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Misc. Notes

FROM http://awt.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:2005103&id=I1247

BIOGRAPHY: Dirck Volkertsen (VOLCKERTZEN) was Norwegian ("de Noorman" often followed his name). One of earliest settlers in New Amsterdam, though exact date unknown. Probably brought by Dutch West India Co as expert on rendering pine pitch into tar. But tree in New Amsterdam were of wrong species. He was a ship carpenter by trade and also farmed. As so often happened he spent much time in court being sued or suing. One court appearance was for theft. Charged with one Gerritsen with stealing rope for company yacht. Dirck claimed he bought rope from Gerritsen "in good faith". He was acquitted.

Some time before 1632 Dirck married Christina Vigne, daughter of Guillaume Vigne and Adrienne Cuvelier. Dirck is listed as magistrate in 1681 and ensign of local militia in 1689. No record of date of death of Dirck or Christina.

[RAJ NOTE: Dirck is listed above as magistrate in 1681 and ensign of local militia in 1689. Same source says he died before 1680 in NY. My belief is that Dirck's grandson Dirick Volkertse was the person referred to in above statement.]

"One family legend has it he came....to New Amsterdam Colony from Bergen, Norway. Another has it that he came by way of Hoorn, a Dutch seaport."

FROM WWW.FULKERSON.ORG:

Dirck married Christine VIGNE in 1630/31, daughter of Guillaume VIGNE and Adrienne CUVELIER The Vignes were among the first 30 French Walloon families the Dutch West India Company imported to establish the New Netherlands colony in 1624. [By the way, Peter MINUIT was not Dutch...he was a French Walloon like the Vignes.] Dirck and Christine lived on her parents' farm, at the south end of Broadway, until 1638. Christine's father died in 1632, and Dirck and his mother-in-law were named executors of the will, as recorded below:

"We, the underwritten, William WYMAN, blacksmith and Jan Thomaisen GROEN, as good men do attest and certify that before us appeared Dirck VOLCKERSON, the Norman and Ariantje CEVELYN, his wife's mother in order to agree with her children by her lawful husband, deceased; she gives to Maria VIGNE and Christine VIENJE, both married persons each the sum of 200 guilders as their share of their father's estate. To Rachel VIENJE and Jan VIENJE both minor children, each the sum of 33 guilders, under the condition that with her future husband, Jan Jansen DAMEN, she shall be held to keep the said two children in good support, until the come of age, and that she shall be obliged to clothe and feed them and make them go to school as good parents are bound to do."

Between 1638 and 1645 Dirck owned the large house at 125 Pearl Street, just below Wall Street. It was on a quarter-acre and had a garden and apple trees. He sold the house in 1645. The deed states he took six of the apple trees when he moved. In 1648 Sergeant Daniel LITSCHOE purchased the site and converted the house into a tavern. The site of this tavern appears on the 1660 map of the city; however, LITSCHOE traded it in 1653 for "the Jansen house" just north of the City Wall. This may have been the old VIGNE home, since Jan Jansen DAMEN had just died, so Adrienne CUVELIER - Dirck's mother-in-law and Jan's widow - may have spent her last three years of life in Dirck's old house on Pearl Street. In 1691, Captain KIDD and his new wife, the former Mrs. Sarah OORT, moved into a large house on Pearl Street, half a block south of Dirck's old house.

Dirck began farming in earnest in 1638, when he leased a bouwery (farm) and stock from the colony's Governor, Willem KIEFT, "on halves." This farm was near brother-in-law Cornelis VAN TIENHOVEN's "plantation" at Smits Vly (translation: Smith's Flat), northeast of Wall Street. On August 4, 1649, VAN TIENHOVEN sold property on the 250 block of Pearl Street to Dirck and their other brother-in-law, Abraham VER PLANCK. The lots were about a half-acre each, extending along Pearl Street on the East River to some high ground at the rear, between Maiden Lane on the south and what is now Fulton Street on the north.

Dirck subdivided his lot into smaller properties, and during the next five years sold the lots with or without a house. The deeds are recorded. Hage BRUYNSEN the Swede bought a lot from him in November 1653 and built his own house. (In February 1654 Dirck sued BRUYNSEN to pay for the property.) Dirck built himself a house in 1649 at 259 Pearl Street. In 1651 he sold it to Roeloff TEUNISSEN - a Swedish sea captain from Goteborg - after building himself another new house. [These are also shown on the 1660 map.] Dirck and Abraham later owned other lots on Manhattan through their wives' inheritance, which was substantial: their mother-in-law Adrienne CUVELIER (VIGNE) and her husband Jan Jansen DAMEN owned Manhattan from Pine Street north to Maiden Lane, and from the East River to the Hudson River, encompassing most of the Wall Street financial district and the World Trade Center. Fortunately, the property is still in the family and we are all filthy rich. Okay, so we're not filthy rich. At least we have some great stories to tell.

