Back to Kuykendall Genealogy IndexHISTORY OF THE WAYNE MARION KUYKENDALL FAMILY
written upon the 50th anniversary of
the wedding of Wayne & June Kuykendall
April 9, 1995
Our first ancestor to come to America was Jacob Luurszen, also known as Jacob Luerszen, also known as Jacob Luyersen van Wageningen, and later known as Jacob Luurszen Van Kuykendaal. The name Van Kuykendall was not used in referring to him until about fifty years after he arrived in this country, some forty years after his death.
Jacob was from the region of Gelderland, Holland, in the vicinity of Wageningen, somewhat near the city of Arnhem. It is possible that they lived on a high hill on the bank of the Rhine River, which commands a fine view of the river. This hill is now called Wageningsche Berg, and may have been once referred to as Kijk-in-'t-dal. The word Kijk is an Old Dutch word for "view", and is pronounced Kuyk or Kike. In the Gelderland dialect the place may well have been spelled Kuykendal or Kuukendal.
Jacob and his brother Urbanus, and possibly a sister Neeltje Urbanus, came to New York (then known as New Amsterdam) from Holland, Urbanus arriving on the ship de Princess. Urbanus signed his name Urbanus Luursen van Wageningen, and his brother Jacob (our ancestor) signed his name Jacob Luyersen van Wageningen in a power of attorney. The term "van" meant "from the region of", and helped to distinguish them in a day when nobody had middle names, and few had given last names. In giving the reason why the Van Kuykendall was not used in the latter half of the 1600's, it has been said that "people were averse to using the family name, unless the person occupied a very prominent position." The name Luurszen was a patronym, meaning a "father name". The father of Jacob and Urbanus was named Luur, the last of our direct ancestors to have spent his life in Holland. We do not have a record of the name of their mother. Urbanus had a wife, Janette Claes, who on September 16, 1648 describes herself as the "widow of Urbanus Luyersen Van Wageningen, in his life time a stone mason, in the service of the West India Company." Urbanus and his wife had a son, evidently born after his father's death, named Urbanus Urbanuszen, who was baptized on December 2, 1648. There seems to have been one other immigrant from Holland who could have been related, named Charsten or Christaen (Christian) Luyerszen. On April 11, 1664 at the first of his three marriages, it was stated that he was from Stift, Bremen. Charsten was the father of at least thirteen children, and seems to have lived for some years in New Amsterdam (New York), and then moved to Esopus (Kingston).
In the old baptismal registers of the Dutch Reformed church during the first hundred years in America, the name Kuykendall is spelled in at least nine different ways, and frequently the same individual's name is spelled in from two to four different ways. A clerk wrote the names in the registers, but we find that people in that day did not put as strong an emphasis on proper spelling as we do today. Many people were illiterate, and those who could write were not held strictly to rules of spelling, many simply spelling phonetically. We find the reason for variant spellings of Kuykendall in those days was the same as the reason for today's misspellings, with the possible exception of the oft-used current excuse of "computer error".
In 1646 our ancestor Jacob, and his brother Urbanus came to New Amsterdam (New York City), and then on to what is known today as Albany, New York. It was started as Fort Orange, with the first settlers arriving and the fort being built in 1624, near the present foot of Madison Street, Albany. The first settlers were Walloons, refugees who had fled to Holland from France and Flanders to escape persecution. Two years later hostile Indians broke up their settlements.
In 1629 Killaen Van Rensselaer, a wealthy diamond merchant in Holland, sent over other settlers to develop and improve a large tract of land he had acquired, lying up and down and back of the Hudson River. Van Rensselaer's place of business was Amsterdam, and his home was in Gelderland, the same province in the Netherlands the Kuykendall ancestors came from. The Walloons of Fort Orange were a Protestant people who had come to America seeking religious freedom and an opportunity to make homes. To meet their religious and social needs, the Dutch Reformed Church, in 1642, sent over from Amsterdam a pastor, Dominie Magapolensis, for their church people at Fort Orange.
In 1643 Fort Orange was described thus:
"There are two things in this settlement, which is called Renssellaerswick, as if to say settlement of Rensselaers, who is a rich Amsterdam merchant.
"First, a miserable little fort called Fort Orange, built with logs, with four or five pieces of Breteuil cannon, and as many swivels. This has been reserved and is maintained by the West India Company. This fort was formerly on an island, which the river makes; it is now on the main land, toward the Hiroquoise, a little above the said island.
