Description:

New York Early -

A will written in Dutch, signed and witnessed in 1689, assigning property in New York to an heir.

Manuscript document signed "Hendrick Jacobs", and witnessed by William Bogardus and Paul Richard. Will dated June 1, 1687, New York, in Dutch, 4.5 pages recto and verso, 8.25" X 12.5" conjoined leaves. Generally very good condition with some tape repair to folds, remnants of wax seals and seal holes, age toning, edge wear and ink burn, which do not materially detract from this darkly penned document.

The will is assigning half his property to his son, Jacob, and naming his wife, Annetje, executrix. Witness William Bogardus was most likely the son of Anneke Jans, who with her first husband, Roeloff Jansen, obtained a grant of 62 acres of land on Manhattan island, extending from the present Warren Street to the neighborhood of Desbrosses Street, lying between Broadway and the Hudson River. When her first husband died, she married inherited the property and remarried Everardus Bogardus in 1638. When she died, she left her property to be divided among her eight surviving children. The 62 acres of land which Anneke inherited acquired the name 'Domine's Bouwerie". Combined in English days with the "Company's Bouwerie" and granted to Trinity Church in 1705 by the Colonial Governor, Lord Combury, as a representative of Queen Anne of England, this questionable conveyance of ownership of the original property of Anneke Jans became the basis for repeated and hotly contested lawsuits initiated by her descendants to claim their apparent legitimate part-ownership. As recently as the 1920s, when the property was then considered to be worth "billions", some descendants were still attempting to obtain a favorable settlement from the courts, having been denied restitution in preceding generations. Nationwide 'Anneke Jans Bogardus Heirs Association" chapters were established to help finance the legal costs involved, and questionable lawyers obtained millions of dollars from gullible, presumed descendants, on the basis of undocumented or dubious genealogical evidence. Of course, none of the lawsuits were ever settled in favor of the descendant "heirs". In reviewing the facts again today, however, one could conclude that the heirs of Anneke Jans were treated unfairly, but it is also plainly clear that no such lawsuit should ever be initiated again because of the finality of the court judgments that were previously rendered.

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