Tobias Van Deusen

Tobias Van Deusen (1696-1781) was the fourth son of Robbert (Teuwisse) Van Deusen (c. 1665-) and Cornelia Martense Van Buren.  He was baptized at Claverack, NY on August 16, 1696 with sponsors were Antoni Bries and Tryntje Bries.  His maternal grandfather was Marten Cornelise Van Buren arrived with his parents on the ship Rensselaerswyck in the summer of 1631.  see Christopher land

He married Ariaantje (Harriet) Muller (Miller) at the Reformed Church of Linlithgo-Livingston, Columbia County, NY on March 21, 1724.  She was born before July 19, 1696 in of Livingston Manor, Columbia County, NY.  Her parents were probably Cornelius Stephense Miller (1651-1719) from Turnhout, Antwerp, Belgium and Hilletje Loockermans (1655-).

Their children were:

In his will dated January 15, 1772, Tobias Van Deusen named his children: Robert, Johannes, Tobias, Heyltje, Ariaentje and Mary.  His three sons along with David Brouwer were executors and the witness was Robert Van Deusen.  Tobias stated his occupation as Farmer.

Tobias Van Deusen, a farmer, died on October 17, 1781 in Claverack and his will was probated on January 7, 1782. It is believe that he is buried in the Van Deusen burial ground which is now a cornfield across form Spook Rock, Greenport Center, Columbia County, NY.

I came across a 11/28/2008 New York Times article by Cara Greenberg mentioning Tobias and Ariaantje’s home for sale.

Three miles outside Hudson, I pulled up at an uninhabited house built in 1742 by Tobias Van Deusen, who, I discovered by researching genealogy Web sites, was born around 1696 and baptized at the Albany Dutch Reformed Church. With a tall gabled roof line reminiscent of an Amsterdam canal house, a divided Dutch door with hand-forged hardware, and a Victorian addition with a front porch, it’s a child’s crayon version of a cozy, archetypal house, even without smoke pouring from its three chimneys. One original wing is made of local stone. The brickwork, equally old, is exemplary, with a tumbling pattern and a stylized flower basket on one end gable.

I can easily visualize sitting by the fire in such a house, sipping brandy under the beamed ceilings of a room with walls two feet thick. It’s all still there, intact, down to the built-in cupboard for firewood. Even more extraordinary, I can imagine Tobias and Ariaantje Van Deusen there, cooking in the giant hearth, sleeping under the slanting ceilings of the upper story, their son Johannes running around on the extra-wide-plank floors and swimming in the creek nearby.

The eight-acre property (asking price $425,000) has four barns from its days as a dairy farm, which ended three decades ago. The northern approach, past cornfields on evocatively named Spook Rock Road, is peaceful. But to the south, a short distance away, is a juvenile detention center, enwrapped in shiny rolls of barbed wire. From an aesthetic standpoint alone, that is a deal-breaker for me, though the house and land are so gorgeous I briefly considered Frank Lloyd Wright’s tactic at Taliesin West. When the electric company marred his sunset view with poles and wires, he never looked in that direction again.

Resources

Genealogical and Family History of Central New York: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation, Volume 2, New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1912  by William Richard Cutter

Van Deursen Family, Volume 1, by Albert Harrison Van Deusen

Genealogies of the First Settlers of Albany, Jonathan Pearson

cites Tobias as ancestor of the Van Burens of Ulster County