Anthony Jansen Van Salee was a unique, interesting and not unimportant figure in the early history of New Amsterdam, says Hoppin in The Washington Ancestry. This is almost an understatement. The writer actually has found him to be the most unusual and interesting figure she has come across in the New Amsterdam records. Contentious and obviously a nuisance to them, he was treated by the authorities with the respect due to a person of importance.

O'Callaghan in his History of New Netherland  refers to Anthony Jansen of Salee as a "French Huguenot of respectability." Respectable, yes; Huguenot, no. He is variously referred to in the records as of Salee, of Vaes or Fez, and he is also sometimes called Anthony the Turk. In land records many boundaries long continued to refer to his land as "Turk's land." The term "Turk" it may be added, was applied frequently to all inhabitants of North Africa, as well as to those of Turkey itself, presumably because most of those lands were under the suzerainty of Turkey. This was not the case with Morocco, from which country Anthony Jansen had come.

No ancestor about whom, the writer knows had quite so much difficulty with his neighbors as did Anthony Jansen Van Salee. It started in Manhattan where he clearly was an excellent and prosperous farmer. For some reason he had made an unfortunate choice of a wife. She was Grietie Reyniers, who according to the testimony of another ancestor, Cornelis Lambertse Cool, was discharged for improper conduct when a waiting girl at Peter de Winter's tavern in Amsterdam. Anthony, as a young man from Morocco, unaccustomed to the society of women, would probably have been attracted to any young woman who treated him in a friendly manner.

Peter de Truy, their next door neighbor, and Wolphert Van Couwenhoven, another ancestor, who were collectors of the minister's salary, made declarations as to the language Anthony had used when asked to pay money toward the salary of the Reverend Mr. Bogardus. Such collectors were appointed by the authorities, and to refuse payment was a serious matter indeed. The pastor, or domine, among the Dutch occupied a position equal or superior to the Puritan minister in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Professor Leo Hershkowitz in the October, 1966 number of the Quarterly of the New York State Historical Association tells her story (pp. 301-306) as gospel in all its ugly details, despite his statement that gossip and slander were the custom of the town. Notwithstanding this he accepts without question the gossip of the midwife who said that Grietje asked whether her child looked like her husband or Andries Hudden. After all, whatever her character, Grietje does not seem to have been stupid, and it is a question if she would so openly have carried on an affair that a husband from Morocco would scarcely have tolerated. Told that the child was brown skinned, she is said to have accepted the fact that the child was that of her husband!

 Anthony had business dealings with Hudde later, and his probable brother was a partner in the purchase of a plot of land on Long Island with one Peter Hudde. It seems more likely that, as does any new mother, she asked whom the child looked like, meaning father or mother, and that the midwife deliberately added the statement which Hershkowitz accepted as a fact, despite the slander which he declares to have been omnipresent.

Hershkowitz also says that she "undoubtedly" came in the ship Soutberg in 1633 as did Van Twiller and Bogardus; and that she married Anthony Jansen Van Salee sometime before 1638. Actually the eldest of the four daughters was married before December 22, 1653 when a suit was brought against Anthony by the son-in-law. This action Anthony deplored as creating ill will between father and child. His youngest child was baptized in 1647 at the age of six years. Thus is would seem that the couple were arrived in The Netherlands.

The assumption by all who have written about Anthony Jansen Van Salee has been, and the writer thinks also, that Anthony was the son of Jan Jansen Van Haarlem, who became Morat Rais, Admiral of the Sultan of Morocco's fleet at Sale. The assumption has also been that Anthony was the son of a Moorish mother, the wife of Jan Jansen, and that he was a mulatto.

