Broer Sinnexon

Broer Sinnexon, born c. 1703, was married in 1724 to Brita, daughter of John Hendrickson and Brita Mattson. They had five children baptized at Holy Trinity Church between 1725 and 1735. On 13 December, 1726, he and the guardian for his younger brothers sold their 50 acre mill tract at "Middleburgh" to John Richardson. On 29 January 1736/7 Broer and his two brothers formally divided the remainder of their grandfather's "Middleburgh" estate, each obtaining 138 acres. Over the next several years, Broer sold all of his share and acquired a lot in Newport in 1744.

Deeply in debt to his brother John, Broer sold his pews in the church to his brother James in September 1744 and announced he was moving to another province. He next appeared in Bladen County, North Carolina, where he was granted land in 1746 on the south side of the Pee Dee River. In the meantime, his brother John sued Broer for a debt of £100, causing the sheriff to confiscate and sell Broer's remaining property in New Castle County. On 19 August 1746, on the petition of his abandoned wife Brita, his eldest son, also named Broer, was bound out to Andrew Morton for four and one-half years.

Meanwhile, on 27 February 1746/7, Brewer Sinnixon married the widow Ann Dewit in Winyaw, South Carolina. She owned 300 acres on the north side of the Wateree River in Craven County, S.C., which had been originally laid out 21 November 1746, and which she sold on 26 March 1756 under the name of Ann Sinnixon. Broer was clearly dead by this time. His property on the Pee Dee River was later claimed by his Falkenberg cousins, who claimed that Broer Sinnexon had died without heirs, except for a son who drowned in Virginia.

This was not entirely true. Broer's first wife, Brita, died of pleurisy on 27 March 1755 in New Castle County at the age of 50 and was buried at Old Swedes Church in Wilmington. Her meager estate was administered by George Patton, who had married her daughter Maria, born in 1733.