message info ... BEGIN From: Robert.Protzman@akzo-nobel.com (Protzman, RL (Robert)) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 14:20:15 -0500 I have the following line, from S. Gutche 11133. Anna/Anneke SCHAETS, b. Beest; d. > 1681, < Aug 1688; m. Mar 30, 1671, Thomas Davidse Kikebel/ Kikebul (d. < Aug 21, 1888 (p)), a Riverboat Capt, on the Hudson. She was vivacious, headstrong and very attractive to men. In 1663, prior to her marriage, she had an affair with Arendt Van Curler/Corlear/Corler/Corlaer (b. ca. 1612; d. ca. 1667), son of Hendrick (from Nykerk, Gelderland, to America, 1630, at age 18). Secretary of the Colony at Rensselaerswyck, and Assistant Director, a grand-nephew of the Patroon. Out of this affair, a child was born. As Arendt was already married (ca. 1643), to Antonia Slaghboom, wealthy widow of Jonas Bronck (of The Bronx), he never m Anna. Arendt Van Curler, son of Hendrick Van Curler, was a relative of the patroon, Van Rensselaer. He was the founder of Schenectady, in 1661. He drowned in a canoe accident on Lake Champlain, in 1667 (or 1669). She was banished from her father's church after this incident, but her father sued members of the congregation for slander and won the suit, but the magistrates banned her from Albany. In 1670, her father sent her to NYC, with her son, to start a new life. There she met and married David Kikebell. 11133.1. Benomi/Bennoni (child of sorrows) VAN CURLER, (or Arentsen), b. 1663; d. 1704; m. Jun 2, 1686, Alida Lysbeth/Elizabeth Vanderpoel, wid of Sybrant Van Schaick. L. most of his life in Albany. 4 children 11133.1x. Arendt VAN CURLER, bp. Apr 19, 1695/6, ADRC (sp. Antoni V. Schayk, Egbert Teunisz, Elisabeth Banker); d. Jan 11, 1795; m. Mary Lake. L Albany and White Creek, NY. 11133.1xx. Aaron VAN CURLER, b. < 1755; m. Sarah _____ (b. < 1755, d. 1806). American Revolution. L. Cambridge and Salem, NY. 11133.1xxx. Aaron VAN CURLER, b. 1775; m. < 1807, Lucy Cuyler (b. 1783, d. > 1860). L. Hebron and Salem, NY. 11133.1xxxx. Mary Ann VAN CURLER, b. ca. 1817; d. 1885; m. ca. 1836 as w2. Chauncey Lake Fowler (b. 1799, d. 1872). of Sodus, NY. Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 22:39:33 -0400 From: Craig Kanalley I believe it is possible that Sarah born <1755 who married Aaron Van Curler was a Cousins, and we do know that Rachel Cousins married Jacob Van Curler, Aaron’s brother.  Further, Rachel Cousins’ sister was Susannah Cousins who married Christopher Lake.  And Susannah and Christopher notably had a son Aaron and daughter Sarah.  These families were very intertwined in numerous ways. END Messages from Annette Truesdell ... BEGIN Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2020 22:23:29 -0800 From: "'Annette Truesdell' atrue@garlic.com Marshall and I were talking last week about the Loyalist Lake ancestors that left Hoosick and White Creek NY for Canada. In 2002, while homeschooling my children, I took them on a US History trip for a few months and detoured to White Creek to see the original trading post/cabin built in c1700 by Arendt Van Corlaer, husband of Mary Lake. The cabin went from Mary Lake by deed to her brother Henry, to his gr-grandchildren, to Garret Stryker Lake – nephew of Henry and son of Jacobus who remained in NJ.  I told Marshall I would send him my photos and inquire about the current status of the property.  Below is my email to Ted Rice: On Thursday, January 30, 2020 5:14 PM, Annette Truesdell wrote:   Ted, Was given your email by the clerk at White Creek who told me that you are the current town historian.  As a LAKE family researcher, I’ve been asked by others in our family group to find out if there is information about the current condition of the old wood home located near the intersection of Meetinghouse Road and Quaker House Road as well as the few graves next to the house.  I have attached copies of old correspondence about this property that I have received in the past as well as a photo that was taken in 2002.  Also, from notes I have:   Abstracted from 26 Oct 1950 Hoosick Falls Standard Press:  “Garret Stricker Lake was buried in a plot on his farm originally a part of the tract of land granted in 1761 to Arent Van Corlaer, Nicholas Lake, Thomas Lake, James Lake by King George III of England.  The farm is located on Quaker Hill Rd, White Creek, Washington Co., NY about 1/2 miles above the Quaker Cemetery.  Garret and Charity Lake were the parents of three children, James, Johanna and Maria”.   Has the house ever been designated a historical property?  Are the graves of Garret and his wife still there? Would appreciate any information you might have.  Many thanks.   Annette F. Truesdell atrue@garlic.com (408) 602-0107 Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2020 22:23:38 -0800 From: "'Annette Truesdell' atrue@garlic.com [loyalist-lake-history]" Sadly, this was Ted’s response:   From: Ted Rice Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2020 3:43 PM To: Annette Truesdell Subject: Re: VanCorlaer-Lake-Jones house   Hello, Annette, I am afraid the current condition of the building is "non-existent". Geoffrey Jones and some friend took down the old part, probably about the time your photos were taken, and stacked the timbers under blue tarps in the yard. They were going to rebuild it from the ground up, but it never happened. The old part was the Van Corlaer/Lake Trading Post, built in 1711 to trade for furs with the Algonquins. Arent Van Corlaer, who married into the Lake family, had settled in nearby Sancoick earlier. Apparently in 1761 he realized he had better get a land grant to give him clear title. He tried to claim all the way north to the Tightikillijagtikook or South Branch of the Battenkill (present day Murray Hollow Brook), to which he had an Indian deed, but that caused an uproar as much of it had already been granted to others.He ended up with an odd shaped parcel on which his trading post was in the narrowest part and which ran into what would become Vermont in 1777. By the 1760's both the Indians and beaver were largely gone and the Lakes used the Trading Post as a home. Arent died in 1795 and is buried at Sancoick. When I walked up there last in 2003 (It is about a mile and a half from my place) all that was standing was the newer small part and that was in bad shape. The tarps had rotted away and the wood was quickly following. When I was a boy and Velma Jones was still alive, the place was kept up nicely. She was a teacher and made the living for the family. After she died it slowly went to ruin. Paul Jones got paranoid that the State would take it away from him, so it was never designated as a historical building. He never had any money to keep it up, though. Paul died and Geoffrey, after giving up on the rebuild, eventually sold the place to Duane Robinson and moved to Tennessee. The cemetery is still there, but becoming overgrown. I'll attach some of my 2003 photos. Ted Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2020 13:05:02 -0800 From: "'Annette Truesdell' atrue@garlic.com Ted Rice email:  tedrice@protonmail.com END posted on ancestry.com by Annette Truedell, 16 Nov 2016 BEGIN Deed dated 3-20-1806, Liber 1, p. 403, Washington Co., NY. between Meriah, wid. of Aaron Van Curler; Aaron Van Curler and Sarah his wife; Henry Van Curler and Sarah, his wife; Jacob Van Curler and Rachel, his wife; Henry Barnhart and Elizabeth, his wife; and Joseph Barnhart and Polly, his wife, heirs and successors of Aaron Van Curler, late of Cambridge, Co. of Washington, NY. END translation/transcription of Records->Misc->110.32-p1.jpg and Records->Misc->110.32-p2.jpg from http://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov BEGIN Translation Power of attorney from Arent van Curler to Dirck van Schelluyne to collect the rent of a farm from Thomas Spicer Series: A0270 Scanned Document: NYSA_A0270-78_V3_119 This day, date underwritten, before me, Cornelis van Ruyven, appointed secretary in New Netherland in the service of the General Chartered West India Company, and before the hereinafter named witnesses appeared Monsr Arent van Corlaer, residing in the colony of Renselaers Wyck, who declared that he canceled and annulled a certain power of attorney granted to David Provoost under date of the 14th of June 