The records of the Gemeente-Archief in Amsterdam show that on 26 September 1626 Grietje Reyniers of Amsterdam, aged twenty-four years, parents unnamed, assisted by her cousin, Heyltge Gerrits Schaeck, married Aelbert Egberts, from Haarlem, a tailor, aged twenty years, having no father, and assisted by his mother, Hillegond Cornelis. The records further show that on 15 December 1629 Grietje Reyniers, from Wesel, Germany, widow of Aelbert Egberts for over two years, and Anthony Jansz, seaman from Cartagena, aged twenty-two years, parents not named, received a certificate allowing them to get married "on board." Thus Grietje was about five years Anthony's senior.

The decision to marry on shipboard could have been the result of a sudden decision to marry, or the preference of Anthony, either a Mohammedan then, or influenced by that religion, to be married by a sea captain rather than by a Dutch minister. Sailing in December 1629, they would have reached New Netherland in 1630. Thus Grietje did not come on the Soutberg with Van Twiller and Bogardus.

Anthony's age, twenty-two years in 1629, shows that he had been born about 1607. Jan Jansen of Haarlem was taken prisoner by Algerian pirates in a historic raid on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands in 1618. His probable son, Anthony, would then have been eleven years of age and not the son of a Moorish mother.

Whether Grietje Reyniers was Dutch or German remains uncertain. Her name indicates that the family was of Huguenot descent. That she was of Amsterdam at the time of her first marriage seems to suggest Dutch origin.

The question arises as to why Anthony called himself a seaman from Cartagena (Spain) rather than from Sale or Fez as he was afterwards known. To have been in Holland as Anthony Jansen, a seaman from Sale, would have been to advertise the fact that he had been a pirate in the fleet of Jan Jansen. Fortunately, at this time there was an armistice between Spain and the Dutch. Oddly enough, although the Dutch built and equipped ships for the Moroccan pirate fleet, and were on close trading and diplomatic terms with the Moroccans, piracy on the part of her subjects was not looked upon with favor as an occupation by the Dutch. Jan Jansen had freed all Dutch captives, but when he considered leaving Morocco it was not to return to The Netherlands, but to go to England.

In New Netherland when Anthony and his wife got into trouble over non-payment of the minister's salary the source of the trouble may have been the two wives. It may have been a case of too much intimacy between two of a kind and the breakup of a friendship. In any case, both Anthony and his wife accused the Reverend Bogardus and his wife of being liars, and in 1639 were finally forced to make public apology and retract their statements. After still more difficulties they were banished from New Netherland "forever," as troublesome persons. Payment to the pastor being an absolute obligation, the Reverend Bogardus sued Jansen for the amount due and collected it. The minister soon after was lost at sea, and his widow removed from New Amsterdam.

The "banishment" of Anthony and his wife from New Netherland, or rather its aftermath, is an indication, that despite his quarrelsomeness, he was a person of unusual repute. Usually the banished were required to take the next boat leaving the port. Instead, after selling his New Amsterdam farm, Anthony, only three months later was granted 100 morgens (200 acres) of land at a nominal annual payment for a period of ten years. The land lay on that part of Long Island that later became the towns of Gravesend and New Utrecht. By chance, he thus became, and was recognized as, the pioneer of each town.

His new bouwery lay across from (Coney Island on what is now Gravesend Bay. His landing place there is referred to later. Hoppin says that it is regarded by historians as the place where Henry Hudson landed from the Half Moon in 1609; that it was where Richard Nicolls anchored on September 3, 1664, when he demanded and obtained the surrender of New Netherland, and was the fleet anchorage of Sir William Howe, who disembarked his troups there to fight the battle of Long Island. Anthony, incidentally, is not listed among those who requested that the Dutch surrender to the English.

In the sale in May 1639 of the property hitherto occupied by Anthony Jansen from Vaes in Manhattan, he agreed "to deliver the land as sowed and fenced, the house and barn and all that is fastened by earth or nail, except the cherry, peach and all other trees standing on the land which the said Anthony reserves for himself, and will remove at a more seasonable time, one stallion, two years old, another one year old, one wagon, one plough and harrow with wooden teeth." The Secretary of New Netherland, Cornelis van Tienhoven, went with Anthony to make an inventory of the plants to be removed later. They found "twelve apple trees, forty peach trees, seventy-three cherry trees, twenty-six sage plants, fifteen vines."

