DeWitt Clinton

his cousinship with
Jean Margaret (Kennedy) Mitchelson
through the Rapalje family

DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), politician, naturalist, philanthropist, and educationist, was one of the most influential figures in New York history (see the Dictionary of American Biography). A brother of Clinton’s mother, Maria DeWitt, was Dr. Andries DeWitt, whose son, Simeon DeWitt (1756-1834), was Surveyor General of New York, Chancellor of the University of the State of New York, and the author of Elements of Perspective (1813) (see DAB).

          Joris Jansen Rapalje = Catalyntje Trico
               (1604-1663)     |  (ca. 1605-1689)
        _______________________|_____________
        |                                   |
 Daniel Rapalje                    Sara Jorisse Rapalje 
  (1650-1725),                       (1625-ca. 1685)
of Brooklyn, N.Y.                = (1) Hans Hansen Bergen  
 = Sara Clock                     of the Wallabout, L.I. 
  (1651-1731)                        (d. ca. 1654)     
       |                                     |    
       |                                     |  
  Sara Rapalje                      Marritje Hanse Bergen
  (1687-1773)                          (1651-1717+)
= Pieter Corn.                     = Col. Jacob Rutsen,
    Luyster                            of Ulster Co.
  (1687-1759)                           (1650-1730)
  of Newtown,                                |
   L.I., N.Y.                                |
       |                                     |
  Sara Luyster                        Margariet Rutse 
  (1714-1767)                           (1680-1731+)
 = Isaac Lent                   = Capt. William Nottingham
  (1707-1771)                            d. 1730/31
  of Fishkill,                          of Kingston,
  Dutchess Co.,                      Clerk of Ulster Co.
      N.Y.                                   |
       |                                     |
  Catharina Lent                     Mary Nottingham
 (say 1743-1767+)                      (1704-1758+)
 = Francis Harris                    = Egbert De Witt
  (1740-1816),                         1699-1758/61
later of Sandy Cove,           of Rochester and Wawarsing,
Digby Tp., Annapolis                     Ulster Co.
(now Digby) Co., N.S.                        |
       |                                     |
 Catherine Harris                      Maria De Witt 
  (1767-1846)                           (1737-1769+)
 = John Comfort                   = Col. James Clinton
 (ca. 1755-1830),                       (1736-1812)
 of Clinton Tp.,                   soldier, member of the 
   Lincoln Co.,                U.S. Constitutional Convention
 Upper Canada                               |  
       |                                    |
  Francis Comfort                    DeWitt Clinton
   (1800-1880),                        (1769-1828)
  of Beamsville,                U.S.senator from New York,
Clinton Tp., Lincoln Co.          Mayor of New York City,
 = Jemima Wilcox                   Governor of New York,
    (1801-1876)                     naturalist, author
       |                          = (1) Maria Franklin
       |                          = (2) Catharine Jones          
 Margaret Comfort           
   (1833-1916)               
= John Kennedy (IV)   
   (1832-1897),       
   of St. Anns,          
 Gainsborough Tp.,        
  Lincoln Co.  
       |                
  John Kennedy (V)     
  (1862-1939),
of Melita, Manitoba,   
     Canada            
 = Susanna Samantha        
   Helena Young              
  (1882-1937)            
       |                
Jean Margaret Kennedy  
  (1917-2000)        
 = Richard Harry 
 Mitchelson, Jr.           
   (1914-1998),          
of Winnipeg, Manitoba       
  (my natural              
  grandparents)         

Sources: Working from the top downward, published secondary sources bearing on Clinton’s Rapalje lineage include:

• Dorothy A. Koenig and Pim Nieuwenhuis, “Catalina Trico from Namur (1605–1689) and her nephew, Arnoldus de la Grange,” New Netherland Connections, vol. 1, no. 3 (July-Sept. 1996): 56-63; no. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1996): 89-93, citing earlier literature on the Rapalje-Trico connection.
• Henry A. Stoutenburgh, A Documentary History of … the … Dutch Congregation of Oyster Bay, Queens County, Island of Nassau (now Long Island), 2 vols. (1902-04), 444-6.
• McCracken, George E. “Catalyntje Trico Rapalje,” TAG 35 (1959): 193-202.
• ——. “Joris Janszen Rapelje of Valenciennes and Catelyntje Jeronimus Trico of Pry,” TAG 48 (1972): 118-20.
• G. Elmore Reaman, The Trail of the Huguenots in Europe, the United States, South Africa, and Canada, 2^nd ed., with “Addenda et Corrigenda” by Milton Rubincam (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1966), 301-2 (for an important note by Rubincam on the European origin of the Rapalje family).
• Zabriskie, George Olin. “The Founding Families of New Netherland, no. 4: The Rapalje-Rapelje Family,” De Halve Maen, vol. 46, no. 4 (Jan. 1972): 7-8, 16; vol. 47, no. 1 (April? 1972): 11-13; vol. 47, no. 2 (July 1972): 11-14.
• Armida Sharpin, Rapelje Rasters: a genealogy (1994), pp. 17-18, 19, 112-13, 162.
• Teunis G. Bergen, The Bergen Family; or, the descendants of Hans Hansen Bergen, one of the early settlers of New York and Brooklyn, L.I. [2nd ed.] (Albany, 1876), pp. 15-32, 38-79 (on Hans Bergen), 126 (on Marritje Hanse Bergen).
• Teunis G. Bergen, Register … of the early settlers of Kings County, Long Island, N.Y. (New York, 1881), pp. 33 (for Bergen).
• Charles A. Moore, “The Rev. Thomas DeWitt, D.D. – A biographical and genealogical sketch,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 5 (1874): 161-8, which lists Egbert De Witt and his issue at p. 166.
• Cuyler Reynolds (ed.), Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley …, 3 vols. (New York, 1914), 3:1239-42 (De Witt), at p. 1241.
• “Clinton, James,” in Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1:305.
• “De Witt Clinton,” in John S. Jenkins, Lives of the governors of the State of New York (Auburn, 1851), pp. 208-318, available online at http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ANW1479.
• DAB articles on James Clinton, DeWitt Clinton.

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From the Genealogy Page of John Blythe Dobson
URL = cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/people/Dobson/genealogy/famous/Clinton.html
This page written 1 January 2001
Last revised 12 July 2001