1651, in his suit against Tomas Spicer, and declared further that he has appointed and empowered, as he hereby does appoint and empower, the worthy Dirck van Schelluyne, notary public residing in this city of New Amsterdam, specially in his, the principal's, name and behalf to demand and receive all such moneys and goods with the interest thereon as are due to him, the principal, from Mr. Tomas Spicer for rent of a certain farm,[1] and to give him a receipt therefor; in case of unwillingness to institute legal proceedings (either de novo, or to continue the proceedings which Davit Provoost has already instituted in the matter aforesaid),[2] to cause the obtained judgment to be put in execution and to prosecute the same to the end; from all judgments, whether definitive or interlocutory, to which he objects, to appeal or to seek mitigation and to prosecute the same; to substitute one or more attorneys ad lites only in his place (with power, also, to compromise, settle and agree as his good judgment shall dictate);[3] he, the principal, promising to hold and to cause to be held all that shall be done and performed in the matter aforesaid and what appertains thereto by the aforesaid his attorney or by his substitute ad lites of the same force and validity as if it were done by him, the principal, in person, under binding obligation as by law provided, on condition that the attorney, under like obligation, remain bound, at the demand of the principal, to render due account, proof and balance of his aforesaid transactions. All without fraud. Thus done in Fort Amsterdam, this 6th of October 1654. A: van Curler Johannes Magapolensis Carel van Brugge Cornelis van Tuyven Notes Meaning the farm of the late Jonas Bronck. See lease of the farm dated June 25, 1643, in New York Colonial MSS., 2:62a. The words in parentheses are inserted in the margin. The words in parentheses are inserted in the margin. References Translation: Scott, K., & Stryker-Rodda, K. (Ed.). New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Vol. 3, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1648-1660 (A. Van Laer, Trans.). Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.: 1974.A complete copy of this publication is available on the New Netherland Institute website. END from http://threerivershms.com/arentvc.htm BEGIN Three Rivers Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie History From America's Most Famous Valleys This is an interesting article. It has been passed down and copied many times. No idea of the origin. Donated by Louis Cuyler. Arent Van Corlaer settled in White Creek in 1709 at the age of 19. He was not the first to locate within the town, but he was the first of the settlers whom we can call by name or know much about. At the time of his coming, the place names so familiar to us today, Cambridge, White Creek, Hossick, etc. were unheard of and the community center which gave its name to the locality was Sancroick. Van Corlaer settled in that part of the Saincroick neighborhood which fell in the Town of White Creek, Washington county toward the year 1800, when town and county lines were established. Van Corlaer came to Sancroick to engage in the fur trade and brought with him Adam Vrooman, the experienced trader and son of Bartle Vrooman of Old Saratoga. In 1711 he built the trading post, standing today with little change, on a terrace just under the summit of Quaker Hill in White Creek and about two and one-half miles north of the Hoosick River. He was born April 19, 1688 to Benoni and Elizabeth (widow of Sybrant Van Schaik) Van Corlaer. On September 23, 1743, he married Mary Lake of Middlesex County, New Jersey and was joined in his fur trading enterprise by his four brothers-in-law, John, Thomas, James and Nicholas Lake. He and his associates subsequently took title through and Indian deed and King's Grant to five thousand acres of the surrounding land including that on which the trading post stands. The name of Van Corlaer is emblazoned upon the pages of the Colonial History of New Netherlands and New York. The grandfather of the White Creek settler was not only the founder of the city of Schenectady in 1661, but earlier (1630-42) was Commisary-General and Superintendent of the Colony of Rensselaerwyck as well as the agent for the Indian Affairs of that colony. He was the Indians' great friend and they were all his friends. The following quotation from Cadwallader Colden's History of the Five Nations merit reiteration here: "He (Van Corlaer) had a mighty influence over the Indians; and it is from him, and in remembrance of his merit, that all Governors of New York are called Corlaer by the Indians to this day, (1738) though he himself was never Governor." He rescued the Jesuit, Father Isaac Jogues, from the Mohawks on two separate occasions and he befriended a party of French under Courcelles; Governor General of Canada, who had set out to attack the Mohawks, but who, unused to snow shoes and severe cold, were nearly dead of cold and hunger when they appeared near Schenectady, so that had not VanCorlaer intervened and contrived their escape and supplied them with provisions they would have fallen victim to the Iroquois or perished from the elements. To quote Colden further: "The French Governor, in order to reward so signal a service, invited Corlaer to Canada; but as he went through the great lake which lies to the Northward of Albany, his Canoe was overset, and he was drowned; and from this Accident that Lake has ever since been called Corlaer's Lake, by the people of New York. There is a Rock in this lake, on which the Waves dash and fly up to a great Height; when the Wind blows hard, the Indians believe, that an old Indian lives under this Rock, who has the power of the Winds; and therefore, as they pass it in their voyages over, they always throw a Pipe, or some other small Present to this old Indian, and pray a favourable Wind. The English that pass with them sometimes laugh at them, but they are sure to be told of Corlaer's Death. Your great Countryman Corlaer (say they) as he passed by this Rock, jested at our Fathers making presents to this old Indian, and in Derision turned up his Backside, but this Affront cost him his life." The actual place of Corlaer's death in Lake Champlain was near Split Rock, now Perne Bay, Essex County, New York. The Lake was known by Corlaer's name until about the year 1760. Benoni, father of the White Creek settler, was the only child of record of the illustrious grandfather. His mother was Ameke Schaets, daughter of the Dominie at Beaverwyck. The circumstances of Benoni's birth are set forth in the council minutes of the period. Benoni took his father's name and became more or less prominent at Albany during the years between 1688 and 1694. From all this it should be clear to the reader that the Arent Van Corlaer who settled in White Creek was indeed the scion of a Colonial New York family of distinction. In his dealings with the Indians, his name alone won him spontaneous acceptance and brought him their confidence, trust and loyalty. The red men, be it remembered, were at this time calling the Colonial Governors "Brother Corlaer" out of respect to the memory of His illustrious grandfather. For a trader, located on the outermost fringe of a perilous frontier, such friendship was essential to survival. Van Corlaer's Trading Post was admirably situated along the trail to the Pompanac village of the Pequot, Mawwehu, and not far from the Schaghticoke Tioshoke village which lay along the Hoosick River a few miles to the south. There was a period of several years during which many of the fur traders, including VanCorlaer and his associates, were handicapped in their operations by government interference. Claude Nelson McMillan says in A History of my People and Yours that "The governor of the Colony of New York would grant only a limited number of hunting and trapping licenses. It is quite apparent that he expected a part of the income from this trapping and hunting so that all furs must be sold either at Albany or in New York. There developed, as by necessity, a plan for outwitting such measurer. So these trappers would load their canoes just below Albany, paddle down along the west bank of the Hudson River, passing New