Colonists aplenty

The theme for the week is “Influencer”, a challenge, not of finding a character in our known ancestry to write about, but to limit it to a manageable number of individuals and to a length that is not overwhelming.

Between the señor & me, there are any number of people who exerted influence within their immediate sphere of existence, and then there are some who held sway over a great many people with their actions & exploits.

One example in Chris’ ancestral line is George Denison, born in England in 1618.  He immigrated to New England with his parents in 1631, settling in Roxbury, Massachusetts.  

His youthful life was less than exemplary, fraught with drunkeness and excommunication from the church, and abandonment of his two young daughters after the death of his wife of three years, Bridget Thompson.    Possibly because of those factors, he failed at being chosen as commander of the local militia, known as a train band.  Seemingly in a fit of pique (one sometimes attempts to assign motives for one’s ancestor’s actions), Dennison returned to England, where he married Ann Borodel.

He served as an officer in the Parliamentary Army under Cromwell, was wounded at the Battle of Naseby, taken prisoner, and eventually returned to New England where his illustrious military career as a captain included participation in King Philip’s War, and the Pequot War.

Denison served in multiple political positions in Southerton & Stonington, Connecticut.  He & “Lady Ann”, as his wife was called, settled on land in Mystic, Connecticut, granted to him in 1652.  Additional land grants resulted from his military service.  The couple raised their family in Pequotsepos Manor, now a historic site that includes the 1717 mansion built when the original burned, a nature center & a burying ground established in 1698.

Perhaps this will be the year we visit and tour the Denison Homestead Museum.

Escape on the Mayflower . . .

In the sadly age-old story of fleeing from persecution, William Brewster was among the 100 pilgrims who came to our shores in 1620 on the Mayflower as he and others sought freedom from the yoke of the Church of England.  He is Chris’ tenth great grandparent, and certainly was a man of great influence in very different ways than George Denison.

Elder Brewster was imprisoned in 1607 because of his religious beliefs, and later led others of his ilk to Leiden, Holland: there he printed dissident books that were then smuggled into England.  He was forced to go into hiding to again escape imprisonment because of his revolutionary beliefs and teachings.

The recusants are remembered there to this day with the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum in a 14th century house.

William Brewster was a leader of the Separatist Puritans who were adamant in their belief that the Church of England had not sufficiently reformed from Roman Catholic tenets.  As they made their way to the new world aboard the Mayflower, it is believed that Brewster authored the document originally called “Agreement between the settlers of New Plymouth”, later the Mayflower Compact.  It was signed by 41 of the ship’s passengers, including Brewster, and was the first framework of government in the land that became the United States of America.

Surprisingly to me, there is a question about the maiden name of his wife, Mary, who accompanied him on the Mayflower; it is given variously as Wentworth or Wyrall.  I am most taken with the given names of their children.  The eldest is Jonathon, our ancestor, but after him, the names took on a quite different tone: the rest are Patience, Fear, Love & Wrestling.  Oh, to have a word with them about those monikers!

Patroon of Staten Island . . .

I have discovered that telling someone my ancestor was patroon of Staten Island leaves them just as uninformed as before I spoke, so I will begin this influencer tale by explaining the word.  It comes from the Dutch and refers to a holder of large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland.  A patroon would typically bring in other people to work the land for his & their benefit.

My progenitor, Cornelis Melyn, was indeed granted nearly the whole of Staten Island by the Dutch West Indies Company, minus one smallholding that preceded his.  He had traveled to America in 1638, and evidently pleased with what he found, proceeded to return to Europe where his request for the territory was granted to develop the area into a “colonie”.

But to return to Melyn’s beginnings: born in Antwerp, Netherlands (now Belgium) in 1600, he was aged but six when his parents, Andre Melyn & Marie Guedinx-Botens, died just a month apart.  His uncles were appointed guardians and he was taken in by his half-brother, Abraham.  At age 12, he was apprenticed to a tailor for two years to learn that trade.  That pursuit must not have suited him; afterward, he became a “worker of fine leather”.

Cornelis married Jannetje Adraiens in 1627 in Amsterdam.  Their signatures are on their betrothal certificate.  Incredible to see actual signatures of my ninth great grandparents!

