Nicholas Stillwell II - Abigal Hopton, then (Annetje Van Dyck)

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Married first about 1630 in England
Married second about 1642 / before 1639 in New Netherlands (New York)

Nicholas Stillwell II

Born 1603 in Dorking, Surrey Co., England
Died December 28, 1671 in Dover, Staten Island, NY. Nicholas Stillwell signed his will December 22nd, 6 days before he died
Buried: ?
Parents: Nicholas Stillwell, I - Alice (Unknown)

NICHOLAS STILLWELL, II left England in 1635, as a 35-year-old widower (Abigal died) with his two sons, to become a tobacco planter on the peninsula where Virginia's York and James Rivers converged and the Indians were hostile. In 1644 he was commissioned a lieutenant under William Claiborne to fight those Indians. During the campaign, the Dutch, resenting English occupation of one of their abandoned forts, captured Nicholas with his comrades and took them to New Amsterdam for awhile before letting them return home. The following year, uncomfortably involved by Claiborne in Virginia's dispute with Maryland over the ownership of Kent Island, he was compelled to abandon his post there, to give up his Virginia holdings, and to seek refuge in New Netherland.
He and his new wife, Anne VanDyke, lived first in New Amsterdam (lower Manhattan), but then settled in Gravesend (Brooklyn), where he became magistrate. In 1663 Nicholas served the Dutch in the Esopus War, fighting Indians again. The Dutch Governor then engaged him to assist his colony's defense, requiring a trusted officer conversant in English. When the British prevailed, capturing New York in 1664, Nicholas sold his Gravesend farm at a loss to purchase a retirement place on the southeastern shore of Staten Island. After his death in 1671, Anne re-married twice and returned to England before her own death in 1686.

Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn/Gravesend is named either for Nicholas Stillwell, his son, or perhaps for descendant William Stillwell (who was Gravesend town surveyor in the 1860s). See "Brooklyn By Name" by Leonard Benardo. The famous chase scene in the movie "French Connection" was filmed along Stillwell avenue.

First: Abigail Hopton

Born ABT. 1610 Wytham, Somerset, England
Died: About 1638, Surrey, England
Buried: ?
Parents: Robert Hopton

Second: Anne VanDyke (Annetje Van Dyck)

Born about 1618 Guildford, Surrey, England, or Holland ?
Died: 1686 England
Buried: ?
Parents: ?

Children:

By Abigail Hopton:
  1. Richard Stillwell
  2. Nicholas Stillwell Born about 1640 in Gravesend, Kings Co., NY; Died 1715 in Gravesend, Kings Co., Long Island, NY.
    (per Still Myths and Facts
By Anne VanDyke:
  1. Anne
  2. Alice
  3. Wiliam
  4. Thomas
  5. Daniel
  6. Elias
  7. John (not certain)
  8. Mary
  9. Jeremiah)