Anthony's next difficulty was with his son-in-law, Thomas Southard, which begins in the Court Minutes of New Amsterdam in December 1653. Although it is not quite clear, the trouble seems to have been over the dowry of his daughter, Annica, who was the wife of Thomas Southard. In any case, cattle were involved. Jansen had seized cattle that the son-in-law claimed. The son-in-law had his father-in-law imprisoned by the magistrates of Gravesend, where they both lived The Governor and his Council in no uncertain terms ordered the magistrates to release the imprisoned man immediately. David Prevost and Hendrik Kip with a third person to be selected by them, were appointed arbitrators. This was at the request of Anthony "to avoid a tedious suit between father and child." The arbitrators were unable to reconcile them, Southard apparently refusing to reconcile or to compromise. The suit was finally appealed to the Governor and his Council. What their decision was is not given in the records. However, it apparently went against the son-in-law. Thomas Southard and his wife soon removed to Hempstead, Long Island, another English settlement in Dutch territory. There Southard pastured two calves in 1657. He could, of course, have sold any Gravesend cattle.

Despite his expulsion from New Netherland, Anthony Jansen Van Salee continued to deal in real estate in New Amsterdam. In Stokes' Iconography (Vol. 2, p. 382) his old lot, No. 13 is shown as being bought from Abraham Jacobson van Sillwyck (Steenwyck?) on 24 May 1644. On 21 November 1656 he sold the same lot to Isaac Kip. He also owned a house on High Street which he leased in 1650. His wife Grietje had a house which she had been accustomed to rent for 150 guilders (RNA 1:171). In 1663 Anthony owned a house on New Bridge Street which he was renting and in which he was retaining sleeping quarters, indicating that he spent considerable time in New Amsterdam. Hoppin says that he moved back to New Amsterdam when he rented his farm on Long Island to Edmund Adley. I have not been able to confirm this. Part of his payment was five pounds of butter annually, so he evidently was not too far away. That he also had business at the South River is indicated in a suit brought in 1655 against his wife in New Amsterdam for payment of linen. She acknowledged the debt, but said she could not pay it until her husband returned from the South River (Ibid., p. 353).

While buying property in New Amsterdam Anthony was also adding to his holdings on Long Island. He bought plantation lot, or farm, No. 29 in Gravesend. He also bought land from the Indians for which he paid on 26 September 1651. Unfortunately, he had not obtained permission for this purchase. 

In September 1646 he leased to Edmund Adley the bouwery on Long Island opposite Coney Island granted to him after his expulsion from New Netherland "forever." The lease was to run for four years with a rental of 200 guilders the first year, and 250 guilders for each of the succeeding three years, and five pounds of butter each year. The lease is of especial interest because it shows that he had prospered since he went to Long Island, and also because it gives one of the rare enumerations of the implements to be found on a farm at that time, and finally because of the care with which it is drawn, apparently to leave no loophole for disputes. Jansen was to provide a house fit to live in, and the arable land was to be enclosed with posts and rails, which fence Edmund was to deliver back at the end of four years in equally good condition at his own expense. An inventory of personal property, including livestock, was appended. The number of the latter was to be deducted at the end of the lease, and the increase divided half and half. The risk of the loss of livestock; was also to be shared. The inventory included:

1 stallion, 12 years old
1 stallion, 3 years old
1 mare, 4 years old
2 cows in good condition
2 new plows and appurtances 
1 wagon and appurtances 
1 harrow with iron teeth; 2 spades; 2 siths and hasps; 2 sythes 
1 hand saw; 1 iron maul; 1 churn and fixtures 
1 axe; 1 cream pot; 2 pails 
1 hand mill; 1 fan; 1 pitch fork 
3 forks; 1 three-pronged fork 
3 horse collars with long rope, being a fore and aft trace 
1 carpenter's adze; 1 carpenter's axe; 1 sickle; 1 hook; 1 augur 
1 long gun

Anthony promised to furnish as much seed corn as he could. The lease was signed 6 September 1646 before Cornelis van Tienhoven, Secretary, and witnessed by Cornelis van der Hoykens and Adriaen van Tienhoven.

