About Us
Executive Committee 2022-2023:
President: Chris Canine of Goshen, KY contact Chris
Vice President: Chad Canine of Wimberly, TX
Secretary: Denise M. Perry, of Somerville, TN
Treasurer: Janice Cozine, of Mt. Washington, KY
Webmaster: Pam Ellingson, of Lakewood, WI contact Pam
Gathering Chairperson: Janice Cozine of KY
Board Members:
Eddie Cozine, of Mt. Washington, KY
Malcolm Banta, of Rotonda West, FL
Amalie Preston, of Harrodsburg, KY
Other:
Finance Chairman: Vince Akers, Indiana
Editors: King & Sharon Cole, of Ben Wheeler, TX contact King & Sharon
Editor Newsletter: OPEN POSITION FOR A WRITER
Immediate Past President: Mary Jo Gohmann of New Albany, IN
Tech Advisor: Jeremy Westerfield of New Mexico
Who are Dutch Cousins of Kentucky?
By Carolyn Leonard
Our ancestors called themselves the “low dutch” because they came from the lowlands of the Netherlands and spoke a different dialect from the German groups who were also called Dutchmen. It was almost an unwritten law for the Holland Dutch group to marry within their circles up through the 19th century, so we are all cousins.
Immigration to the New World started in the early 1600s with the West Indies Company (WIC) offering farmland to European workers who would help settle the area that became known as New Amsterdam. After the English took over in the late 1600s and renamed the infant settlement New York, our ancestors migrated across the Raritan river to “the Jerseys,” mostly around Somerset County. Later, the Dutch bunch moved on West in the 1700s, to near Gettysburg, and settled the Conewago Colony. Beginning around and shortly after the time of the Revolutionary War, they began to populate the Kentucky frontier.
Most of the present-day Dutch Cousins are allied through Dominee Cornelius Cozine, the Dutch Reformed minister at Conowago Colony, and his eleven children who married into other church families: Banta, Vaarsdale, Smock, Brewer, Westerfield, and List. Even if they claimed varied nativity, the in-laws had been “hanging around” for years with the Dutch pioneers. The Dutch groups migrated to Kentucky in the 1780s and continued intermarrying—at least those who survived the Indian attacks and starvation did. Dominee Cozine was an “intend friend” of the Kentucky move, but he died before the land was ready. His children and church members followed the call of the wild west. They wanted to remain a separate people, to feel free to raise their families in their unique faith with a Dutch-speaking Dominee. Their first settlement was in Mercer County, their Dutch Fort near Harrods Fort (later Harrodsburg), until they were able to get title to several thousand acres north of there with its center at Pleasureville still know as the “Low Dutch Tract.”
What started many years ago as a Westerfield family reunion, expanded in 1998 to include Cozines, and in 2005 all Dutch Cousins were invited to Harrodsburg, KY, where we learned a little more about our history. We have returned every odd-numbered year since. Attendance has been above 100 every year with almost a thousand addresses around the world on the mailing list. The Riker family, VanArsdale family and Demaree family associations joined us in 2007, as well as the Darlands, Bantas, Brewers, Montforts and Vorhees.
We are an all volunteer organization, non-profit registered in Kentucky, and do not require dues at this time. Our goal and mission statement is here: 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 Kentucky frontier. Our Dutch 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 near Harrodsburg, KY. Our mission is to honor the memory of these ancestors, and enjoy the friendship of cousins – both newly-discovered and long-loved.
Join our email list to stay updated on plans. Complete this form to be added to the Dutch Cousins list. Include your family tie with your contact info including phone numbers, US Mailing address, and your email addresses. (If you have more than one email, send it in case the first one bounces.) Last revised 1/24/2021
History of the Low Dutch in Kentucky
By Vincent Akers 2018
Our ancestors came as a group to Kentucky in the 1780s with the intention of finding and settling a large tract of land where they could maintain their Dutch language and church. They were all pretty much intermarried and closely related. Their leader was “Father” Henry Banta so it is fair to say they came with the intention of settling a tract with the Banta family. Hendrick Banta (No. 161 in T.M. Banta’s 1893 The Banta Genealogy) was very closely related with virtually all the families who called themselves the Low Dutch Company. His mother was a Terhune. His first wife was a Brower and his second wife was a Demaree. His brother-in-laws bore the surnames Duree, Demaree, Westervelt, Harris, Slot/Lock, Ryker, Vancleave and Smock. His daughters married men with surnames Monfort, Williamson, Van Arsdale, Shively, Rynierson and Gordon. His nieces married men with surnames of DeBaun, Cosart, Voorhees, and many others when we look at the Demaree in-laws. If we also look at surnames of the wives of Father Henry’s sons and nephews and grandchildren, many of whom were already adults in the early 1780s, we will find nearly all the Low Dutch family names. The Low Dutch were essentially one gigantic family with the Banta name most numerous.
Father Henry himself led the first migration from Conewago down the Ohio in the spring of 1780. Father Henry’s sister was married to Samuel Duree who first went to Kentucky in 1779 and in the spring of 1780 led Berkeley County families over the Wilderness Road route to the White Oak Spring Station near Boonesborough. As they had planned, the men of the two 1780 migratory groups met in early 1781 to build their Low Dutch colony in present-day Madison County. They built what the called Banta’s Fort, but abandoned the site before ever moving their families to it due to Indian troubles and land quality and title difficulties. They then began a long search for another large tract of land. In 1783 they petitioned the Continental Congress for help (not granted) and their petition was signed by 46 inhabitants already in Kentucky and 106 “intend friends” planning to go if lands were granted. Hendrick Banta’s name is at the head of the list of inhabitants. Eleven of the 46 inhabitants were Bantas—by far the largest surname represented. In 1786 the group purchased many thousands of acres in what is now Henry and Shelby Counties from Daniel Boone’s brother, Squire Boone. They called it the Low Dutch Tract. The purchase was made in the name of Abraham Banta, a son of Father Henry Banta, acting as agent for the Low Dutch Company. The March 14, 1786 Article of Agreement between Abraham Banta and the 35 other members of the Low Dutch Company governed how it was to operate. The signature of “fa Hendrick Banta” is second right under agent Abraham Banta’s. Fourteen of the original 36 members were Bantas. Pleasureville, the main settlement in the Low Dutch Tract, was originally known as Bantatown. And Banta’s Fork of Six Mile Creek cuts through the tract.
Hendrick Banta’s signature is also at the head of the eight signers of the August 13, 1795 plea to the Classis of New Brunswick to send a minister to Kentucky. A friend from the East the year before reported there were nearly 500 Low Dutch families in Kentucky. They felt themselves a “forsaken people” with “no public worship of their own excepting the lecturing of old Mr. Henry Banta”. Hendrick Banta’s signature headed eleven signers of a November 2, 1795 letter to Rev. John H. Livingston seeking his help in sending a minister. These pleas did result in the missionary trip of Peter Labaugh who organized the Mud Meetinghouse congregation as the first Reformed Dutch Church west of the Alleghenies. Father Henry Banta died in 1804 at age 86 or 87 and, according to The Banta Genealogy, “was buried on George Bergen’s farm in Shelby Co., being the first burial in that graveyard.” This is presumably today the Pleasureville Cemetery.