User:Etccerc/Van Pelt Family of New York

The Van Pelt Family of New York was one of the original Dutch families to settle in New Amsterdam. '''Anthonus Laenen (1622-1698) was born in OverPelt. a community seated in the Principality of Liege. He' arrived in the city in the fall of 1663. He had five sons, all of whom had children, so the number of Van Pelt households grew quickly. Within thirty years, he was established as a landowner in Brooklyn. One of his sons was a City Magistrate and another was elected to the Colonial Assembly of New York. Anthonus Lanen began acquiring land in New Utrecht, Brooklyn in 1670, substantially adding on to his original holdings. He died in 1698, or about thirteen years after his brother Mathies Laan died.

The Van Pelt surname was not used by the founder in legal documents. Not even in his fourth marriage in 1796 does he call himself Teunis or a Van Pelt. 1 January 1700 is the date the children of Anthonus Lanen, who had adopted the surname Van Pelt to honor the family home of their father, and paternal grandfather Jois Laan, quit claimed their interest in land their father owned and deeded it to their brother Aurt Van Pelt. The family name has been known as Van Pelt every since that date.

Overpelt/Over Pelt was a community in a Principality called Liege that was owned by the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations (HRE) for nearly a thousand years. It wss not extinguishd until after WWI ended and the Emperor disbanded the Ten Circles before he abdicated. Belgium was not formed or recognized as an Independent Kingdom until several years after Napoleon was defeated and sent home to France. By the time the Kingdom of Belgium emerged Anthonus and his brother Mathies were deceased more than 100 years. Therefore I submit Anthonus was not born or raised in Belgium. It did not exist.

The area eventually became known as Van Pelt Manor, and the head of the family lived in the Van Pelt Manor House until 1910, when the property was deeded to the New York City Parks Department for one dollar. The family continued to hold property in the area, collecting ground rents, until gradually selling off pieces of the estate.

The Van Pelts of Van Pelt Manor were part of a group of interrelated landowning families that included the Lotts, the Cortelyous and the Lefferts, among others.

As stated by historians Zabriskie and:

The fulll extent of concentration of wealth in the old-line Dutch families is obscured by the intense intermarriage, “a kind of extended clan” reminiscent of the “Hapsburg marital connections.” This rule of endogamy included the following Dutch patrician pairings

Prominent Family Members
Among the prominent members of the family were:


 * Hon. Jan Teunison Van Pelt (1645-c. 1720) The eldest son of Teunis Jansen, he received land on Staten Island through letters patent of Governor General Anthony Colve in 1673. He was elected four times as Member for Richmond to the New York Colonial Assembly. He established his farm at 'Black Point' Staten Island, an area known for along time as 'Teunisson's Neck'.   His house and grounds were inherited by his daughter Catalyn and her husband Daniel De Hart, a nephew of Gov.-General Stuyvesant. This house, greatly added on to, became known as the 'De Hart House' and stayed in the family until the 1930s. The Van Pelts and the De Harts (the most prominent of which was John De Hart, member of the Continental Congress)frequently intermarried; the adjoinging streets of Van Pelt Avenus and De Hart Avenue in the Mariners' Harbor (Staten Island Railway station) area attest to their prominence on Staten Island.


 * Captain Petrus Van Pelt (1704-1781), Captain of Militia, elected to New York Provincial Congress. His patriotic actions during the early days of the American Revolutin were commemorated by the Daughters of the Revolution who attached a placque to the Van Pelt Manor House after it had been donated to the City of New York: "Van Pelt Manor House, erected 1686, occupied by Peter Van Pelt, an ardent patriot in the Revolutionary War. This tablet presented by Long Island Society, Daughters of the Revolution, 1925."


 * Rev. Dr. Peter van Pelt (1778-1861), religious leader and author who wrote the first History of Staten Island,  and a biography of New York Governor and U.S. Vice-President Daniel D. Tompkins for whom Tompkins Square Park and the Staten Island neighborhood of Tompkinsville is named.

Several of his sons worked in Vanderbilt steamship enterprises. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D06E2DC163EEF33A2575AC2A9609C94629ED7CF http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30915FF3E5E107A93C2AA178BD95F4D8485F9&scp=24&sq=%22Van+Pelt&st=p http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9804E6DC1239E033A25757C2A96F9C94619ED7CF
 * Captain Jacob Van Pelt (c.1795-1881), Business associate and relative by marriage of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.
 * Architect John Vredenburgh Van Pelt 1874-1962, Professor of Architecture, Columbia University, and designer of several buildings in New York, notably the Nippon Club, St. John Nepucene and Guardian Angel Churches.

