Catharina Brett

see wikipedia

• "Catheryna Rombout Brett was born in New York, New York, baptized 25 May 1687. She was the daughter of Helena Teller Bogardus Van Ball Rombout and Francis Rombout."
• "In November of 1703, at the age of sixteen, Catharyna Rombout married Roger Brett, who had arrived in the new world with Lord Cornbury, governor of New York. Brett was a well respected lieutenant in the British Royal Navy. After their marriage, the Bretts moved into the Rombout family home, which consisted of a large house and spacious grounds on lower Broadway, not far from the present site of Trinity Church on Broadway. Roger Brett was a vestryman of Trinity Church from 1703 to 1706."
• Catharyna inherited around 28,000 acres of the so-called Rombout Patent
• Roger Brett drowned in the Hudson River, leaving Catheryna a widow at age 31 with the surviving three of her four sons. The homestead is notable as the residence of this woman who as a widow organized with twenty-one men the first produce cooperative in the Hudson River highlands. The homestead was subsequently occupied by her descendants until 1954, spanning a total of seven generations."