Barent Baltus Van Kleeck (1606 – 1659) was Alex’s 11th Grandfather; one of 4,096 in this generation of the Shaw line.

Barent Baltus Van Kleeck was born in 1606 in Lippstadt, Westphalia, now North Rhine and Westphalia, Germany.  He never used the name Van Kleeck which started in 1683 with his son Baltus.   I would prefer to call him Barent Baltus Van Der Lipstadt based on his place of birth, but I think Barent’s descendants are Van Kleecks and it is the more common usage. His parents were Baltus BALTHAZAR and Jenntje  [__?__].  He first married Sara Pieters on 18 May 1631 in Haarlem. There was one child from this marriage, Pieter Barentsen, (b. 7 Mar 1633 Haarlem, Holland  m. Abigail James 1651 in Ouderkerk, Holland; d. Haarlem, Holland )

After Sara died, he married Mayken (DE QUITERS or Deguiltjers) Laurense de GUYTER on 29 Jan 1636 in Haarlem, North Holland, Netherlands.

Lippstadt Map

He emigrated with his wife and daughter and by 1654 was living in Flatbush.  Finally after Mayken died, he married Aechtie (Agatha) Powlese on 2 Nov 1647 at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel in Holland and there were no children from this marriage.  In 1647 Barent was listed as a coopman or drayman.  Barent died 19 Nov 1659 in Flatbush, New York, NY.

Barent is probably buried in the Churchyard of the Dutch Reformed Church in Flatbush 

Sara Pieters was baptized 18 March 1612 at Haarlem Reformed Church.  She died 17 December 1634 just nine months after giving birth to her son Peter.

Mayken (Maria) ( de Quiters or (Deguiltjers) Guyter was baptized on 17 Aug 1611 in Haarlem, Noord Holland,Netherlands.  Her parents were Laurense De GUYTER and Catalyntie CALAWAERT of  Zurikee, Schonwen Island, Zeeland.  After giving birth to seven children in ten years,  Mayken died 20 Oct 1647 in  Haarlem, Holland.

Aechtie (Agatha) Powlese was born in Amsterdam in 1609.  She married 2nd to Isaac Classen in Nov 1659.

Children of Barent and Mayken:

BARENT BALTUS Van der Lippstadt (from Lippstadt, Prussia – NOW North Rhine in Westphalia) was born about 1606 – 1610 at Lippstadt.  He came to the Netherlands at an early age, as he was a fluent writer in the Dutch language.  He was taxed in Haarlem, North Holland in 1628.

Flatbush Map

Barent his wife and children and several of his sisters came to New Amsterdam by 1654, or perhaps earlier.  It is not known what ship they came on – it’s possible that it was his own ship.

Barent Baltus owned a large house just south of the Dutch Reformed Church in Flatbush (now a part of Brooklyn).

Barent Baltus seems to have been a ‘jack of all trades’ having been identified at one time or another as a tailor, a ribbon-weaver, a tobacco merchant, and a coachman or drayman. With his first six children of his second marriage (the seventh is presumed to have died young since there is no record after the birth in 1647, the year that Mayken died), he came to Flatbush (now Brooklyn) New Netherland about 1652. While living there, he may have been involved with a shipping or maritime business. It was thought that the first appearance of the name ‘VAN KLEECK’ was in early records some time about 1683, when the name was associated with some of his children and was carried on by subsequent generations.

The origin of the name VAN KLEECK is unknown. It is not a familiar surname in Holland and does not appear to be associated with any town, village, diocese or locality as might be expected. E. R. VAN KLEECK proposed that “the original name may have been Van Kleve (pronounced with “a” as in ache) or Van Kleef (Cleef). Kleve (Clave) is in present Germany not far from the Dutch-German boundary and just east of Nijemegen in the Dutch province of Gelderland. …. no evidence of relationship can be found in New Netherland between Barent Baltus and Jan Van Kleef, the progenitor of the latter family in America”. E. R. also suggests: “In Killiaen’s sixteenth century Dutch-Latin dictionary ‘kleeck’ is given as meaning a crack or klick, a slap or blow. It may possiby have some association with a crack in a dike but this is purely surmise”.

Children

1. Catalyntje Van KLEECK (See Paulus Martense Van BENTHUYSEN‘s page)

2. Jannetjen Van Kleeck

Jannetjen’s first husband Jan Guisthout Van de Linden was born 1636 in Brussels, Belgium. Jan died in 1660.

Jannetjen’s second husband Jan Peterson Bosch was born 1636 in Gelderland, Holland. His parents were Peter Bosch and [__?__]. Jan died in 1722 in New York City.

3. Mayken van Kleeck

Mayken’s husband Jan Harberdink (Harberding) was born 1636 in Haarlem, Noord Holland, Netherlands. His parents were xx. Jan died in 1723 in New York City.

