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Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group
All five parts are available as a single pdf for download below 
Created by Gilbert Tauber, member of the planning committee of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group Further History of the Syndicate Lots As noted above by Stokes, little is known of the history of the syndicate’s lots during Bloomingdale’s first two decades.[1] Nevertheless, Stokes and his team of researchers were able to glean the following from available wills, deeds, and other records: Van Brugh held on to his 150-acre tract on the north side of the Great Kill. His heirs appear to have owned it until around 1700. Jan Vigne at some point sold his 150 acres to Jacob Cornellisen Stille. Stille in turn sold it to Wolfert Webbers, who had married Stille’s daughter Grietje in 1697. It remained in the Webbers family until the mid-18th Century.[2]  Of the ten lots that the five partners divided equally: Lots 1 and 2, originally allotted to to Jacob Leendertse van de Grift, were sold within the year to Isaac Bedlow. [3] After Bedlow’s death in 1673, the farm passed to his daughters and their spouses. In 1698 there is a conveyance by the Bedlow heirs to Jacobus van Cortlandt (1658-1739), a future Mayor of New York.[4] By 1714, Lot 1 had become the property of Matthias Hopper.[5] Although no deeds have been found for the next transfer of Lot 2, it directly or indirectly passed from Jacobus Van Cortlandt, (d. 1739) to Cornelis Cosine. Cosine moved to Bloomingdale in 1741 when he was elected Collector of the Bowery Division of the Out Ward.[6] Lots 3 and 4 were initially allotted to Thomas Hall, who had died by November 1669. It is recited in a later deed that either Hall or his heirs sold these two lots to Theunis Cornellisen Stille, the younger brother of Jacob Cornellisen Stille. The date of this transaction is not known.[7] Lots 5 and 6 were Johannes van Brugh’s share of the Ten Lots. In 1696, van Brugh sold Lot 5 to the aforementioned Theunis Cornellisen Stille. Twenty-four years later, in 1720, the Stilles mortgaged their three lots (3, 4 and 5) to secure a loan of 300 pounds. By 1729, the property was owned by Stephen Delancey (1663-1741). This was Delancey’s Lower Farm, which he called Little Bloomingdale. A half century later it was owned by Stephen’s grandson James. James was an active Loyalist in the American Revolution and his estates were later confiscated by the new State of New York. In 1780, Little Bloomingdale was sold by the Commissioners of Forfeiture to John Somerindike for 2,500 pounds.[8] Lot 6 was retained by van Brugh until his death, which must have been prior to 1701, his heirs sold Lot 6 to Rebecca van Schaick, the widow of Adrian van Schaick for 75 pounds. Rebecca was already the owner of Lot 7, which her late husband had bought in 1697 from Anthony John Evertse, a free Negro. A few weeks after acquiring Lot 6 from the van Brugh heirs, Rebecca van Schaick sold both Lots 6 and 7 to Cornelius Dykeman. Cornelius Dykeman died prior to 1722, and the property was divided between his sons George and Cornelius. Lot 6 remained in the Dykeman family until 1763, when it was conveyed to Jacob Harsen.[9] It is not certain whether Lots 7 and 8 were originally allotted to Wouters or Vigne, either way they were soon acquired by Thomas Hall, who died in 1669, or possibly to his widow Anne Medford Hall, who lists them in a will made soon after her husband’s death.[10] But Anne Hall lived many more years. In 1686, she sold Lot 7 to John Evertse, a free Negro who, as mentioned above, sold it in 1697 to Adrian van Schaick, whose widow later sold both Lots 6 and 7 to Cornelius Dyckman. By Dyckman’s will, Lot 6 went to his son George and Lot 7 to his son Cornelius Jr. In 1745, the latter’s granddaughter Cornelia married Teunis Somarindyck, and the property was thereafter known as the Teunis Somarindyck Farm. In the deed that conveyed Lot 7 from Evertse to van Schaick, it is described as bounded on the north by land of Brant Skeyler (i.e., Brandt Schuyler). This Schuyler was a prominent citizen and the husband of Cornelia van Cortlandt.[11] Stokes states that “no other evidence of Schuyler’s ownership [of Lot 8] has been found.[12] However, see below regarding Lots 9 and 10. At some point prior to 1720, Theunis Ides expanded his farm, the former Bedlow grant, by acquiring Lot 10. In June of 1720, when he divided his land among his children and their spouses, the former Lot 10 went to his son-in-law Marinus Roelefse van Vleckeren, the husband of his daughter Dinah.