| Notes |
- [daniel_bratt_ancestors.FTW]
Source: The Van Kleeck Family, Albert Van Kleeck, 1909
Source: An Account of Barent Baltus, the Progenitor of the Van Kleeck
Family in the U.S. and Canada, Van Kleeck and Van Benthuysen, 1958, in
NEHGS Library
Source: D.A.R. Patriot Index, p.701
Baltus first wife, Maritje Ten Eyck, was buried in 1676 in Flatbush as
"wife of Baltus Barentszen".
Baltus moved first to Albany then to Bergen, New Jersey, and in 1687 was
in Poughkeepsie where he built the first stone house and became one of
the largest holder of real estate in Dutchess County, New York. Baltus
was one of the first settlers of Poughkeepsie. His house was near what is
now the corner of Mill and Vassar Streets. It had very thick walls which
were pierced near the eves and gables with loop-holes for muskets to ward
off any Indian attacks. It stood until 1835 when it was torn down.
Adjoining the house was a family burial plot which remained until the
house was demolished. During the Revolution the house was the scene of
may patriotic meetings and the New York Legislature met there in 1788.
Baltus represented Dutchess in the 16th Colonial Assembly, which sat from
May 3 to July 21, 1715. He was elected to the 17th New York Colonial
Assemblies, which sat, at intervals, for eleven years, 1716-1726, but
served only from its beginning, June 5, 1716 to the spring of 1717, when
he died. He was succeeded May 4, 1717, by Johannes Terbosch. About 1776
some of the descendants of Baltus emigrated to Canada and formed a
settlement in Prescott County, Ontario, and named it Van Kleeck's Hill,
but the great majority remained in Dutchess County and were loyal to the
cause of freedom.
Dutchess County
from: " The Concise History of Dutchess County"
Hope Farm Press & Bookshop 252 Main Street Saugerties NY 12477
914-246-3522
Although Dutchess was mapped out as a county in 1683, first legal
residence in the county was not established until four years later under
a land purchase from the Indians with confirmation of title by the
Colonial Governor. Robert Sanders, an Englishman, who was an interpreter
between the Indians and Europeans, and Myndert Harmense Van Den Bogaerdt,
a Dutchman, purchased land embracing the present city of Poughkeepsie,
which is the county seat of Dutchess. As of June 9, 1687, Sanders and
Harmense ( for so the latter was known, rather than Van Den Bogaerdt)
leased a large part of their holdings to Baltus Barents Van Kleeck and
Hendrick Jans Ostrom.
This leasehold also marked the beginning of permanent legal residence
within the entire county, according to contemporary historians.
Dutchess County was not named after the Dutch, but as a compliment to the
Duchess of York. Her title was derived from the French word, duchesse,
and was spelled with a "t" until 1755, in which year Dr. Johnson, the
English lexicographer, dropped the "t," and also the final "e."
Lands upon which Messrs. Van Kleeck and Ostrom agreed to settle were
described by the Dutch as "lying in the Lange rack" and "called
Minnisingh and Pochkeepsin." "Lange rack" was the broad expense of the
Hudson River extending north and south of the approximate center of the
shoreline of Poughkeepsie, a total distance of about ten miles. This
straight section of the river was called "the Long Reach" by Robert
Juett, mate of Henry Hudson's "Half Moon,"when Hudson sailed up the
river, in 1609. "Minnisingh" was believed to refer to high ground in the
Dutchess Turnpike east of the present Poughkeepsie, while "Pochkeepsin"
was one of the numerous spellings of the county seat.
This same colorful "Long Reach" of the Hudson contains the present
four-mile course for the Poughkeepsie Intercollegiate Regatta, annual
rowing event, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors to
Poughkeepsie's shores and Dutchess County. The course begins at Crum
Elbow, not far from the river estate of President Roosevelt; it extends
south to a point below the mid-Hudson vehicular bridge at Poughkeepsie.
One now widely accepted explanation of the meaning of the name
"Poughkeepsie" evolves from a story surrounding the first legal
settlement in the community. Johannes Van Kleeck and Myndert Van Den
Bogaerdt, sons of the original settlers, frequented a spot close to the
present New York-Albany Post Road, less than two miles south of the
present courthouse at Poughkeepsie. The Indians followed a trail to this
same point, known by the two boys as Rust Plaetz, and meaning Resting
Place. The Indians had another name for the spot, which was marked by a
spring, and, so the story goes, surrounded by cat-tail reeds, a small
stream issuing from the spring. They used three words to describe it:
uppuqui-meaning lodge covering, the name of the cat-tail reed;
ipis-little water; ing-meaning place; and freely translated, "The
Reed-covered Lodge by the Little Water Place."
The Dutch and the English settlers spelled the name phonetically, and it
appeared in various combinations of letters. In the Van Kleeck-Ostrom
lease it was "Pockkeepsin." A more familiar later form of the word was
"Apokeepsing," resembling uppiquiipis-ing, until the "A" was dropped; and
out of Poughkeepsing there came the accepted name, "Poughkeepsie."
So much for the name of the principal city of Dutchess County. The date,
June 9, 1687, is now recognized as not only marking the beginnings of
permanent legal residence of white men in Poughkeepsie, but in the county
as well. Prior to that time there were undoubtedly transient residents in
the county, but there is no documentary evidence pointing to an earlier
legal white residence than that at Poughkeepsie. Early local historians
set forth that the first settler may have been Nicholas Emigh, or
Eighmie, presumed to have arrived at Fishkill, southern Dutchess, at an
early date. These historians conceded that authorities differed as to the
exact date of settlement, although one writer placed Eighmie in the
county as early as 1682. It remained for the late Helen Wilkinson
Reynolds, careful historian of the modern period, to lay before the
public the complete story of the Van Kleeck-Ostrom lease and its
significance as fixing the time of the first legal white residence at
Poughkeepsie.
To be sure, early settlements in both Fishkill, to the south of
Poughkeepsie, and Rhinebeck, to the north, were contemporaneous with that
in the present county seat. Peter Pieterse Lassen, an ancestor of the
late historian, Benson J. Lossing, is known to have been living at the
mouth of Jan Casper's kill in 1688. In 1700, Hendrick Kip built a house
in Rhinecliff (town of Rhinebeck). All of the early settlers lived close
to the river; it was not until the early part of the eighteenth century
that the thickly wooded interior of the county was opened to home sites.
birth:
1. D-221:
2. D-236: Abstracts of Wills Filed in New York City, 1708-1728
other:
1. "of Dutchess Co.," executor of sister's (Mayken) will dated 23 Apr
1722,
proved 7 Feb 1723/5; D-236, ibid.
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1644 - 1717 (72 years)
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