York quietly in the dark, and go on to Jersey...which thus became a market for furs and where the trappers could secure a fair price for their labor without any kick back to the New York Governor. By 1760 the colonial government had restricted the fur trade to only three licenses. The Lakes and Van Corlaer were not licensed, but they appear to have carried on trade in spite of this from their New Jersey headquarters, as did many others. The practice was to come up river by boat and anchor just below Albany where in the cover of darkness the boats were loaded by faithful Indian helpers who conveyed the pelts from the Hoosac (St. Croix) post." While Van Corlaer and his associates were busy lying their Indian trade the settlement of the Hoosick Patent to the south of them was proceeding apace. In the division of the lands of the Hoosick Grant, Cornelius Van Ness, his cousin Philip Van Ness and the heirs of Maria Van Rensselaer came into possession of that part of the patent contained in White Creek. The Van Nesses retained manorial rights and were called the Patroons of the lower Hoosick. Settlers came onto their lands as tenants, or sharecropper, after the Old World feudal fashion. Cornelius Van Ness's St. Croix Manor embraced the land along the Hoosick between the Owl Kill and the Little White Creek, while his cousin, Philip's Manor, known as Tioshoke followed the north bank of the river from the Owl Kill to Buskirk's and beyond. The patroons encouraged a mixed tentancy and in the years immediately following Van Corlaer's coming, a considerable settlement sprang up with immigrants pushing up from Albany, Schenectady, Lansingburg and elsewhere. Tioshoke village, now Buskirk's became a center for trade and had its sawmill, blacksmith's shop, grist mill and church. The Saincroick settlement flourished also during this time, and it is said that by 1724 a quaint Dutch village had spring up around the Van Ness Mansion which consisted of a number of dwellings, houses for tenants and slaves, a schoolhouse, ashery, store, blacksmith shop, wagon shop and tannery. The leases between the Patroon and his tenants revealed that the crossroads of the Saincroick Manor connected with the "Great Road", since known as the Cambridge Turnpike. A partial list of the tenants, by name, who located on the Tioshoke Manor during this time, some of who were within White Creek includes the following: Jonannes Quackenbush, Nicholas Grosbeck, Peter Viele, Johanes VanBuskirk, Walter VanVechten and Lewis Van Wirt. Those who located in the White Creek portion of the Sancroick Manor were families by the name of DeFonda, Fort, Bovie, Van Rensselaer, Vandenburg and Searles. The period between 1671 and 1744 was an interval of peace in the Hoosick Valley for white man and Indian alike. As a result, great progress had been made in settlement; the wilderness was tamed and the frontier extended. The vicious assault on Schenectady in February 1690, when a party of French and Indians slew the inhabitants and burned the town, kept the Hoosick Valley settlers mindful of the ever-present menace of the French Provinces to the north, but that raid was the only really alarming incident during these years. The English officials at Albany had employed a mixed band of Mohawk and Hoosac Indians to continually scout the war-trail leading to Canada. These scouts had taken it upon themselves to negotiate a pact with their kindred at St. Francis, under the Canadian Jesuits, not to molest each others' domains so that the scalping forays of the Canadian a during that time were directed toward the New England settlements in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. But now the storm clouds were gathering anew. In 1744 war broke out in Europe between England and France, and as we turn to our next chapter we shall see how this conflict involved America and those early White Creek and Hoosick Valley settlers. The Indians Sell Their Lands Along The Little White Creek; A village On The White Creek Flats; Border Wars, Turmoil and Strife (1713-1759). From an historical address by the Hon. G. W. Jermain of Albany and White Creek delivered at Cambridge on the 29th of August, 1873, the writer excerpts the following: "In the division of New York (when a British Province,) into counties, in 1683, Albany County was established, and extended north to Canada and included Vermont, then claimed to be within the jurisdiction of New York, and several counties west of this. At a very early day grants and patents of wild lands were sought by speculators from the British government, and in 1688 a patent was obtained for a tract along the Hoosick river, called the Hoosic Patent, a portion of which became included in the towns of White Creek and Cambridge. Soon afterward another patent, adjacent to it on the east, was procured, extending northerly and easterly about a mile in width, called the VanCorlaer and Lakes Patent." "In 1731 a purchase was made of the Indians of land contiguous to and east of the VanCorlaer patent, but as 'Lo, the poor Indian, was not supposed to have any rights which the white man was bound to respect,' a patent for this same land was afterwards, in 1739, procured from the British government by Stephen Van Renssealer and others, called the Walloomsac Patent, of about 12,000 acres, extending north and east along the Walloomsac river and to the Green Mountains, covering the White Creek valley." On the strength of their Indian deed to these lands, and without waiting for the King's confirmation by letters patent to VanRensselaer and his associates, a number of families of French Waloon extraction from the towns along the lower Hudson valley emigrated to the banks of the stream which they named Walloon's Creek, and soon other Walloon families pushed northward to the banks of the Little White Creek, where they subdued the wilderness and built new homes. During the decade 1730-40 a frontier village sprang up on the flats along the Little White Creek, mostly on what is now the Gordon and Harriet Byars farm (The Ebenezer Allen homestead). The settlement failed to survive the period of the French and Indian Wars that terminated with the English conquest of Canada in 1759, and although no contemporary records exist to show when it was destroyed, it was doubtless during the August 1746 invasion of General Rigaud and his Indian Allies from Canada. Col. Harold F. Andrews, who was in charge of the field work for the New York Sate Conservation Department through which the data was obtained for the preparation of the bronze relief map which Col. Andrews designed for the Bennington Battlefield Park Monument, told the writes that his field crews found positive evidence that the former village was on this site. From 1744 through 1759 the inhabitants of the then settled portions of the Hoosick Valley and White Creek were sorely tried. With the exception of the brief six year truce from 1748 to 1754 the border warfare raged continually. England and France were at war in Europe and in America were locked in a bitter struggle for supremacy on the continent. The Hoosac Valley was encompassed during this time by three of the most powerful strongholds of New York, New England and New France: Fort Frederick at Albany, Fort Massachusetts on the upper Hoosick and Fort St. Frederick at Crown Point on Lake Champlain. And a cordon of not less than forty stockaded forts were garrisoned from time to time within a range of seventy miles of the Hoosick Valley. The scalping forays of the French, headed by Mohawks and Algonquin praying warriors, (Indians baptized by Jesuits), followed the old Ticonderoga trail along the Owl Kill, thence along the Hoosick River to Northfield, Deerfield, and Colerain villages of the New England frontier. Lying in the path of these objectives were the White Creek settlements, and both Tioshoke and Little White Creek village met the torch as did also Sancroick. Many a settler's home was laid in ashes; many of them took to their flat bottom boats and sought the protection of the garrisoned towns along the Hudson. Those off the beaten path sometimes stood their ground and either were miraculously overlooked or perished at the hands of the Red Men or were led captive back to Quebec there to languish for months