Captain Jan Gerritse Stryker

Jan Gerritse Stryker

• Birth: 1615 in Ruinen, De Wolden, Drenthe, Netherlands
• Death: 03 MAR 1697 in Flatbush
• Father: Garrett Hermans Stryker b: ABT 1584 in Ruinen, De Wolden, Drenthe, Netherlands
• Mother: Altje Lucasdochter Van Meppel b: BET 1584 AND 1599 in of Ruinen, De Wolden, Drenthe, Netherlands

Marriage 1

Lambertje Roelofse Seubering b: 1621 in Beyle, Drenthe, Netherland

• Children

1. Aeltie Stryker b: 1632 in Dwinglo, Ruinen, Netherlands
   
2. Agnietje Stryker b: BET 1636 AND 1664
   
3. Eytie Stryker b: BET 1636 AND 1664
   
4. Jannetje Stryker b: ABT 1642 in Ruinen, De Wolden, Drenthe, Netherlands
   
5. Angenietje Stryker b: 1647 in Ruinen, De Wolden, Drenthe, Netherlands
   
6. Sarah Stryker b: 1649
   
7. Sarah Jan Stryker b: 1655 in Flatbush, Kings County, New York, USA
   
8. Hendrick Stryker b: ABT 1657 in Flatbush, Kings County, New York, USA
   
9. Eytie Janse Stryker b: ABT 1651 in Ruinen, De Wolden, Drenthe, Netherlands
   
10. Pieter Janse Stryker b: 01 NOV 1653 in Flatbush, Kings County, New York, USA
    
11. Garret Janse Stryker b: 1652 in Ruinen, De Wolden, Drenthe, Netherlands
    

Marriage 2

Teuntje Teunissen Hellakers b: BET 1611 AND 1631

Marriage 3

Swaentje Janse b: BET 1611 AND 1631

Jan Strycker was born between Oct 10 and Dec 31, 1614 in Ruinen, Province of Drenthe, Netherlands, and died Mar 3, 1697 in Midwout, Long Island, New York, at 82.

His first wife was Lambertje Roelofse Seubering. She was born in 1616 in the Netherlands, the daughter of Roelof Lukassen Seubering. She died in Jun 1675.

His second wife was Swantje Jans, the widow of Cornelis de Potter, whom he married Apr 30, 1679. She died in 1686.

His third wife was Teuntje Teunis, whom he married on Mar 31, 1687 in New York. She was the widow of Jacob Hellakers, alias Swart or Swartout.

In Jan 1643, the States General of the Netherlands offered a grant of land in New Amsterdam (New York) to Jan and Jacobus Strycker, provided they took twelve families from the Netherlands with them to America. They accepted the grant eight years later when Jacobus, in 1651, came to America, followed by Jan in 1652.

On Dec 11, 1653, Jan Strycker was one of 19 men who signed a petition against the conduct of Director Peter Stuyvesant of the Council in New York, to the States General in the Netherlands. They signed on behalf of the colonies and villages of the province of New Netherland.

In 1654, Jan Strycker took the lead in forming a Dutch colony on Long Island, or Middlewoods (now Flatbush, a section of Brooklyn), and was selected as the chief magistrate of Midwout that year. He held this office for most of the next twenty years. On Dec 17, l654, he was appointed one of two commissioners to build the Dutch Church there, the first erected on Long Island. The church was designed to be 60 feet by 20 feet and 12 feet high.

In 1655, Jan's brother Jacobus painted a picture of him. A photo of this picture is in the New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin Index, volume X, Apr, 1926- Jan, 1927, page 85. As of 1945, the original hung in the National Art Gallery in Washington, D.C.

On Apr 10, 1664, he represented Midwout in the Landtdag, a general assembly called by the burgomasters, which was held at the city hall in New Amsterdam, to consider the precarious condition of the country.

On Aug 28, l664, Director Peter Stuyvesant addressed a letter to the Dutch towns on Long Island, calling upon them "to send every third man to defend the Capital from the English now arriving at the Narrows." Jan Strycker answered for Midwout that it was impossible to comply with his demands as "we must leave wives and children seated here in fear and trembling, which our hearts fail to do -- as the English are themselves hourly expected there."

