SARAH TEUNISE VAN MIDDLESWARDT

A few years before Sarah's birth, her family changed their surname from Denyce to Van Middleswardt while the family was still living in New Amsterdam. These kinds of changes make it difficult to keep track of family history, as you can imagine. Sarah was born on 1 Feb 1685 in Flatlands, Brookland, NY (i.e. Brooklyn, New York of today). She was baptized on this same day at the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church. About this time, many Dutch people were beginning to think about leaving New Amsterdam for new settlements in New Jersey. The British, who had taken over New Amsterdam, were not the kinds of leaders that the Dutch preferred. 

The first landowners in what was to become Montgomery Township, Somerset, NJ were speculators. Many speculators and early settlers were of Dutch descent from the New Amsterdam area.  The speculators themselves did not live on the land, but sold large parts of what they owned to companies that subdivided it into farm-sized plots for those who did intend to settle. This is probably what the Van Middleswardt family invested in.

 Montgomery Twp. at this time had a few dirt roads that had previously been trails. They  were maintained by the residents, and most of the residents were involved in farming. Settlement began in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Farms of 300 to 500 acres were common, some owners keeping a few slaves to work the land and serve in the household. The aim of the early settlers was subsistence farming. Each farm had a vegetable garden, orchard, pasturage and fields for grain, as well as a stand of timber to be selectively cut for fuel.

Churches marked the most important centers. The Dutch Church’s earliest congregations first gathered in farm houses. As I mentioned in last week's blog, Sarah married John Broucard in 1704 in Somerset, New Jersey, probably in one of these farm houses. All of Sarah and John Broucard's children were born in Somerset County, New Jersey:

1705 Kalleyntie
1707 Femmetje
1709 John
1711 Bergon
1715 Isaac K.
1717 Catalentien
1721  Marretje
1723  Isaac
1725  Abraham
It wasn't unusual for families to want to reuse a given name a second time. Isaac K. Brokaw died in Oct 1723. Thus, when another son was born that same year, he was named Isaac. 

Sarah died in 1742 in Somerset, NJ and is buried at Hillsborough.

SARAH TEUNISE VAN MIDDLESWARDT
BORN: 1 Feb 1685 in Flatlands, Brookland, New Amsterdam
MARRIED: 16 Oct 1704 in ,Somerset, NJ
DIED: 1742 in Raritan, Somerset, NJ
SOURCES: Harlingen Historical Center in Harlingen, Somerset, NJ; Baptismal record from FamilySearch.org; Marriage record from FamilySearch Ancestral File; FindAGrave.