and perhaps to die in the squalor of prison pens. Throughout the Hoosick Valley probably not more than a dozen houses of the settlers of those days stand today. They include the Van Vechten house of Old Schaghticoke, rebuilt recently after a damaging fire near Stillwater, The Van Corlaer Trading Post at White Creek, The Center house in White Creek. Others are being discovered anew as historical interest grown and research proceeds. Certain frontier communities suffered more than others during these times. Knickerbocker's Schaghticoke settlement on the lower Hoosick was struck but once wile the Sancroick neighborhood, Dutch Hoosac and the Kreigger settlement near Pownal suffered repeatedly from these avenging forays by former friendly Indians who had been won to the side of the French. One French writer noted that within a certain period of short duration the French partisans led not less than twenty-seven detachments of St. Francis warriors against the settlements of the Dutch and English Protestants. The reader can picture what the frontier settler endured, his constant state of alarm. That they persevered through these harassing times is a tribute to the steadfast, unflinching character of these pioneers. In August of 1746 a detachment of more than nine hundred French and Indians passed through White Creek, following the old trail along the Owl Kill, thence along the Hoosick through Sancroick neighborhood, bent on the destruction of Fort Massachusetts, east of the present city of Williamstown. On the mission they not only destroyed the fort and took captive the garrison and their families, but put Sancroick and Tioshoke to the torch and inflicted great harm to the New England settlements. One of the captives was the Rev. John Norton, chaplain of Fort Massachusetts, in whose Journal of Captivity a detailed account of this unhappy incident has been preserved. Poorly coordinated military plans had resulted in the fort's being inadequately garrisoned, and this with a delay in arrival of reinforcements, left them an easy target. They were doubly afflicted with an epidemic of the bloody-flux. On the 15th of August, fresh moccasin tracks had been observed a few miles from the fort, and a scout was dispatched to Deerfield requesting help. Before the help came, however, the French struck. Of the garrison of twenty soldiers, ten were very ill. But Sergeant Hawks, the commandant, resisted a twenty-seven hour siege, in the hope that help would come and capitulated only when it was evident the fort would be burnt and they within it, if he did not. They were outnumbered one to one hundred in that equal contest. On the morning of the 19th, the resistance ended. The French burned Massachusetts and Chaplain Norton was permitted to leave a note on the old well to give a brief account of their plight to those who had been expected to relieve them. The captive band numbered thirty-one, including the wives and children of the garrison. The march to Quebec began on the morning of the 21st and that evening, while they were not far from the present village of Petersburg, John Smead's wife gave birth to a baby girl, who, considering the circumstances of her birth was named "Captivity." The following day, a White Creek settler, concealed in the hills along the Owl Kill, might have seen that pitiful band plodding wearily northward under the guard of the pained warriors. The chivalrous French, however, had made a litter for Mary Smead and Little "Captivity," and they were borne along thus until the mother's strength was recovered. Being so ordered by General Rigaud, several of the powerful warriors improvised seats for carrying the sick and ailing during a part of the journey. These incidents to show that the French did at times feel a degree of compassion for their victims. The Indians preserved a friendship for some of the settlers, and these were purposely passed by or given advance warning to take cover as the following letter from Perry's Origins of Williamstown proves. Among this number was undoubtedly Arent Van Corlaer, who was greatly respected out of the memory of his famous father, and his property went untouched throughout this dark and bloody period. Fort Massachusetts August 25, 1754 Sir, This day there came a man from the Dutch and informs me that four days past there came 5 Indians from Crownpoint and informs them that there is eight hundred Indians desine, in destroy Hosuck and care new town and this fort, and desine to be upon us this night. I sent a man right down to Hosuck and care new town and this fort, and desine to be upon us this night. I sent a man right down to Hosuck to hear farther about the affair, but the people was all moved off but two or 3 that was coming to the fort and they tell him the same account. The Indians that brought the account was sent in order to have some parsons move from Sencroick that they had regard for, but if they come I hope we are well fixt for them. In hast from Sr. Your's etc. Command, Elisha Chapin Copyright © 1998, -- 2003. Berry Enterprises. All rights reserved. All items on the site are copyrighted. While we welcome you to use the information provided on this web site by copying it, or downloading it; this information is copyrighted and not to be reproduced for distribution, sale, or profit. END from ancestry.com 6 Dec 2021 BEGIN Arendt Van Curler 1688 or 1696 Arendt Van Curler, birth: 4/19/1696, death: 3-1-1795, Mapleton, NY. (near Hoosick Falls). His headstone is still standing at St. Croix. Wife, Mary Lake is given in real estate transfer, 1-16-1775. Aaron & wife Mary to France Lucker, 96 acres east side of Hudson River. Ref. B. 11, page 435--County of Albany Clerk's Office. Aaron M. Mary Lake: daug. of Nicholas Lake 1743, New Brunswick NY 1743 Middlesex, Co.. Arendt was the son of Bennoni van Curler, he was the first born so he was named after Bennoni's father Arendt, that is why he is listed 3rd, all of Arendt's the 3rd as some people refer to him were illiterate. When he died the children said his name was Aaron, this of course was incorrect, but when you say Arendt incorrectly is sounds like Aaron, so the person who was the undertaker put it down as Aaron and the children didn't know any different, that is why it also says Aaron on his tombstone. He is the one who built the trading post in White Creek, along with his brothers in law, ( 4 of them ) by the name of Lake, and it still stands there today and was built in 1709 or 1711, there are two different versions of what the date actually was. His tombstone says he lived to be 107, this happened because he was actually born in 1688 but was not baptised until 1696, The Dutch many time only date a persons birth (rom what I've been told ) from their baptism date in the old days. April Karnas originally shared this to Karnas / Tazza Tree 11 years ago story aftruesdell added this to AFTruesdell-Findley/Giles 5 years ago END from Loyalist Lake Family History loyalist-lake-history@googlegroups.com BEGIN Wesley Johnston Aug 16, 2022, 3:35:35 PM The Battle of Bennington was not fought at Bennington, Vermont. It was not even fought in Vermont. It was fought on our Lake ancestors' land at White Creek, New York -- where our relative Nicholas Lake was killed. marshallelake Aug 31, 2022, 2:27 PM Wesley, I realize that The Battle of Bennington was not fought in Vermont, but what tells you that it was fought on our Lake ancestors' land at White Creek, New York? Wesley Johnston Aug 31, 2022, 2:51 PM (5 hours ago) I think Annette told me this. The monument that is on the actual battlefield (not the gigantic one in Vermont) is here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bennington+Battlefield+State+Historic+Site/@42.9475766,-73.3110939,14.5z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89de426590746265:0x1000fb30fb9eedaf!8m2!3d42.9390234!4d-73.3046327 There is a website for it: https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/benningtonbattlefield/details.aspx ckanalley Aug 31, 2022, 3:00 PM My understanding is that it was on Lake land, at least partially. They lost a lot of their possessions and this was part of why they fled to Canada. This is supported by documents like loyalist petitions. When I visited the White Creek area and charted out where the battle was, I also saw that the battle would have impacted where they lived. END "Calendar of Historical Manuscripts, in the Office of the Secretary of State, Albany, N.Y.", E. B. O'Callaghan, Part II, 1866 BEGIN 1663. June 8. * Indian deed to commissary Van Curler, for the Dutch government, of the tract of land called Siekajoock (now Hartford), on the Connecticut river, page 2 [In N. Y. Col. Doc, II, 139.] 