In 1665, he was one of the representatives in the Hempstead Convention.

On Aug 18, 1673, he attended the Council of War in Fort William Hendrick and was elected "schepen."

On Oct 25, 1673, Captain Jan Strycker was appointed in charge of the militia for the town of Midwout (Flatbush), Long Island. (New York Colonial Muster Rolls 1664-1775, Vol 1, page 188, Annual Report of the State Historian, page 384)His brother Jacobus administered the oath and installed him into office.

On Mar 26, 1674, he and 12 others were named to representMidwout in a conference to be held in New Orange (now Albany) to confer with Governor Colve on the state of the Country. (Caspar Steynmets was also one of the thirteen.)

In 1675, he was taxed for 3 persons, 4 horses, 22 cows, 2 hogs, and 30 morgen of land and valley.

On Oct 10, 1677, Jan Strycker certified that he was 64 years old and had the occupation of armoror (gunsmith).

In Sep, 1687, he took the oath of allegiance in Kings County, declaring that he had been in this country 35 years.

He was buried in the rear churchyard at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Church Lane (now Church Avenue), presently a ghetto area.

Members of the National Society, Daughters of the American Colonists, who claimed Jan Strycker as their ancestor for membership, include Miss Katharine Naomi Stryker, membership number 911, Mrs. Sarah Wilson Allen, 1087, Miss Loretta Schenck, 2437, Mrs. Helen Stryker Pursel, 8510, and Miss Mildred Tulley, 10364.

The children of Jan Strycker and Lambertje Roelofse Seubering were:

1. Altje, b. ca. 1632, m. Abraham Jorise Brinckerhoff on May 20, 1660
2. Jannetje, m. 1st, Cornelius Jansen Berrien in1652; 2nd, Samuel Edsall in 1689
3. Garrit Janse, b. 1652, m. Styntie Gerritse Dorland on Dec 25 or 28, 1683, d. 1695. 4 children
4. Angenietje, b. ca. 1650, m. 1st, Jan Cornelise Boomgaert (Bougaert) in 1674; 2nd, Claes Tysen
5. Hendrick, m. Catherine Kip on Feb 11, 1687, d. Jan 23, 1687/8
6. Eytje (Ida), m. Stoffel Probasco, d. Sep 29, 1687
7. Pieter, b. Nov 1, 1653, m. 1st, Annetje Barends on May 29, 1681; 2nd, Aertje Bogart, d. Jun 11, 1741. 11 children
8. Sarah, b. 1655, m. Joris Hansen Bergen, Sr. on Aug 11, 1678

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http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=treeforst...

Jan Strijcker was the son of Gerrit Stryker and Altje Lucasdochter.

Jan Strijcker was born in 1617 at Dwinglo, Runien, Netherlands.

Jan Strijcker was born circa 1615 at Ruinen, Drenthe, Netherlands. 

He married Lambertje Seubering, daughter of Roeloff Lucassen Seuberinge, circa 1631.

Jan Strijcker married Swaentje Jans on 30-Apr-1679 at Flatbush, Kings County, New York.

Jan Strijcker married Teuntje Teunis on 31-Mar-1687.

Jan Strijcker died on 3-Mar-1697 at Midwout, Kings County, New York.

He was also known as Jan Stryker. He immigrated in 1652 to New Amsterdam, New York County, New York. On 1654 oversaw the builidng of the Dutch Church at Midwout.

www.conovergenealogy.com/ancestor-p/p199.htm#i35540

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About the Picture of Jan Strycker, from a book called An Album of New Netherland by Maud Esther Dilliard:

"The original painting on canvas was exhibited by Mr. T. B. Clarke at the Union League Club, New York, in March 1924 and the same year at the opening exhibition in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting is signed on the front, Aetatis 38, 1655. The hair is dark brown, the eyes brown, the coat black, the background a warm gray-brown.

"The back of this portrait, which was painted by Jacobus Strycker in 1655, once bore the inscription: 'Given to Altje by her father Jacobus Gerritsen Striker, who, himself, drew this likeness of his brother Jan.' This was signed by Johannes Coerten Van Voorhees, nephew of Altje's husband, Abram Coerten Van Voorhees of Flatlands, Long Island."

