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Descendants and Ancesters of Jan Cornelius Van Tassel

Another great Vantassel Resource can be found at - The Van Tassel Family History Hompage

   At the time of the first Dutch and English settlers, Long Island was occupied by a number of Indian tribes.For the most part these tribes were peaceful and friendly toward the newcomers. War like action on their part can be traced to outside influences;cruelty of the settlers, usually Dutch, under the government of Director-General KIEFT,goading by the warlike tribes of Connecticut and the Hudson Valley, and the fire-water of the Europeans.Lion GARDINIER was on good terms with all the tribes but in particular the Montauks under the leadership of the Sachem WYANDANCH.Following the battle at the mouth of the Mystic River,Conn., where Englishmen attempted to settle on land bought by the Dutch from the Indians,WYANDANCH came to GARDINIER to ask if he were "angry with all the Indians," and offered to pay tribute to the English in the interest of peace  Then began a close relationship and sincere friendship between Lion GARDiNIER and the Montaukatts.Not long after, GARDINIER bought from WYANDANCH, for a large black dog,a gun,some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets, the island of Honchonock, which has since borne the name. Gardiner' s Island.
     WYANDANCH had already given GARDINIER in recognition of GARDINIER's chivalrous rescue of his daughter the entire territory later known as Smithfield and finally Smithtown.
 "When MIANTONOKAH, chief of the Narragansetts tried to draw the Montauketts into plots against the English, they repeatedly disclosed to their new friends the plans of their hereditary enemies WYANDANCH at his death made him (GARDINIER) the guardian of his heir, the young WEONCOMBONE, and during the regency of his mother, the Sachem-squa, her acts were valid only as confirmed by GARDINIER." WYANDANCH, the Great Sachem of Long Island,died in 1659. (History of Long Island from its Discovery and Settlement to the ?resent Time by Benjamen F.Thompson,3rd edition, N.Y.,Robert H. Dodd 1918)
     The young Indian girl WUCHIKITTAWBUT, stolen on her wedding day by NINIGRET, Chief of the Narragansetts and rescued by GARDINIER became the wife of Jan Cornelius VAN TASSEL and was known from then on as CATONERAS.
     After their marriage, Jan Cornelius and Catoneras claimed ownership of part of Long Island and settled on the North Shore of the Sound at a place called Eaton's Neck in Suffolk County. Cornelius Jensen Van tassel was selected to represent the Long Island Indians before the commissioners appointed to settle the wars among the Pequots,Narragansetts and other tribes and was present at meetings of the Commissioners held at Boston and elsewhere.Only one child of this marriage is known, Jan Cornelius, the first of the family born in America and whose indenture papers establish the probable year of the family's arrival in the New World Catoneras died shortly after her father's death in 1659.
     The son, Jan Cornelius, married Annetje ALBERTS,daughter of Albert KONING.baptised 3 June 1640, and lived in Midwont (Flatbush). He appears in Flatbush records as Jan Cornelissen,Jan Janssen,J.C.,and variously TEXEL, VAN TEXEL and VAN TASSEL. Among the records concerning land transactions of Jan Cornelius are:
 1661,12 March - Grant of 60 morgens (120 acres) in Flatbush.
 1664,26 October - Later allotted in persuance of patent at Flatbush 23 morgens (46 acres) on the south side of the bowery of Bastel CLASSEN. The holding was plain land and salt meadow. This was sold on 20 January,1670 to Auchs Janse Van MYSE.(Liber A page 15 Flatbush Records)
 1670,14 March - Allotted a building lot at Flatbush which was sold the following May to Hendrick KIP.(Liber A Flatbush Records)
 1685-Survey of tract of land east of the town of Huntington, Long Island allotted to him by the Indians.(Calendar of Colonial Minutes page 45)
 1685,8 October-Papers before Council for patents at Haverstraw. (Calendar of Colcnial Minutes page 106)
 1685,13 October Granted land east side of Hudson next to S. Van CORTLANDT.(Calendar of Colonial Minutes page 45)
 1695 - Jan Cornelius VAN TASSEL and Lucas TIENHAVEN request license to purchase Indian land on Hackensack Creek in Orange County. Survey of land purchase ordered. (Calendar of Colonial Minutes page 106)
     VAN TASSEL had requested 100,000 acres. The Council felt this was too much and agreed that each was to have 1000 acres.(Calendar of Colonial Minutes page 109)
 1702-Jan Cornelius VAN TASSEL and Other5 request license to purchase Indian lands in Suffolk County,Long Island. (Calendar of Colonial Minutes page 167)
 1705- Petition for Patent 4 miles wide on the Sound "From the Sound running into the wood 6 miles or thereabout. (Land Papers page 77)
    The original form of the family name, "Van Texel" - of Texel indicates that the general ancestor was born, or for a time resided on the well known island of that name, situated off the coast of Holland.
    This surname, the latinized form of which was Texelius, had become fixed upon the family long before the Dutch established a trading post upon Manhattan Island. The family also had a coat of arms which was recorded.
    Among the very early settlers in the New Netherlands from Holland was a member of the Van Texel family. He was generally known as Cornelis Jansen, that is, Cornelis son of Jan. Once only, and that in a legal document, a copy of which is hearafter given, does his full name appear. He is the first American Ancestor.