1676. Dec. 5. * Judgment of the court at Albany against Mrs. Curler, at the suit of Gerrit van Slechtenherst, for debt, page 256 1677. March 15. * Minute of the court of Albany, referring to the governor all matters relating to the estate of Mrs. Curler, dec'd, page 35 END from http://genealogytrails.com/ny/schenectady/bios_a.html BEGIN Arent Van Curler ADULT FREEHOLDERS. ARENT VAN CURLER was the leader of the colony at Schenectady in 1662. He came over in 1630, and in 1643 married Antonia Slaaghboom, widow of Jonas Bronck. No man of his time had so fully won the confidence and esteem of the Indians, and to honor his memory they ever addressed the Governor of the Province by his name. He was drowned on Lake Champlain in July, 1669. Van Curler's home lot in the village was a portion of the block bounded by Union, Church, Front and Washington streets. The Rev. WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIN, D. D., says that "Arent Van Curler was a scholar and a gentleman, fluent with his pen, possessing a gift by no means to be despised-the mastery of language. He was a man of systematic mind, so faithful to his trust and vow as to recall a Roman of classic days; and so kind of heart, so full of deep conviction of conscience, along with the power of rising above the narrowness of sect or nationality, as to suggest a Christian. Brave as a lion, fearless neither of conspirators, scheming lawyers, who made use of their profession mainly to molest honest men, or of crafty savages, or perfidious French; further, he had the eye of an engineer and strategist, with the foresight of a statesman." [Source: History of the county of Schenectady, N. Y., from 1662 to 1886, George Rogers Howell, John H. Munsell, 1886] tr. by mkk END from An Adirondack Chronology The Adirondack Research Library 2011 BEGIN Arendt van Curler visits the future site of Schenectady on the Mohawk R. 1642 Arendt Van Corlaer et al. assist Isaac Jogues' escape from Haudenosaunee for return to France 1643 Arendt Van Curler and fellow Dutchmen est. Schenectady 1661 Arendt van Curler drowns in Lake Champlain 1667 END from CALENDAR OF N. Y. COLONIAL MANUSCRIPTS Indorsed Land Papers; in the Office of the Secretary of State of New York 1643-1803 1864 BEGIN 1761. May 20. Indian deed to Arent Corlaer and Nich's. Lake, of a certain tract of land lying on the east side of Hudson's river, in the county of Albany, on both sides of a brook or rivulet called by the Indians Tightillijaghtikook, and by the people the south branch of Batten kill, bounded on the south by the patent of Wallomsack; on the west by Sawyer's and Lansing's purchase, on the north by Batten kill, and on the east by the high mountains, (White Creek, Washington county,) 49 1761. June 15. Petition of Arent Van Corlaer, Nich's Lake and 3 others, praying letters patent for 5,000 acres of land lying on the east side of Hudson's river, in the county of Albany, on both sides of a brook or rivulet called by the Indians Tightikillijagtikook, by the white people the south branch of Batten kill, bounded on the south by the patent of Wallumschack, on the west by Sawyer's and Lansingh's purchase, on the north by Batten kill, and on the east by the high mountains, (White Creek, Washington county,) (see page 49,) 57 END Arendt van Curler (1884) by William Elliot Griffis ARENDT VAN CURLER, FIRST SUPERINTENDENT OF RENSSELAERWICK, FOUNDER OF SCHENECTADY AND OF THE DUTCH POLICY OF PEACE WITH THE IRIQUOIS. By WM. Elliot Griffis, D.D.[1], Domine of the Reformed [Dutch] Church, Schenectady, N. Y., from June 1, 1877, to April 5, 1886. [Read before the Albany Institute November 18, 1884.] BEGIN In the report of the Special Committee on Archaeology of the Albany Institute on the proposed erection of local historical monuments presented April 26, 1881, and printed in volume X, the following paragraph occurs: "Our respected neighbor, the city of Schenectady, has a university whose success is gratifying to us - has an historical scholar in whose honor we speak, but it is sadly faithless to its most interesting history. It has no monuments of the great raid of 1690, whose narrative was the theme of interest across the great sea - it has no memorial of Corlaer, who, going out of Albany to find the still more remote frontier settlements, by his sagacity and estimable qualities so won the hearts of the savages that thereafter they gave his name as the equivalent of Governor, and who died while en route to Montreal, where his excellence had won him an invitation from the French ruler." (Transactions of the Albany Institute, vol. X, p. 143.) If not with "the stern joy that warriors feel," it is with a patriot's grateful appreciation that we pick up with our pen, the gauntlet thus thrown down, and hand it back on our nib, with a determination to wipe out the reproach of Dorp. The "University" - "old Union" [College] - fathered by Domine Dirck Romeyn, endowed by the Dutchmen, of the Schenectady Church, made national by Dr. Nott, having nobly reared her sons in the past, will I doubt not, despite a season of reverses, regain vitality in head as well as body, and yet send forth many sons to fame and honor. Our historical scholar, Professor Jonathan Pearson, still hale and wise in sunny old age, has spoken for himself in goodly volumes of priceless lore. These are realities. The monument to the martyrs of 1690 is yet in the loins of the future, and the pockets of subscribers; but its local habitation is selected, and the spirit is willing. In due time, I doubt not, will appear a child of art and memory, which shall perpetuate the virtues alike of the founder and the forefathers of the village in the pine woods, once spoken of as in "the far West," and made the theme of grave debate between London and Versailles. To add a further memorial of a man who was great in goodness, as well as renowned in statecraft, is the purpose of this paper. It usually happens in history that the thunders of battle, the noise of the drum, and the shoutings of great captains drown the still small voice of truth. Through the dust and smoke of war, the more substantial victories of peace are discerned not at first, but later. Of the eccentric, the belligerent, and testy in church and state, the military on horseback, and the patroon on his manor, we have heard much; and epauletted and cloaked statues are beginning to be numerous. On history's sober page, or in Irving's classic jest, many names are famous or notorious; but, we maintain that of the Holland pioneers who laid the foundations of this commonwealth, and made it the Empire State, there is too little known. There is room for more monuments, as the true perspective of history retires some names to shadow, and brings others into the foreground. Of these, in my modestly submitted opinion and in the estimation of historical critics who note the effect while apparent1y shortsighted as to the cause, none more deserves honor in some enduring token, than the yeoman, Arendt Van Curler, the first superintendent of the Colony of Rensselaerwyck, and the founder of Schenectady. Yet no letters on a sculptured monument or in written essay can equal the noble expression of admiration from the uncivilized Indian. The first treaty of peace made between the Iriquois and the Hollanders at Norman's kill near Albany - classic ground by a historic stream, yet to be sung in epic verse - was and is called by them "the Covenant of Corlaer." For over two centuries the red men between the Hudson and the Niagara addressed the governors of New Amsterdam and New York as "Corlaer." When leaving their native hunting-grounds to follow their religious teachers to Canada, the Mohawks of Caughnawaga, though changing their faith, their allegiance, their habitation and their climate, yet carried with them as a potent talisman the cognomen of their benefactor. The name of