"Second, a colony sent over here by this Renssalaer, who is a Patroon. This colony is composed of about a hundred persons, who reside in twenty-five or thirty houses built along the river, as each found convenient. In the principal house lived the Patroon's agent. The minister has his apart, in which service is performed. There is also a kind of Bailiff here, whom they call the Seneschal, who administers justice. Their houses are all merely of boards and thatched. There is as yet no mason work except their chimneys. The forests furnishing them many large pines, they make boards by means of their mills, which they have for that purpose."
Jacob, our first ancestor to land in America, was married to Stijntje Wiggersz in Amsterdam, Holland on August 28, 1638. They came to Fort Orange about the winter of 1646 to work for the Dutch West India Company, which he did until the time of his death on April 29, 1655. It is not known what Jacob's trade was, but it is likely that he was a stone mason, as the records show that his brother Urbanus was skilled as a stone mason. In 1650 Jacob's child, Luur (named after Jacob's father), was baptized. Although few of the early birth dates are recorded, typically children were baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church when they were about a month old, depending upon the convenience of taking the child to the church building. Luur's parents had him baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church of New Amsterdam, which is today called the Collegiate Church of New York City. The stone church building in which Luur was baptized was erected in the summer of 1642, having a pulpit and bell that had been shipped over from Holland. Luur may have had a sister, Styntie Luiers, who was born in America during the six years that Luur's father lived after Luur's birth.
Jacob received a grant from the Lord Director General and Council for a lot for building purposes dated October 25, 1653. It was located in Fort Orange, actually adjoining the fort on one side of the property. Here he had a home and a little garden. In 1656 John de Decker, the Patroon of the colony of Rensselaer (formerly called Fort Orange, now called Albany), with the other church people, decided to erect a building that would serve as a fort in time of Indian outbreaks, and as church in time of peace. Accordingly they raised a thousand dollars and proceeded to build what was called the "Blockhouse Church." It was fitted up with loop holes from which to shoot at hostile foes, in case they had uprisings. Three small cannons were mounted at the corners, in such way as to command the roads leading past the church. The next year, the people decided to order a new bell and pulpit from Holland. It seems to have been a wise investment, as the same pulpit has been in use there ever since, in the First Reformed Church of Albany, built on the same spot. During that winter of 1656-57 Jacob died, and his property was sold. His wife and son moved to Rochester (now Accord) in the Esopus country (the region around Kingston, N.Y.).
When their child Luur, was about thirty years old, he married, in the year 1681, at Kingston, the daughter of a Hollander who lived in Esopus, her name being Grietje Tack, daughter of Aert Pietersen Tack and Annetje Ariens. The Tack family came from Holland at a very early day and settled at Esopus. Some of the family descendants lived there several generations. In 1919, there was still standing in Stone Ridge, a little town ten miles from Kingston, a hotel that was built by Johannes Tack, the great grandson of Cornelius Tack, the father-in-law of Luur.
Luur and his wife Grietje continued to reside in the vicinity of Rochester (which was a little town about fifteen miles from Kingston, the town is now called Accord, and not to be confused with the present-day city of Rochester, N.Y.), until about the year 1700. During this time they had seven children, all of whom were baptized at Kingston. On April 2, 1682, their first child was baptized. She was named Styntie (Dutch for Christina), after Grietje's mother, the girl's grandmother. She was the first Kuykendall girl to be born in America.
Their second child, baptized a year later on August 12, 1683, was our ancestor, Jacob. Their third child, named Johannes, evidently died very young, and they named their fifth child Johannes also, as was a common practice of the time (known as "handing the name down"). Their eighth of eleven children was baptized at Minisink, thus fixing the date of their move to Minisink as about 1695-98. Now we have Luur, a man of about fifty, moving with his wife, one daughter and five sons, from the old and thickly settled area of the Hudson River valley to the far western wilderness of the Minisink country on the Delaware River. Minisink is ten miles below the present site of Port Jervis, in Sussex County, New Jersey.