Anthony Jansen's patent abutted what later were the patents granted to the towns of Gravesend and New Utrecht. As was to be expected where surveys were probably inexact, he had trouble with each town over their respective bounds. The first difficulty came with Gravesend. Robert Penoyer had bought land between Anthony and Lady Deborah Moody, the founder of the town. This land had apparently been bought later by William Bredenbent, husband of Altje Braconnie, the widow of Cornelis Lambertse Cool.

In the Calendar of Historic Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State, 4 June 1654 is a summons for William Bredenbent and Anthony Jansen of Vaes with their neighbors of Gravesend to produce their patents. Case postponed. On 3 September of the same year, Governor Stuyvesant wrote Lady Moody that he had appointed commissioners to settle the boundary between the town of Gravesend, Anthony Jansen, Coney Island, and the land formerly in the possession of Robert Pennoyer. Apparently again the commissioners failed to act or could not agree. Almost two years later, on 12 April 1656, Anthony Jansen from Salee was ordered to serve the magistrates of Gravesend with a copy of his complaint against them and enjoining said magistrates from proceeding any further with the fencing and enclosing of petitioner's land.

On 20 June of the same year it was resolved that Governor Stuyvesant and his Council repair to Gravesend to decide the differences respecting the boundaries of that town. On 24 June judgment for the plaintiff was rendered in the case of Anthony Jansen and Robert "Pinoyer," et al, vs. the town of Gravesend for trespass. Still the case did not end. On 11 July Anthony Jansen van Vaes complained that the town of Gravesend had driven cattle off his land.

Notification was given that on 19 July commissioners would determine the bounds between Gravesend and Anthony Jansen Van Salee. Their report was to the effect that Anthony Jansen claimed more land than was stated in his patent. "In order not to proceed too hastily and upon unsound premises in our advice, which is to serve to end these disputes, we advise before going further, that Anthony, as the oldest and first settler by virtue of his grant, shall cause his lands to be surveyed in pursuance of his patent and place posts or marks at each turn of the compass. When that is done, it will be possible to see clearly, what hooks or points of land belong to Anthony Jansen and then it will be evident what belongs to the people of Gravesend and how much land between them still remains to the government" (CDNY 14:361). Signed by Cornelis van Tienhoven and Thomas Willet at New Amsterdam, 19 July 1656. On the next day the Director General and Council ordered Anthony Jansen the oldest proprietor to have his land surveyed within eight days.

Even this did not end the dispute. On 3 August Anthony sent a message to the Governor and Council telling them that an armed party from Gravesend had driven off and impounded twenty-four of his cattle which bad been pastured at the point east of his house. On the same day the magistrates of Gravesend were ordered to restore the cattle and to sue Jansen for trespass if they thought that they had grounds for action. This the town did. On 18 August the magistrates of Gravesend and Anthony from Salee and his servant were ordered to appear before the Council in the suit to which they were parties. Hay cut by Gravesend on land claimed by

22 Anthony Jansen van Salee [January

Jansen was to be attached. On 21 August the case of the town of Gravesend against Jansen for trespass was heard. Judgment was rendered for the defense, which the town accepted. Jacques Corteljow was to survey the lands of Anthony Jansen Van Salee, Robert Pennoyer and William Bredenbent adjoining Gravesend. This seems to have settled the case.

