Notes
Note N665
Index
Willem Isaacszen Vredenburgh arrived in New Amsterdam in May 1658 aboard the de Vergulde Bever (Gilded Beaver). He was a soldier in the service of the Dutch West India Company. He was discharged in 1661 and in 1664 married the daughter of Barent Jacobszen (Cool) and Marritie Leenderts. For a time he lived under the walls of Fort William Hendrick and the new fortification of New Orange. About 1677 he moved to Esopus (Wiltwyck) (Kingston) New Amsterdam. He was the founder of the Vredenburgh/Vredenburg families in the United States and so far is the only ancestor that can be found.
He took the oath of allegiance on Sept 1, 1689 to the English crown at Kingston, New York.
Notes
Note N666
Index
My records show that Broer Decker was the child of Jan Decker and first wife Heyltje Jacobs. This information from Carol van Buren, RD#1, Horton Rd.
Westtown, NY 10998 (9/28/81)
Notes
Note N667
Index
This story was related to and written for us, (the children of Margaret Myers North) by Catherine Myers who died February 12, 1897. She was a great aunt to you Hoffeditz children and an aunt to me, your mother, (Ursu la Cotta North Hoffeditz) who was a daughter of Margaret Myers North, and she a sister of Catherine Myers. This same story was also related to us during our childhood days by mother, the fact having occurred during the early history of her mother's people.
Our Grandfather's name was George Wild, spelled with a "d" both in English and German. Get some German to give you the pronunciation; it could have been very easily corrupted into "Wilt". He was born in the State of New Jersey and was an only son. He was a miller by trade and was employed in Mr. Albert's mill where he became acquainted with grandmother. When he had saved money enough, he bought land at the head of Green Spring, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, where he put up the stone house and barn on the old family homestead.
From an old marriage certificate we learn that Anna Barbara Albertine was married to John Albert, our great-grandfather. To this union were born eleven children, ten daughters and one son. The son died in early youth. Two of the daughters married brothers by the name of Smith, two more married brothers by the name of Cope, John and Peter, one married Peter Tritt, one a Zumbro, one a Brubaker, one a Starry, the third was our grandmother, and there was one whose history has been lost through the passing of time.
From what we can learn of our early ancestors they must have been French Huguenots, and came to this country to escape religious persecution. They only brought their large family Bible with them. They chose to suffer hardship and privations in a new country with people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures and comforts of homeland with people of corrupted religious dispositions.
During the early history of Pennsylvania, there lived in Shamokin, (a town near Philadelphia) a family by the name of Long. These people were our ancestors, we are sure, but through the passing of time the exact lineage has been lost. The main facts of the story are true, they having been handed down from one to the other as new generations came and took the places of those who gradually passed into the great beyond. This family of Longs must have been great-grandparents of my mother's mother, which would take us back for six generations.
THE STORY
One day Mr. Long, the father of the Long household, took some grain to the mill to have it ground into flour. He was away from the home the best p art of the day, as in those days it was customary to wait at the mill until the wheat was ground and then take the flour along home. During the father's absence from the Long homestead, an uncle and several cousins came to visit them. While the members of the Long household were talking to this uncle and the cousins, the watchdog came into the house. The grandmother, who made her home with the Longs, noticed something unusual abo ut the dog's actions and remarked: "what makes the dog come in?" She put the dog out, but before long, he came in again, and whilst in the act of putting him out the second time. Happened to glance towards the woods where she saw the Indians coming towards the house. "Oh ", she exclaimed, "the Indians are coming", and then immediately began to close up the house. When the Indians saw that they had been discovered they came on wi th a rush, but the grandmother had seen them in time and by the time they got there the house was all closed up.
There were two guns in the house that were put to good use that day. The cousins loaded while the uncle fired from an upstairs window or some ot her opening in the wall. The uncle killed two Indians and wounded or crippled others. During the course of the battle the Indians watched and discovered the point from which the firing came, then taking aim, they concentrated their fire upon that window, and finally succeeded in shooting the unc le in the mouth. (The story goes that the uncle was bullet proof and could not have been killed by being hit in any other part of the body. This, however, is a part of the story that no one has ever vouched for.)
