Jurian (George) Haff

Centennial History of Missouri By Walter Barlow Stevens, pg 423

Jurian Haff, who was one of the soldiers of Holland who served under the Dutch

West India Company in the conquest from the Portuguese of the Province of Brazil

in South America which, for a time, was under the Dutch flag. The records of the

old Dutch Church of Brooklyn state that the said Jurian, which is Dutch for George

Haff, was from Augsburg, which is a city in Swabia, now the southern part of Bavaria

in Germany. The Swabians were the German Protestants. Augsburg was the home

of Martin Luther. It appears that Jurian Haff's father migrated from Swabia to

Holland out of religious sympathy. These records show that Jurian Haff was field

trumpeter of the States of the United Netherlands under Captain Claassen and served

under Count John Maurice of Nassau-Seigen, governor-general of the Dutch Empire

of Brazil at Fort Antonio, at the mouth of the river Parahyba de Norte, which was

changed to the name of Fort Marguerite in honor of the sister of Count Maurice.

Jurian Haff was honorably discharged from service on June 23, 1649, in Brazil. His

wife was Teuntie Straetsman, widow of Jan Meyer, and it seems that she was Jurian's

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second wile. By her he had one son, Lawrence, who was born in 1649. Jurian evidently

died shortly afterwards and about 1654 his widow migrated to Brooklyn, New York,

then Breucklyn, New Amsterdam, which was a Dutch colony at that time. It seems

she had a sister there and that Jurian Haff also had a sister there. Probably while

in the service of the Dutch Company he had been there, also. She married again

at Brooklyn and died at Gowannus, Long Island, October 19, 1662, leaving her son

Lawrence, about thirteen years of age, a ward of the Dutch church.