Curler is now honoured and fragrant in one American tongue, and in three European languages and civilizations. Two years ago, on the publication in Montreal of a Lexique de la Langue Iriquoise, by Father J. A. Cuoq, one of the missionary priests of Saint Sulphice, I sent for a copy. Among other nuggets of linguistic lore, I met with a word embalming his memory in the daily speech of the Indians of Caughnawaga. This fragment of the Mohawk tribe has been domiciled in Canada since 1670, when they left their ancestral seats on the Mohawk. Tourists down the St. Lawrence, past the Lachine rapids, will remember their pretty village on the river bank, with its church enriched by the gifts of many a sovereign of France from Louis XIV to Eugenié. Those who read the sporting items in the newspapers will recall that last spring those same Caughnawaga Indians, born almost with a racket on their feet, and a lacrosse web in their hands, beat with ease, at New York, the champion American team just returned from their victories in Europe. Again some of those red men came into notice when Sir Garnet Wolseley, transporting them beyond Egypt, availed himself of their skill in moving his boats through the cataracts and rapids of the Nile. Cuoq's Iriquois Lexicon, under the word Kora, says: "Monsieur, the abbe Ferland (in his history of Canada) points out the true origin of this word, in making it come from the name of the celebrated Arendt Van Corlaer. But it should be added further that from the Dutch governors of Orange and New Amsterdam the title of kora passed from them to the English governors of Albany and New York, and thence in course to all the governors of New England. As a matter of fact, the governor-general of Canada finds himself invested with this title of honor, and for Her Majesty, the queen of Great Britain, they are accustomed to exalt more highly her glory by adding the epithet kowa, that is, 'the great.'" When the Canadian Indian of to-day would express in his own tongue the divinity that doth hedge about Victoria Regina, he says kora-kowa, "the great Corlaer."[2] The splendor of the empress of India shines among her red subjects by borrowed light. Fair as the moon and terrible to the red man as an army with banners, as is her imperial majesty, the sun that supplies the glory of her prestige is the name of Van Curler - the original Mohawk Dutchman. Herein is fulfilled the wise man's prophecy, "Seest thou a man who is diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings." While on this subject of titles, let us note further the term "Onontio" used by the Iriquois before the time of Van Curler, and down to the conquest of Canada by Wolfe, and familiar to all readers of Colonial documents or Indian eloquence. On this word Cuoq remarks: "This name [Onontio] was given for the first time to the successor of Champlain to the government of Canada, Charles Hault, De Montmagny, Chevalier de Malte. We have seen the origin of the title of Kora given to the kings and queens of England, and to the English governors of Canada. This title is, if we may so speak, of purely Iriquoise creation, since it is no other than that of the Hollandish governor Corlaer, pronounced by a savage. But it is otherwise with the title Onontio, first conferred upon the chevalier of Montmagny. They translated his name, and to this the missionaries must have lent their assistance, without which the savages could not even have suspected the meaning of Montmagny, the great mountain. It is noteworthy that in rendering the name of the French governor by Onontio, they have given only a free translation - the Iriquois word meaning literally `the beautiful mountain,' and not the great mountain. From the chevalier of Montmagny the title of Onontio passed to his successors until the title of the conquest (1760). For the kings of France they add the adjective kowa [the great]." I have been particular thus in summoning testimony to the worth of Van Curler citing from the aborigines, the first historic occupiers of the soil, because they stood between the rival nations contesting for the possession of this continent, and largely by their attitude decided its occupancy. And the one man who, more than any other, secured and maintained for the Dutch and the English the friendship of the Five Nations of the Iriquois, the most nearly civilized Indians, and who were advanced above all others in political knowledge, against the French and the Algonquin Indians, north of the St. Lawrence, was Arendt Van Curler. Bancroft, Parkman, Higginson, Hildreth, O'Callaghan, Shea, Stevens, Brodhead, and, neither last nor least, our own historical scholar Pearson - name ever honorable to our city - agree in this one thing, viz.: That "the most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this continent" - namely, that of its possession by a Germanic or a Latin race - hung largely upon another question, which side should win and hold the friendship of that powerful confederation of red men, who overawed or held in tribute the Indians from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, and from Lake Champlain to the Chespeake. This was the question unanswered for a century and a half. In the first place, this mighty confederacy of tribes held, as their "long house," that wonderful portion of this continent which seems by nature created for empire, whether in the stone or the iron age, the Empire State it was then, the Empire State it is now. It holds the keys to the water-ways between the fresh and the salt seas, for its rivers run to the Atlantic, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Its land routes, fitted for trail, pike, plank, iron or steel roadways, are smoothed ready for foot or wheel, moccasin or tire by nature. Nowhere along the mountain-ribbed Atlantic coast is there such another long, level, natural roadway as that of the Iriquois trail between the cataracts of Cohoes and Niagara, now banded by the steel rails of two mighty corporations. From Champlain to Montcalm, the French by diplomacy, religion, threats, flattery, and all the resources of Gallic wit, force, and address endeavored to gain over the Iriquois to their king and cause; but ever loyal to "the Covenant of Corlaer," they adhered to the Prince of Orange and the Sovereign of Great Britain. They acted as a stonewall, a breakwater, against the storm and tide of French aggression, while the English colonies nourished their strength, and won this fair land, first from the Gaul, from Latin ideas and civilization, and then from King George and monarchy. What began that struggle which from a backwoods raid became a clashing of empires? What part did Van Curler bear? Was he "a Dutch clodhopper," or a far-seeing statesman? Let us go back twenty-one years before his arrival on this continent: In 1609, Champlain, in company with a war party of Hurons and Algonquins, proceeding against the Mohawks unwarrantably interfered in their tribal quarrels, and decided the scale of victory. The Mohawks were defeated by the power of gunpowder and invisible missiles. Again, in 1615, this Frenchman in glittering armor with five belching weapons went along with the Algonquins to the Mohawk country to besiege their castle. These proceedings aroused a spirit of hatred against the French, and to counterpoise the odds against them, the Iriquois sought alliance with the Dutch. Powder and ball were their first desires. Their motives were utterly selfish, when in 1617, two years after Champlain's second filibustering interference, they came to Fort Orange, and made a formal treaty with the Dutch. A compact made between two alien races on the basis of their mutual hatred to a third party is not likely to last, when the once enemy turns friend, or the old friend falls on adversity. Why was it, that the cruel, selfish savage kept inviolate for over a century this covenant sealed only with the sacrament of wampum belts, amid all temptations to rupture? Why did Dutch and British alike keep with even more faithfulness their word with the weakening savages, even when they had exhausted the benefit of their service? Why, amid all vicissitudes was their treaty negotiated with less fuss, ceremony and spectacular display than Wm. Penn's with the Lenni Lenapis - observed with better faith, too, than was the Philadelphia compact. In the painting of Benjamin West, by fascinating but uncertain legend, and by the praise of Voltaire, who, to sneer at religion, wrote a lying epigram, the Quaker's treaty has been given world-wide fame. The witty Frenchman said of it "never sworn to, and never broken." History, however, demonstrates, that while Penn and the Friends kept their word, the people of Pennsylvania did not. In New York, the promises on either side were kept, until America and British themselves came to blows, a calamity which fell heavily upon the Iriquois, and from which they never recovered. If it be objected that the raid and burning of Schenectady in 1690, and the five years Indian war under Kieft appear to militate against our statement, we have only to mention that the Schenectady massacre was by the French and proselyted savages from Canada, not of New York, while the five years war under Kieft was waged by Indians not Iriquois. This war, by the way, was healed nominally by Stuyvesant, but actually by Van Curler in 1660. I am glad that a distinguished gentleman of the legal profession asked me "Who was the founder of Schenectady? Was he any more than a Dutch clodhopper?" I can safely answer that he was a scholar and a gentleman, fluent with his pen, possessing a gift by no means to be despised - the mastery of languages. He was a man of systematic mind, and so faithful to his trust and vow, as to recall a Roman of classic days. Withal, he was so kind of heart, so full of deep conviction of conscience along with a power of rising above the narrowness of sect and nationality, as to suggest a Christian indeed. Brave as a lion, he feared neither round-robin conspirators, nor the scheming lawyer who used his profession mainly to molest honest men, nor crafty savages, nor perfidious French. Further, he had the eye of an engineer and strategist, with the foresight of a statesman. Arendt Van Curler was the first cousin of Kilian Van Rensselaer, and came to this country in 1630. Of the original company of ten members, or "co-patroons," all on the same footing to plant colonies in America, Kilian Van Rensselaer seems to have been the most successful, and we shall see why. Others formed colonies along the Hudson in New Netherlands. Others disagreeing, or thinking more profitable ventures could be made in the East Indies, gave up America and tried the Spice Islands, Formosa and Japan. Vries became the famed navigator who left his name on the large island near the bay of Yedo. Hendrick Hamel went out as supercargo to Nagasaki, and was wrecked in Corea, kept a prisoner, and escaping, got home to Holland, to find his old friends Kilian Van Rensselaer, dead, and Van Curler, drowned, in far off America; but Rensselaerwyck had prospered, Why? The patroon never visited the colony, but confided all to his agent, Van Curler, the first superintendent. Hear what L. P. Brockett says: "The administration of justice, and the management of its financial affairs, he committed to a commissary-general. Fortunate in the selection * * * his colony prospered much more than that at New Amsterdam, and it was to the good offices of Van Curler, or Corlaer, the first commissary that the colonists at New Amsterdam were indebted more than once, for their preservation from destruction at the hands of the savages" [during Kieft's mal-administration]. This excellent man cultivated the most friendly relations with the Indians, and so strong was their affection for him, that ever after they applied the name Corlaer to the governors of New York, as the highest title of respect. "So too, from the date of the settlement of Albany, the county was never invaded by these sons of the forest. The Schuyler family, for several generations carrying out the policy inaugurated by Van Curler, exerted a powerful influence over the Indians. Unfortunately, Van Curler left no descendants to keep alive the memory of his services. Van Curler's jurisdiction, as superintendent and justice of the colony, extended from Beeren Island in the Hudson to the mouth of the Mohawk, and he was also colonial secretary until 1642. He provided food and sustenance for the immigrants, promptly bringing them up from Manhattan Island, enrolling them, arranging for their houses and assigning their farms, while guarding against famine, disorder, and the foes of the forest and from Canada. He took every right means to increase honest trade. His devotion to his master brought him into collision with the traders "in the bush." A protest against him was fomented by Van der Donck; and his enemies put their names to the paper in a circle, so that it should not be known who had first signed it, or in other words, who was the ring leader. Their activity brought him into such temporary unpopularity that some were for driving him out of the colony as a rogue. Others wished to assassinate him. Evidently life in a frontier settlement in the woods was then very much what it is now, and the characters much the same. The firmness, courage, fair play, and unwavering good nature and honesty of Van Curler carried him safely through the crisis. By degrees, the popularity of the superintendent returned, and Van der Donck left the settlement. Van Curler's prayer, if it were identical with Job's, was answered, for his rival did "write a book" in 1655, which is still valuable as a literary photograph of colonial New York, the Netherlands in America. Van Curler, according to orders, had "concentrated" the immigrants into a Kerck burte, a parish or church, neighborhood, near the Beaver's creek or Greenbush ferry. He built a church and parsonage. This was the first protestant church edifice built as such and so consecrated on the continent of America. The domine[3] Megapolensis began his work among the people, morals improved, home life began to be more stable and retired, and prosperity was laid on a sure foundation. Van Curler and the parson were always good friends, the layman ever taking counsel with his clerical brother, and receiving his advice with respect. Thus the unseemly war between bench and pulpit, which disgraced Manhattan island, was unknown in Rensselaerwyck. Through all the stormy administration of Governor Kieft, and the five years' war which wiped out so many Dutch settlements on the Hudson, and nearly annihilated Manhattan, Van Curler's firm hand in the colony and unbounded influence over all the Indians, kept the advancing prosperity of the colony of Rensselaerwyck in the safe path. It was in the midst of danger of infectious lawlessness and savage irritation, that he made his first journey into the Mohawk country. Of this wonderful valley he was not the original explorer, though he was probably the first white visitor who described and fully appreciated it. Humanity prompted him to this westward errand. News came to his ears that two French priests were in the hands of the Mohawks near Caughnawaga, now Fonda. Like tigers with their prey, the savages intended to enjoy the torture of their victims before burning or tomahawking them. Van Curler was a Dutch patriot and a Protestant of Orange dye, but he was more - a Christian and a man. "Why risk life among the bloodthirsty savages, and intermeddle to save a papist and a Frenchman," some doubtless may have said. Van Curler, without argument or reservation, quickly collected ransom to the value of 600 guilders equal to $250 then, or perhaps $500 now. He rode up the valley, in September, 1642. It was then dressed in the gorgeous livery of autumn, and bright with many an acre of ripening maize. He called it "the fairest land that the eyes of man ever rested upon," but the moral beauty of his own act exceeded even that of nature. He did not succeed in ransoming or rescuing the priest, Father Jogues; but he secured a promise from the savages not to kill or further torture him. Afterwards, Van Curler assisted Jogues to escape from Albany to France, where at the imperial court at Versailles the scars of his fingers which the savages, like wild beasts, had chewed and from which they had torn out his nails, were kissed by proud lords and lovely ladies as of those of a saint. Again this devoted missionary returned to America, and was again captured by the