This scrap of paper that is in the New York Archives also has his signature; it attests to the fact of Cornelis purchasing items from a ship's captain, including a barrel of train oil for eight beavers (I'm clueless what train oil is, although I do know what beavers are.  I suspect it means that he paid with beaver pelts, but hey, feel free to correct me.)  It also says (if you can believe the translation provided) that Jannetje bought pieces of lace amounting to between 80 & 90 guilders (she was likely too busy sewing lace to trap beavers).

And then . . . a painted portrait of Cornelis - words fail me (well, not completely: I think that mustache is really stylin"!)

 

Clearly an adventurer of the first order, Cornelis sought to populate Staten Island with others also unafraid of the unknown, and willing to take risks for hoped-for gain.  As intentions sometimes become derailed by circumstances, his initial voyage to embark on the colonization was foiled when his ship was captured by Dunkirkers (pirates).  After that unfortunate delay, he was able to return to New Netherlands the following summer (1640) with his family and servants on the Eyckenboom (Oak Tree). 

Melyn proceeded to establish interaction and commerce with the Indians.  This mural, entitled "Cornelis Melyn trades with the Indians", painted by Frederick Charles Stahr, that depicts him trading with the Raritans is displayed at the Staten Island Borough Hall.

A short time later, however, hostilities & misunderstandings between the natives and the colonists escalated into raids in which Europeans were killed, livestock & supplies taken and houses burned.  Captain DeVries, the only other landholder, then embarked on a campaign to destroy the Raritans, despite the command of his superiors to “cultivate a good understanding” with the natives.  There seems to have been bad blood between Melyn & DeVries, as well.

As the Indian war continued, fraught with multiple incidents to villagers, Melyn finally moved from his outlying settlement to property within the town of New Amsterdam.  He wrote about the move: “I was obliged too flee for the sake of saving my life, and to sojourn with wife and children at the Menatans till the year 1647”.

Toward that end, we are told that he purchased three adjoining pieces of property near the intersection of the present Broad and Pearl streets, the latter being at that time the shore of the East River.  One of the parcels contained a house, which is likely the one shown below.

Politics being what they are today, we find that little seems to have changed.  Melyn was at odds with Governor Kieft, who had been underhanded in his dealings with the inhabitants; Cornelis & another settler, Kuyter, were particularly outspoken about Kieft’s misdeeds and denounced his administration.

When the Dutch West Indies Company recalled Kieft to replace him with Peter Stuyvesant, the die was set: realizing that, if successful, the charges brought against Kieft could later land him in the same position, Stuyvensant denied a request for an investigation.  Some accounts refer to Stuyvesant as an autocrat both by nature and by military training.

With Stuyvesant to back him, Kieft brought charges of lese majeste against the men.  They were found guilty of sedition, and acts against authority, and banished for several years.  So deleterious was the relationship, Stuyvesant argued for the death penalty for Melyn, but it was denied by the council. 

Melyn and Kuyter departed to appeal their case at the Hague.  Kieft was also aboard that ship, which was wrecked when it entered the Bristol Channel, killing Kieft along with 81 of the 100 people aboard.  Not to be deterred in seeking vindication, Melyn & Kuyter had the area of the wreck dragged and salvaged a box containing their important papers about the case.

The story of Cornelis Melyn and the New Netherlands settlements is rife with authoritarianism and greed, but also great courage, tenacity and entrepreneurship.  Whether Melyn’s personality contributed to his inability to make peace with the authorities is unknown; however, he had many supporters in high standing in the old country.  His saga is worth at least a book.

His inability to sustain normal relations with Stuyvesant led him to remove to New Haven’s English colony.  He had made eleven crossings of the Atlantic in his endeavors.

In the end, he had lost a son, Cornelis, and other family members to Indian depredations, another son in a shipwreck; he and 50 or so others were taken captive for over a month until he managed to ransom them off.  He had been captured by pirates, imprisoned without charges, and endured more difficulties than I can imagine, and yet, he persisted against unbelievable odds to complete what he set out to do - secure the founding of a colony across the Atlantic Ocean from his birthplace, an endeavor most would not have even conceived of, much less embarked upon.