Rhoda Ogden

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 22 Dec 1822, Litchfield, Litchfield, Connecticut

Notes:

From The Ogden Family in America, Elizabethtown Branch, and Their English Ancestry by William Ogden Wheeler (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1907):

RHODA (Ogden) EDWARDS died at Litchfield, Conn., while visiting friends. She was a remarkable woman, loyal and conscientious. An autobiography of a nephew by marriage has this important entry: "In the summer of 1809 I met my cousin Aaron Burr at the house of our common uncle Hon. Timothy Edwards in Stockbridge....The day after Burr left our uncle's I called at the house to talk over the impressions of this unwonted visit. My aunt was a venerable and pious woman. 'I want to tell you, cousin,' said she, 'the scene I passed through this morning. When Col. Burr's carriage had driven up to the door, I asked him to go with me into the north room, and I cannot tell you how anxious I felt, as I, an old woman, went through the hall with that great man Col. Burr, to admonish him, and to lead him to repentance. After we were by ourselves I said to him: "Colonel Burr, I have a thousand memories associated with you. I took care of you in your childhood, and I feel the deepest concern over your erring steps. You have committed a great many sins against God, and you killed that great and good man General Hamilton. I beseech you to repent, and fly to the blood and righteousness of the Redeemer for pardon, I cannot bear to think of you as being lost, and I often pray most earnestly for your salvation." The only reply he made me,' continued the excellent old lady, 'was, "Oh! aunt, don't feel so badly; we shall both meet in heaven yet; meanwhile may God bless you." He then tenderly took my hand, and left the house.'"

Rhoda married Timothy Edwards on 25 Sep 1760 in Elizabethtown, Essex, New Jersey. Timothy (son of Rev. Jonathan Edwards and Sarah Pierpont) was born on 25 Jul 1738 in Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts; died on 28 Oct 1813 in Stockbridge, Berkshire, Massachusetts; was buried in Stockbridge Cemetery, Stockbridge, Berkshire, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Mary Ogden Edwards was born on 11 Oct 1780 in Stockbridge, Berkshire, Massachusetts; died on 23 Jan 1873; was buried in Spring Forest Cemetery, Binghamton, Broome, New York.

Notes:

Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly during the early runup to the Revolution. Attended the 1765 congress of the American colonies as one of the three delegates from New Jersey, but resigned over procedural differences, causing him to be accused of loyalist sympathies. In the next decade he and his family were active in the Revolutionary cause. In 1776 he was chairman of the Elizabethtown Committee of Safety, and his son Matthias was colonel of the 1st New Jersey Regiment.

Robert married Phebe Hatfield in 1736. Phebe (daughter of Matthias Hatfield and Hannah Miller) was born on 25 Nov 1720; died on 22 Dec 1796. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Robert married Hannah Crane in 1712. Hannah (daughter of Jasper Crane and Joanna Swaine) was born in 1691; died on 30 Oct 1726 in Elizabethtown, Essex, New Jersey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Matthias married Hannah Miller about Jan 1720. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 3 Jan 1732, Elizabethtown, Essex, New Jersey

Jonathan married Rebekah. Rebekah was born in Nov 1648; died on 11 Sep 1723 in Elizabethtown, Essex, New Jersey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Jasper married Joanna Swaine. Joanna (daughter of Samuel Swaine) died on 16 Sep 1720 in Newark, Essex, New Jersey; was buried in Presbyterian churchyard, Broad Street, Newark, Essex, New Jersey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He was a carpenter.

Samuel married Elizabeth Thompson. Elizabeth (daughter of Thomas Thompson) was born about 1675; died on 13 Nov 1747. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From Wikipedia:

John Ogden (1609–1682), known as "The Pilgrim", was an early settler in New England, Long Island, and an original patentee of the Elizabethtown Purchase, "the first English settlement in the Colony of New Jersey."

[...] In Stamford, Connecticut, then called Rippowam, he constructed a dam and grist mill. In 1642 he built "the first permanent stone church in Fort Amsterdam," a Dutch settlement at the southern tip of what is now Manhattan Island. In 1644 he relocated to Long Island, where "he established the first commercial whaling enterprise in America."

