Genealogy and Family History Publications
About Henry (Hendrick Paeldin) Pawling
From "Pawling Family", pages 526-533 (footnotes omitted):
"Henry Pawling, a gallant young Englishman of means, education, and enterprise, came to America in 1664, in the military expedition sent out by the Duke of York and Albany to secure the patent accorded to him in that year, by his royal brother, King Charles II. The patent covered all the territory from Maine to the Delaware River, and measures were at once taken for the reduction of the Dutch. The expedition, under Sir Richard Nicolls, a colonel in the English army, sailed from Portsmouth, England, 18 May, 1664, and arrived at New Netherlands in August. By September, New Amsterdam and Fort Orange had surrendered, and the whole territory came under the control of the Duke of York and his agent and governor, Colonel Nicholls, and its name changed to that of New York. One of the earliest acts of the new government was the establishment of a garrison for protection against the Indians at Esopus, later Kingston, Ulster County, and the promotion of settlements in this district. Lands were promised to the 'soldiers and all other persons who had come over into these parts with Colonel Nicolls,' and Mr. Pawling was appointed, 9 November, 1668, to lay out lands at Esopus Creek to induce the former to become settlers. The garrison, of which Henry Pawling was a member and probably an officer, was maintained until the autumn of 1668, when, all fear of Indian depredations having ceased, the troops were withdrawn from service. On 9 September of this year Sir Francis Lovelace, having succeeded Colonel Nicolls as governor, appointed seven leading men of the Provincce a commission to 'regulate affairs at Esopus and the New Dorpes,' with Mr. Pawling as one of the commissioners. This body sat as a Special Court, at Esopus, from September 17th. to 29th., inclusive, during which time it located sites for the villages of Hurley and Marbletown, heard grievances, made redress, passed ordinances for the general betterment and government of the locality and appointed officers to carry out the same. Among the latter, 'Mr. Pawling was Voted to be ye Officer to whom ye Indyans should repaire for Redress of Injuryes in Kingston, Hurley and Marbletown.' This appointment was due, doubtless, to the fact that, while at the garrison, he had become acquainted with the Indian tongue and displayed marked ability to deal with this people. So acceptably did he meet the demands of the complex position that the Governor and Council, on 27 January, 1673, voted that, he 'be thanked for his vigilance concerning the Esopus Indians.'
"By another appointment of Governor Lovelace, he was again commissioner of a Special Court, held at the Town Hall in Kingston, from 30 March to 11 April, 1670, 'for setting out the Boundaries of Kingston, Hurley, and Marbleton, and for Regulating the affairs of these places and ye parts adjacent.' Captain Dudley Lovelace, brother of the Governor, being President of the Court. The Court Minutes of April 11th 'bear the signatures of the gentlemen justices, of which none is in a more elegant hand than that of Henry Pawling.'
"On Easter Monday, 4 April of this year, he was made Captain, with instructions 'to raise and exercise the inhabitants of Hurley and Marbleton according to the discipline of war, proclamation of this fact being forthwith made by beat of drum publiquely in the Towne of Kingston.' He was, further, 'appointed to be present at the Rendezvous at Marbleton Tomorrow ye 5th of April.' That he kept the appointment the following testifies:
'Tuesday, April 5th, 1670.--This day Capt Pawlings ffoot Company appeared at Rendevouse where they were musterd & exercised in their arms. The President also caused all the Laws relating to the Military Affaires to be read before them, and then marched them with fflying colours to the Towne of Hurley and there dismissed them. The Colours were Lodg with a Guard at the Town Hall in Kingston, where the Souldiers were commanded to appeare the next day in Court to draw their lots.'
"One day later, 6 April, he and his lieutenant, Christopher Beresford, received grants of land in Marbletown, and on the 7th, 'Captain Pawling' was made 'Viewer for measuring and laying out of the Home Lots and Streets of Hurley and Marbleton,' and for the determining of the fencing of these lots and lands. He was also chosen to supervise the building of a bridge at Marbletown, in which latter service he was to be assisted by 'Captain Thomas Chambers, Surveyor General of his Ma'ties High-ways.'
