Catheryna Rombout Brett (also Catherina, Catherine, and Catharyna) was the daughter of 12th New York City mayor and land baron Francis Rombouts and Helena Teller Bogardus Van Ball. She inherited a one-third interest in the sprawling Rombout Patent in today's southern Dutchess County, New York, at just four years old. At 16 she married a formal British naval lieutenant, Roger Brett, and the two relocated afterwards from the family home in New York City to their land upstate, reportedly the first permanent White settlers there.
Widowed at 31, Catheryna went on to manager her own affairs and her nearly 30,000-acre estate, unusual in that day and the more so on a frontier. Unlike the families that held the remaining two-thirds of the Rombout Patent, the van Cortlands and Verplanck/Kips, Catheryna not only rented but sold off parcels of her land over the years.
She hosted Daniel Ninham, the last sachem of the Wappinger. Catheryna is credited with teaching him English, which enabled him to argue for Wappinger land rights before the royal Lords of Trade of Great Britain, and allowing him to stay at his pleasure on ancestral lands on her estate in today's hamlet of Wiccopee.
Her legacy is memorialized at the Madam Brett Homestead she and Roger built in today's Beacon, New York.
Francis Rombouts was born in Hasselt in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège (in today's Belgium) and emigrated to New Amsterdam in 1653. He served as a lieutenant during Director-General Stuyvesant’s expedition against New Sweden. Catheryna's mother, Helena Teller (Bogardus Van Bael Rombout) was the daughter of William Teller, of Albany, one of the original patent holders of the area around Schenectady. [1] Catheryna was born in New York City, and baptized 25 May 1687.
In partnership with Gulyne Verplank, Francis Rombout became a successful merchant-fur trader, and in 1679, mayor of New York City (following Great Britain's takeover of the former New Amsterdam). In 1683, Rombout, Verplanck, and wealthy fellow former New York City mayor Stephanus Van Cortlandt purchased a sprawling 85,000-acre tract from the Wappinger. The transaction was confirmed by royal grant of King James II on 17 October 1685 and is today known as the Rombout Patent.
Between the purchase and the patent Verplanck died and his widow Henrica married Jacobus Kip. The original document is on display at the Madam Brett Homestead in Beacon, New York. Francis Rombout died in 1691 leaving his estate to four year-old Catheryna, daughter of his third wife and only surviving heir.
In November 1703 sixteen-year-old Catheryna Rombout married Roger Brett, [2] who had arrived in the New World with Lord Cornbury, Governor of the Province of New York. Brett was a well-respected lieutenant in the British Royal Navy. After their marriage, the Bretts moved into the Rombout family home in New York City, which consisted of a large house and spacious grounds on lower Broadway, not far from the present site of Trinity Church. [3] Roger Brett was a vestryman at Trinity from 1703 to 1706.
About 1708 the Rombout Patent was partitioned, with the Van Cortlandts being allotted substantially all the land lying along both banks of Wappinger Creek; the middle portion to the heirs of Gulian Verplanck, and the lower part along the Fish Kill, some 28,000 acres, to the Brett's. [2]
In June 1718, Roger Brett drowned when his sloop encountered a fierce squall near Fishkill Landing (today's Beacon) while returning from New York City with supplies. Thereafter, Catheryna managed her holdings, becoming a well-respected businesswoman. She is credited both with teaching Daniel Ninham, the last sachem of the Wappinger Indians, English to enable him to press his tribe's land claims in royal courts in Great Britain, and to stay at his pleasure on ancestral lands on her estate in what is today's hamlet of Wiccopee, New York.
Catheryna Brett died in 1764.
She was an ancestress of American writer Bret Harte through his grandmother, Catherine Brett Jackson Hart. [4]
The Madam Brett Homestead is an early 18th-century home located in the city of Beacon, New York. It is the oldest building in its part of Dutchess County, and has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1976. It is also listed on the New York State Independence Trail. [5]
Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later organized in 1713. The county is part of the Hudson Valley region of the state.
Wappinger is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The town is located in the Hudson River Valley region, on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. The population was 28,216 at the 2020 census. The name is derived from the Wappinger Native Americans who inhabited the area. Wappinger comprises three-fourths of the incorporated village of Wappingers Falls, several unincorporated hamlets such as Chelsea, Diddell, Hughsonville, Middlebush, Myers Corners, New Hackensack, and Swartwoutville, and a number of neighborhoods.
Fishkill is a village within the town of Fishkill in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The village is in the eastern part of the town of Fishkill on U.S. Route 9. It is north of Interstate 84. NY 52 is the main street. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area. The first U. S. Post Office in New York state was established in Fishkill by Samuel Loudon, its first Postmaster.
