Margrietje Gerritsen Cozyns

• Margariet's Baptism record, Reformed Church, New Amsterdam - 1641 May 05; Cozyn Gerritszen, Vroutie Cozyns; Margariet; Jacob Van Curlaer & wife, Barent Dircksz, Rachel Vigne
• She was a widow at the time of her marriage to Jan (John) Haring. Grietje and Jan married in 1662, theirs the first wedding to take place in the newly-built church on Peter Stuyvesants' bouwerie in the Out Ward. (St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery today.) After his death she married for a third time, Daniel deClark, widower of Marie deMoll, on March 4, 1685 in New York Reformed Dutch Church. In 1700, Daniel deClark built an impressive brick-and-stone house in Tappan that George Washington would use as his headquarters three times during the American Revolution; it stands today, known as the DeWint House, named after a later occupant. Grietjie was the daughter of Cosyn Gerritson van Putten and his wife Vroutje. They had four children. Cosyn was born 1608. In 1644 he testified in court that he was about 36 years of age. Cosyn and his wife emigrated to New Netherland in the 1630's. His farm was approached by "Cousin Gerritsen's Wagon Way" known today as Astor Place and 8th Street. He was a farmer, wheelwright and a dabbled in real estate.

Grietje was a brave woman, as she proved in 1655, aged 14 and married to her first husband, a German named Herman Theuniszen van Zell, Grietje having been married off at 13. (Dutch law permitted girls to marry at 12, but this was not common.) Her dowry was land her father owned in the Out Ward, adjacent to land owned by Director-General Peter Stuyvesant. While the land belonged to her husband, Grietje was the one who planted buckwheat on it. One day in August 1655, a horse belonging to a neighbour (Hendrik Pietersen) ran away, then decided to graze in Grietje's field, trampling her ripe cash crop. Livid, she mounted the horse and rode him bareback all the way to Collect Pond, the surrounding area full of swamps and forests. (I live in NYC at the moment: suffice to say, Grietje rode for quite some distance) where she left him. Pietersen demanded that she find and return his horse. She refused. Pietersen took her to court. Remarkably at a time when a woman would have relied on her father or a brother to defend her in court, Grietje defended herself - and won! On 6 September, the court in New Amsterdam not only refused to find her at fault but ordered Pietersen to pay Grietje for her ruined crop - and to find his horse himself. (Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 anno Domini; Berthold Fernow, editor; Baltimore, 1976.)

And she had a good heart: Grietje is on record as having stood as witness to at least five children of freed African slaves baptised in the New York Reformed Dutch Church.

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Apr 21 2016, 19:09:49 UTC
• Reference: WikiTree Genealogy - SmartCopy: Apr 21 2016, 19:14:08 UTC

  ---

  
  

https://gw.geneanet.org/tdowling?lang=en&pz=timothy+michael&nz=dowl...