In 1665 he became a patentee of the Elizabethtown Purchase in present-day Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he lived until his death in 1682. He is buried in the First Presbyterian Churchyard in Elizabeth.

John married Jane about 1634 in England. Jane died in Elizabethtown, Essex, New Jersey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Jasper married Alice. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

In Waterford 1635, then Wethersfield, then Branford, of which he was a founder and the chief military officer. He was twenty-seven times a deputy from Branford to the general court of New Haven. Later, after his removal to Newark, New Jersey, he was a burgess from Newark to the first General Assembly of New Jersey, 1668.

Notes:

He was a weaver and a boatman. According to Paul Gibson Burton, a journal entry of John Winthrop, Jr., in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, identifies him as a German from Danzig.

Matthias married Maria Melyn on 25 Aug 1664 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut. Maria (daughter of Cornelis Melyn and Janneken Adriaens) was born before 29 Mar 1637 in Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands; was christened on 29 Mar 1637 in Nieuwe Kirk, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; died after Apr 1684. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1694 and 1699

Notes:

She came to New Netherland with her parents in 1641.

Notes:

Called by some "the Godly William Miller," one of the first settlers of Westfield, New Jersey.

Notes:

From Wikipedia, lightly edited:

Cornelis Melyn was an early Dutch settler in New Netherland, and Patroon of Staten Island. He was the chairman of the Council of Eight Men, an early form of representative democracy in the Dutch colony.

Cornelis Melyn was born in Antwerp, then a part of the Spanish Netherlands, where he was baptised at St. Walburga Church September 17, 1600, the son of Andries and Maria (Gheudinx-Botens) Melyn, and grandson of Lambrecht Melyn, of the same place. Both of Cornelis' parents died in 1606. Two guardians, Jacques Melyn and Hans Salomons, were appointed for him and he was taken into the family of his half-brother Abraham Melyn to be raised. When he was about twelve years of age, Cornelis was apprenticed as a tailor.

When Melyn was about 18 years old, the priest of St. Walburga Church issued him a baptismal certificate and a certificate of good conduct. It is possible he left Antwerp at this time for Amsterdam, where he married Janneken Adriaens in 1627. Their marriage certificate lists them both as residing in Amsterdam. By this time, Melyn had changed his occupation, being listed in this certificate as a seemtouwer, a "dresser of the finer and softer leathers".

Cornelis Melyn made at least one voyage to the New World before deciding to settle there, aboard the Dutch West India Company's ship Het Wapen van Noorwegen (The Arms of Norway) in 1638. After returning to the Netherlands, he applied for the Patroonship of Staten Island, which he was granted July 3, 1640. Soon afterwards, he sailed, possibly in the Engel Gabriel (Angel Gabriel), for New Netherland. But the vessel was captured by a Dunkirk raider August 13, 1640, and Melyn was forced to return to the Netherlands.

Melyn sailed once again to New Amsterdam May 17, 1641, aboard the vessel Den Eyckenboom (The Oak Tree) with a new party of colonists, including his wife and children. Also on board was Adriaen van der Donck who would one day be a political ally of Melyn and a fellow victim of Director-General Peter Stuyvesant's persecution. Soon after the Oak Tree's arrival in New Amsterdam, Cornelis Melyn and his party of 41 persons were at work establishing a new colony on Staten Island. June 19, 1642, Melyn received from Director-General Willem Kieft his patent to all of Staten Island except for a farm which had already been allocated to David Pietersen de Vries.

In November 1643, during the bloody conflict with the neighboring Lenape tribes which became known as Kieft's War, Melyn and his colonists were forced to abandon Staten Island. According to his own statement, "I was obliged to flee for the sake of saving my life, and to sojourn with wife and children at the Menatans till the year 1647."