Fishkill is a town in the southwestern part of Dutchess County, New York, United States. It lies approximately 60 miles (97 km) north of New York City. The population was 24,226 at the 2010 census. Fishkill surrounds the city of Beacon, and contains a village, which is also named Fishkill.
Stephanus van Cortlandt was the first native-born mayor of New York City, a position which he held from 1677 to 1678 and from 1686 to 1688. He was the patroon of Van Cortlandt Manor and was on the governor's executive council from 1691 to 1700. He was the first resident of Sagtikos Manor in West Bay Shore on Long Island, which was built around 1697. A number of his descendants married English military leaders and Loyalists active in the American Revolution, and their descendants became prominent members of English society.
The Great Nine Partners Patent, also known as the "Lower Nine Partners Patent," was a land grant in Dutchess County, New York, made on May 27, 1697, by New York governor Benjamin Fletcher. The parcel included about four miles (6 km) along the Hudson River and was eight to ten miles wide, extending from the Hudson River to the Connecticut border.
Fishkill Creek is a tributary of the Hudson River in Dutchess County, New York, United States. At 33.5 miles (53.9 km) it is the second longest stream in the county, after Wappinger Creek. It rises in the town of Union Vale and flows generally southwest to a small estuary on the Hudson just south of Beacon. Part of its 193-square-mile (500 km2) watershed is in Putnam County to the south. Sprout Creek, the county's third-longest creek, is its most significant tributary. Whaley and Sylvan lakes and Beacon Reservoir, its largest, deepest and highest lakes, are among the bodies of water within the watershed.
The Madam Brett Homestead is an early-18th-century home located in the city of Beacon, New York, United States. It is the oldest standing building in southern Dutchess County and has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1976. It is also listed on the NYS Independence Trail.
Mount Gulian is a reconstructed 18th century Dutch manor house on the Hudson River in the town of Fishkill, New York, United States of America. The original house served as the headquarters of Major General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben during the American Revolutionary War and was the place where the Society of the Cincinnati was founded. The site is registered as a National Historic Landmark.
Daniel Nimham was the last sachem of the Wappinger people and an American Revolutionary War combat veteran. He was the most prominent Native American of his time in the lower Hudson Valley.
Francis Rombouts was the 12th Mayor of New York City from 1679 to 1680. He was one of three proprietors of the Rombout Patent, and the father of the pioneering Colonial businesswoman Catheryna Rombout Brett.
The Storm–Adriance–Brinckerhoff House is located on Beekman Road in East Fishkill, New York, United States. It is a wooden building in three parts, the oldest of which dates to the mid-18th century.
Wheeler Hill Historic District is a federally recognized historic district located at Wappinger in Dutchess County, New York. Along the eastern shore of the Hudson River, atop of the Van Wyck Ridge is the "estates region of the Town of Wappinger". A scenic location, with roads lined with stone walls, properties greeting guests with magnificent stone pillars and iron gates, it includes 49 contributing buildings, 15 contributing sites, and four contributing structures. It encompasses the estates of Obercreek, Elmhurst, Edge Hill, Henry Suydam, William Crosby, and Carnwath that were developed between 1740 and 1940. Also included are two 18th century riverfront commercial structures, the Lent / Waldron Store and Stone House at Farmer's Landing. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Today the historic district is mostly made up of residential houses, but Carnwath and Obercreek are opened to the public.
Hendrick Hendricksen Kip (1600–1685) was a Dutch colonial magistrate. He was one of the nine original popular assemblymen serving in New Amsterdam from 1647 under Pieter Stuyvesant, Governor of New Netherlands.
Colonel Philip Pieterse Schuyler or Philip Pieterse was a Dutch-born colonist landowner who was the progenitor of the American Schuyler family.
Abraham Isaacsen Verplanck (1606–1690), also known as Abraham Isaacse Ver Planck, was an early and prominent settler in New Netherlands. A land developer and speculator, he was the progenitor of an extensive Verplanck family in the United States. Immigrating circa 1633, he received a land grant at Paulus Hook in 1638.
Myndert Schuyler was a colonial trader and merchant with extensive real estate holdings who served as Mayor of Albany, New York, twice between 1719 and 1725.
David Davidse Schuyler was a colonial fur trader who was mayor of Albany, New York, from 1706 to 1707.
The Rombout Patent was a Colonial era land patent issued by King James II of England in 1685 sanctioning the right of Francis Rombouts and his partners Stephanus Van Cortlandt and Jacobus Kip to own some 85,000 acres (34,000 ha) of land they had purchased from Native Americans. The Patent included most of what is today's southern Dutchess County, New York.
Gulian Verplanck (1637–1684) was a colonial American fur trader and merchant in New York.