insatiate Mohawks. This first Roman Catholic missionary on the soil of our state, and the discover of the Lake of the Holy Sacrament, now ignobly named George, finally suffered martyrdom at Ossuerenon, near Auriesville. On the hills overlooking the station of the West Shore railway, he yielded up his life. In his honor, a shrine to the Virgin, "Our Lady of Martyrs," is now erected. Yet with nearly equal propriety, is the name of Van Curler the exemplar of noble humanity linked to the spot. This was but one of the many visits which Van Curler made to the Indians at their homes and council-fires. Having mastered their vernacular, he was able to hear from their own lips, their side of every question. Hence, he had never to trust to interpreters, or to rely upon hearsay or uncertain information. When in 1646 Stuyvesant arrived, and began his administration by settling the Indian difficulties which had afflicted the lower settlements, he sent first of all to Van Curler, for advice and direction. Later at a great convention of chiefs of all the non Iriquois nations, held at Esopus in 1660, an agreement of peace was made. In this work, Stuyvesant was the figure-head, and Van Curler the real diplomatist and peace-maker. One of the many journeys made in carrying out the policy of justice and peace with the Indians brought him to the house of Jonas Bronck, who has given his name to one of the rivers and villages - Bronx and Bronxville - of Westchester county. Here, after punishment inflicted on the actual murderers, peace was made with the Wickwaskect tribe, at the house of the burgher whose widow Antonia afterwards became Van Curler's wife. They were married in the autumn of 1646, and settled down in one of the best houses of the settlement of Rensselaerwyck, for she was deserving of it, being as her husband states, "a good housekeeper." Having now the prospect of domestic happiness, desirous also of possessing a farm, the affairs of the colony withal being settled, Van Curler leaving his bride behind him, visited Patria (Holland) to report to his lord the patroon, and get a lease for his "bowerie" which was near Cohoes. The patroon Kilian Van Rensselaer died in 1646, leaving the colony in the hands of his son Johannes. Van Curler returning to America went to live on his farm, and there enjoyed the pleasures of unofficial life. Yet his days were far from inactive. He seized every opportunity to educate and benefit the Indians, rescue Christian captives, and cement the bonds of friendship with the red men. Van Curler owned a brewery in Rensselaerwyck and believed that beer was good for Christian and savage; but the use of brandy, rum, whiskey, and the various concoctions of "fire-water" he condemned. He attempted, in vain, however, to influence the Indians against drunkenness, and to prevent the traders from selling strong liquors. At one time, when, on account of troubles largely occasioned by liquor, the relations of the settlers and the Mohawks were strained, we find Van Curler leading twenty-five of the chief men of the settlement and proceeding to Caughnawaga. There on the 17th of September, 1659, after the calumet had been smoked with the sachems Van Curler made a forcible speech, pointing out firewater as the potent cause of their troubles. His arguments and eloquence were satisfactory and successful, and the links of the covenant chain were forged anew. Now came the time for another of the great achievements of our hero's life. Largely through his acts and character, the way was paved for the peaceful settlement of the Mohawk valley by the whites. Food had become scarce near Fort Orange, farmers wanted homes, but were not willing to settle at Rensselaerwyck under semi-feudal restrictions. Having left Patria, they wished to hold their land in fee simple, and when dying to bequeath the fruits of their toil to their children. This, under the patroon, they could not do. Van Curler sympathized with them, and himself longed to possess land not as a fief, but as a holding forever. Accordingly he applied, June 18th, 1661, to Gov. Stuyvesant for permission to purchase "the great flat" of the lower Mohawk valley from the Indians, called by them Schonowe, including the site of one of their villages, Schenectady. Owing to influences emanating from Rensselaerwyck, the privilege of trade was not granted until 1672, and at first the little frontier settlement was wholly agricultural. Van Curler for years vainly protested against this churlish and illiberal spirit which savored of the dog in the manger, and so long hindered the growth of a true commonwealth. Van Curler's plea was for unshackled commerce, free trade and farmer's rights, as against monopoly, semi-feudalism and whiskey. Here note the liberal principles on which Van Curler founded his settlement; they were justice, temperence, and liberty. Wm. Penn has been lauded for buying the land of the Indians. Van Curler did the same. He fought the whiskey-sellers whose fiery liquid destroyed the red men as did small pox, and turned reasoning men into murderous brutes. He pleaded for the rights of trade to actual settlers on wild lands as against monopoly, and for the privilege of holding land in fee simple, and bequeathing it to children. Here, having taken the subject of my sketch beyond the boundaries of Renssalaerwyck, it is proper for me to postpone the continuance of my story. In a further and more elaborate study, I hope to present the life and works of Van Curler in befitting dress. Suffice it to say that in 1664, on the conquest of New Netherlands by the English, one of the first acts of Colonel Nicholls was to send for Van Curler to consult as to his policy with the Indians. Two years later, the French expedition of Courcelles was saved from starvation and probable annihilation by Van Curler. Hastening from Schenectady with provisions he succored his famishing fellow Christians who had fallen into ambuscade, while also warning them off English ground. Had the founder of the settlement lived, the frightful massacre of 1690 would, doubtless, never have been consummated. In 1667, while on a visit to Canada, by invitation of the French Governor Tracy, Van Curler was drowned during a squall in Lake Champlain. "In the middle of the Lake where Corlaer was drowned," reads the old chronicle, but the exact spot we do not know. For a half century or more this sheet of water was named and known to the English only as "Corlaer's Lake," while "Corlaer's Bay" is still on the maps. Craving pardon of my hearers, and of this honorable Albany Institute for presenting so fragmentary a paper, pleading shortness of notice, and press of imperative duties as my excuse, I beg leave to state that life and leisure being given, I hope to do fuller justice to a name most noble among those who laid the foundations of the greatness of the Empire State. Endnotes 1. Pastor of Shawmut Congregational Church, Boston, Mass. 2. When, at the bi-centennial celebration of the city of Albany, in July, 1886, a delegation of these Indians from Canada stood in Pearl street awaiting the start of the great parade, I asked one of the young braves how they spoke of Victoria, the queen of England. He answered at once, "Kora." An older Indian corrected him merely to add, "Kowa." The first one inquired of, assenting, rejoined, "Kora, Kowa." 3. There is no other way of spelling the title of a pastor of a Reformed [Dutch] church in Holland, America, South Africa, or the East Indies, but that in which it is invariably spelled in the Dutch records. It is always domine and not "dominie." The Dutch title is the unaltered Latin. "Dominie," in English and Scotch may mean a parson of some kind; it does mean a teacher or schoolmaster. This orthography of domine is the usage in Corwin's "Manual of the Reformed church in America," in Pearson's "Schenectady First Church Memorial," in The Christian Intelligencer, and in the writing of all critical and careful writers (except where printers tamper with their MSS), who write concerning ministers of the Reformed churches in the Netherlands, or their offspring. Further, to join a Scotch term savoring of cant or slang to a Latinized form of a Hollander's name is to do something which scholarly Hollanders would never approve of. END