From the canals of Utrecht to the lumber mills of the upper Hudson Valley

The Block Wall of Evans Van Lew’s origins has been broken through!

The Van Lews of Glens Falls, New York, always knew they were Dutch. They thought the family originally came from New Jersey. But for over two hundred years, no one could prove it.

Two published genealogies documented the Van Lew family in meticulous detail. The first, by Thomas L. Van Liew in 1910, traced the family from the 1670 immigrant Frederick Hendrickson Van Leeuwen through multiple branches. The second, by W. Randolph Van Liew in 1956, expanded that work to over two hundred pages — property descriptions, church records, Revolutionary War service, wills, and deeds. Together, these two books are the definitive record of the Van Lew family in America:

• Thomas L. Van Liew (1910). Genealogy and Annals of the Van Liew Family in America. 18 pages plus errata. Follows the Denice → Dennis → John line into Ohio, Kansas, Indiana, and Missouri. Ancestry Collection 62282.
• W. Randolph Van Liew (1956). Van Liew, Van Lieu, Van Lew Genealogical Historical Record. 200+ pages. The most comprehensive Van Lew genealogy ever compiled. Ancestry Collection 62282.

Both books documented Cornelius Van Liew (born 1734) and his seven children, all baptized in Dutch Reformed churches in New Jersey. Both books recorded the baptism dates and stopped. Neither could trace what happened to any of those children after their baptisms. W. Randolph, after years of research, wrote one of the most honest sentences in genealogy:

“Beyond the baptismal records of Cornelius’ children, the Author has been unable to trace any ensuing descendants.” — W. Randolph Van Liew, 1956

This document picks up where both books stopped. It identifies which of Cornelius’s seven children left New Jersey, traces him to New York, and connects his descendants to the Van Lews of Glens Falls. But to understand why the connection was lost in the first place, you have to understand what happened to two fathers and two sons.

Cornelius died in January 1777, seven months after the Declaration of Independence, as the Revolution engulfed his New Jersey farm. His son John was seven years old. John grew up in a community devastated by war, and sometime after 1790 he left New Jersey for upstate New York. He settled in Montgomery County, married Rebecca Robbins around the age of forty, and had three sons. The eldest he named Evans — after Rebecca’s father, Evans Robbins.

Then John died too. Evans was about six years old. Rebecca was a widow with three small boys on the New York frontier, two hundred miles from the nearest Van Lew. The 1820 census shows her in Ballston, Saratoga County, living next door to her father Evans Robbins — the grandfather whose name her eldest son carried. Young Evans grew up knowing his grandfather, but not his father’s family.

Two fathers died when their sons were small children. Two boys grew up without knowing where their family came from. Cornelius’s death in 1777 severed John from his community. John’s death before 1820 severed Evans from his. By the time Evans was old enough to ask questions, there was no one left to answer them. It is not surprising that the connection was lost. What is remarkable is that it has now been found.

Generation 4: Cornelius Van Liew
East Millstone / Middlebush, NJ • 1734–1777

Born	January 7, 1734, Somerset County, New Jersey [VERIFIED]
Died	January 29, 1777, New Jersey [VERIFIED]
Parents	Frederick Van Liew (Gen 3) and Helena Denise [VERIFIED]
Married	Antje (Ann) Bowman, at Three Mile Run, Somerset County [VERIFIED]
Property	~350 acres, Millstone end of Lot #3, Harrison Tract [VERIFIED]
Church	Named as founder of New Millstone church (1766); member by profession of faith (Jul 30, 1772). Wife Antje became amember in 1775.[VERIFIED]
Source	Both published genealogies; church records; NJ war damage claims

Cornelius held 350 acres stretching from the Millstone River half a mile wide, up the south side of Amwell Road to halfway to Middlebush. The village of East Millstone and its church stood on his land. He was named as a founder of the church in 1766. He died on January 29, 1777 — seven months after the Declaration of Independence, as the Revolution engulfed his community.

The Revolution on His Land

After Cornelius’s death, the war came directly to the family’s door. British General Howe threw up forts on his brother Denice’s farm. Cornwallis encamped on the 350 acres with two full divisions. The family was driven from their home. Cattle were confiscated. Hessian soldiers took bread from ovens and food from tables. Soldiers chopped meat on the old Dutch kitchen cupboards; the nicks in the wood “were objects of curiosity for many years afterward.”