Also, at the bottom of the picture that I (Tim Morse) scanned, it is written:

'Jan Strycker. By Jacobus Gerritsz Strycker (?), dated 1655'

'Courtesy of the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust'

This picture is currently in storage at the National Gallery of Art in Washington,DC. When a member of the Stryker family asked if they would be able to view the portrait of Jan Strycker when they visited the NGA, this is the response they received from the NGA:

"The painting that you asked about is currently in storage at the Gallery, and will not likely be on view any time in the future. Although it entered the Gallery's collection in 1947 identified as a portrait of Jan Strycker by Jacobus Gerritsen Strycker, extensive research by our curators in the 1950s and 1960s led to the conclusion that neither the sitter nor the artist could be identified. In 1969 both the attribution and title were officially changed, and scholars continue to be uncertain as to the nationality of the unknown artist. The books that you have probably seen in which the sitter and the painter are identified were all published prior to the change."

So this may or may not be what Jan Strycker actually looked like.

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From the book "Genealogical and Personal Memorial of Mercer County, N.J." by F.B. Lee:

"The Strycker family is of most remote antiquity. Proof has been brought from Holland of the family having remained on the same estates near the Hague and near Rotterdam for full 800 years prior to the coming of the first member to this country in 1652. The following facts, viz: the ducal coronet on the crest and the family being traced far back to the latter part of the 8th Century, prove that the progenitors were among the great military Chieftains of the Netherlands who were created dukes, counts, and barons by Charles the Bald, in order to bring some form of government out of the chaos of those times long before the Advent of the Dutch republic. Many legends are told of this powerful family in those warlike days, one particularly accounting for the three boar's heads on the shield."

So the following explains the Strycker Coat-of-Arms (from the same book, page 50)

"There is a legend in the family that during the 12th Century, the brothers by this name were very clannish and constituted a very strong body of valiant men able and ready to defend their own rights with their own good swords. A jealousy of the most bitter kind broke out between them and another family equally renowned for prowess in combat. On one occasion the Van Stryker family received an invitation to a great feast at which it was proposed to come to some final settlement of the feud which existed between these rival parties. They accepted, at the same time suspecting some treachery. The secret was discovered beforehand and a plan arranged to meet it. The feast began and in the middle of it the servants of the host placed upon the table three boar's heads. This was the signal agreed upon for the extermination of the Van Stryker family. They however rallied quickly to a certain portion of the room, and were terrible when they acted thus on the defensive and turned the plot with deadly effect upon their opponents. This tradition has come down through the family, and may account for the boar's heads which appear on the Coat-of-Arms. The motto of the family which in English means 'most terrible at bay' has been Latinized 'In Extremis Terriblis' and although it still preserves the legend referred to is of little value historically, as few if any Dutch families retain the Motto, even though it may have been hereditary with those who first adopted it. It is understood it is never given with the Coat-of-Arms in Holland."

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I (Tim Morse) have more information forthcoming about the Strycker family, and Jan in particular. You can view a copy of the book referred to above by F.B. Lee just by going to Google and typing in the full name "Genealogical and Personal Memorial of Mercer County". Google has a scanned copy from the University of Virginia library. There are two volumes, and all this information is from volume 1. You can even search for Jan Strycker, or any of the other Strycker/Stryker family mentioned right there in the Google book copy.

Strycker, Jacobus Gerritsen: Artist. Born in 1619. Farmer, trader, magistrate, and "limner".

Born in Ruinen, province of Drenthe, in the Netherlands. His wife was Ytie Huybrechts, possibly related to the lady of the same surname, whose daughter at about the same time married Titus van Rijn, the son of a greater "limner," Rembrandt.

Stryker came to the New Netherland in 1651, a gentleman of considerable means and decided culture, and after a successful career died in 1687. We knew something of his office holding; he was Burgher in 1653 and afterwards Alderman of New Amsterdam, and also Attorney General Sheriff of the Dutch towns on Long Island up to August 1673.

Very little of his work as an artist is known. three of his portraits have been identified.

He left a son, Gerrit, who became Sheriff of Kings' County in 1688, and a brother, Jan, who also left descendants.

Compiler: Faye West, Edmonton, Alberta