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THE SICKLES FAMILY.
THE SICKLES FAMILY had much to do
with the early settlement of Hudson and Bergen Counties. Zacharias
Sickles, the common American ancestor of the family, was a native
of the City of Vienna, Austria, who soon after reaching manhood
drifted to Amsterdam, Holland, where he entered the military
service and was sent with a fleet on a cruise to Curacoa, where
he remained until 1655. In the service he attained the rank of
Adelborst or Cadet. In 1655 Governor Stuyvesant paid a visit
to the island where Sickles was on duty. The latter accompanied
the Governor to New Amsterdam and soon after attached himself
to the garrison of Fort Orange (Albany). In 1658 he became a
tapster of New Amsterdam and upon the surrender by the Dutch
to the British in 1664 he married Anna, daughter of Lambert Van
Vaelkenburgh, and went to work to gain a livelihood as a carpenter.
In 1676 he was elected "town herder," which office
he held for thirteen years on a salary of 18 gelders a head for
the season. He was appointed rattle-watch, so called from the
rattle used to give warning in making his nightly rounds. He
was also for some time crier to call the people together on needed
occasions, and porter or keeper of the city gates, to close them
at night and open them in the morning.
In 1669 he purchased a lot of land
in Bergen, N. J., on which his eldest son, Robert, settled. The
children of this son scattered through Bergen County, where many
of Zacharias's descendants still reside. He had nine children,
the eldest of whom was Robert, who married Gertrude Reddenhause
and located at Bergen, where he was a prominent resident, and
left a large family. His son William, born in October, 1704,
married Elizabeth Cooper, and removed to Rockland County, N.
Y., from which locality his numerous descendants spread south
into Bergen County, where their descendants are still found.
Source: Genealogical
History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey, Editor,
Cornelius Burnham Harvey, The New Jersey Genealogical Publishing
Company, 1900, page 179-180. |
