Jan Gerritse Decker

Jan Gerretsen Decker was born April 23 1640 in Heernden, Gelderland (Husum, Nordfriesland, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany). He died in 1717 in Port Jervis, Orange Co., NY.

1664 23 Mar Jan Gerretsen, j.m., of Heerden, and Grietjen Hendricks Westercamp, of Amsterdam in Nieunederlant, both resid. here. "Est nec virgo nec vidua." First publication of Banns, 9 March; second, 16 March; third, 23 March. (Grietjen baptized on 19 Oct 1642 in New Amsterdam)

Jan and Grietjen had the following children:

1. Gerrett Jansen Decker
2. Hendrick Decker
3. Jacobus Janse Decker
4. Hermanus Janse Decker
5. Johannes Decker
6. Jennetje or Femetje (UNVERIFIED) Decker.

http://www.deckerjourney.com/JanGerretsen/pafg01.htm#2

Jan Gerritsen was from Heerde, Gelderland, Netherlands.

He married Grietjen Hendricks Westercamp 23 March 1664 in Kingston, Ulster, New York.

Grietjen was baptized 19 Oct 1642 in New Amsterdam, New Netherland, the daughter of Hendrick Jansz Westercamp and Femmetje Alberts. Grietjen had a brother, Jan, and a half-brother, Pieter Hillebrants. In 1662, she had a child out of wedlock by a miller named Pieter Jacobsen. She sued the miller but he refused to recognize the child as his own.

A little less than a year before Jan and Grietjen married, in June of 1663, the village of Wildwyck was attacked by a group of Native Americans during the Second Esopus War. A list of the prisoners taken shows that a Jan Gerritsen was the only man taken captive [1] and that, in Grietjen's household, one woman (presumably Grietjen herself) and three children [2], were also taken prisoner. In mid-September of that year, one Jan Gerritsen was fined for working in fields without a convoy to protect himself or permission from the Council of War, in violation of an ordinance to protect the residents of Kingston during the war.

Jan and Grietjen appeared in New York City in 1671, where they had a child baptized. However, they mainly appear in the Kingston records both before and after the 1671 baptism.

In the court records, Jan is mentioned as having stolen reeds from Thomas Chambers' land with Henerick Hendricksen Van Wye. Both Jan and Grietjen are mentioned in the records one time each for fighting, Jan having fought with the same Hendrick Van Wye before mentioned. [3]

Sources:

1. Brassard, Theodore (comp.), Baptisms at the Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam (1639-1730), Nottingham, NH: http://www.altlaw.com/edball/dutchbap.htm, 2000.
2. Hoes, Roswell Randall (comp.), Baptismal and Marriage Registers of the Old Dutch Church of Kingston, Ulster County, New York, Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1997 (originally published by De Vinne Press (New York), 1891).
3. O'Callaghan, E.B., The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. IV, Albany: Charles Van Benthuysen, 1851.
4. Versteeg, Dingman (trans.), New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Kingston Papers, 2 vols., original translation 1899, Samuel Oppenheim's pub. 1912, Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1976.