52 Ancestors 2025: Urban – Life in the Big Apple When It Was a Seedling

 

With so much of my family history rooted in farms across the country, it’s hard to find many city stories. My mother’s family once lived in St. Joe’s (St. Joseph), Missouri, but so far, I haven’t uncovered many memorable tales of city life from there. For this post, I decided to look farther back—to the beginnings of the most populous city in the United States: New York City, or more historically, New Amsterdam.

My earliest New Amsterdam couple, Joris and Catalyntje Rapelje, were among the founding Walloon families among the Dutch, having sailed to the New World in 1624. After a stint up the Hudson River in Fort Orange, they settled in the small community growing around Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in 1626. They built two houses on Pearl Street and established a farm in Breuckelen (Brooklyn), near what is now the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Joris was a member of the first representative body in New Amsterdam, known as The Twelve Men.

Other Dutch and Huguenot families followed. Some, such as Jan Cornelissen Van Horne (arriving before 1645) and Jacques Cossart (1662), settled near where the Rapeljes built their homes—Van Horne near what is now Marketfield Street, and Cossart near the foot of Broadway. Other early settlers, like Pieter Van Nest (1649), made their homes in Brooklyn. Gerrit Van Nieuwkercke (Van Newkirk) (1659) and Albert Terhune (before 1654) also settled in Brooklyn, in the Flatbush and Flatlands areas, respectively. David Des Marets (Demarest) (1663) first settled at Oude Dorp (Old Village) on Staten Island, then sought farmland in New Harlem. We round out the New Amsterdam families with Epke Jacobse (Banta) (1659), who established a farm in Flushing.

By 1653, New Amsterdam had grown to perhaps 1,000 or so residents and was officially incorporated as a city. It might be a stretch to call this mix of farms, trading posts, and shops a true “city,” but its harbor and the Hudson River route to the interior made it a thriving trade center. Unfortunately, its success also made it an attractive target for the British, who seized the city in 1664—turning its Dutch and Huguenot settlers (and others of many nationalities) into British subjects.

As the 17th century progressed and farmland grew scarce, some settlers sought new opportunities. In 1678, led by David Des Marets, several families crossed the Hudson River to the “French Patent” on the Hackensack in Bergen County, New Jersey. Within a few years, they were joined by the Banta and Durie families. One family, the DuBois, bypassed Manhattan altogether—Louis DuBois (1660) first settled in Wiltwyck (now Kingston, New York), then helped found New Paltz, New York.

The Cossarts later moved to Somerset, New Jersey, and as Bergen County became more crowded, another migration followed. In 1768, a group of now-mixed Dutch and Huguenot families from New Jersey founded the “Low Dutch” Conewago Colony in Pennsylvania. For generations after that, my ancestors lived rural lives, far removed from the bustling city that grew where their ancestors first arrived. Urban life wouldn’t return to my family story until the 20th century—and even then, in another part of New York State.

Pictures:

New Amsterdam in 1650: https://digital.onb.ac.at/rep/osd/?11105439

Overlay: https://silencesofnyhistory.org/items/show/212#lg=1&slide=0

References:

Murray, Joan England, The Bantas Of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky: Their Ancestors And Descendants, Heritage Books, 2010.

Major, David C. and Major, John S., A Huguenot on the Hackensack: David Demarest and His Legacy, Farleigh Dickenson University Press, 2007

52 Ancestors 2025: Fire – The Lost Records

 

Fire has long been an essential part of human existence—used for cooking, clearing brush for planting, warmth, and metallurgy, among other purposes. Yet building fires and wildfires can also destroy lives, property, and history. For this essay, I want to reflect on what we lost in the 1921 fire at the Commerce Building in Washington, D.C.

The purpose of the U.S. Census population schedules was to count everyone living in the United States in order to apportion seats in Congress. At first, only heads of households were named, and other members were simply tallied by age and gender. Beginning in 1850, however, curiosity about the nation’s people grew. Over time, the census began recording names and relationships within households, as well as information about education, literacy, birthplace, parents’ origins, citizenship, property, and more. Additional schedules on agriculture and industry were also collected, proving invaluable to historians and genealogists.