4. Elsie van Kleeck

Elsie’s husband Robert Sanders was baptized 10 Nov 1641 in New York Dutch Church. His parents were Thomas Sanders and Sarah Cornelise Van Gorcum. Robert died 1703 in New York City.

Like his father a silversmith, he shared Thomas Sanders’ business and assets on Manhattan and upriver in Beverwyck.

The site of Poughkeepsie was purchased from Native Americans in 1686 by Robert Sanders, an Englishman, and Myndert Harmense Van Den Bogaerdt, a New Netherland-born Dutchman. The first settlers were the families of Barent Baltus Van Kleeck and Hendrick Jans van Oosterom. The settlement grew quickly and the Reformed Church of Poughkeepsie was established by 1720

About 1665, he married Elsie Barentse Van Kleeck in New York. Shortly thereafter, the couple settled in Albany while the enteprising Sanders tended to family interests in New York and other locations as well. By 1683, the marriage had produced eleven children. His father probably had died before 1669 when Robert Sanders paid for the Albany burial of his mother.

Although not a prominent fur trader himself, Robert Sanders gained repute as an interpreter and frontier diplomat. During the 1680s, he served the new village/town of Albany as juror, assessor, firemaster, constable, acting sheriff, and justice. He was rewarded for these services with access to land in Dutchess County, north of the eastern part of Rensselaerswyck (Lansingburgh), and elsewhere in the province of New York. By the end of the century, he had sold most of those holdings which were the basis of the family fortune.

Although partially of English or Scottish ancestry, like his wife he was a member and supporter of the Albany Dutch church. His first ward home was an Albany landmark referenced by the term “Robert Sanders gate.”

In June 1695, the city council agreed with Sanders to provide lodging for Capt. Weems.

For almost four decades, Robert Sanders was a prominent businessman, landholder, attorney, and public servant in Albany and to some extent in New York where he probably spent the last decades of his life.

Robert Sanders had filed a joint will with his wife in 1673. He filed another will on his own in September 1702. He died in 1703 and was buried in New York City.

5. Sara van Kleeck

Sara’s husband Benjamin Provoost was born at Fort Good Hope which later became Hartford, Connecticut.   His parents were David William Provoost and Margaretta Ten Waert.

Fort Huys de Goede Hoop was a settlement in the seventeenth century colonial province of New Netherland that eventually developed into Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1623, the   Dutch West India Company (GWC) 1621-1793   built a fortified trading house of the Roman Castra design with a praetorium, castra ways, and gates. Fort Hoop was located on the south bank of the Little River (now Park River), a tributary river of the Versche or Fresh River (now the Connecticut River). The directors at Fort Orange (now Albany) and Fort Amsterdam (now New York City) had planned Fort Hoop to be the northeastern fortification and trading center of the GWC.  

The land on which Fort Huys de Goede Hoop was situated was part of a larger tract purchased on June 8, 1633, by Jacob van Curleron behalf of the company from the Sequins, one of the clans of Connecticut Indians.  Curler added a block house and palisade to the post while New Amsterdam sent a small garrison and a pair of cannons.

Its presence, and that of the tiny contingent of Dutch soldiers that were stationed there, did little to check the English migration. The English built their own fort a short distance away. When the Dutch explorer David de Vries ventured into the region in 1639, he found the House of Hope manned by only fourteen or fifteen soldiers. Just opposite it, meanwhile, he saw that the English had the beginnings of a town. The English governor hospitably asked him to dinner, and de Vries took the opportunity to complain on behalf of the Dutch that the English were trespassers. “He answered that the lands were lying idle,” de Vries later wrote in his journal, “that, though we had been there many years, we had done scarcely anything; that it was a sin to let such rich land, which produced such fine corn, lie uncultivated; and that they had already built three towns upon this river, in a fine country.”

English settlers from other New England colonies moved into the Connecticut Valley in the 1630s. In 1633, William Holmes led a group of settlers from Plymouth Colony to the Connecticut Valley, where they established Windsor, a few miles north of the Dutch trading post. In 1634, John Oldham and a handful of Massachusetts families built temporary houses in the area of Wethersfield, a few miles south of the Dutch outpost. In the next two years, thirty families from Watertown, Massachusetts joined Oldham’s followers at Wethersfield. The English population of the area exploded in 1636 when clergyman Thomas Hooker led 100 settlers, including Richard Risley, with 130 head of cattle in a trek from Newtown (now Cambridge) in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the banks of the Connecticut River, where they established Hartford directly across the Park River from the old Dutch fort. In 1637, the three Connecticut River towns—Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield—set up a collective government in order to fight the Pequot War.