After the uncle's death, the cousins used the guns as long as the ammunition held out, after which the Indians closed in on the house and broke open one of the doors. When this took place the family retreated into some of the back rooms. Two of the girls crept under a bed in one of the side rooms. While under there a little dog crawled under with them. The girls were afraid that the dog would bark or cry, and thus reveal their hiding place, but he did not. When the Indians came into that room they looked under the bed but did not see the girls. They set fire to the bed, however, before leaving the room. After the Indians went out one of the girls crept out and with a bucket of water, which was near, put out the fire and quickly crawled back to her hiding place. About this time one of the cousins who had her young baby with her, thought she would make a desperate attempt to escape by jumping out a back window and make a run for the woods, but when she got the window open it was only to look into the face of a big Indian who was on watch at this point. This Indian laughed at her and she quickly closed the heavy shutter again.
A part of the family was in another back room, the grandmother with them. She had a hatchet in her hand. One of the boys said, "let me have the hatchet and I will take up a board in the floor, then we can all get down into the cellar." The grandmother gave him the hatchet but she said, "You must give it to me again. I have nothing else to defend myself with. I will be the last one to go down into the cellar." While the others were going down through the opening they had made in the floor, an Indian broke in a panel of a door and stuck his head through the hold. The grandmother promptly struck him a heavy blow on the head with the hatchet, and he fell dead with his head and upper part of his body hanging through the door. Another Indian pulled the dead Indian's body out of the opening in the door and stuck his head in, only to meet a similar fate, in less time than it takes to tell it. This caused the Indians to abandon the door for a while and also gave the grandmother time to let herself down into the cellar and to pull the floorboard back into place again. After they were all together down in the cellar, our great-grandmother, then a little girl of ten years of age, (Anna Barbara Albertine) was going to cry, the grandmother took Anna's head and held it under her arm to stifle the sound of her crying, and said, "Don't cry, dear, we will all die together."
While all this excitement and the fighting was going on at the Long homestead, the soldiers at the fort, one and a half miles away, heard the firing of the guns and suspicious that someone was in trouble, the commanders aid, "It must be at the Longs", and he ordered two companies of soldiers to go at once to the rescue. The captain of the first company of soldiers ordered his men to march in order, but the captain of the second company fearing that the parties in danger would all be killed before they could be reached, gave the command: "Best man foremost". Two brothers in his company being good runners arrived at Longs in a comparatively short space of time, one about fifty yards ahead of the other. The Indians were then carrying a big log with which to break in the cellar door. The first soldier to arrive on the scene fired at the Indians and killed one, but in the return fire from the Indians he himself was killed. By this time the other soldiers were in sight, and when the Indians saw them coming they quickly gathered up their dead and hurried away. It is said that it is a custom for Indians to carry off their dead so that their dead cannot be counted.
After the soldiers all got to the house, they called to the Longs telling them that the Indians had gone and that they should open the doors and some out. At first, the Longs thought that it was only the Indians trying to deceive them and they would not come out. Finally they were convinced and came out, after which they decided to gather their necessary goods together and go to the fort, which they did, driving their cattle with them where they remained until the Indians left the neighborhood.
It is believed that the Indians did not intend murder on this trip only to take prisoners, but as resistance was offered by the Longs they became desperate unintentionally. The Longs suffered the loss of the uncle and a hired man who was surprised and killed while topping turnips in an out-kitchen. They scalped the hired man and took his scalp with them when they hurried away.
(Note: From other references we think the year was 1756 and it may have been the home of Nicholas Long or DeLong)
Transcribed by Chuck Knorr
Great grandson of Ursula Cotta "North" Hoffeditz
From an email by Dorothy Fitzpatrick
, November 12, 2005