[13] Several years earlier, in 1711, Marinus Roelefse had petitioned the Common Council for a “grant or lease of a tract of land belonging to the Corporation [i.e., the City] lying near the land of Theunis Ides …containing 150 acres or thereabouts.” There is no record of any action on this petition, but the acreage mentioned suggests that Lots 8 and 9 had reverted to the City. “The records reveal nothing further,” according to Stokes. Sometime between 1720 and 1729 Stephen Delancey purchased Lot 10 from Roelefse. He may have also purchased Lots 8 and 9 from Roelefse, assuming the petition of 1711 was eventually granted. More likely he purchased them directly from the City. Either way, as of 1729, Lots 8, 9 and 10 had become the country seat of Stephen Delancey (1663-1741), which he called Bloomingdale. Delancey, a descendant of minor French nobility, had come to New York in 1686 as a refugee from French persecution following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In New York he became a merchant and amassed great wealth. Through his marriage and those of his children, he was allied with some of the most powerful families in the colony and became patriarch of a dynasty that wielded great influence in New York affairs until the American Revolution.[14] As noted above, in mid-1729 or shortly thereafter, Stephen Delancey also purchased Lots 3, 4 and 5. That estate he called Little Bloomingdale. Further History of the Bedlow Patent As noted above, the 1668 Bedlow grant was eventually purchased by Theunis Ides (or Idens) van Huyse. We know quite a bit about Theunis, mainly thanks to the journal of Jasper Danckaerts, one of two Labadist preachers who visited New York and neighboring colonies in 1679-80 to scout possible locations for a Labadist community in the New World.[15] While in Manhattan, they lodged with an elderly couple, Jacob Hellikers, a carpenter, and his wife Theuntje Theunis.[16]. The couple each had three children by earlier marriages and one child together. Theunis Idens was Theuntje’s son by her deceased first husband, whom we may call Iden van Huyse.[17] Born in the Netherlands, Theunis was an adolescent when his father died and his mother remarried the widowed Jacob Helliker. Moving to the New Netherlands, they lived first in Brooklyn, where the young Theunis fell into a life of dissolution and petty crime. It did not help matters that one of his brothers-in-law was a tavern keeper. When the Labadists met him Theunis was 41 years old, married with six children, and working a farm in Sapokannikan that he owned in partnership with his brother- in- law. But things were going very badly. “The devil had been assailing him for six years past,” Danckaerts wrote. “His wife was a very ill-natured woman, cursing at him and finding fault,’ and his children were saucy except for the eldest daughter. A slave he had long possessed was thrown by a horse and later died. A valuable canoe was dashed to pieces by a storm as his neighbors stood by and did nothing. His cows sickened. A daughter was injured in a fall. His hand was crushed felling trees. And he had a bitter falling out with his partner brother-in-law. He was remorseful about his former “Godless life,” but his troubles mounted. One day in April 1680, it became too much. He ran amok, demanding a rope to hang himself. His terrified wife and children sent word to the Helliker’s house. The Labadist preachers hurried to Theunis’ farm, where they calmed him, read him passages from the scripture, and convinced him that God had not forsaken him. Theunis confided that “he wished he could go and live alone in the woods, away from wicked men, for it was impossible to live near them and not sin as they do.” Afterward, Danckaerts and Sluyter spoke to Theunis’s wife and children about how they must behave toward the troubled man.[18] The following month, after a trip to the Albany area, the Labadists visited Theunis again. They found him much calmer and feeling a lot better. He said his wife had changed “as day from night.”[19] In June, as the preachers were preparing to sail back to Europe, Theunis came to bid them farewell. A week later, he joined the Dutch Reformed Church.[20] Following his recovery from what Peter Salwen has called “the earliest recorded nervous breakdown in New York City History,”[21] Theunis’s fortunes improved. He apparently became a respected member of the community since in 1687 he was elected assessor of the Out Ward.[22] In 1688, or perhaps early 1689, he sold his farm in what is now Greenwich Village and purchased the former Bedlow Tract. According to Stokes, he must have moved to his new farm before March 1689, when his eldest daughter Rebecca married Abraham de la Montagnie, grandson of one of the of the founding families of New Harlem[23] Over the next three decades that Theunis held his land, he probably worked it with the help of his son Eide van Huyse and his five sons-in -law. It is also likely that he had a number of indentured workers, if not slaves. On the 1703 Census his household includes one adult male Negro and five Negro children.