Luur moved to the Minisink country shortly after the first settler went there. That first settler was William Tietsoort, who had been living at Schenectady, N.Y., until the Indians attacked and burned the town, whereupon he fled to Esopus (Kingston), where his brother Abraham lived. The Indians in the Minisink country were friendly with the whites at that time, and they invited William Tietsoort, because he was a blacksmith, to go to their country and start a blacksmith shop. The Indians deeded a tract of land to William Tietsoort, and never afterwards disputed the title of it. Luur's son Jacob (our ancestor, who was in his early teens at the time his family moved to Minisink), later married William Tietsoort's niece, the daughter of Abraham Tietsoort, whom he may have met as a child when his lived in Esopus.
Jacob became a fur trader with the Indians, and Minisink was a famous fur trading point. Jacob learned to speak the Indian's languages, and often took extended trading trips among the Indians along the Delaware, Mohawk and Susquehanna rivers and their tributaries. It is interesting to note that seventy-five years after the first settlers arrived in the Minisink country, it was still being described as a frontier wilderness. When the colonies of New York and New Jersey were trying to establish where their common boundaries lay, they sent Commissioners who "having made inquiry of several Indians, and particularly of Solomon Davis and Jacob Kuykendall (two Indian traders), about the branches of the river Delaware, that were between the said river, called the ffishkill and Susquehanna. The said Solomon Davis and Jacob Kuykendall, having, as well as those Indians, often traveled between those rivers, from one to the other, and therefore knew perfectly well what branches were to be found proceeding out of the Delaware. The Commission appointed Maj. John Harrison to travel over from the ffishkill to Susquehanna, who took with him Jacob Kuykendall and an Indian for guides, and soon went on his journey, which he undertook on foot."
Jacob's wife, Adrientjen Tietsoort, bore him a daughter, Margrita, in 1709, and passed away soon after. Jacob's elder sister, Styntie, married Jurian Westfall the next year. Jacob married a second time, to a "maiden" named Sara Westvaal, in Minisink on February 3, 1712. Jacob joined his former brother-in-law in purchasing a 500-acre tract of land that lay both on Minisink Island and on the New Jersey side of the river where the flourishing village of Minisink grew up. They sold part of this tract of land, and divided the remainder between them, probably moving onto this land about 1714. Jacob's parents, Luur and Marguerita Van Kuykendall, were both living as late as 1720, meaning that Luur lived to be at least seventy years of age.
Sara bore to Jacob five sons and four daughters, of whom the second to last child, Nathaniel, is our ancestor. Nathaniel was baptized on October 6, 1728, the same year that Benjamin Franklin started what came to be known as the "Saturday Evening Post" in Philadelphia. The books in the homes in those days were mostly old heavy Dutch bibles and "psalm books", with occasionally a book of some other kind. The children in the area were instructed in the Dutch language. Even into the 1800's the language of the area was Dutch. When some Kuykendalls moved west into Pennsylvania, their children had a hard time adjusting to school being conducted in English. Many descendants of the Kuykendalls who lived in North Carolina thought that their ancestors came directly to North Carolina from Holland, because they spoke Dutch as their mother tongue. Many still do not realize that four generations lived in America speaking Dutch.
There were Indians all around them, but when Jacob was living in Minisink they were friendly and lived in peace with the white settlers. The children of the Indians and whites played, hunted and fished together and usually got along in a friendly and neighborly way. In 1731 Jacob was one of several who formed an association to purchase a tract of land that was, according to the deed, to be for a "burying ground and a schule house forever." At this time, Minisink was noted to be the first village in Sussex county, New Jersey, with a store, blacksmith shop and tavern. We also know that there were a number of residences, and a fort and trading post of quite extensive note. The ground was very fertile, and remains so today. The forests were quickly cleared, with the earliest settlers planting vegetables, corn, wheat, oats, and orchards. They soon had an abundance of apples, and a large quantity of cider was made for home use and for sale or exchange at Esopus (Kingston).
That same year of 1731, Jacob and his wife Sara sold out their interests at the Minisink Islands. We next find him a little lower down the Delaware River on the Pennsylvania side. He was one of four men, (including one of his sons), who sent a petition in 1741 to Thomas Penn, the Governor of Pennsylvania, protesting the aggressions of whites who were said to be crowding over upon and taking the Indian's lands. He was described as one of the principal settlers of the area, and a champion of the Indians in the case of the swindle perpetrated against the Indians in the so-called "Indian Walk Treaty". Jacob died around 1746, being about sixty-three years of age, leaving his wife Sara a widow. When their third child Jacobus (James) died in 1747, he left a sizable estate, with directions to maintain his mother out of it.
