Henry Jacobs Falkinburg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrick_Jacobs_Falkenberg

New World Roots: Henry Jacobs Falkinburg I

Henry Jacobs Falkinburg was successful as an Indian interpreter and gained the respect of the indigenous inhabitants along the Delaware. He was sought by the arriving Quakers to negotiate land purchases from the natives.

The earliest account of Henry Jacobs Falkinburg is found in the Journal of Jaspar Dankers and Peter Sluyter, Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour of Several American Colonies in 1679-80. The purpose of the "voyage" is outlined in the introduction.

"Upon the liberation of the ecclesiastical interests of Holland from the hierarchy of Rome, there commenced a series of controversies in the reformed church in regard to its government, doctrines and discipline..." {HF1.5}

The text is a rather "folksy" description of the colonial landscape and its people. One of those persons we meet in Dankers' account is Jacob Hendricks (Henry Jacobs Falkinburg). He is living on the east bank of the Delaware River, upstream of the current city of Burlington, in the Colony of New Jersey.

"Before arriving at this village [Burlington], we stopped at the house of one Jacob Hendricks, from Holstein, living on this side....

The house, although not much larger than where we were the last night, was somewhat better and tighter, being made according to the Swedish mode, and as they usually build their houses here, which are block-houses, being nothing else than entire trees, split through the middle, or squared out of the rough, and placed in the form of a square, upon each other, as high as they wish to have the house; the ends of these timbers are let into each other, about a foot from the ends, half of one into half of the other. The whole structure is thus made, without a nail or a spike. The ceiling and roof do not exhibit much finer work, except among the most careful people, who have the ceiling planked and a glass window. The doors are wide enough, but very low, so that you have to stoop in entering. These houses are quite tight and warm; but the chimney is placed in a corner.

My comrade and myself had some deer skins, spread upon the floor to lie on, and we were, therefore, quite well off, and could get some rest. It rained hard during the night, and snowed and froze, and continued so until ... Sunday, and for a considerable part of the day, affording little prospect of our leaving. At noon the weather improved, and ... we accompanied [Jacob Hendricks to Burlington] in the boat.

We went into the meeting of the Quakers, who went to work very unceremoniously and loosely. What they uttered was mostly in one tone, and the same thing, and so it continued, until we were tired out, and went away. We tasted here, for the first time, peach brandy, or spirits, which was very good, but would have been better if it had been more carefully made."

http://home.comcast.net/~drfalken/families/falkinburg_henry1/falkin...

Henry Jacobs FALKINBURG

   * BIRTH: By 1650 in the Duchy of Holstein, which was ruled by Denmark around the time of  his birth.

   * IMMIGRATION:  Arrived in Delaware by 1671. He may have come as early as 1663-1664, when Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam, began actively encouraging Swedes, Finns and perhaps other northern European farmers to immigrate to Delaware. 

   * MARRIAGES: (1) to an unnamed daughter of Sinnick Broer of Deer Point, Delaware by 1672;  (2) to Mary <Unknown>, a Quaker from Swedesboro, New Jersey, about 1700/1701 in Little Egg Harbor.

   * ISSUE:  2 known children - With his first wife, a son Henry (an adult by 1710), who migrated to Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas. With Mary, his second, wife, a son Jacob (see below), who remained in Little Egg Harbor.

   * OCCUPATION: Indian trader and interpreter; inn-keeper; probably also a farmer.

   * RESIDENCE: He was living with  Swedish and Finnish settlers at Deer Point, New Castle, Delaware by May 1671. Located at Lazy Point (opposite present-day Burlington NJ) by 1676/1677. Granted a 200-acre tract of land at the Rancoucus Creek near Burlington in 1681 in recognition of his services as interpreter. His residence was recorded as Matinicunk Island, Delaware River (vicinity of Burlington) in an Indian deed of 1697. He acquired 800 acres at Little Egg Harbor by 1698, becoming the first European settler of that township.  His home plot was  called Down Shore.

   * DEATH: After 1 June 1710, the date he wrote his will. (Est. 1712 in Little Egg Harbor.)  Buried in the Friends Cemetery (Quaker Burial Ground), Tuckerton, New Jersey. **

   Henry Falkinburg's conversion to Quakerism is not recorded. As late as 1688-89, he was listed as a member of the Swedish (Lutheran) Church at Wicaco (now Philadelphia).He must have joined their number before his second marriage to the Quaker woman, Mary circa 1700, or she would have been expelled from the Society of Friends for marrying an outsider.

   ** The date of Henry death remains a mystery, but I'm inclined to accept the estimate of 1710-1712. For unknown  reasons, his will was not probated until 16 June 1743, which has led to its date being cited as 1740 instead of 1710 (in the Calendar of New Jersey Wills, among various other sources)..  The 1710 date is  corroborated by the fact that his son Jacob, born in 1702, was specified in the will as being a minor. See Craig's 1671 Census of the Delaware, p. 72, footnote 245. 

http://www.velardi.info/falkinburg/Falkinburg-chart.htm