While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
He married Nov. 22, 1660, Neiltje Jans Croom (or Kroom), a native of
Holland. They had issue: Magdelena, married Gerardus Beekman; Marie, born
1666; married Garret Duyckinck; Johannes born 1667; Elizabeth, born
probably 1670; married Evert Bancker.
Johannes Abeel, eldest son of Christopher Janse (Croom)
Abeel, was born in Albany, March 23, 1667, died Jan. 28, 1711. He was a
prosperous merchant, and was elected mayor of Albany, 1694-5. He removed
to New Amsterdam and lived there for a time and on his return to Albany
was elected a member of the Assembly in 1701; and in 1709 was again
elected mayor of Albany. He married April 10, 1694, Catharine, daughter of
David Schuyler, who, with his brother Pieterse, came from Amsterdam in
1650, and settled at Fort Orange. David Schuyler, the younger of the two,
married Oct. 13, 1657, Callyntje, daughter of Abraham Isaacsen Ver Planck,
the owner of Paulus Hook, now Jersey City. Johannes Abeel, by his wife
Catharine (Schuyler) Abeel, had issue: Cataline, bap. New York, Oct. 23,
1691; Neiltje, bap. Albany, April 14, 1698; Christoffel, bap. Dec. 16,
1696; David, bap. April 29, 1705; Jannette, bap. at Albany, June 6, 1705.
A copy of the inventory of his goods and personal estate includes a
painted picture of himself; also one of his wife and daughter. Christoffel
Abeel, son of Johannes and Catalina (Schuyler) Abeel (elder brother of
David), was bap. at Albany, Dec. 16, 1696. He married Sept. 23, 1720,
Margueritta Breese, and had issue: Johannes (John), bap. April 18, 1722;
Anthony, bap. Jan. 27, 1724; Anthony Breese, bap. April 11, 1725; David,
bap. Aug. 13, 1727 (settled at Bak-Oven, near Catskill, in Greene County,
N. Y., where he died in Feb., 1813, in the eighty-seventh year of his
age); Catharina, bap: June 9, 1734; Jacobus, bap. Jan. 26, 1736; Maria,
bap. April 27, 1740.
Johannes, or John Abeel, eldest son of Christoffel and
Margueritta
Breese Abeel, was born in Albany, April 8, 1722, and is recorded as an
"alleged lunatic" for the following reasons:
He early developed a taste for hunting and finally
became a fur trader
among the Indians of the Six Nations, with whom he was on terms of
intimate friendship; so much so that he became enamored with an Indian
princess, named Aliquipiso, of the Turtle Clan of Seneca Tribe, and
married her. Their son, born about 1742, became the famous Corn Plant.
The History of Montgomery County, N. Y., pages 218 and
233, contains the following additional facts relating to John Abeel:
"John Abeel, an Indian trader, settled in the town
(Minden), a short
distance from Fort Plain, in 1748. He secured several hundred acres of
land of one of the grantees of the Blucker patent. In his previous
intercourse with the Indians, he had married the daughter of a Seneca
chief, the ceremony being performed after the Indian fashion. A child of
this marriage was the famous chief, Cornplanter (Corn Plant).
"Abeel erected a stone dwelling upon a knoll directly
above the flats.
He married on Sept. 22, 1759, Mary Knouts, a member of one of the
prominent German families, and at the beginning of the Revolution was
living on his farm. During the invasion of Oct., 1780, he was taken
prisoner by a band of Indians, and while
immediately expecting death, Cornplanter addressed him as father, thus
securing his safety. He was given the liberty either to accompany the
Indians under the protection of his son, or to return to his white family.
Much credit is due him for choosing the latter, and after hostilities had
ceased, Cornplanter visited him and was received with much hospitality."
John Abeel, by his second wife, had several children,
descendants of
whom are still living in Montgomery County, N. Y.