    The year of his coming cannot be exactly fixed, as the records of that time are incomplete. But he must have come over in one of the Dutch vessels which commenced trading with the Indians shortly after Hendrick Hudson, in 1609 sailed up the River which bears his name, and could not have arrived in this country later than 1624. In all probability he came over a few years earlier. From papers examined it is the belief that he came here from the province of North Holland, in the Netherlands.
    The following agreement, the original of which was contained in Volume one of the Dutch Colonial Manuscripts, on file in the Archives Room of the New York State Library in the Capital, Albany, N.Y., until it was burned in the great fire of March 29, 1911, which partially destroyed the Library. It reads as follows: "This day, date underwritten, in the presence of the underwritten witnesses, have amicably agreed and covenanted in manner as followeth:
    Cornelis Jansen Van Texel binds his son, Jan Cornelissen, to Hendrick Harmensen, and for the term of seven consecutive years; who also acknowledged to have accepted the above named Jan Cornelissen for the above mentioned term, with the express promise that he, Hendrick Harmensen, shall take care of the boy, as if he were his own son, during the seven years aforesaid. Also Cornelis Jansen shall not have power to take his son from the above named Hendrick Harmensen, but only whenever the above mentioned time shall be expired.
    "For all that is aforesaid, parties on either side shall, at the expiration of the aforesaid years, have no claim the one against the other, nor any manner of demand.
    Although the volume containing the original contract was burned, a copy of it, made by Dr. E. B. OCallahan, for the state, is now on file in the manuscript section of the State Library.
    When Cornelis Jansen Van Texel came to the New Netherlands he went to Long Island, where he resided, so far as known, the rest of his life. From a study of papers, copies of which will hereafter appear, we learn that Jansen married an Indian girl named "Catoneras", the daughter of the Sachem or chief of a tribe of Indians which then lived on , and claimed ownership to that portion of Long Island, situated along the north shore, or sound, about Eaton's Neck in Suffolk County."
    Jan Cornelius and Annetie had at least 8 children. All the children were baptized in the First Dutch Church of New Amsterdam. In 1687 while living in Orange County, he took the oath of Allegience and some time before the census of 1702 he crossed the river to live at Van Cortlandt Manor in Westchester County.The Indians called the place Meahagh, the Dutch called it Verplanck's Point.Just to the east was Appainaghpogh and it is from Appamaghpogh that the tax collector recorded "Received from J.C.VanTassel, by the hand of Stevan Courtlandt sum of nine pounds, first of four first taxes and of such proportions of the same as become payable out of Westchester County and town of Appamnepoe I so received the 31st July 1694. "signed Chidley Brorie, Col.(Leber B of Deeds page 231 Westchester County Registers Office)
     In their petition to join the church at Sleepy Hollow they state they have nine children but only eight are registered.Jan Cornelius died in 1704 and both he and Annetie are buried in the Sleepy Hollow Churchyard, Tarrytown Westchester County,New York.
    The exact date of the birth of Jan Cornelissen Van Texel, who is the first American born Ancestor, is unknown, but judging by the apprenticeship paper, a copy of which has been given, and the general custom in such cases, it is the best opinion that at the end of the term of seven years apprenticeship to Hendrick Harmensen, Jan Cornelissen was twenty one years old. From this it is concluded that he was fourteen years old in 1639 and was born in 1625. His father was born in Holland about 1600.
    Jan Cornelissen lived in Midwont (Flatbush) Long Island. It was there that he married his wife, Annetje Alberts, and his children were born there.  His name appears on the Flatbush records as Jan Cornelissen and as Jan Cornelissen Van Texel. On the 12th of March, 1661, he got a grant of 60 morgens (120 acres) of land at that place, and on the 26th of October 1664, his orchard is referred to.
    He was later allotted, in pursuance of the patent of Flatbush "23 Morgens (46 acres) of land in said town, on the south side of the bowery of Bastel Claessen, with plain land and salt meadow." He sold it January 20, 1670 to Aucke Janse Van Meyse. Liber A page 15 Flatbush Records.  On the 14th of March, 1670, he was allotted a building lot at Flatbush, which he sold the 15th of the following May to Hendrick Kip.
    Not long after this sale to Kip, Jan Cornelissen removed with his family to Westchester County, and settled on the east bank of the Hudson River in that portion of the present town of Cortlandt which the Indians called "Meahagh." It later became known as Verplank's Point. The lands immediately east of "Meahagh" bore the Indian name of "Appamaghpogh." After Steven Van Courtlandt had purchased Meahagh and Appamaghpogh of the Indians, August 24, 1683, the whole territory seems, for a short time, to have been called by the latter name.
    Jan Cornelissen was for a time Collector of taxes for the town of "Appomaepoe." One of his receipts which is recorded in Liber B. of Deeds page 231, Westchester County Register's office, reads as follows:
"Received from John Cornelious Van Texel, by the hand of Steven Courtland, the sum of nine pounds, out of the four first taxes, and of such proportions of the same as became payable out of Westchester County and town of Appamaepoe. I say received this 31st of July 1694   Chidley Brooke Col."

