August 18, 2019

Letters 8/18/19

By Pam Ellingson Uncategorized 0 Comments

It’s Time to Shine! (and send in your registration)

SENT BY: Carolyn LeonardDeadline for DUTCH COUSINS 2019 registration (Sept 12-16 in Kentucky) with tee-shirt and FREE matching bag is just HOURS away! Go here to download a registration blank and send it in today! https://dutchcousins.org/2019-2/ Thursday through Saturday we will be at the Kentucky State University, Harold R. Benson Ag building, 1525 Mills Ln, Frankfort, KY 40601.
Sunday and Monday we will be at Harrodsburg KY for the Old Mud Meetinghouse worship and dedication and the Harrodsburg Historical Research Library to study the only repository for the Low Dutch history Archives. We average 125-150 attendance – and can accommodate more! This will be our EIGHTH gathering of descendants of the many Dutch families who came from New Amsterdam to NJ, to Conewago Colony in Pennsylvania, and then either on flatboats down the Ohio or on the Wilderness Trail in the 1780s to settle the Low Dutch Tract in Kentucky.
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Our Dutch Cousins MISSION STATEMENT We are descendants of the Low Dutch who settled New Amsterdam, moved to New Jersey, migrated to near Gettysburg, and made history when they later populated the frontier.  Our Dutch Kentucky Cousins goal is to research, share, and preserve the genealogy and history of our common Low Dutch heritage, including but not limited to, the restoration and preservation of the old Mud Meetinghouse built by our ancestors in the early 1800s near Harrodsburg, KY.  We meet every two years to renew our love for each other.  Our mission is to honor the memory of these ancestors and enjoy the friendship of cousins, both newly- discovered and long-loved.——————————————————————

SENT BY: JANICE COZINE, Dutch Cousins Treasurer and registration chair
Hello Cousins!!
Time is running out to meet the August 20th deadline.You can still register after the deadline but you will not be able to order a t-shirt or receive a FREE matching tote, after this date.We love wearing our shirts for our photos but we also love having YOU join us for this great event!The hotel discounts are drawing near the end as well.Please check out your options and RSVP soon.The Bus Excursion is almost full, only 5 seats left.First come first serve !If we have a lot more cousins wanting to go, I ‘MAY’ be able to get a smaller bus but there is no guarantee a bus will be available on this short notice.  If you miss the bus, you will be able to drive and follow behind the bus, but you will also miss the narration during our drive.Let me know if you prefer to drive yourself OR would be interested in riding a smaller bus. I would have to let you know the cost, but it would not be more than $25.00.Steve & Charlie are also planning a fabulous lunch spot on the tour. You’re going to really enjoy it!Please get your registration forms in SOON, so you can be a part of this wonderful event!We need to finalize everything that’s going on to put this ‘gathering’ together, just for you!So…let’s make our plans to attend the “2019 Dutch Cousins Gathering” now!
Hope to see you soon,Janice Cozine——————————————————————

SENT BY: Barbara Whiteside
I have the name in my family lines but there are a couple that I am aware of on my facebook site for DUTCH COUSINS IN KENTUCKY that are from that family. Also am aware of some on the new DNA site for COLONIAL DUTCH AMERICANS.   If she is interested in following any of those sites, be glad to help.
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SENT BY: Laurie (Vanausdle) Shaffer – Ohio
I see in the current newsletter that “Emily Welches – IN – Vanarsdall”  is listed. If you please, would you provide me with her email address. When I was a child, my Dad Hubert Vannausdle/Vanausdle, Uncle Emmett Vannausdal and I went to a Vanarsdall (sp?) funeral to somewhere in KY (do not know first name). So possibly Emily is a relative. The funeral must have been important as my family rarely traveled out of the state So many ways to spell my maiden name!
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SENT BY: Tim Brown
I want to be on the list! Van cleave descendant.
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SENT BY: Charles Vanorsdale
Several years ago, I published some material on the Conewago settlement in The Vanguard. Here is an excerpt of one article that appeared in the December 2002 issue. (I will send a copy of the 1765 Conewago deed to Abraham Van Arsdale later.)
Charles Vanorsdale

The migration to Conewago, the community near present-day Gettysburg, PA in Adams (then York) County was discussed in the first Vanguard (vol. I, no. 1, p. 1). Although they were among the first to settle the Dutch colony, the van Aersdalen family’s migration appears to have taken place not en masse, but over a ten year period.