Another significant development occurred in 1638 - the Indians agreed to allow Dutch settlement in Brooklyn. Dirck was one of the first to take advantage of the newly-available lands, receiving a grant to buy 400-500 acres of land from the Indians. It had a mile-long frontage on the East River and had nearly the same frontage on the two tidal streams that bounded his land on the south and north sides, Norman Kill and Mespath Kill. (The Dutch called streams or creeks "kills"). Mespath Kill became Newtown Creek after the British moved into the area and founded the Newtown settlement. Noorman's Kill later became Bushwick Creek. The inlet where the creek emptied into the East River, immediately south of Dirck's house, still exists today. [See the 1639 map.] The northwest point on his East River frontage was known by several names, including Noorman's Point and Woud Hoek (Woodland Point). Years later it was planted with green wheat fields and gained its current name of Greenpoint.

Dirck was one of the few Brooklyn property owners who actually improved their properties in the early years. It is said that the Indians came back to him each year, asking for more money, because the land had increased in value. His improvements suffered some setbacks in the Indian uprisings of 1643 and 1655, when fields were destroyed and homes and barns were burned. Indians killed two of his sons-in-law, Jan H. SCHUTT in 1652 and Cornelis HENDRICKSEN Van Dort in 1655, and tortured a third, Herman Hendricksen ROSENKRANZ, for eight days in 1659.

Dirck was a commuting farmer. He traveled up the East River in his boat from Smits Vly on Manhattan to his bouwerie on the Long Island shore. He began building a stone farm house on Long Island about 1645. It faced south on Norman's Kill, where he sheltered his boats. He may not have moved into the house until after 1655, when the small nearby settlement of Boswyck was established. Until then, there weren't enough neighbors around to assist in protecting the property from Indian attacks. The house remained occupied for 200 years. The land grant was officially recorded on April 3, 1645 and continued to be recognized after the English took over the colony in 1664. He leased part of the land, plus some other land probably on Manhattan, to fellow Norwegian Jochem CALDER in 1651. The 20-year lease gave CALDER free rent for the first six years, and he was to pay 150 guilders a year after that. It appears that Dirck was trying to gain more neighbors in Brooklyn, to help defend against the Indians, as a number of outright sales followed in the early 1650's.

In January 1656 Dirck Volckertszen was sued by Jan DE PERIE, a barrel-maker, who claimed Dirck stabbed him and "chased him from the Strand to the Clapboards." The suit demanded payment for surgeon's fees and loss of time. The quarrel began during a dice game on December 18, 1655. DE PERIE was trying to cheat and Dirck caught him at it. The argument turned into a fist fight and ended with both drawing their knives. Dirck was stabbed in the shoulder, DE PERIE in the belly. Dirck filed a countersuit to call several witnesses. DE PERIE's servant Jan Fredericksen testified Dirck struck first, and that DE PERIE chased Dirck through the streets. Maria PEECK, a tavern-keeper's wife, told of hearing DE PERIE conspire with his servant before the game, saying "There's Dirck the Noorman, who has a box of seawan [Indian shell money] in his sack, and he should play or the Devil should take him." [She was banished from New Amsterdam in 1663 for selling alcohol to the Indians.] The case dragged on until June 1658, when Dirck agreed to pay a fine for wounding DE PERIE. Street fights had become such a common sport in New Amsterdam that, in 1657, Peter STUYVESANT established a fine of 100 guilders for drawing a knife... and quadruple if blood was shed. By the time the trial ended, Dirck held the post of city carpenter and his brother-in law Jan VIGNE was on the City Council...so his fine may not have been quite that high. [DE PERIE was also called Jan DE PREE in the court proceedings. A Jan DE PREE sued Dirck for the right to the property at Greenpoint in 1644. DE PREE lost and Dirck received his official grant to the land in 1645. Coincidentally, a Jean DE PRY was killed in a shipwreck in July 1658 while trying to take a cargo of sugar and tobacco, presumably in barrels, to Quebec.]