The relation between the Dutch and the English inhabitants was not good —in part because of the relation between the English and the Netherlands in Europe; in part perhaps because of this land dispute which had dragged on and on. When the war with the Indians broke out in the mid-1650's, Jacob van Curlear, Jan Tomassen [Van Dyke] and others, fearing that the English inhabitants of Gravesend would not protect the Dutch living there, asked that aid be sent to them, or else a well-manned vessel be sent to Anthony Jansen's landing to take to safety their wives and children, provisions, and as many other things as possible. Twenty soldiers were sent.

Soon after the Indian disturbances on Long Island had subsided, Dutch inhabitants, many of whom seem to have been residents of Gravesend, in 1657 obtained a patent establishing the town of New Utrecht. That story with the problems of Jacob van Corlear and Jan Tomassen [Van Dyke] in governing the new town, I have told in part elsewhere. However, with the founding of New Utrecht Anthony Jansen's land troubles started all over again. This time it was with his former friends and neighbors from Gravesend.

On 27 August 1657 the town was given a patent for a parcel of meadow land situated on the East Hook of the Bay of the North River opposite Coney Island, and bounded on the west by the lands of Anthony Jansen of Salee. Obviously this was an invitation to a land quarrel. Jacob van Corlear, one of the leaders in the new town, had, in 1652, lost the large grant of land: which he had purchased from the Indians in 1636 without the consent of the West India Company, when Stuyvesant confiscated it with other grants made without permission. He had not disturbed Jansen's purchase from then made in 1651. A petition, undated, but obviously of the summer of 1658, was thus on sound grounds when it requested that "Anthony Jansen van Salee may be warned to drive in the woods his horses, hogs and cattle, the same as is practiced by others, so as to prevent their spoiling and eating the pasture from the meadows, by which the town is injured, and we ask for power to place them in the pound when found in the said meadow." The: petition declared that Anthony Jansen maintained that the meadows were his and that he had bought them of the Indians, which, it further declared, could not be done without the approbation of the noble and right Honorable Lords, and as he did not have this, he may be ordered to allow the town "the peaceful use of said meadow commenced with your consent, and peaceable possession of which was promised to the inhabitants of the town; the said Anthony however, having dwelt many years in the place to enjoy his lots and portion as well as others, but at the same time be liable to bear his share of the costs and expenses" (DHNY 1: 414f).

The decision respecting the petition was that "The Fiscal [Attorney General] was ordered to notify Anthony Jansen van Salee to keep his cattle and hogs out of the common meadow, and that if he claimed any more right h' the meadows to make the same known to the Director General and Council: The Fiscal is directed to impound all cattle and hogs found in the meadows" (Ibid.,). The result of the petition could scarcely have been favorable to Anthony, as he was not only in error concerning the Indian purchase, but also because Nicasius de Sille, the Fiscal of New Netherland, and a very influential person, was also one of the leading patentees of New Utrecht.

On 13 August 1658, Anthony Jansen presented his petition for favorable treatment to the Governor and his Council, of which de Sille was a member. In the petition Anthony stated that he had bought from the Indians and paid for it on 26 September 1651, the meadow that had been granted to the Dew village of New Utrecht. He requested that the part of it near his house be given to him. The decision made on the same day was that the petition was to be placed in the hands of the people of New Utrecht, and if it was found that the petitioner had no meadow for making hay, a part of the abovesaid land was to be given to him as to others. There is no further mention of the case. However, when the town lands were distributed, he, as did the heirs of the original grantee of New Utrecht, received two shares. The other proprietors received one share each.

In 1660 he sold his Gravesend lot No. 29 to Nicholas Stillwell, got it back, and in 1669 sold it to his son-in-law, Ferdinandus Van Sickelen, who sold it the same day.