In the article “The Voorhees Family and the Low Dutch Colony of Conewago” (Van Voorhees Nieuwsbrief, Vol. 20, no. 1, p. 9), Larry Michael Voreis states, “The movement to the western frontier started in 1730 when the Governor of Virginia offered inducements to attract settlers to the Shenandoah Valley. Land speculators were hired to circulate among the New Jersey Dutch and Pennsylvania German settlements, using the lure of large quantities of cheap farm land to start the migration to Virginia.”  (He is talking about OUR Dutch cousin Larry Voreis here)

Another source (Frederick County, Virginia: Settlement and Some First Families of Back Creek Valley, 1730-1830, Wilmer Kerns, Gateway Press, Baltimore, 1995: pp. 6-9) adds that father and son John and Isaac Van Meter, Dutchmen from the Western Precinct of New Jersey, petitioned the Governor of Virginia for 20,000 acres of land to settle their families plus at least ten more. They were told that they could have 40,000 acres if they could settle 200 families along the Shenandoah River. German Jost Hite was brought into the picture to help attract German settlers, and the Van Meters eventually reassigned their grants to Hite in 1731. “In the wake of the movement to Virginia, settlers from New Jersey were drawn to the settlement of York , located astride the Great Wagon Road that led west from Philadelphia, forded the Susquehanna and passed through the settlement at York before crossing the Appalachians and turning south toward Hagerstown, eventually entering the Shenandoah Valley at Frederick Town (later Winchester, Virginia)” (Voreis, p. 9).

Additionally, researcher Judy Cassidy notes that in the Somerset County Genealogical Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4, p. 430 there is a discussion of the “Depression of 1765” which impacted New Jersey residents and agitated a movement from the area. This depression resulted from a “scarcety of circulating cash, the failing of the last summer and winter crops, the severe and consuming hard winter” in addition to escalating debt, depressed property values, and the rising rate of debtor imprisonment. A petition was created, addressed to Governor William Franklin, and signed mainly by inhabitants of Bridgewater Township, Somerset County. Those signing the petition included George Davis, Abraham Dubois, Folkert Sebring, and Stoffel Probasco, among those with identified ties to the Van Arsdalen line.

In the early- to mid-1760s, brothers Cornelis4, Johannis4 and Isaac4 van Aersdalen (sons of Jan3 Cornelisz) were in the Shepherdstown, VA (now WV) area, apparently scouting for great-uncle Jacobus Vander Veer. (Jacobus was a wealthy man in part due to his acumen in land speculation. His will, proved February 17, 1777 {NJW 539R, Lib. 18, pp. 559 & 588} enumerated the disposition of over 1800 acres of land in New Jersey and about 1000 acres of land in Virginia, in addition to a number of lots, tracts, and houses. Two of his sons, Jacob and Lawrence, lived in Berkeley County in the late 1700s.) Only 50 miles to the north lay the fertile rolling hills of the Conewago area, already populated by the Scotch-Irish and the Swiss-Germans. Coupled with the enticement to settle the Virginia-Kentucky frontier by Hite and the Van Meters and the depressed economy in New Jersey, the favorable reports from the van Aersdalen brothers were eagerly received. Around 1766 (based on church records), the three brothers and their cousins Cornelis4, Simon4 and Abraham4 van Aersdalen (sons of Simon3 Cornelisz) headed to Conewago, possibly with the patriarch Simon Cornelisz, then almost 70 years old, at the head of the family migration.
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SENT BY: Charlotte Olson, Our own Dutch research specialist!
Greetings Dutch Cousins,
As you may know, many members of our Dutch families participated in the American Revolutionary War.
Some served on the battlefront with the Local Militia or the Continental Line.
Others, due to age, health or religious reasons, served by furnishing supplies like food, clothing and blankets.
From their hometowns, some people kept the local government running and cared for the needs of the family members whose sons, husbands, and fathers where off fighting for our freedom and Independence.
The Daughters of the American Revolution recognizes four distinct categories of service, those mentioned above as well as individuals who signed petitions or oaths of allegiance as Patriotic Service.
On the Dutch Cousins website is a listing of Dutch Surnames. Using that listing, a review was made of the DAR Database of Patriots whose service and lineage has been verified and proven by DAR standards. This DAR listing, of Patriots with Dutch Surnames, has been narrowed to include only families with some link to New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and/or Kentucky.
Should you like to see if your family member is among those already recognized through DAR for their service in the ARW, the list will be available at the Gathering this September.———————————————————