Sometime after 1741, most likely around 1747, our ancestor Nathaniel, along with his brothers Johannes (John), Benjamin and Abraham, his uncle Matthew, and at least one married sister, Dina (Diana) Decker, moved to Virginia, in what is now Hampshire county, West Virginia, on the South Branch of the Potomac river, about six miles above the town of Romney. Romney was laid out under the direction of Lord Fairfax, the surveying and platting being done by George Washington, then a young man. A deed shows that Nathaniel Kuykendall purchased 347 acres of land upon the "Wappacoma," or the Great South Branch of the Potomac River from Lord Fairfax. The deed is dated June 15, 1749, the same date as on nearly all of the deeds made by Lord Fairfax for lands in the "Northern Neck of Virginia". It is known that a large number of the settlers had already been living upon their lands for several years, some as many as five to seven years. Incidentally, while Nathaniel himself signed his name Nathaniel Van Kuykendall in his early years, he later became the first of our direct ancestors to drop the "Van".
For several years there were no serious difficulties with the Indians, but later, when the French and Indian wars were started up, and for twenty-five years starting in 1754, the Kuykendalls and their neighbors lived in almost constant anticipation of outbreaks during the summertime. In the Journal of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, there is an account of payment made to men in the service against the Indians, on the South Branch of the Potomac in 1755, for supplies furnished by persons living in that region. Coin was so scarce that tobacco was the common medium of exchange, and the greater parts of the bills were paid in this commodity. In the list of payments there is the following:
"To Nathaniel Kerkendale, for 3 steers, appraised to 1200 lbs. Tobacco."
In 1756 Frederick county Virginia was divided, and Nathaniel was chosen as one of the Justices of the new Hampshire County. At twenty-eight he was the youngest member on the bench. He owned at various times numerous large tracts of land and property of various kinds, and was one of the leading men of the community. In those days tobacco was generally cultivated, and Negroes were used in the tobacco fields. Nathaniel's farm adjoined that of his uncle, Matthew, in the "river bottom", which is still fertile land today. Nathaniel died on March 18, 1796, about sixty-eight years of age, and was buried on his farm, a short distance back from the river, overlooking the valley and the mountain beyond. The original stone slab is still there in the old family burying ground. There are also still in existence old buildings built with "arrow slits" to fire out of, and also old slave quarters. The first census of Virginia in 1782 shows that the Kuykendall brothers and their relatives nearly all owned some Negroes.
Nathaniel Kuykendall had three boys and three girls. The second child, Isaac, born July 31, 1766, was our ancestor. He married Jane Calvin. Isaac was a very plain, outspoken man with a strong and striking personality. Though his brothers moved to Indiana together about 1800, Isaac stayed in the valley of the South Branch, becoming prominent among the early settlers. He was connected with various business enterprises, was Captain of the local militia, and was a man of energy. He assisted his father, Nathaniel, in building turnpike roads and stone buildings. In 1789, when he was about twenty-eight years of age, he and his father erected a substantial stone house that is yet occupied and in a good state of preservation. Isaac had a large family that grew up to become respected citizens and left their mark upon the social, business and intellectual development of the country. Isaac died on March 31, 1845, at the age of 79.
Isaac Kuykendall had eight children, the fourth of whom, Luke, born February 15, 1808, was our ancestor. Luke was married twice, the first time to Elizabeth Welch, by whom he had three children. The second marriage was to Ann Eliza Williams, by whom he had five children, including Charles Vause Kuykendall, our ancestor. C. V. was born April 2, 1851, in the stone house built by his grandfather in 1789. When he was a year old his parents moved to Indiana and rented a farm belonging to his mother's uncle, near La Fayette. Here the family remained for five years, and in the spring of 1859 moved over into Illinois, near Danville, about one hundred miles from their Indiana home. They moved through rain and seas of mud to get to their destination in time to put in a crop of corn. They got in the corn all right, raised an immense crop, but the bottom fell out of prices; corn went down to eight cents per bushel and some farmers actually used it for fuel. Pork dropped to the amazing price of a cent and a half per pound. In the fall, Charles' father Luke took what was called "milk sickness" and died at age fifty-nine, leaving five children including eight-year-old Charles. His mother sold her belongings and returned to Virginia. Charles was sent to school taught in a little log schoolhouse, with seats made of split logs that had legs put into the round sides below. He tells of how he sat there trembling in fear of being "licked" by the teacher, for those were the days when "lickin and larnin" were thought to go together. The teacher always had by him, in plain sight of the pupils, an ample supply of the sinews of war, tough hickory sprouts.
