Henry Pawling’s
wife was Neeltja Roosa (1653-1745). Her
parents left Holland to come to America on April 16, 1660 in the ship “The
Spotted Cow.” They landed in New
Netherlands with their eight children, ages 17 to 2 and settled in Esopus (now
Kingston), Ulster County, New York. They
participated in the first communion service held at the Old Dutch Church on
December 25, 1660, and this is commemorated on a plaque on the front of the
church to this day:
In 1927, the
Kingston Daily Freeman reported about an old oak chest being removed from the
steeple of the Old Dutch Church. It had
been chained to the woodwork in the steeple by a hand-forged iron chain. A former pastor remembered it being there,
filled with old Dutch records and Dutch account books which were taken to the
Kingston Archives, then in a vault at the Kingston Savings Bank. When the chest was removed, it was found the
front of the chest (which had not been visible while it was facing the
woodwork) had the following carved inscription:
16 Feburwari 76 A.R. Church
historians believe the initials were for Aeldert Roosa, and the date February
1676.
Neeltja’s father,
Aeldert Heijmans Roosa (1618-1679), assumed leadership positions in the
settlement, serving in church, governmental, and military positions. When the town of Hurley was established,
Aeldert was assigned the task of laying out a border surrounded by palisades
for protection. The Indians in the area
opposed the settlers, saying that their structure would be on land that was not
included in the Treaty of 1600 and had not been paid for. Aeldert requested that the leadership send
gifts to the Indians immediately, but the action did not happen quickly
enough. The Indians attacked the town on
June 7, 1663 and took 45 women and children captive. Included in the captives were two of Aeldert’s
children. His oldest daughter was held
until the end of the year, and I have not found evidence of what happened to
the other child.
In 1665, England
took control of New Netherlands, and tensions between the English soldiers and
Dutch settlers were always high. There
are numerous records of Aeldert getting into disagreements with the
English. Captain Daniel Brodhead was in
command and was known for being a tyrant and encouraging his soldiers to mistreat
the Dutch settlers. Some of the
settlers, including Aeldert, petitioned the Governor to take action on the
abuse the settlers were experiencing. A
riot ensued and Aeldert, one of his sons, and two other men were charged with
mutiny and banished from the colony.
When tempers cooled, the men were pardoned.
There are many instances
of Aeldert having further flare-ups and ending up in court, many times with the
English soldiers. The settlers were
forced to “quarter” the English soldiers, and the lack of understanding each
other’s languages, as well as the change in who was in control of the
settlement, contributed to the hostilities.
There is one story of Aeldert going to a neighbor’s house to find the
village blacksmith, and got in an altercation with several drunken
soldiers. Aeldert threw the coulter
(cutting part of a plowshare) which he had brought to be repaired at one of the
soldiers, and then fought the other soldiers off with a stick.
An interesting
endnote to the story is that Neeltja ended up marrying an English soldier,
Henry Pawling. What irony!
A descendant of Aeldert (I guess a cousin of ours) was
Stuart Roosa, an astronaut on Apollo 9 and Apollo 14. He had experience with the U.S. Forest
Service as a firefighter and took tree seeds with him on the Apollo 14 mission
to complete experiments on germination of seeds in orbit. When he returned to earth, he planted the
trees and distributed them around the U.S. during the Bicentennial celebration
in 1976. He planted one in Hurley, New
York, along Route 209 with a plaque in memory of Aldert Roosa.
No comments:
Post a Comment