[24] In 1720, by which time Theunis was over 80 and the Bloomingdale Road had greatly increased the value of his holdings, Theunis and his wife Janettje had their land surveyed into eight lots, which were numbered from south to north. These they conveyed to their children and sons-in-law as follows, starting from the northernmost:[25] No. 8 to Abraham De Le Montagnie, husband of their daughter Rebecca. Nos. 6 and 7 to their son-in law George Dyckman, who was married to their youngest daughter Catalina. His family owned what had been Lot 6 of the syndicate’s Ten Lots. Nos. 4 and 5 to their son Eide Van Huyse. Nos. 3 and 2/3 of No 2 to Mindert Burger van Evera, married to their daughter Sarah. No. I and 1/3 of No. 2 to Marinus Roelefse van Vleck, married to their daughter Dinah. This parcel corresponds to Lot 10 of the syndicate’s Ten Lots. Theunis owned an additional farm in Bloomingdale, which he gave to his daughter Maria, who was married to Jurien Rynchout. Footnotes for Part 3 can be read by clicking the "Read More" to the right. Footnotes for Part 3
[1] Documents such as deeds and wills were not consistently recorded. The new English administration was still getting a grip on a population that was predominantly Dutch speaking. In addition, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1673, New York was recaptured and was again under Dutch rule until late in 1674. [2] Stokes, op. cit. Vol. VI, p. 171. [3] Ibid., Vol VI, p. 106. [4] Van Cortlandt’s wife was the stepdaughter of Frederick Phillipse, and through her he became the owner of what is now Van Cortlandt Park. [5] Stokes, op. cit. Vol VI, p. 106. [6] Stokes, op. cit. Vol. VI: p. 86. [7] Stokes, op. cit. Vol. VI: p..139. [8] Stokes, op. cit. Vol. VI, pp.139-140. [9] Stokes, op. cit. Vol. VI, pp. 103-104. [10] Stokes, op. cit. Vol VI, p. 140. [11] Bielinski, Stefan “Brandt Schuyler.” https://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/s/brschuyler1092.html. Accessed January 21, 2023. [12] Stokes, op. cit. Vol. VI, pp. 94-95. [13] Stokes, op. cit. Vol. VI, pp. 69-70. [14] Wikipedia “Stephen Delancey.” Accessed February 8, 2023 [15] Labadism was a communitarian pietist movement founded by Jean de Labadie (1610-1674), a former Jesuit whose preaching won him a significant following among French-speaking Protestants. After being driven from France, his followers established a community in the Netherlands. As a result of the visit by Danckaerts and his colleague Peter Sluyter, a Labadist community was established in Maryland in 1683. (Wikipedia “Labadists,” accessed February 12, 2023) [16] Danckaerts, Jasper, and Peter Sluyter. Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour in Several of the American Colonies in 1679-80 [electronic resource] / by Jasper Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter ; translated from the original manuscript in Dutch for the Long Island Historical Society ; and edited by Henry C. Murphy. Brooklyn NY, 1867, pp. 189-90. [17] The Dutch at that time generally did not yet use surnames. Even in official documents, people were usually known by a call name—which might be a nickname-- plus a patronymic. Further precision, if needed, was most often provided by a toponymic such as van Brugh or van der Grift, indicating where the person was from. Under the English, who tended to be very fastidious about anything that might affect inheritance of property, Dutch patronymics and toponymics soon evolved into permanent surnames such as Jansen and Vanderbilt. [18] Danckaerts, op. cit., p. 191. [19] Ibid., p. 233. [20] Ibid., p. 250. [21] Salwen, op. cit., p. 16. [22] In 1683 the City had been divided into six wards, five of which were south of the city wall. The rest of the island, everything north of the present Wall Street, was the Out Ward, which was in turn divided into a Bowery Division and a Harlem Division. Stokes, op. cit., Chronology, December 8, 1683; Seymann, op. cit. p. 229. [23] Stokes, op. cit., Vol VI, p. 69 [24] Papers Relating to the City of New York . Excerpted from O’Callaghan, E. B. (ed) Documentary History of the State of New York, Albany NY, 1849, p. 405. [25] Riker, James. Revised History of Harlem (City of New York): Its Origins and Early Annals Prefaced by Home Scenes in the Fatherlands; or Notices of Its Founders Before Emigration. New York, 1904, pp. 592n, 545n.
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