure and anticipation of a new life and prosperity. They survived, we know, and their descendants’ strengths were richer for it. For many the journey was made in wagons that might carry household goods, clothes, tools, provisions, chickens, geese, seeds and treasured heirlooms and furniture, as much as could be fitted in; whatever was needed to begin anew and survive. One light hearted account of the trip west in 1837 related that “it took our wagons, five in number, just five weeks but we did not travel on Sundays, lost some time for rain, besides our visiting on the road, and some distance out of our way we traveled to see the country. I think we rode about 26 days making 1050 miles and all horses took us safely through. We had good company and followed fairly good traces (roads) and the finest of weather. We traveled to Wheeling, Ill, and attracted a good deal of attention where we supped and breakfasted and exchanged news about here and back along the Hudson. Almost all of our number purchased land. One purchased 400 acres for $2,300, another 240 acres, 80 acres of which was good woodland for $1800. Cheap! cheap! We built log cabins and split rails for fences and most are in fine spirits about building frame houses next summer.”

A representative listing follows of the early Van Vlacks who migrated westward, their age, when, if known, and where to:

§   Jacob V. V. (11430) age 45 to Ithaca, N.Y. before 1832

§   John I. V. V. (11424) age 52 to Cambria, Mich. 1832

§   Gilbert P. V. V. (1154) age 29 to Oswego, N.Y. before 1837

§   Jakob V. V. (M518) age 24 to Ithaca, N.Y. before 1332

§   John V. V. (11527) age 28, Ithaca to Black hawk Co. Iowa 1860

§   Robert A. V. V. (1169) b. 1837 at Oswego, N.Y., early pioneer of Nebraska

§   Jan A. V. V. (A23) b. 1781, to Chautauqua Co., N.Y. with family of 16 children, some of whom were married

§   Jakob V. V. (A26) age 54 to Rochester, N.Y. in 1841 with unmarried family members, then to Geneva, Ill.

§   Theodore V, V. age 19 to Chicago, Ill. 1835

§   Egbert V, V. age 17 to Chicago, Ill. 1835

§   Townsend V. V. age 23 to Rochester, N.Y. 1841, then to Ill.

§   Hall G. V. V. (A418) child age 9 with parents to Chautauqua, N.Y. in 1836, to Erie, Pa. 1860, to Cass Co., Iowa 1868

§   Chas. E. V. V. (A460) age 16 at Rochester, N.Y. to Chicago about 1861, to Ashland, Wis. in 1881.

 

There were others, too, and children with their parents. All together about 100 Van Vlack men, women, youths and babies left Dutchess County for the west during the period 1800-1860.

In the next century or so the spirit of changing with the times, Opportunities elsewhere, ease of transportation, climate and other forces enticed our kin to leave family boundaries and migrate nation wide. Through it all the early Dutch heritage bowed to the English brides; then as Van Vlacks spread across the U.S., their wives were of the great American melting pot of nationalities, each having a family history of her own and a proud heritage to pass down to her children.