"Twelve days thereafter his commission as Captain was signed by Governor Lovelace, a draft of which is of record in the Colonial Archives and reads:
'To Henry Pawling Capt'a . . . By Vertue of ye Commission & authority unto mee given (by H's Royall Highness I do constitute & appoint) you Henry Pawling & you are hereby constituted & appointed to bee Capt of the foot comp'y listed & to be listed in the Townes of Marbleton & Hurley & Wyltwyck at Esopus. You are to take into y'r charge & care the s'd comp'a as Capt'a thereof & duly to exercise both yer inferior offic'ers & souldy'ers in Arms & to use y'er best care skill & endeavor to keepe them in good orders & discipline, hereby requiring all inferior officers & souly'ers under yer charge to--likewise to observe & follow such orders & directions as you shall from time to time receive from mee & other your superior officers according to the discipline of warre.
'Given under my hand & seale this 18th day of Apr in ye 22th yeare of his Ma'ties Reigne Annoq Domini 1670.'
"On the back of the draft is an endorsement by Governor Lovelace, which reads in part as follows: 'Whereas, Mr. Henry Pawling came over a soldier with my predecessor Colonel Richard Nicolls' . . .
"Without doubt, Captain Pawling continued to exercise his military office, in connection with his civil one, as a cout of appeals in Indian affairs, until that unexpected event, the re-occupation of New York by the Dutch in 1673. The occupation lasted only until July, 1674, when a treaty of peace restored it to English rule, and Sir Edmund Andross was sent over as governor, in whose first administration, or that of the previous Dutch interim, Captain Pawling would seem to have had no place. There was a quick suvvession of gubernatorial incumbents in New York, which at that time numbered about 40,000 inhabitants, and politics and religious bias, as in England, went hand in hand. The 'Anglican Andross' was replaced by the 'Papist Governor' Thomas Dongan, who, in turn, gave way for a second Andross regime in the person of his agent, Lieutenant-Governor Francis Nicholson.
"The division of the colony into counties was one of the earliest of Governor Dongan's administrative acts, and Ulster County, so called from the Duke of York's Irish title, was established under that of 1 November, 1683. Two years later Captain Pawling was appointed by the governor its High Sheriff, a position of dignity and responsibility which marked the measure of the man, and in which, for four years, he gave unqualified satisfaction. In February, 1689, he responded to a call for assistance in teh war then pending against the French and Indians, and marched with a detachment of volunteers to Albany, where he arrived on the 13th of that month. At Albany, he was a member of the Convention, composed of prominent military and civil officers, which assembled on teh 15th for the consideration of measures defensive and offensive, Peter Schuyler, Mayor of Albany, being president. Schenectady had been burned by the savages; diverse of its inhabitants were in captivity; immediate action was necessary, and, on the 21st, among other resolutions,
'Itt was Proposed to ye gentn of Sopus to levy 50 men out of there County for our assistance to lye in Garrison here, who Replyed that they would use all Endevors to Perswade there People for a Supply, but by there unhappy Revolutions and Distractions Some adhering to ye first majestrary oyres to there new leaders They cannot Execute yt Power & Command as is Requisite on such occasions People being under no Regulation. Resolved to write to ye Civill & Military officers of Sopus for ye assistance of 50 men to lye in Garrison here to Defend there Majes King William & queen Mary's Interest in these Parts.'
"The 'unhappy Revolutions and Distractions,' alluded to by the gentleman from Esopus, were, largely, those engendered by the supporters of the quondam Lieutenant-Governor Leisler, and it would appear that, Captain Pawling and his associates did not desire to commit themselves of their constituency to the Leislerian policy of the hour. No record evidence is at hand to show him, at any time, a supporter of the first real republican ruler to attain to power in the new world, or, to have been an accessory to the death of the only political martyr to stain with his blookd the soil of New York.
"An interesting sidelight on the character of the subject of this sketch, and his vision of men and means is to be found in the circumstance of his being, in 1666, while still in garrison service, so large a purchaser at the sale of Dr. Gysbert van Imbrock's library at Esopus. This was a remarkable sale of books for the time and place, and, it is perhaps equally remarkable that the titles thereof, together with the names of the purchasers and the prices paid, have been so largely preserved. Three hundred and sixty-eight books, at a cost of 130 gulden, were bought by Mr. Pawling, many of a religious nature, others school books. <Exquisite Proofs of Human Misery>, Megapolensis' <Short Way,> Borstius' <Succinct Ideas>, a <French Catechism>, <Stories of David>, and a <Gardiner's Book> are a few of the suggestive titles of his acquistion.