Bergen, in his Register in Alphabetical Order of the Early Settlers of Kings County, L. I., N. Y. (pp. 154-56) says, "In 1879 in leveling the sand dunes n the upland edge of the bay," where dunes "had been gradually extended back with the abrasion of the shore or coast, the remains of two separate pieces of stone walls about two feet high and one foot wide and made mainly f unbroken field stone laid in clay mortar, with a clay floor between them were exhumed. These remains were covered with from four to six feet of sand, and are probably those of the barn or other farm buildings of Anthony Jansen, it being customary in the early settlement of this country to construct their threshing floors of clay . . . and their roofs of thatched straw, instead of shingles...."

Anthony continued to live on his land in Gravesend, notwithstanding his approval of the way of life in the village. This is indicated by a petition signed by many of the Dutch inhabitants and others. Jansen, Jan Emans, who would marry one of his daughters, Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell, and hers made their mark. Dated 12 April 1660, the petition says that the town had a licentious mode of living, and that desecration of the Sabbath and confusion of religious opinion prevailed. As a result many had grown cold in the exercise of Christian virtues. Because of this situation they asked that a pastor be sent to them. Some think that this petition had been signed by Anthony Jansen of Westbrook, but the fact that it was signed by those with whom Anthony Jansen of Salee had close relations seems to point to his being the signer. Moreover, Anthony Jansen Westbroeck resided at Flatbush.

Apparently Anthony had had a change of heart, or his struggle with Bogardus had been a purely personal affair. Sold later by a descendant was a beautiful copy of the Koran in Arabic, which presumably had belonged to him. The content of the petition indicates that it was simply a keepsake of his early life, or if he had been a Mohammedan he had finally changed to Christianity.

In May 1674 he was accused of harboring a Quaker. This had not been permitted by Stuyvesant, but some thought it was permitted by Dutch law, which was extremely liberal in this respect. It had been taken for granted by the liberal Christians of Flushing, which gave rise to the famous Flushing Remonstrance. Now, however, the schout thought that Anthony should be fined 600 florins in beaver skins. Anthony's second wife testified that she had let the Quaker remain over night after being told that the authorities had given permission. The proposed fine was reduced to one beaver skin and costs.

A word should be written about Anthony's mark. A facsimile of it is to be found in the printed notarial records of Walewyn van der Veen, in connection with the leasing by "the worthy Anthony Jansen van Fes, called van Salee" of his house on New Bridge Street to Egbert Myndersen from I May 1663 to 1 May 1665 (OM 2:43f). The mark consists of an elaborate capital A and a capital I. He clearly was not literate in English or in Dutch, and in Morocco would have had no opportunity to learn a written language. The mark in the Gravesend petition is a simple cross in print, but would seem to have been intended to be his.

Anthony Jansen van Salee in his arrogance, his lack of deference to authority, in his determination to have his own way, shows characteristics that might be expected of the son of a man to whom all Sale had deferred. Aside from his nominal expulsion, the considerate treatment given him by the authorities also indicates that the Dutch in New Amsterdam knew his background, and knew that in sailing between the Old and the New Worlds, except for the tempestuous Atlantic, they had done so with a safety which they owed to his father.

Hoppin, in Washington Ancestry (3: 70), says that Les Sources Inedites de l'histoire du Maroc has five references to Anthony Jansen at Sale in the years 1623-24. Actually, in Archives, Pays Bas  there are twelve references to a Captain Anthony Jansz' and all in January and February, 1623 (3:276

278, 282-284, 328-333). On page 283 he is specifically referred to as of Vlissingen. He could have been a relative of Jan Jansen of Haarlem for whom the son was named, but Anthony Jansen of Salee could scarcely have been a captain at that early date. In Tome 5 of the same Archives, ( p. 645, 25 January 1651), Captain Anthony Jansen is mentioned as having one of the ships in the fleet commanded by Captain Michel Adriaensz Ruyter on a voyage to Morocco. Anthony Jansen of Salee was in New Netherland at that time.