In 1644, his plantation having been destroyed, Cornelis Melyn purchased three adjacent lots near the Dutch fort on lower Manhattan, along the East River near the intersection of the present Broad and Pearl Streets. He settled there with his family for the next three years. As the Dutch colony drifted into chaos and some colonists expressed outrage at what they considered Kieft's ineptitude, the Director-General sought to placate his critics by appointing a council of eight men, with Cornelis Melyn as chairman, to assist him in governing the colony. This body, which was supposed to represent the people of New Amsterdam, was one of the earliest steps toward representative democracy in that colony. The colonists' opposition to Kieft continued, however, and the council demanded his removal in a letter transmitted to the States-General of the Netherlands in October 1644.

Melyn is attributed with having written the "Vertoogh van Nieu Nederland" ("A Tale of New Netherland"), considered one of earliest descriptions of life in colony and condemnation of Dutch West Indies Company policies.

In 1647, when Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to replace Kieft as Director-General, Melyn and Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, acting in name of the citizens of New Amsterdam, brought charges against the outgoing governor, demanding an investigation of his conduct while in office. Recognizing the danger of such actions to his own administration, Stuyvesant refused to consider Melyn and Kuyter's demands and caused them to be tried for lèse-majesté. The case was quickly decided against the defendants, who were sentenced to banishment from the colony.

August 16, 1647, Kuyter and Melyn sailed aboard the Princess Amelia to appeal their convictions to the States-General. Their vessel ran aground off the coast of Wales, but both survived and were able to present their cases in early 1648. The States-General acted favorably upon their appeal and issued a writ of mandamus dated April 28 ordering Director-General Stuyvesant to appear in person, or through his representative, to sustain his judgment against them.

Cornelis Melyn returned once again to New Amsterdam and caused the writ to be presented to Stuyvesant March 8, 1649, at a dramatic meeting in the New Amsterdam church. As Burton describes the confrontation:

Melyn appeared at this meeting and demanded that Their High Mightinesses' Letter and the mandamus be read and explained to the people. In the midst of considerable excitement, Melyn handed the mandamus to Arnoldus van Hardenbergh to be read aloud. Stuyvesant in a rage snatched the mandamus from van Hardenbergh's hands, and in the confusion the seal was torn off. Melyn then offered Stuyvesant a copy of the mandamus, whereupon the latter was induced by some of the bystanders to return the original, which was read, including of course the summons commanding Stuyvesant to enter appearance without delay at the Hague to defend the judgment. Stuyvesant replied: "I honor the States General, and their commission and will obey their commands, and will send an agent to maintain the judgment as it was well and legally pronounced." Melyn demanded a written reply, but this neither Stuyvesant nor his Secretary would give.

Melyn returned to the Netherlands in August 1649. Stuyvesant's representative, Cornelis van Tienhoven, the Secretary of the Colony, also proceeded aboard a different vessel. The case was apparently never brought to a hearing. Melyn returned in 1650 aboard the Nieuw Nederlandsche Fortuyn (New Netherland's Fortune) to resume his attempt to colonize Staten Island, along with a group of about 70 persons. His feud continued with Director-General Stuyvesant, who had him arrested and imprisoned without trial or hearing in 1655. During Melyn's imprisonment, there was another Indian uprising known as the Peach Tree War which destroyed the Staten Island colony. It was soon after this disaster that Cornelis Melyn and family left for the English New Haven Colony, where he took an oath of allegiance to the English crown April 7, 1657. In 1659, he agreed with the West India Company to relinquish his right of Patroonship of Staten Island.

There is no record of Cornelis Melyn's death, but his name ceases to appear in the records of the New Haven colony after 1663 and is not mentioned in the records of the marriages of his two daughters in New Haven August 25, 1664. Melyn's role in history is recognized in a mural in the Staten Island Borough Hall by Frederick Charles Stahr entitled Cornelius Melyn Trades With the Indians.

Cornelis married Janneken Adriaens after 22 Apr 1627 in Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. Janneken died after 2 Apr 1674. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The birthplace given in her marriage certificate is "Myert," which Paul Gibson Burton (citation details below) says "probably is the community now named Hooge en Lage Mierde (Upper and Lower Mierde) which was formerly called Myerdt and is situated in what is known as Kempen Land in the Province of North Brabant, Netherlands, about 14 miles in a generally westerly direction from Eindhoven, and about 2 miles from the present Belgian frontier."