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| Flag of the Netherlands |
Cornelius, born about 1630, came from the town of Lexmond in the province of Utrecht, a little south and east of Amsterdam. Lexmond, a small village of about 300 people, was part of the lands of the lord of Vianen, on the south bank of the river Lek, noted for its cattle-breeding and its fine horses.
Cornelius was the youngest son of Cornelius, an alderman and church warden in Lexmond, who owned a boat and made a living fishing or shipping goods along the river. As an ambitious younger son, Cornelius followed a classic migration path, moving to Amsterdam and eventually to New Amsterdam where he owned a farm on Manhattan Island by 1658, located about half a mile south of today’s UN building. At the time of Cornelius’s arrival, New Amsterdam was “a wretched little town of about 1000 residents and some 120 brick and wood houses huddled at the lower tip of Manhattan Island. Pigs rooted in the streets made nasty by offal and privies.”
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| New Amsterdam ca. 1664 |
In 1658, at the Dutch Reform Church in New Amsterdam, Cornelius married 16-year-old Willementje Gysbert, born in Barnevelt, Holland. By 1661, Cornelius and Willementje, along with their son Cornelius, had moved to Kent County in Maryland, after a brief stay in Jamestown VA.
On 20 October 1671, Cornelius's naturalization petition was accepted, along with that of his wife, and four children: Cornelius, Elizabeth, William (my 8x-great grandfather), and Hannah. Willementje was dead by 1676, and Cornelius married a second time to Mary, an English woman, with whom he had a son, Nathaniel Comegys, about 1680.
Cornelius married a third time about 1687 to Rebecca, the widow of English mariner Benjamin Smith of Cecil County, and had six children with her: Edward, Gysbert, Rebecca, Martha, Mary Ann, and Sarah.
Arriving in Maryland at the age of 31, Cornelius Comegys prospered, helped by having an education that allowed him to read and write and also by an inheritance that gave him a head start on purchasing property, instead of starting out as an illiterate indentured servant as so many immigrants did. By the time of his death in Kent County MD in 1708, after a lengthy illness, Comegys had acquired more than 3300 acres, including two tracts named for his native place—Utrick (Utrecht) and Vianna (Vianen). He served many years as a Justice in Kent County and was the Captain of a militia company in 1689.
The inventory of his estate showed Cornelius living in a two-storey house with four rooms and an attached kitchen. His goods included a mirror and a punch bowl and glasses as well as the usual tables, chairs and beds. His livestock included 61 cattle, 32 hogs, 6 horses and 77 sheep as well as 2600 pounds of tobacco in storage.
William Comegys, my 8-x great grandfather, married about 1685 to Elizabeth Tyler and had three sons (William, my 7-X great grandfather, Nathaniel and Cornelius) and three daughters (Elizabeth, Ann, and Margaret) with her. About 1708, William Sr. built a fine gambrel-roof brick house near the Chester River, considered one of the most unusual buildings in Kent County, with its catslide addition on the back. The original glazed brick exterior still survives, although the interior has been completely renovated. William Comegys Sr. died in Kent County MD in 1736.
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| Comegys House |
Besides the Comegys House, the Comegys name lives on in Kent County with Comegys Creek and Comegys Bight, a small cove on the north shore of the Chester River (see map below).
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| Comegys Bight |
I am indebted to these researchers for information about my Comegys ancestors.
Robert G. Comegys. Cornelius Comegys (1630-1708): Young Man from Lexmond, His Career and His Family.
Guy Wallis and Elma Fraser Perry. Descendants of Cornelius Comegys in North America. 2012.
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