Johannes Abeel
Eldest son of Christopher Janse (Croom) Abeel, was born in Albany, March 23, 1667, died Jan. 28, 1711. He was a prosperous merchant, and was elected mayor of Albany, 1694-5. He removed to New Amsterdam and lived there for a time and on his return to Albany was elected a member of the Assembly in 1701; and in 1709 was again elected mayor of Albany.
He married April 10, 1694, Catharine, daughter of David Schuyler, who, with his brother Pieterse, came from Amsterdam in 1650, and settled at Fort Orange. David Schuyler, the younger of the two, married Oct. 13, 1657, Callyntje, daughter of Abraham Isaacsen Ver Planck, the owner of Paulus Hook, now Jersey City.
Johannes Abeel, by his wife Catharine (Schuyler) Abeel, had issue:
- Cataline, bap. New York, Oct. 23, 1691
- Neiltje, bap. Albany, April 14, 1698
- Christoffel, bap. Dec. 16, 1696
- David, bap. April 29, 1705
- Jannette, bap. at Albany, June 6, 1705
A copy of the inventory of his goods and personal estate includes a painted picture of himself; also one of his wife and daughter.
Christoffel Abeel
Son of Johannes and Catalina (Schuyler) Abeel (elder brother of David), was bap. at Albany, Dec. 16, 1696. He married Sept. 23, 1720, Margueritta Breese,
Issue:
- Johannes (John). See further.
- Anthony Breese, bap. April 11, 1725;
- David, bap. Aug. 13, 1727 (settled at Bak-Oven, near Catskill, in Greene County, N. Y., where he died in Feb., 1813, in the eighty-seventh year of his age);
- Catharina, bap: June 9, 1734;
- Jacobus, bap. Jan. 26, 1736; Maria, bap. April 27, 1740.
Johannes, or John Abeel
Eldest son of Christoffel and Margueritta Breese Abeel, was born in Albany, April 8, 1722, bap. Jan. 27, 1724, and is recorded as an “alleged lunatic” for the following reasons:
He early developed a taste for hunting and finally became a fur trader among the Indians of the Six Nations, with whom he was on terms of intimate friendship; so much so that he became enamored with an Indian princess, named Aliquipiso, of the Turtle Clan of Seneca Tribe, and married her. Issue:
- Kiontwogky. Their son, born about 1742, became the famous Corn Plant.
The History of Montgomery County, N. Y., pages 218 and 233, contains the following additional facts relating to John Abeel:
“John Abeel, an Indian trader, settled in the town (Minden), a short distance from Fort Plain, in 1748. He secured several hundred acres of land of one of the grantees of the Blucker patent. In his previous intercourse with the Indians, he had married the daughter of a Seneca chief, the ceremony being performed after the Indian fashion. A child of this marriage was the famous chief, Cornplanter (Corn Plant).
“Abeel erected a stone dwelling upon a knoll directly above the flats. He married on Sept. 22, 1759, Mary Knouts, a member of one of the prominent German families, and at the beginning of the Revolution was living on his farm.
“During the invasion of Oct., 1780, he was taken prisoner by a band of Indians, and while immediately expecting death, Cornplanter addressed him as father, thus securing his safety. He was given the liberty either to accompany the Indians under the protection of his son, or to return to his white family. Much credit is due him for choosing the latter, and after hostilities had ceased, Cornplanter visited him and was received with much hospitality.”
John Abeel, by his second wife, had several children, descendants of whom are still living in Montgomery County, N. Y.