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THE EDSALL FAMILY
THE EDSALL FAMILY are still numerous
in both Bergen and Hudson Counties. The founder of the family
in America was Samuel Edsall, a native of Reading in Berkshire,
England, where he was born about 1630. He was a hatter by trade,
and came to America early in the spring of 1655 (as is said),
settling first at New Amsterdam. There, on May 29, 1655, he married
(1) Jannetie Wessels, then a belle of the city, whose mother
kept a tavern in Pearl Street, celebrated for burgomasters' dinners.
In April, 1657, Edsall was made a small burgher. From New Amsterdam
he went to Newtown, L. I. In 1663 he volunteered his services
in the Esopus Indian War, and was made a Sergeant. On October
6, 1664, he, with Richard Nichols, bought of Governor Phillip
Carteret a tract called Nipnichsen on the Kill Von Kull in Hudson
County, containing about 400 acres. He sent over four men to
Bergen that year to help fortify the "towne." In 1668,
with Nicholas Varlet, he bought from the Indians 1,872 acres
of land fronting on the Hudson River, bounded west by Overpeck
Creek, and extending northward from the town bounds of Bergen
to what is now Leonia in Bergen County. After the surrender of
the Dutch to the English he took the oath of allegiance to the
British king and removed from Newtown to Bergen. There was a
member of Carteret's Council from 1668 to 1672. In 1668 he was
appointed a commissioner to assess and collect a tax to resist
invasion, and was made treasurer of the fund. He joined James
Bollen and John Berry in petitioning the Dutch government that
the books and papers of New Jersey be delivered to Secretary
Bayard, September 12, 1673, and was one of the commissioners
sent by Bergen to the same government. In 1689 he removed to
New Amsterdam and became a partisan of Governor Leisler, a member
of the Committee of Safety, and of the Court of Exchequer. He
was caught in the net with Leisler, and put on trial for high
treason, of which he was honorably acquitted. In 1699 he removed
to Queens County, L. I., where he was Justice of the Peace in
1699, and where he died. He married (2) August 27, 1689, at Flatbush,
L. I., Janneite Stevens, widow of Cornelius Jansen Beory, of
Newton.
His issue were Ann, 1656; Judith,
1658; John, 1660; Ann; Julia; and Richard. Of these Ann married
William Laurence, of New York, and Julia married Benjamin Blagge,
of Plymouth, England. John settled north of his father's farm
on the Hudson. Blagge and Laurence by the deed of Edsall became
the owners of part of his Hudson River farm, and the remainder
passed to the ownership of the De Groots, Days, Smiths, and other
settlers of Bergen County. Some of Edsall's descendants are still
living on portions of the farm bought from the savages by their
first common ancestor.
Source: Genealogical
History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey, Editor,
Cornelius Burnham Harvey, The New Jersey Genealogical Publishing
Company, 1900, pages 163-164. |
