THE VAN WYCK FAMILY OF DUTCHESS COUNTY Joseph W. Emsley
Edmund Van Wyck, well known resident of Manchester Bridge, Route 55, Town of LaGrange, doesn't often tell about his ancestry in New York State, or in Dutchess County, but it is fascinating for the onlooker at his prominent Dutch lineage to tell a few facts about the Van Wycks. Many county residents, driving back and forth to the John F. Kennedy Airport, probably have wondered in their travels over part of that route about the Van Wyck Expressway. To be sure, that route was named after one Edmund Van Wyck's ancestors. The original family settler in the early New Amsterdam area was Cornelius Barentse Van Wyck who came here from Holland about 1650. Cornelius, coming to this country as Edmund Van Wyck a man, bought some 450 acres of land in the Flatbush area of New York. One of his descendants, James, was quite prominent in the Brooklyn area. He was an engineer on a highway project when the Van Wyck name was first applied to a part of the present Van Wyck Boulevard. Edmund Van Wyck is a great, great grandson of Judge Theodorus Van Wyck, a grandson of the first settler, and son of the first Theodorus Van Wyck in the family line of early settlers in this country. Judge Theodorus and Cornelius 2nd were among the early settlers in Dutchess County. Theodorus came to Dutchess County about 1720 to survey the southern Dutchess Rombout Patent for Madame Catharyn Brett. This extensive area of some 85,000 acres of land was among the early grants of land in the colonial period of the State. Cornelius and Theodorus Van Wyck each acquired more than 400 acres of land in southern Dutchess, the former in the Fishkill area and the latter in East Fiskill, along what is now Route 52. Judge Theodorus, Edmund Van Wyck's ancestor, was born in Hempstead, Long Island October 15, 1697. He moved to Dutchess in 1736. He and his brother, Cornelius, split an original tract of some 900 acres for the extensive Van Wyck family holdings in southern Dutchess. Cornelius was the owner of the lands in the Route 9 area of Fishkill which included the site of the present Van Wyck house which became popularly known as the "Wharton" house, so known as the scene of action in James Fenimore Cooper's novel, "The Spy". The late County 102
