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I

The DeLongs of

New York and Brooklyn

A Huguenot Family Portrait

The DeLongs of New York and Brooklyn

A Huguenot Family Portrait

THOMAS A. DeLONG

Introduction by Elizabeth L White

SASCO ASSOCIATES Southport, Connecticut 1972 Copyright® 1972 by Thomas A. DeLong

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote

brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.

Published by Sasco Associates Southport, Connecticut 06490

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-189091 ISBN 0-912980-01 -X

First Edition

i

Printed in the United States of America at Macfarlane & Fraser, Inc., Bridgeport, Connecticut 06601 Phototypeset and Composed by Vari-Comp, Shelton, Connecticut 06484 the Katharines, Sarahs and Emmas who grace these pages and the essence of many lives. i CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION BY ELIZABETH L. WHITE 9

PREFACE 11

I KINSHIP 15

II ONE HUNDRED YEARS AND FIVE GENERATIONS 19

III A HUGUENOT HEGIRA 23

IV BOWERS TO BROOKLYN 31

V MECHANIC TO MERCHANT 41

VI AN EASTERN DISTRICT DYNASTY 51

VII BROOKLYN 14. SUBURBIA 14 71

VIII PROGENY AD INFINITUM 83

IX CITY SIBLINGS 121

X ARCTIC FEVER 147

XI GEMS AND NOTIONS 171

NOTES 179

BIBLIOGRAPHY 185

INDEX 189

ILLUSTRATIONS FOLLOWING PAGE 82

INTRODUCTION

During the past years, ancestor-hunting has become a popular armchair sport in the United States. No longer are only the wealthy and socialites interested in their family backgrounds. Instead, men and women of every social condition have become involved in tracking down their family histories.

The reasons for this interest in genealogy are many and varied. Some are frankly snobbish — people yearn for luster borrowed from famous ancestors, royalty or commoner, or may wish to prove a connection between themselves and a well-known current figure. Others may be interested in their family background out of curiosity — wanting to know what kind of people they have descended from — farmers, tradesmen, lawyers, soldiers, rich men or poor. Some may wish to prove their right to an inheritance or membership in a society such as the Daughters of the American Revolution. Some may hope to take precautions to avoid burdening their unborn descendants with the consequences of hereditary defects. Yet others may pursue genealogi- cal studies for religious reasons, as do the Latter-day Saints, who may save their ancestors by posthumous baptism into the Mormon faith. And still others, feeling the pressures of our mobile, rootless society, may wish to provide for themselves and their descendants the legacy of a set of roots, a direct link to the past as experienced both by their immediate generations and those who preceded them.

Genealogical research can prove itself useful in fulfilling any of these functions, however, worthy or unworthy each of these individual functions may be. But besides the value of the results, there is more than one inherent value in the research itself. Genealogical research has provided a fascinat- ing and rewarding hobby for the leisure time of thousands of people whose ancestors may never have done anything very remarkable. At the same time, this research may very well result in a growing appreciation of the historical and social changes that have been occurring through the centuries.

Someone, for instance, tracing his ancestry back from a current generation of to factory workers to professional people , through white-collar workers farmers to indentured immigrant servants to English factory workers to yeoman farmers, is going to have a much clearer grasp o