ANCIENT FAMILIES

OF NEW YORK.
 

A proper respect for the memory of ancestors is not only laudable, but
deeply implanted in the hearts of the good and wise of all civilized nations.
To affect indifference to matters that pertain to family history is but to ac¬
knowledge the weakness of conceit, and to ignore the well-established law
'' that the past is the parent of the future." The founders of the new world,
whatever may have been their ancestral origin in the old, joined hands and
hearts in a common issue—the planting of a nation whose influence is now
felt to the remotest parts of the earth. To trace the origin and disclose the
somewhat obscure relations of some of the ancient families of the colony
and State of New York is the purpose of the following pages.
 

STILLE.     WOERTENDYK.    SOMERENDYK.

(first  four   GENERATIONS.)

CoRNELis Jacobsen, alias Cornelis Jacoesen Van Vreelandt, alias
CoRNELis Jacobsen Stille, the ancestor of the Somerendyck and Woerten¬
dyk families, was in New Amsterdam as early as May, 1639, and may have
been the junior Cornelis Jacobsen, who, with Cornelis Jacobsen, Senior,
of Mertensdyk, leased, on the 14th of May, 1638, from Barent Dircksen,
baker, the bouwery or faitn called Walenstyne. He and Jan Jacobsen
Stille, probably his brother, were farmers and leased together i5tli August,
1639, from Jonas Bronck, a lot of land with dwelling-house and stock.
His brother was probably the Jan Jacobsen of Vrelant, who made a mar¬
riage contract, August 15, 1639, ^'^^^ Maritje Pieters, of Copenhagen, and
who conveyed, July 29, 1644, to Lambert Valckenburgh, a house on the
island of Manhatten with 25 morgens of land adjoining. He probably left
the country soon after or died without issue.

On the 29th July, 1641, Cornelis Jacobsen Stille deeded to Lambert
Huybertsen Mol a house and plantation next to Hans Hansen [Bergen]
on Long Island, and May 13th, 1643, leased of Cornelis Van Tienhoven
his bouwery in the Smiths Valley. On the i8th March, 1647, he obtained
from Gov, Kieft a patent for bouwery No. 6, previously occupied by Wolf-
ert Gerritsen [Van CouwenhovenJ, containing 28^ morgens of land.' Tiiis
estate, says Mr. Valentine,^ lay between Division Street and the East River,
extending eastward nearly to Corlear's Hook, and on the south-west in-
chided Wolfert's Meadows, through which ran the stream whicli carried
the waters of the Kalkhook, or Fresh Water pond, to the East River.   The