SENT BY: Carolyn Herself.
This is about another opportunity for the cousins. Perhaps the group will want to vote to accept this as another project. FOUR Revolutionary War Vets buried here. We placed a memorial marker for two of them at Old Mud because at that time no one wanted to be responsible for the cemetery.
There is a small abandoned cemetery between Harrodsburg and Danville with a dozen or so family burials, that include at least FOUR Revolutionary war vets. It was originally called the Cove Spring graveyard, sometimes called the DeMotte burials, but more recently called the Banta cemetery. I’ve written about it before in Dutch Letters. (Why is it called Banta if no Bantas are there?) The graves are hidden in weeds and trash.

If the cousins vote to take this on, we have a new cousin named Greg Barnard who is volunteering to chair the project. He is a DeMotte descendant (8th great grandson of Lawrence DeMotte) and has already spent about $400 of his own money on cleaning, as I understand it. He wants to clean up and fence this place now overgrown with weeds. He has met with the property owner five times. The owner agreed to mow it with the rest of his yard, once it is cleared. The project needs sponsorship and donations. Barnard contacted the Kentucky Heritage Council. They agreed to visit the site and ground-scan for remains in unmarked places. They would then designate it a Kentucky Pioneer Cemetary since Lawrence DeMotte (Rev. Vet) was buried there in 1800. Lawrence and Peter Demott both fought at Battles of Monmouth and Springfield, NJ side by side.
It will cost over $1,000 to finish what I cannot do. You can see it on FindaGrave here: https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1448537/memorial-search
According to my records, here are the known 17 burials:

Lawrence Demott d 1800 (born 1719 NY) Rev. War Vet (Wife Dorothy Vanderbeek/Verbryke)
Peter Demott d 1832 (son of Lawrence, born NJ 1758) Rev. War Vet (wife Mary TERHUNE)
John (Johannes) DeMott 1813 (husband of Antje Cozine)(son of Lawrence, born NJ 1759)
Anna Demott d 1812 a child age 14 (daughter of Peter and Mary)
J.J. McDonald d 1819 age 14
Jane Terhune (Terhune?) d 1825
John Gritton, SR d 1839 (Father of Jesse) Rev. War Vet
George Terhune d 1853 (infant son of Runoff and Paulina (DeMott) Terhune (Paulina is dau of Peter)
Anna (Cozine, DeMotte) Gritton d 1854 (Wife of John DeMott and Jesse Terhune)
Martha Terhune d 1855 infant dau of Runoff and Paulina (DeMott) Terhune (Paulina is dau of Peter)
Jesse Gritton d 1857 (husband of Antje/Anne Cozine DeMott)
Mary Terhune Demott d 1862 (dau of Garret Terhune, wife of Peter DeMott)
Garret Demott age 10 son of Peter Demott and Mary Terhune) died 1813
James Terhune (dates of b & d unknown)
Margaret Vannice (dates of b & d unknown)
Maj. William VerBryck 1737-1824 prob.brother of Dorothy Verbryke Demott) Rev. War Vet

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SENT BY: Carolyn
Haven’t heard from cousin Rodney Dempsey. He is usually the first to register, and thanks to his influence, we were able to get the KSU site for our meeting this year. I know he has had some health issues, can anyone give us an update?
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SENT BY: Carolyn
Not registered for Dutch Cousins Gathering yet? What are you waiting for? Here’s a small sample of what we offer: A chance to get to know your Dutch Cousins community, learn more about your Dutch ancestors and their lives on the frontier, Find your Dutch roots, A narrated bus tour to see the area and be proud of your family connection, learn from and enjoy the great speakers we have lined up, network with others, make new friends. Encouragement. It’s worth its weight in gold,Friendliness! Hey, that’s a thing. Who wants to come to a snobby conference?