In February 1656 Dirck was sued for taking a canoe. He said two Englishmen had found it and left it on his property, and no one had come to claim it. He said it was laying about in sorry shape until he decided to repair it. Then the owner, Mrs. Dirck Claessen POTTEBACKER, demanded its return. He refused to turn it over to her unless she paid for the repairs. The court agreed, appointed two men to estimate the value of the repairs, and when payment was made Dirck returned the canoe.

Dirck was listed third on the charter of incorporation for the town of Boswyck (Bushwick) which was founded with 22 families (mostly French Walloons) in 1655. The town was on the south border of his property. In 1662 he and some other landowners petitioned the authorities to have a road made to their properties. Dirck gave some land to the town, probably for the right of way and in payment for the road. In 1663 he served some role with the town's militia, and in 1664 he was Superintendent of Fencing (the wooden palisades surrounding the village for protection against Indian attacks).

Dirck and all of his family settled down around Boswyck. One historian states that "Dirck naturally contributed in the layout of the village, and in the construction of the buildings, the docks at the waterways, the roads and highly important palisade." He also notes "his lore in Indian warfare" and "the stimulation of his belligerent personality in creating courage and initiative in those fellow settlers who had but recently arrived from European countries...He must be considered to have been one of the three outstanding personalities in the history of the town of Boswyck. He became its patriarch. He was its oldest constituent." Dirck paid taxes to the town of Boswyck in 1675, and to New York in 1677. He died about 1678 or 1680, and was probably buried on his farm. His wife Christine had preceded him in death...there is no record of her after 1663. In the 1850's the stone house was demolished, and a knoll believed to contain the family plots was leveled, to provide sand for construction in Manhattan.

Dirck had sold some of his Greenpoint land even before he moved there: 45 acres to Peter HUDDE and Abraham JANSEN in 1651. This sale was witnessed by Peter STUYVESANT. He sold 62 acres to Jacob HAIE/HAY in 1653. (Indians burned down Hay's house at Greenpoint just two years later, on November 8, 1655, during the second great uprising.) The sale to Hay is also recited in a confirmatory patent granted by British Governor Lovelace, on 1 May 1670, to David Joehems (who had married Christina Cappoens, the widow of the said Hay), in the following words:

"Whereas, Dirck Volkertse [the Norman], did, by virtue of a ground-brief granted to him, bearing date ye 3d of April, 1645, transport and make over upon ye 9th day of September, 1653, unto Jacob Hay, a certain piece of land upon Long Island, lying and being at Mespath kil, beginning from ye hook or point of ye said kil, and so going along by ye river South-west and by west, 75 rods, then stretching alongst Mespath kil, south-east and by south, 200 rods from Mespath kil into ye woods, striking south-west and by west 75 rods, then going back to ye river side almost upon a north-west and by north line, 200 rods: it contains about 50 acres or 25 morgens. And, also, a parcel of valley or meadow ground in ye tenure or occupation of ye said Dirck Volkerse, at ye end of ye said land in breadth, and in length 90 rods, making about 12 acres, or 6 morgens."

Dirck was identified in a 1635 document as "Dirck VOLGERSEN the Noorman." A 1639 map listed his bouwerie (farm) as the "Bou. van DITRYCK DE NORMAN. Several historians and three independent family records call him VOLCKERTSEN, VOLCKERTSZEN, and VOLKERTSEN. These variations all have a Dutch "-sen" or "-szen" ending. The "ck" letter combination is also Dutch. Some legal and civil documents called him HOLGERSON or HOLGERSEN, but the Dutch Reformed Church (in records of baptisms at which he was a witness) called him VOLCKERTSZEN. Dirck must have liked the name, because he named his first son Volkert.

His surname probably started out as HOLGERSON or HOLGERSSØN, which the New Amsterdammers transformed into the Dutch name VOLCKERTSZEN. This would not have happened simply through differences in pronunciation. The Dutch had words and names that began with an "H" and which were not pronounced with a "V."

Historians have settled the matter by giving Dirck's last name as "Volckertsen," except when referring to one of those documents in which his name appeared as HOLGERSON or HOLGERSEN. Rather than add to the confusion, this site will call him Dirck VOLCKERTSZEN or Dirck DE NOORMAN - the name and nickname by which he was "commonly" known in his own day. The name became Anglicized to VOLKERTSON by the end of the 17th century and continued in that form until about the American Revolution when it changed again to FULKERSON.

Dirck didn't help us out by signing his name...in the early days he signed with an X. He did sign his name later on, but one family researcher said his signature "looks like Chinese."

Name: Dirck VOLKERTSEN