Anneke Jantz (Jans) Bogardus (1605-1663) [Section 61, Lot 1]
Early New Netherland settler, Land in lower Manhattan was disputed for 250 years, Aunt to the wife of Jacob Leisler
Anneke Jans was born in 1605 in Flekker, Norway, the eldest daughter of Johannes and Tryntie Jans, her sister Marritje was born a couple of years later. Some have disputed her lineage, claiming she is the granddaughter of William of Orange. Though untrue, Anneke and her sister led interesting lives, aligning themselves and their offspring through marriage and business connections in the New Netherland frontier.
In April 1623, Anneke married Roeliff Jansen in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The same year the Dutch West India Company was chartered which led to the establishment of Fort Amsterdam, and Fort Orange of New Netherlands. Being granted exclusive trading rights by the Dutch government, minority groups such as the French-speaking Walloon Huguenots were the first to settle the area. However, with the purchase of Manhattan island in 1626 by Peter Minuit, more colonists were needed to help strengthen the hold on the unchartered territory.
In 1630 the Dutch West India Company deeded land around Fort Orange to Kiliaen van Rensselaer, a Dutch merchant and one of the company’s original directors. The area was known as the Manor of Rensselaerswyck with Kiliaen serving as a feudal landlord. The same year Anneke and Roeliff left Amsterdam and arrived in Fort Amsterdam in May of 1630. They were sent to work on Van Rensselaer’s farm DeLaet’s Burg, directly across the river from Fort Orange in present-day Rensselaer. By 1634, after numerous failed attempt at farming, shady dealings with trading horses, and making connecting themselves with the Dutch West India Company, Anneke and Roeliff found themselves back in Fort Amsterdam. In 1636 Roeliff received a land grant of 62 acres outside the city limits in what is today Tribeca.
The 62-acre parcel came into the controversy over the next 250 years. Though records indicate the family sold the property it in 1671, it has been disputed that the English took the property when they found out the land was Dutch. This lead to a contentious legal battle with the Trinity Church Corporation with a ruling in 1911. However, decedents of Anneke have brought this up every couple of years since.
Roeliff is credited for discovering a river outside of present-day Livingston, NY one even while getting stuck on the ice. Known as the Roellif Jansen Kill, it goes from the Hudson River into eastern Columbia County.
Marritje immigrated to Fort Amsterdam shortly after Anneke and Roeliff in 1632 and married Thymen Jansz. Together they had a daughter Elsje who went on to marry Jacob Leisler, a successful businessman who gained his fortune from beaver and tobacco. Leisler led the revolt against the English in what is known as Leisler’s Rebellion. This uprising recaptured the control of the New York Colony from 1689 – 1691, with Leisler serving as the governor.
By 1637 Anneke’s parent emigrated where he mother worked as a midwife. That same year Roeliff died at the age of 36. Anneke soon remarried, this time to Everadus Bogardus, dominie of the New Netherlands, and second minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. She had four boys with him. In addition to serving the church, Bogardus was on the advisory council to Willem Kieft, Director-General of New Amsterdam. Bogardus and many others showed their disproval of his governing and wrote the Dutch West India Company for a replacement. Kieft’s aggression towards the Lenape Indians, which before this time was peaceful, resulted in Kieft’s War which massacred many native camps.
In 1647, upon the arrival of new Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, Bogardus and those who were against Kieft’s actions were sent back to the Netherlands to report to the company director. The ship did not make it to the final destination as it got shipwrecked off the coast of Wales. The death of Bogardus left Anneke another large parcel of land, this one on Long Island. Being land-rich but have little money she moved to Beverwyck and was granted patent near present-day James and State Street in 1652. Her son-in-law, Pieter Hartgers built her a house and paid the rent, the sum of four beavers a year. Anneke’s daughter Sara served as a translator under Peter Stuyvesant when negotiating with the native tribes.
While in Fort Orange, Anneke gained the nickname “the vulture” and taken to court for apparently mooning pipe-smoking “burghers,” an old Dutch word for locals. During this time a woman lifting a skirt was considered an insult. However, Anneke was able to dispute the claim where she argued she was “trying to keep the hem of her skirt out of the muddy lane.”
In 1662, a year before New Netherlands fell to the English, she wrote a will laying in her bed in a “state of sickness” which bequeathed of all the land that she owned. In her will, she declared the land in New Amsterdam to be divided equally among her eight living children, as well as additional sums for her first four children with Roeliff. As a wedding present to each of her children she gave them a bed and a milking cow and left a silver mug to her five grandchildren. Anneke died later that year, and her funeral was held at Albany’s Old Church, which was built by her son Jan Jansen. Her body was reinterred at Albany Rural Cemetery in the 1840s to the Bleecker family plot.