He was a grandson of Reuben Van Pelt, and *Catherine Vredenburgh Alward Van Pelt (1819-1886). Catherine was herself a grandaughter of James Caldwell (clergyman), the 'fighting parson' of revolutionary War fame. She was one of the first US missionaries to Africa, having gone to Liberia in 1839 with her first husband, Rev. Jonathon Allard. Her second husband Reuben Van Pelt was a founder of the Elizabethtown Water Co. and a Trustee of the Princeton Theological Seminary.


 * Hon. Tunis Van Pelt Talmage (1831-1906), Elected Member of the New York State Assembly; he had previously been President of the Board of Alderman of Brooklyn, where his father had been Mayor; his brother D.W. Talmage was U.S. Envoy to Venezuela  A captain in the Civil War, he was a prime sponsor of legislation that established Prospect Park, Brooklyn in the Park Slope area. He was the grandfather of Madeline Astor (Mrs. John Jacob Astor IV) a  survivor of the Titanic.


 * Andrew Van Pelt (1894-1980), born: 30 Nov 1894 Director of the New York Central as well as several other railroads. His branch of the family were longtime benefactors to the University of Pennsylvania, and donated funds for the Van Pelt Library and Van Pelt Manor residence Hall. He married a member of the Drexel family of Philadelphia ; the couple were well-known members of the Newport-Palm Beach social circuit'. His son, Charles B. Van Pelt (1922-2003) a Trusts and Estates lawyer, was married to Cynthia Cary Van Pelt Russell. This couple's son is Guy F.C. Van Pelt, New York philanthropist and socialite. Guy Van Pelt is, through his mother's side, a second cousin of the late Diana, Princes of Wales.




 * Judge Frederick van Pelt Bryan (1905-1978) Federal Judge in the Southern District of Manhattan, and Trustee of Columbia University. He presided over several high profile trials of persons such as Adam Clayton Powell Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Costello, and issued a ruling striking down the government's censorship of Lady Chatterly's Lover.'


 * James Van Pelt Ryan (1909-1964), Member, New York Stock Exchange and founder of the Municipal Bond House Park, Ryan Inc. He was a Governor of the Bankers Club of America.


 * Townsend Cortelyou Van Pelt (1837-1910) The last 'lord of the manor' of the Manor House. At his death, the house and grounds were sold to the city for one dollar. A cousin of Treasury Secretary George B. Cortelyou, he was a founder of the New Utrecht liberty pole Association.


 * John V.B. Van Pelt (1847-1904) The last elected Supervisor (Mayor) of New Utrecht prior to its annexation in to Brooklyn in 1894, he was a reform Republican in th mold of Theodore Roosevelt, and successfully defeated the corrupt political machine of 'Boss' Ferguson to win election. Involved in the property development of Van Pelt Manor on old family farmlands.

See "of Cabbages and Kings County, p. 208 for the intertwined aristocracy. p.371 on farm laborers that the Van Pelts used. John D. Van Pelt, Henry T. Van Pelt

Other Descendants
Among the notable descendants of the Van Pelts of Van Pelt Manor are singer Bruce Springsteen and artist Edward Hopper.

Family Landmarks


The family is commemorated in several ways. http://www.syracuse.com/news/nyslushfunds/poststandard/nyc.html- over VP Cemetery)
 * Milestone Park http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/B063/ in Brooklyn is the site of the original Van Pelt Manor.
 * Van Pelt Avenue and
 * the Van Pelt cemetery in Historic Richmondtown pay tribute to the family.

Literary References
http://www.jonathancarriel.com/02/02curious.htm: Great Mischief, Die Fasting. Nancy Drew- Van Pelt Manor http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/631138.The_Clue_of_the_Dancing_Puppet.

http://jameskasmith.blogspot.com/2005_05_22_archive.html Rev. Van Pelt in Gore Vidal's "Burr"

European Origins
Teunis Laenen van Pelt, 'the emigre'came from the village of Overpelt in modern day Belgium, just south of the border with the Netherlands. Church records go back a further three generations for the Laenen family, to the early 1500s. There were several marriages with members of the Van Tuyl family in New York, descendants of immigrant Jan Otters van Tuyl, a member of a landed gentry family from Gelderland, the Netherlands that had fallen on hard times. Through this family, many Van Pelts can trace roots back to Guy of Avesnes, Prince-Bishop of Utrecht and other royal antecedents.

Coat of Arms
Effie Smith, in her history of the family, describes the family coat of arms on display at Van Pelt Manor.

Oscar Florianus Bluemner

Other Van Pelts
Other well-known Van Pelts in American society are NFL stars Brad Van Pelt and his son Bradlee Van Pelt, golfer Bo Van Pelt and Congressman William Van Pelt. It is not clear if they are related to the New York family. Many Dutch families emigrated to the US in the mid-1800s, predominantly to the MidWestern states, who were not related to New Amsterdam colonists although they had the same family name. A number of the 'New York' Van Pelts did move on to Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina by the mid-1800s, however, so it is certainly possible that these individuals noted above could be 'family'.