On 24 Sep 1643 Katherine married
Gysbert Opdyck (5879) , son of
Lodowick op den Dyck (2398) (ca 1565-aft 1615) &
Gertrude Van Wesek, in New Amsterdam Reformed Church. Gysbert op dyck, jm van Wessel & Catharina Smit, jd Uyt Oudt Engelt.
Born ca 1605 in Wesel, Germany. Gysbert was baptized in Church of St. Willitrode, Wesel, on 25 Sep 1605.5 Gysbert died in Kingston, RI aft 1668. Occupation: Brewer.
Gilbert (or Gysbert) Updike (or Opdyck). For more information on his descendantss, see Charles Wilson Opdyke’s The Op Dyck Genealogy, containing the Opdyck--Opdycke--Updyke--Updike America, Albany NY: Weed, Parsons & Co., 1889.5
http://archive.org/details/opdyckgenealogyc1889opdy
Excerpts from The Op Dyck Genealogy, pages 46–84:5
Baptized in Willibrord’s Churcli, Wesel, Germany, Sept. 25, 1605, by his parents Lodowigh op den Dyck and Gertriidt van Wesek. Came before 1638, to New Amsterdam (New York); there married Catherine Smith, Sept. 24, 1643. Remained among the Dutch in New Netherland until the English capture in 1664. During a great part of these thirty years, was an officer of the Dutch West India Company; Commander of Fort Hope, Commissary, one of the Eight Men, Marshal, Tithe-Commissioner, frequently sat in the Council, and assisted in making Indian treaties. Owned a residence on Stone Street, N.Y., the whole of Coney Island (part of which bore his name), a farm at Hempstead and another at Cow Neck, Long Island.
Gysbert signed his name op d Dyck in his two autograph signatures which have come down to us, Jan. 25, 1644, and Aug. 19, 1649; the same form of signature to his deposition on the Hempstead records at Roslyn, April 3, 1659, is probably also in his own hand. This is the very form in which his father’s name was written at the baptism of Gysbert in Wesel. The Pastor at Wesel informs us that this d always stood for den, thus making the op den Dyck which Gysbert's ancestors had been called in Wesel since 1283, and probably earlier. The Dutch Church records in New York call him often op ten Dyck, which also was a frequent form at Wesel. The Dutch documents and official records spell his name as op Dyck, or more frequently Opdyck; the latter form has been followed by the translators and the historians, and it will be followed by us as it was doubtless the name by which Gysbert was generally known among the Dutch here. His Rhode Island descendants, associating with only English-speaking people, wrote their name Updick, and finally Updike; and they wrote Gysbert in its English form, Gilbert.
The New England books describe him as “a German physician of some celebrity who settled on Lloyd’s Neck, L.I., and came to Rhode Island when Col. Nichols reduced N.Y. in 1664.” This is probably derived from the authority of his great-great grandson Wilkins Updike of R.I., but we have doubts about Gysbert ever having been a physician. However, there is truth in other portions of this tradition, and there may be in all. Perhaps a confusion has arisen from the title '”Doctor.” which in German is a degree of learning and not of medicine. Gysbert may have been graduated with the German degree of Doctor from the Wesel Academy, then famous in Europe. He was well educated; his associations, official positions, reports, even his signature, show this. He must have spoken German from his birth, Dutch from his emigration, and English from his marriage.
He is often called Mr. and Sieur, on the Dutch records, titles of unusual respect in those days. He was a friend of Gov. Kieft, Secretary van Tienhoven. Fiscal de la Montague, and Burgomaster Cregier, all of whom officiated as sponsors at the baptisms of his children; and he himself was in demand as sponsor for baptisms of the children of others. Gysbert must have been attractive to both young and old. At the age of 38 years he won the heart of the young English maiden, and the marriage met the approval of her father Richard Smith, a man of standing and wealth and so scrupulous that he once refused his consent to the marriage of another daughter to an Englishman who later became Sheriff of Flushing. At a time when Director Kieft and the citizens of New Amsterdam were in bitter conflict, Gysbert, although an official and friend of Kieft, had the entire confidence of the people. His repeated appointment as Commander of Fort Hope, and the incident at the Stadt Huys, show that he was a man of known courage, yet wise and prudent. In all the many difficulties and trying situations of the early Dutch settlement, he bore himself creditably.
[From page 49:]
In 1638, the first year of the records which have been preserved, we find Gysbert Opdyck as the Commissary of Fort Good Hope, and from then until the English capture in 1664 we find him mentioned on the records, in one capacity or another, in almost every year except those in which the records are again missing.
