52 ANCESTORS, 52 THEMES, No. 25, The Old Homestead: TERWILLIGER house

This year's challenge by Amy Crow is another weekly blog based on Themes. Last week's theme was Heirloom, and I wrote about the Terwilliger Souvenir Album which has its own blog by the same name. This week, the theme is The Old Homestead. We have very few such homesteads.  

One of the few examples of an old homestead in our family history is found in the TERWILLIGER family history.

Let's look at the TERWILLIGER Farm house - scroll down to the "Evert Terwilliger House" at the bottom of this Wikipedia page. This home, a stone house, was built in 1738, by the Platekill Creek, by Evert Terwilliger, eldest son of Jan Evertson TERWILLIGER & Sytie Jacobz VAN ETTEN. Note that Jan and Sytie had 12 children which included only one girl.  

In March 1716/7, Evert Terwilliger married Sara Freer. The house pictured above is built on the land she inherited from her parents, Hugo and Maia [LeRoy] Freer, Huguenots. The house shows the wide gabled porch running along the front, which is apparently a common architecture feature of the times.  

This house was apparently extended by Evert and Sara's son, Jonathan in 1764. Stones of the house are incised with initials of several family members, Terwilliger, and Freer. Many of the Terwilliger family members settled in and near Shawangunk, Ulster, NY, a little south of New Paltz. 

Our family's TERWILLIGER line goes through Evert's younger brother, Johannes TERWILLIGER, who married Katrina HEYPSE/Heaps, 6 Sep 1717.

The TERWILLIGER surname is a made-in-America surname, developed when the British took over New Amsterdam and the Dutch settlements in North America, in 1664. By 1690, the families were using a version, spelled in many various ways. Some of the early ones were "Der Villig"  "Ter Willig"  "Tervilge" and others.  The website of TERWILLIGERS IN AMERICA, Inc., has information for anyone attempting to research their Terwilliger line, of whichever spelling used. 

If you have information about the TERWILLIGER home, or families, I am happy to share, and also to correct any incorrect information which may be here. You can reach me at calewis at telus dot net, or in the Comments below. 

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