The Civil War came on and with it strenuous times. The family lived in disputed territory, where neither side had complete ascendancy, so that the country was overrun by first one party and then the other. Writing of those days, he said:
"I try to forget those days. The events now transpiring in Europe (World War I) bring to mind some of the horrors of that rebellion. I thought we were right at the time, but long since have changed my mind. During the war we lived on my uncle's place on Patterson's Creek. At the close of the war, my mother moved to Moorefield, on the South Branch of the Potomac, one of the prettiest spots on earth.
In the fall of 1868, mother married a man by the name of Simmons who had lived for some years in Oregon, but was back in Virginia, on a visit. I did not want to go (he was seventeen and a half years old), but this grieved my mother so that I consented to accompany the others. We went from where we lived to New York and from there by the way of Panama. The night off Cuba we had the worst thunderstorm I ever have witnessed, it discounting anything I ever saw anywhere. Nine days from New York we reached Panama, nine o'clock in the evening, were aboard the steamer about midnight. We laid over the next day in the bay, the hottest day I ever saw. The voyage was tedious and monotonous, all the worse because we were in a dead calm, with not a ripple on the water. The fifteenth day from Panama we pulled into the Golden Gate, in a dense fog, which came near causing us to have a collision with a clipper ship, but we landed safely twenty-five days after leaving New York. After three days we boarded the John L. Stevens, for Oregon. That craft was the worst old tub that ever ventured to sea. After a tedious and smoky trip along up the coast, we reached the mouth of the Columbia and had to lay outside because of the rough water on the bar. We finally ventured and made it over into the smooth water in the bay. There was a general feeling of relief. At the mouth of the Willamette we transferred to another boat and went on up to Vancouver.
My first winter in Oregon was spent about nine miles above Vancouver, where I attended school three months, and in the spring worked at the salmon fishery of the Hume Brothers. In July, I went to Harney, Oregon, helped to put up and deliver a large amount of hay. Started back in November, found deep snows in the mountains and had a rough time. Took a steamer at The Dalles, and was in Vancouver the evening of the same day. Attended school that winter (1879) taught by E. D. Curtis, worked at the fishery during the canning season in the spring. Later in the season teachers were in much demand, and I concluded to try teaching, applied for a certificate. The school Superintendent asked me three questions and said I would pass, and wrote out a certificate, which I have always regretted I did not save to show my children. I applied for a school in Cowlitz County, Washington, where the school had a hard name, as the last teacher had not been able to control the pupils and keep order. The trustees warned me of conditions and expressed doubt of my ability to manage the pupils, though they thought that my qualifications were all right otherwise. The school was taken on my proposition to try it a month, and if I failed I would step out and there would be no charges for my services. We had order that month, and two terms were taught and I was urged to take the school again, but owing to ill health the offer was declined.
Another term taught later in Clark County, Washington, finished my career as a teacher. I then went to Grand Ronde, Polk County, Oregon, and went to farming. April 24, 1875, I married Miss Eliza J. Davis, and in the fall of the same year went to Yamhill County, in which county I have lived ever since."
Charles Vause and Eliza Jane Davis Kuykendall had twelve children, of whom Lawrence Hugh, born May 25, 1881, is our ancestor. Charles Vause Kuykendall farmed land in the area just to the west of the little town of North Yamhill, now known as Yamhill. His father-in-law, Thomas Crawford Davis, had a donation land claim there, and the land was divided among his children as an inheritance. Charles and Eliza became owners of a piece of the property that bordered on the Pike road. Their son Lawrence married Jennie Grace Sitton and their two sons were born in the farmhouse just to the east of the home that C. V. raised his children in. After the death of both parents, Lawrence and Jennie purchased and moved onto the property that had been C. V.'s home. Of their two sons, Wayne Marion, born April 20, 1922, is our ancestor. Maple Crest Farm, the home his father and grandfather owned on Pike Road, at Yamhill, Oregon, is still in the family.
This article was written by David Wayne Kuykendall. Much of this information was taken from History of the Kuykendall Family by George Benson Kuykendall, M.D., 1917.