Parts of the above were taken from  the work of Daniel Van Tassel entitled:  "Genealogy of the Van Texel/Van Tassel family in America, 1625-1900."



Email Note from:
Mike Wolfe
The Wolfsbane Genealogy Page
http://home.earthlink.net/~wolfsbane/
January 23, 2003

I am writing to make an important correction on your website genealogy.  It's regarding our ancestor Catoneras, a Native American who had a child by Cornelius Jan van Texel.
I believe you are relying on the 1941 edition of Daniel van Tassel's genealogy of the family, or at the very least a newspaper article about the family in a Poughkeepsie newspaper dating from 1951.  Daniel van Tassel corrected his error in a later edition (1951), but not emphatically, and it has persisted through lore.
 
Let me make my case:
 
We know from petitions to governors of NY colony that Catoneras was a full-blooded Native American, the daughter of a sachem, and laid claim to land at the base of Eaton's Neck.  We can infer from the petitions that the land was sold out from under the aboriginal inhabitants by men who did not have permission to do so.  The plot described corresponds to a plot of land described in the records of Huntington, NY as being sold by a sachem of the Matinecock band of Indians.
We also know from that Wyandance, "grand sachem" of the Montauk tribe (whose homeland was the eastern part of Long Island, far from Huntington and Eaton's Neck), was much, much too young to have fathered Catoneras.
 
So here's the thing:
Catoneras was the daughter of a sachem, and it is extremely likely she belonged to the Matinecock tribe.
It is possible that she was the daughter of Asharoken.
Her homeland was sold out from under her and her people by either the Montauks or by a misunderstanding with white settlers.
Wyandance could not have been her father, as he was too young and there is not a shred of evidence of her in his more well-documented life. 

May I recommend?
Strong, John A.  The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island From Earliest Times to 1700.  Interlaken, NY:  Empire State Books, 1970.
Martien, Jerry.  Shell Game:  A True Account of Beads and Money in North America.  San FranciscoL  Mercury House, 1996.
Ceci, Lynn.  The Effect of European Contact and Trade on the Settlment Pattern of Indians in Coastal New York, 1524-1665.  New York & London:  Garland Publishing, 1990