Although the census data were analyzed and compiled into statistical summaries, the original books were often viewed as expendable once their immediate purpose was served. Storage conditions were poor, and that neglect set the stage for a disaster familiar to every genealogist: the 1921 fire that destroyed nearly all of the 1890 census records. The damage came not only from the flames but also from the water used to extinguish them. Only a few fragments survived.

For a long time, I didn’t feel the loss too keenly, since I have so much information from the 1880 and 1900 censuses, and my ancestors remained in Barton County, Missouri, through much of the postbellum years. But as I’ve tried to go beyond names and dates in my research, the 1890 gap has become increasingly significant. That census would have captured a pivotal time for my great-grandparents’ generation.

The Cassatts were well established and seem to have had a home industry making brooms—were they growing broom corn? The Younts married after the 1880 census—what did their young family look like? Hannah Brown Reed was a widow—were there children still at home to help her? Several generations of Fasts were alive; in 1880, John Jay and Hannah’s granddaughter lived with them after her mother’s death in childbirth—did she return to her father, who remarried soon after the 1880 census? And what about Fannie Knauss McWilliams, also a widow—was she living alone or with one of her children?

Other records, such as the Civil War Veterans Schedule and pension files, help fill in some of the gaps, but the census has long been a backbone for understanding family structure, guiding us toward answers or new questions. As a side note, I’ve often wondered why the Agricultural Schedules stopped after 1880. It turns out the 1890 schedules were likely lost to the same fire and water damage, and the later ones were deliberately destroyed—deemed by Congress to have “no historical value.”

Historians today are working to go beyond compiled statistics and the stories of prominent men, to uncover the experiences of ordinary families like ours. Those destroyed records would have offered a wealth of detail—insight into daily life, work, and community—that we can now only partially reconstruct.

Photo: Courtesy Bureau of the Census: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1996/spring/1890-census

52 Ancestors 2025: Water - A Salute to Polonia

 

So far, this blog has focused largely on ancestors who came to the thirteen colonies or early United States from northwest Europe—Great Britain and Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. But another part of our family came from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. Many of the earlier immigrants were refugees fleeing persecution for their Reformed Protestant faith; for Poles, however, the story was one of political subjugation and national loss.

After the successive partitions of Poland by Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, the nation itself disappeared from the map, and its people were reduced to second-class status. Many Poles—and Jews confined to the Pale of Settlement—sought better lives in the New World. Alongside southern Europeans such as Italians and Greeks, they formed part of the great migration of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This post tells the story of four Polish families who became part of our own ancestry, along with a brief look at the history that shaped them.

Our first immigrant is Wincenty Dzailakiewicz, who lived in Russian Poland. Born around 1883 (according to census records), he was living in Kleczew when he left Poland. Family lore says he had an interest in both music and his faith and was studying in seminary in 1904. When the Russo-Japanese War erupted that year, he faced conscription into the Russian Imperial Army—an unthinkable prospect for a patriotic Pole. With help from an uncle, he escaped through Hamburg, booking passage on the SS Phönicia of the Hamburg-American Line and departing on 26 October 1904, arriving in New York City on 10 November 1904. Once in America, he continued to serve the Roman Catholic Church as an organist in Brooklyn, Connecticut, and Long Island.

Wincenty (anglicized as Vincent) married Zophia “Sophia” Wysocka, born around 1888 in Russian Poland. She emigrated in 1904 as well. Family stories say her family was relatively well-off but deeply patriotic, and that she and her siblings—Anton (Anthony) and Katarzyna (Catherine, or “Bubbles”)—all came to America. Unfortunately, no passenger list has yet been found to confirm their journey.

Another branch of the family remains partly mysterious. Zygmont Szymanski was born on 23 September 1886 in Tykocin, in Russian Poland, and was living in Łomża before emigrating. His naturalization record provides one clue, but his arrival is puzzling. He stated that he came to New York on 29 May 1900 aboard the Granada, yet no such voyage appears in any shipping records—certainly not one arriving from Europe. In the 1930 census, he gave an arrival year of 1908, but no record supports that, either. Since his Declaration of Intention was filed on 3 February 1908, and these were typically submitted about two years after arrival, it’s likely he came to America around 1905 or 1906.