Hershkowitz refers twice (pp. 300, 307), without any qualification, to Anthony Jansen van Salee as a mulatto. He adds (p. 307) that there is "little" evidence that his color was a "significant factor" in his sentence. The writer has found no such evidence. Hershkowitz also says, without giving any references specifically to this, that negroes frequently intermarried with white settlers. The writer has not run across any case of intermarriage. Interbreeding there obviously was, and a case will be shown where a legal marriage might have been expected to have occurred, but did not.

The writer has found one record where one Anthony Jansen is referred to as a mulatto, and one in which his possible brother is referred to as "alias the mulatto." Obviously neither ever saw the records to have registered a denial. As a matter of fact, anyone brought up in Africa in that day would probably be associated with color. Certainly they would be browned by the sun to the point of looking colored, and each of the two being outdoor men would continue to retain the dark tan. However, Anthony, if the son of Jan of Haarlem, was probably not a mulatto, having been born before his father went to Africa.

Anthony Jansen van Salee seems to have come to New Netherland with more than the usual amount of funds brought in by immigrants at the time. Anthonie, Turk, in Stokes' Iconography of Manhattan Island, Vol. 2, is listed on pages 185, 196-197 among the owners shown on the Manatus Map of 1639. His bouwery No. 22 is shown in C. Pl. 41 and C. Pl. 42. The date of this large \grant is said to be unknown. He also owned other land in Manhattan at the same time. In the Costello Plan, page 261, he is shown as owning lots number 12 and 13. These lots are shown on C. P. 87 and C. P. 87a. In Stokes, Vol. 6, p. 155, he is described as the first owner of the Cornelis van Tienhoven farm which extended from Broadway to the Last River, and from Maiden Lane north to Ann Street (P. 84 Ba). It would seem that prior to his sale of land in 1639 he was one of the largest ]landowners on Manhattan, and the largest in the lower section at least.

Abraham van Salee, if a brother, followed more in the steps of the father. He, with Philip Jansen and Jan Jansen and others, was part owner of, and sailed on "La Garce," a privateer in 1643-1644. He is also shown in 0'Callaghan's Index to Dutch Manuscripts (II:311) as selling the yacht "Love." When in 1643 a crew from the "Seven Stars," and a privateer, landed at Anthony Jansen van Salee's farm on Long Island, and according to witnesses, but not Anthony, himself, carried away two hundred pumpkins, Philip and Abraham Jansen boarded the vessel and declared that all they found was a small lot of cabbages, pumpkins and fowls. Both Philip and Abraham were on "La Garce" and made their wills as they started on a cruise (CDM 24, 30, 31)

In 1658 Abraham van Salee, or "Turk," was also referred to as "alias the mulatto," when he refused to contribute to the support of the Reverend Mr. Polhemus on the "frivolous grounds" that he did not understand Dutch. The excuse was not accepted, and he was fined twelve guilders (Ibid., p. 194).

Growing up in Morocco he would be expected to have little trace of race prejudice. Although he had a child by a negress and left them his property, yet he did not marry her to legitimize the child. This would seem to dispose of the question of his race. His death occurred in April 1659. Catalyntje, wife of Joris Rapalje, went to the City Hall and stated that Abraham Jansen van Salee, alias the Turk, who had lived at her house was dead. He had made a testament, she said, whereby he devised his property to the negro woman and the child he had had by her. Joresy, her husband, had been named executor. The Deacons of the city, she said, had attached and seized the property. She had been to the Director General, who referred her to the Orphanmasters. By them she was referred again to the Director General and Council, as Abraham Jansen's domicile was not in the jurisdiction of the Orphanmaster's Court (OM 1:83f). There is no further mention of the case.