Washington twice encamped his army at Middlebrook — the same ground — in June–July 1777 and again in the winter of 1778–1779. The Van Liews did not just fight in the Revolution; the Revolution literally camped on their land. At least ten Van Liews served. After the Battle of Trenton (December 26, 1776), Van Liew patriots extended their enlistments for two additional weeks. The New Jersey Legislature partly reimbursed the family by special act in 1781. The war damage claims reveal the scale of what the British occupation cost.

Our John (born August 5, 1770) married Rebecca Robbins and moved to New York. He does not appear in these New Jersey church records after his own baptism.

The Silence That Speaks

Here is what the church records reveal when read as a whole: every one of John’s siblings who stayed in New Jersey left a long paper trail. His eldest brother Frederick married Anne Rappaljee in 1783 and had children through at least 1790. Cornelius Jr. married Marya and had eight children baptized at this church between 1776 and 1795. Deneys is W. Randolph Van Liew’s own ancestor, fully documented in New Jersey through his death.

John is the one who is absent. After his August 5, 1770 baptism, he never appears in the New Jersey church records again. No marriage. No children baptized. No profession of faith. His brothers are all over these pages. John is not — because he left for New York, where he appears on the 1810 census in Amsterdam, Montgomery County, married to Rebecca.

The silence in the New Jersey records and the presence in the New York records tell the same story from two directions.

John’s baptism record is the single document that bridges the gap. For over two centuries, no one connected the Van Lews of Glens Falls to the documented New Jersey family. The record was likely missed because the indexed name “Van Leuwe” did not match the expected “Van Liew” spelling.

John was seven years old when his father Cornelius died. He grew up in a community devastated by the Revolution. By 1810, he had moved roughly 200 miles north to Montgomery County, NY — part of the great post-Revolutionary scattering, when Dutch families left their ruined New Jersey farms for cheap frontier land along the Mohawk Valley. He died before August 1820, leaving his widow Rebecca with three small boys in Ballston, Saratoga County.

Evans is the first Van Lew born in New York — and the first whose connection to the New Jersey family was lost to history. His father died when he was about six. His mother Rebecca was a widow with three small boys on the frontier.

• Wife 1: Catherine Hyde (parents: Joseph and Jane Hyde). Married before 1840.
• Wife 2: Rebecca (surname unknown). Appears in 1880 census only. Not to be confused with Evans’s mother Rebecca Robbins (Gen 5) — this is a different woman, a generation later.

Note: Evans’s brother Cornelius (born ~1816, Glens Falls boatman) is yet another Cornelius Van Lew — separated by two full generations and 200 miles from his great-grandfather Cornelius (Gen 4, born 1734, East Millstone NJ). Same name, different centuries, different states. Researchers must not confuse them.

The Lumber Capital

By the 1840s, Glens Falls sat at the center of the American lumber trade. A natural waterfall on the Hudson provided power for sawmills and a collection point for logs floated from the Adirondacks. In 1849, the Hudson River Boom Association built the “Big Boom” — a massive chain-and-timber barrier that sorted millions of logs by owner’s mark. By 1854, Glens Falls was the logging center of the United States. From 1851 to 1929, over 5 billion board feet of timber passed through. Cornelius Van Lew (Evans’s brother) was listed as a “boatman” — almost certainly working the Hudson River lumber trade during the industry’s peak.

The family remained rooted in the Glens Falls area for four more generations:

Gen	Name	Born	Died	Notes
7	Harvey Van Lew	c. 1840	After 1910	Evans’s son. 1855 census, Moreau.
8	Irving Van Lew	1879	1957	Moved to Glens Falls.
9	Vincent Van Lew	1922	2001	Glens Falls.

From Frederick Hendrickson Van Leeuwen’s arrival at Jamaica, Long Island, in 1670, to Vincent Van Lew’s life in Glens Falls — ten generations, 336 years, and a name that traveled from the canals of Utrecht to the lumber mills of the upper Hudson Valley.