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BIOGRAPHY OF
THE WESTERVELTS
THE WESTERVELTS (or Von Westervelts, as they once called themselves)
are another of the very prolific families of Bergen and Hudson
Counties. Should the traveler happen to journey through the
Province of Overyssel in Holland, about a mile east of the coast
of the Zuyder Zee, on the highroad from Deventer to Groningen,
he will pass through a considerable town called Meppel. In the
middle of the seventeenth century this town was a mere hamlet.
Three miles east was the town of Zwolle, where Thomas à
Kempis for half a century resided, where he wrote his famous
book, In Imitation of Christ, and where he died about
1471. East of Meppel the country for miles was then a desert
waste of lowland. To-day this has been bought up by humanitarian
societies to secure from beggary able bodied laborers and their
families by locating them on these lands and employing them in
bringing the lands to productiveness. South and west of Meppel
were rich, green pasture lands. Near Meppel lived William and
Lubbert Lubbertsen, two sturdy brothers, tillers of the soil,
and raisers of cattle.
In April, 1662, these two brothers joined the throng of emigrants
which was then heading from Amsterdam to America to better their
condition in life. William, with a wife and four children, and
Lubbert, with a wife and six children, reached New Amsterdam
about the first of May, 1662, in the Dutch West India ship "Faith."
William repaired to New Utrecht, L. I., and Lubbert, with his
wife, Gessie Roelofs Van Houten, and family, went to Flatbush,
where a considerable Dutch settlement had been collected. At
Flatbush, Lubbert bought a house and lot December 15, following
his arrival, and went to farming, assisted by his boys. He soon
became an extensive and prosperous farmer, bought much land,
and owned a number of slaves. Upon his death, near the close
of the century, his sons Lubbert, Jr., Roeloff, John, and Juriiaen
went to Bergen County, N. J., and settled. Lubbert, Jr., who
married Hilletje Pouwless, resided for a time in what is now
Jersey City, and then removed to the vicinity of what is now
Highwood, N. J., where he died and his wife remarried. Roeloff
and John (who married respectively, Ursolena Stimets and Magdalena
Van Blarcom) bought lands south of Highwood and in the vicinity
of Cresskill, N. J. The Indians disputed their titles, but subsequently
the sachems signed releases. Juriaen, who married (1) Gessie
Bogert, (2) Antjie Banta, and (3) Cornelia Van Voorhis, bought
and settled on lands on the Hackensack and Saddle Rivers. Lubbert's
two daughters, Margretie and Mary, married and settled at New
Hackensack. The descendants of these four sons and two daughters
of Lubbert Lubbertsen, intermarrying with the Demarests, Naugles,
Harings, Blawvelts, and others, became a mighty host, and are
scattered throughout Bergen, Hudson, and Passaic Counties, N.
J., and Rockland County, N. Y.
Source: Genealogical History of Hudson and Bergen Counties,
New Jersey, Editor, Cornelius Burnham Harvey, The New Jersey
Genealogical Publishing Company, 1900, page 99-100.
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