Anthony Jansen van Salee owned lot No. 29 in Gravesend. Jan Jansen ver Ryn owned lot No. 27. He sold it to Nicholas Stillwell in 1662. (Gravesend Town Records, Book 2, Deeds and Leases, 1653-1670, pp. 76-77.) He was probably the Jan who with Abraham and Philip were owners of "La Garce." In 1659 he bought lots Number 9 and 10 for his son Abraham Jansen for Rine, and in February 1660 he bought lot number 18 for the use and behalf of his brother Cornelis Jansen for Rine. (Ibid., pp. 53-54, 61.) The Town Record (No. 3 of the Town Meetings p. 25,) refers to Cornelis van Rinall as Secretary of the Dutch in New York as of 24th of the 8th mo., 1664.

Cornelis Jansen who had been with Jan Jansen of Haarlem obviously came to New Amsterdam with his family, and knew Abraham and Anthony and where to find them. They represent a definite link between Jan of Haarlem, earlier Admiral of Sale, and later Governor of the castle of ElOualidia.

As to Anthony's wife, Grietje Reyniers, I am reminded of what I learned many years ago in a course in Genetics. The grandfather of the famous Jonathan Edwards had two wives. The first, beautiful and of great intelligence, had "such an extraordinary lack of moral sense" that her husband divorced her on the grounds of adultery. He married again and reared a second family. Yet it is said that none of the descendants of the second wife rose above mediocrity, indicating that Jonathan Edwards and other illustrious descendants owed their remarkable qualities to their immoral grandmother.

We know nothing about the looks or mental capacity of Grietje Reyniers, except that her respectable, if contentious, husband apparently was devoted to her regardless of her youthful reputation or behavior. Thompson, in his History of Long Island, speaks of the distinguished offspring of Thomas Southard, son-in-law of Grietje and her husband. Thomas Southard's daughter, Sarah, married John Bedell of Hempstead. Their offspring were also descendants of Grietje. Among her various descendants were one and possibly two governors, an Episcopal Bishop, a Rector, a United States Senator, who was for a time acting Vice-President of the United States, and whose son was in the House of Representatives at the same time. This simply includes a part of one line of her descendants.

Anthony Jansen Van Salee and his wife, Grietje Reyniers, had four children, all girls:

1. Annica, m. before Dec. 22, 1653, Thomas Southard of Gravesend, later of

2. Cornelia, m. William Johnson of New York. 

3. Sara, m. Jan Emans of Gravesend.

4. Eva, b. 1641; bap. 3 Nov. 1647, as aged 6 years (BDC); m. Ferdinandus Van Sickelen.

It is not known when Grietje died. Anthony sold the Gravesend property to his son-in-law Ferdinandus Van Sickelen in 1669. This would seem to have followed the death of his wife. He then moved back to what was then New York, apparently in 1669 or 1670. He married, second, around 1670, Metje Gravenraet, a respectable widow.

The will of John Williams, of New York, dated 10 October 1672, and administered 15 October of the same year, left to Anthony Jansen, Turk, "all my tools in the house of Henry Morris in New Jersey, as also whatever I have in the house of Anthony Jansen, or elsewhere." He also left him "all my land in New Jersey according to the records of Elizabethtown, and he is to pay Henry Morris a debt of forty shillings, and funeral charges." Henry Morris was named executor, but apparently asked to be excused, as letters of administration were granted to Anthony Jansen, Turk, 15 October 1672.

Anthony Jansen of Salee lived a few years longer. He died intestate. His widow, "Mattice Grevenrat" produced an inventory, and also a premarital contract in which it was agreed that "the longest liver" of them should remain in full possession of all the estate during the survivor's life. The husbands of all the daughters, signing in the order of the list of daughters and their husbands given above, petitioned 26 September 1676 for their share of the father's estate, and declared that the inventory was incorrect. Apparently the petition was disallowed, as the widow was granted letters of administration on 25 March 1677 by Governor Andros. Who ultimately got the estate is not known.

Thus ended what had been a turbulent, but obviously a prosperous lifetime.

I cannot finish with Anthony Jansen Van Salee without expressing my appreciation for the many valuable suggestions made by Rosalie Fellous Bailey. She has been almost as interested in Anthony as I have been.