Benjamin’s father David Provoost was baptized 11 Aug 1611 in the Oudekerk, Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands, the son of Wilhelmus Provoost and Jenne Eerdewijns. He had three brothers, two older, Guilliame and Elijas, and one younger, Benjamin, and two sisters, one older, Maijke, and one younger, Janneke. As a young man, David arrived for the first time in America, in the service of the West India Company but later returned home.

David married Margriet Gillissen ten Waert 10 August 1637 in Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands. Margriet was baptized 17 Dec 1617 in Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands. She was the daughter of Gillis Jochimsz and Beijken Schuts. She had four older sister, Margriet (died young), Agniet (who married David’s brother, Elijas), Barbara, and Elijsabeth, two younger brothers, Jochem (died young) and Jochem, and one younger sister, Cornelia. At the time of their marriage, David was a winedealer living on the Heerenmarkt in Amsterdam and Margriet was living in the Harnde alley in Amsterdam.

David and Margriet moved to New Netherland in about 1635. Here, David served as a commissary of provisions for the West India Company in 1638 and, in the winter of 1639-40, he was appointed as an inspector of tobacco. He, however, lost his place as a commissary. In 1643, they were still living in New Amsterdam, when David was granted a lot there.

David was commissioned “to take possession of the Mouth of the Fresh River in the sound having under his command about fifty or sixty soldiers”, building a fort in what is now Connecticut. Controversy came in 1646, when the Dutch accused the English at the Colony of New Haven of encroaching on their territory. An argument ensued in which the English complained that the Dutch at Fort Good Hope had harbored a runaway slave and that, when the English sent a watch to retrieve her, David Provoost had “resisted the guard, drew his rapier against them, and broke it on their arms; after which he withdrew into the fort, where he defended himself, successfully, against these invaders, of what he considered, his just jurisdiction.”

After about seven years at the fort, David and Margriet returned to New Amsterdam, where David became a notary public, in which capacity he served until his death. In 1653, he was a sergeant in the Burgher Corps of New Amsterdam. He was made the first schout (sheriff) of Breukelen (now Brooklyn) and remained so until 1656. He also served as an attorney. According to his grandson, he “was an Extraordinary writer and penman”, excelled in cartography, received a liberal education, and “spoke Latin, French, & Dutch Equal”. David died 12 May 1657, according to his grandson, David Provost, presumably in New Amsterdam.

Benjamin and his twin brother Elias were baptized at the DRC of NY on 22 or 17 June 1646. Sponsers were Secretary Cornelius Van Tienhoven , Olof Stephenszen Van Courtland , Anneken Lockermans, Jillis Van Brug, Arent Koos and wife (maybe Arent Corssen Stam and wife Agniet Jillis Ten Waert).

David Provoost was the head of a French Huguenot family, who came from near Rouen in Normandy, in 1638, to New Amsterdam. After Sara died, Benjamin married 5 Nov. 1671 to Elsie Alberts of New York.   Benjamin died 8 May 1725 in Albany, Albany, New York,

6. Baltus Barent van Kleeck

Baltus’s wife Catryntje Tryntje Jans Buys was born 1657 in Bergen, New Jersey. Her parents were Jan Cornelise Jans Buys and Eybetje Lubberts. Catryntje died 1731 in Poughkeepsie, Dutchess, New York.

While it Is true that many Dutch family names are similar to the names of the towns from whence they came, this does not apply to the name Van Kleeck. The origin of the name is unknown. There can be found no town, village, diocese or neighborhood in Hollard bearing such a name or anything resembling it. In Kiliaen’s sixteenth Dutch-Latin dictionary “kleeck” is defined as a crack or a “klick” meaning slap or blow, but this still fails to account for the adoption of the surname. It is possible, of course, that some association with a dike may be responsible for the selection.

Van Kleeck as a surname first appeared at the baptism of the son of Baltus Barentse, the only son of Barent Baltus, in Bergen, New Jersey, October 6, 1685, the child’s name appearing in the record as Peter Van Kleeck. Two years earlier at the burial of Maeckje, their daughter, on June 22, 1683, the father’s name was stated as Baltus Barentsen.

Their son  Colonel Barent van Kleeck was born 1677 Albany, Albany County, New York. He married Antoinette Parmentier (b. 27 July 1684 Bushwick, Long Island, New York; d. 1753 Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New York.) Col. Barent died Sep 1756 La Grange, Dutchess County, New York

Sources:

http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid=2613740

http://www.mathematical.com/lipstadtbarent1610.htm

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/a/l/l/Cindy-Allers-2/PDFGENEO1.pdf

http://www.klink.net/~fab/dutchcon.html

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~treebz65/momside/vankleeck/vkbook1.html

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=treebz65&id=I0552

http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid=2613740&st=1

http://www.boydhouse.com/michelle/caudebec/benjaminprovoost/benjaminprovoost.html

http://www.boydhouse.com/michelle/caudebec/davidprovoost/davidprovoost.html