The West India Company managed each of their three distant settlements, Albany, Hartford, and on the Delaware River, by a Commissary who was in each case Commander of the soldiers at the Fort and was in full charge of all matters pertaining to that colony. As early as 1623 the Dutch had settled six men and two families on “Fresh” (Connecticut) River, had commenced to build a small trading-post or fort, and carried on a brisk fur-trade with the Indians. Up to 1631 the Dutch were the only Europeans who had visited what is now Connecticut. In 1633 they had bought from the Indian tribes “most all the lands on both sides of the river,” and at Saybrook Point where the arms of the States General “were affixed to a tree in token of possession.” They completed “Fort Good Hope” on the site of the present city of Hartford, building a redoubt on the edge of the river and fortifying it with two cannon. [Charles Wilson Opdyke then explains how the English took over Connecticut] and soon far outnumbered the Dutch in Connecticut. This was the state of affairs when Gysbert Opdyck was sent there with a very small body of troops. In 1639 the English had 50 houses in Stratford, 100 houses and a fine church in Hartford, and more than 300 houses and a handsome place of worship in New Haven,— while the Dutch had only Fort Hope. Gysbert's only possible course was to “hold the fort.” Disgusted with so unpleasant a position, and receiving no reinforcements, he resigned his office Oct. 25, 1640, and returned “to the Fatherland.”
[From page 50:]
Gysbert's “black boy,” who died from accident at Fort Hope, was his slave. The West India Co. agreed to supply as many negroes from Brazil as the colonists might be “willing to purchase at a fair price.” Gysbert’s explanation of the circumstances of the death was received as final and his word was not questioned.
Gysbert must have soon tired of the old Fatherland, for he reappears in 1642 at New Amsterdam, appointed Commissary of Provisions, with an assistant. ...
[From page 55:]
... one of the first acts of [the newly appointed] Governor Stuyvesant was to revive the Dutch claim to Connecticut and to reappoint Gysbert as Commander at Hartford, June 20, 1647. Believing that the new Governor meant now to enforce the Dutch right, Gysbert accepted the difficult position and remained at Fort Hope until 1650. Stuyvesant sent long letters to the New England Governors, claiming as far east as Cape Cod, and made much warfare on paper, but despatched no army or fleet to Gysbert’s support, and finally made the “Hartford Treaty” by which the line between the Dutch and English Territory was to run through Greenwich Bay northerly. Fort Hope was now abandoned by the Dutch. During this last three years’ stay of Gysbert “at the House the Hope,” we find him giving powers of attorney “to sell his account,” and to the City Schoolmaster at Wesel to collect 500 “dalers” with eight years interest from a merchant at Wesel. We know nothing of his official employment during the next four years, because the Council Minutes from August, 1649, to November, 1653, are mostly lost. In 1655, he was witness to (and perhaps assisted in negotiating) a deed from the Indians to the West India Co. for a considerable portion of the present State of Delaware for “twelve coats of duffels, twelve kettles, 12 adzes, 24 knives, 12 bars of lead, and four guns with some powder.” In this year we find him also selling his land at Hempstead, L.I., in the next year witnessing an Indian treaty there; and in the following year he was still owning laud under cultivation at “Cow Neck” near Hempstead.
In 1656 Gysbert was appointed, by Governor Stuyvesant, Tithe Commissioner of Long Island, and held the office two years. ...
[Charles Wilson Opdyke describes the English takeover of New Amsterdam, 1664, and on page 59:] After the English capture, nothing further is found on the records concerning Gysbert. His name is not on the list of those who took the oath of allegiance to the Englsh government, nor on any of the lists, after this date, of citizens, freeholders, taxpayers, etc., etc., of New York or of any of the towns on Long Island or elsewhere in New York State. The tradition is doubtless correct that he went with his children to Narragansett, after the death of Richard Smith, Sr. in 1666, to take possession of the lands about Wickford bequeathed to the children of Gysbert’s deceased wife Catharine. Gsybert's eldest son Lodowyck appears upon the Kingstown records at Wickford, R.I., as early as 1668, and others of his children later; the place was then thinly settled, and its scant records have been almost totally destroyed by fire.
Gysbert Opten Dyck was a witness at the following baptisms at New Amsterdam159
4 Jan 1643 for the baptism of Jonas, son of Everdus Bogardus.
3 May 1643 for the baptism of Meynder, son of Herman Meyndertsz
6 Jan 1644 for the baptism of Stephen, son of Stephen Jougen