We have more solid evidence for his wife, Suzanna Sarnacka. She sailed from Rotterdam aboard the SS Rotterdam (of the Holland America Line) on 23 July 1910, arriving in New York on 1 August 1910 at age 17. She was detained for two days—likely because immigration officials worried she might become a public charge—but was released to a family in Schenectady, New York. About three years later, she married Zygmont.

These Polish immigrants, like so many others, built new lives while preserving their culture and faith. During the First World War, the Polish lands became a battleground between the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Empires, but from the wreckage, Poland regained its independence. Tragically, World War II brought renewed devastation—the German and Soviet invasions, and the murder of around three million Polish Jews during the Holocaust. Afterward came decades of Soviet domination, until the rise of the Solidarity movement helped Poland reclaim its freedom.

For generations, the Polish-American community has celebrated its heritage while contributing to the cultural and civic fabric of the United States. For my family’s Polish ancestors—Vincent and Sophia Dzailakiewicz, Zygmont and Suzanna Szymanski—crossing the water to America meant not just escape, but opportunity, freedom, and hope.

52 Ancestors 2025: Cemetery – Low Dutch Cemetery

 

For a genealogist, cemeteries are like gold mines—so much information literally carved in stone. Of course, mistakes can happen, and tombstones cannot be edited, but they often provide valuable clues about families and their communities. With so many burial grounds scattered across the country, how does one choose a single cemetery to focus on?

For me, the choice was the Low Dutch Cemetery not too far from Frederick, Maryland, just east of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This cemetery offers a snapshot of the Conewago Colony, a community formed by Dutch and Huguenot families who had first settled in New Amsterdam in the 1600s. As New Amsterdam (later New York) grew during the 1600s and early 1700s, farmland on Manhattan and Brooklyn became scarce. These families pushed westward and became some of the earliest European settlers in northern and central New Jersey.

The Conewago Colony was established in 1768 when some of these New Jersey settlers migrated farther west into what was then York County, Pennsylvania. The British victory in the French and Indian War had opened new lands beyond the original Atlantic colonies, particularly along rivers feeding into the coast.

Looking through the gravestone records posted on Find-A-Grave, I traced several family origins. These Dutch/Huguenot surnames appear frequently in the Low Dutch Cemetery, along with their original spellings and the New Jersey counties from which they emigrated:

• Brinkerhoff – Bergen County

• Bercaw (originally Broucard; also Brocaw) – Somerset County

• Cassatt (Cossart) – Somerset County

• Demaree (DesMarets) – Bergen County

• Monfort – Hunterdon County

• Van Duyn – Hunterdon County

• Van Orsdel – Somerset County

Although these families lived in different counties in New Jersey, they clearly stayed connected. Intermarriages were common, keeping ties strong across county lines.

The history of the Conewago Colony also notes that many families later moved to Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia), before continuing west along the Wilderness Road into Kentucky. The records of the 1780 migrations highlight several surnames:

• Banta – Bergen County

• Cosart (Cossart) – Somerset County

• Demaree (DesMarets) – Bergen County

• Duree (Durie) – Bergen County

• Voris (Voorhees) – Somerset County

These families left Pennsylvania only about twelve years after first settling there. Once again, they came from both Bergen and Somerset Counties, with some families—such as the Bantas, Durees, and Vorises—sending many more migrants than others. A few Bantas appear in the Southern Low Dutch Cemetery, while the Demarees are found in both Pennsylvania and Kentucky groups. Interestingly, Pieter Cossart and his family (my line) were the only Cossarts to migrate; the rest remained behind. His migration makes sense when we consider his wife, Marie Durie—her father (Samuel Durie), many of her siblings, and her mother (Wyntie Banya Durie, of the Banta family) also joined the migration to Kentucky. The stories of the Cossarts, Duries, and Bantas reflect the broader patterns of the Revolutionary era and early nationhood, when settlers moved westward as new lands became available (often while Native peoples were being displaced).

As for the Northern Low Dutch Cemetery itself, the church once located nearby is long gone, but its records have survived. Last year, after visiting the Gettysburg battlefield, my grandchildren and I toured the cemetery. Though it was heavily overgrown, we were able to locate the grave of Francis Cossart, Patriot (pictured).

The Conewago Colony no longer exists as a distinct community, but its legacy lives on through its cemeteries, its records, and its many descendants who blended into the broader population of the region.