"Eleven years thereafter, 1676, as a signatory to the petition 'for a minister to preach both Inglish and Dutche, wch. will bee most fitting for this place, it being in its Minority,' the man again stands out in the open, large, liberal, kindly.
"His worldly goods and acres increased with his years. In addition to his first grants in the uplands of Marbletown, where he continued to reside, he secured by petition, in or about 1677, some twenty acres at Hurley, adjoining the Washmaker's lands, and also another tract at 'Cuxing,' on the west of Redoubt Kills with a piece of woodland, together with forty additional acres at Marbletown. Shortly before his decease he purchased ten thousand acres known as Pawling's Purchase, near Crum Elbow, a portion of which is now the pleasant village of Staatsburgh. The description of its survey, for Jacob Regniers by Angus Graham, Surveyor General, 5 April, 1807, includes the patent of four thousand acres granted to the widow Pawling and her children, 11 May, 1696. The present town of Pawling in Dutchess County, through which runs the Harlem division of the New York Central Railroad, links the memory of this pioneer, together with that of his son, Ensign Albert Pawling, for whom it was so named, to the intimate association of to-day's activities. In 1778 a considerable detachment of American troops were stationed at Pawling, and for a time General Washington had his headquarters there.
* * *
"Captain Pawling closed his active, eventful and honorable life, at his seat in Marbletown, prior to 25 March, 1695, the date of probate of his will, which had been executed 21 January, 1691. His entire estate was left to his wife, subject to the payment of his debts, with remainder at her decease to his children.
"He married, on or about, 3 November, 1676, Neeltje Roosa, daughter of Captain Albert Heymans Roosa by his wife Wyntje Ariens of Marbletown. She survived her husband and was living as late as 27 October, 1745, when she was a legatee under the will of her son, Ensign Albert Pawling."
Back to Top
From Northern New York, page 230:
Henry (Hendrick Paeldin) Pawling "settled in Ulster County, New York, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, was a man prominent in his locality in his day, and one who served Old Ulster in various official capacities until his death in 1692. That he must have been a man of education and ability is certain, for he held many important commissions for regulating affairs and shaping the government of Esopus in the early days. He came to America, a soldier in the Duke of York expedition under command of Colonel Richard Nichols, in 1664. We learn from the Pennsylvania manuscripts, under 'land grants or purchases,' that he came from Padbury, Buckinghamshire, England. He served in the British army with distinction, attaining the rank of captain of militia, until the spring of 1670, when, as it was 'times of peace' and he had 'behaved himself well and as becomes a souldyer,' on April 18 of that year he was honorably discharged 'so that he hath our consent to follow his private affayres without any further Lett or interruption.' In 1668 Henry Pawling held instructions from Governor Lovelace to lay out lots in Esopus. In 1669 he was on a commission to regulate the affairs of that place and that of 'Nieuw Dorp,' now Hurley. In 1670 he was on a commission to establish the boundaries of the new town, etc. In 1676 he signed a petition for a minister able to 'Preach both English and Duche'. In 1685 he was appointed by Governor Thomas Dongan high sheriff of Ulster County, and served four years. In 'Documentary History of New York' he is of mention: 'February 13, 1689, Captain Palin came from Sopus with thirty men to aid against the French and Indians', and states that he attended 'two meetings held in Albany in February, 1689'. He had a grant or purchase of one thousand acres of land in Providence township, then Philadelphia county (now Montgomery), Pennsylvania, and it was to this tract that his son Henry later removed. He had a grant or purchase of about four thousand acres in Dutchess county, New York, the patent for which was being executed when he died in Marbletown, 1692. This was afterwards, May 11, 1696, made out to his widow. This tract was known as the 'Pawling Purchase', a part of which is now the village of Staatsburg. In the records of the old Dutch church at Kingston, New York, is found the history of his family."