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THE MERSELES FAMILY.
THE MERSELES FAMILY is still numerous in Hudson and Bergen
Counties. They trace their lineage to Pieter Marcelisen (Marcells),
a native of the little Town of Beest, near Leerdam, in the province
of Utrecht, Holland. He left Amsterdam in April, 1681, with his
wife, four children (aged, respectively, twelve, six, four, and
two years), and two servants, on the Dutch West India ship "Beaver,"
and arrived at New Amsterdam on the 9th of May of the same year.
The ship's register shows he paid 232 florins passage-money for
the family of eight persons, all of which goes to show that even
then he must have been a man of considerable means. He removed
to Bergen, where he settled, and where his wife died in 1680,
and he followed her in 1681. His issue were James, Jannekie,
Pieter, Merseles, Elizabeth, and Hilldegend. These all married
and remained at Bergen. Peter, the eldest son, died wealthy.
Some of his descendants settled in Rockland County, N. Y., and
in the north end of Bergen County.
Source: Genealogical
History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey, Editor,
Cornelius Burnham Harvey, The New Jersey Genealogical Publishing
Company, 1900, page 172. |
