The Van Dam Family

of

St. Eustacia, New York, & London

Most of the following is from

originial research by S. B. Joel Watson

Descendants of: Claas Ripse Van Dam

1 Claas Ripse Van Dam
m. Maria Bords
2 Rip Van Dam
m. Sarah Van der Speigel
3 Rip Van Dam
m. Judith Bayard
4 Margaretta Van Dam
4 Nicholas Van Dam
m. _____ Aletta
5 Richard Van Dam
m. _____ Deborah
6 Elizabeth Van Dam
6 Hannah Van Dam
6 Helena Van Dam
6 Henry Van Dam
5 Jonas Van Dam
5 Magdelene Van Dam
5 James Van Dam
3 Nicholas Van Dam b. 1698
3 Margaretta Van Dam
3 Maria Van Dam
m. Nicholas Parcel
4 Peter Parcel
4 Lynch Parcel
4 Sarah Parcel
m. M. Van Alstyne
4 Mary Parcel
m. Benjamin Eghbertse
3 Caterina Van Dam b. 1692
3 Sarah Van Dam
m. Walter Thong
4 Rip Thong
m. _____ Catherine
4 Maria Thong
m. Robert Livingston
3 Jacob Van Dam
Jacob was twin to Rachel Van Dam.
3 Rachael Van Dam
Rachael was twin to Jacob Van Dam.
3 Catherine Van Dam b. 1707
3 Elizabeth Van Dam
m. J. Kierstead
4 Elizabeth Kierstead
m. Thomas Moore
5 Mary Moore
m. Baxter House
6 Elizabeth House
m. N. Everston
3 Laruens Van Dam
3 Deborah Van Dam
3 Richard Van Dam
m. Cornelia Beekman
4 Sarah Van Dam
4 Cornelia Van Dam
4 Rip Van Dam
4 Gerardus Van Dam
4 Nicholas Van Dam
4 Magdelena Van Dam
4 Jacob Van Dam
4 Richard Van Dam
3 Isaac Van Dam
m. Isabella Pintard
Apparently, Isaac and Isabelle were of Shrewsbury, New Jersey in the mid
1730s according to the Parish Registers of Christ Church, Shrewsbury.
4 John Van Dam
Baptised May 22, 1738 at Christ Church, Shrewsbury, New Jersey according
to the Parish Register..
4 Sarah Van Dam b. 1728
4 Anthony Van Dam b. 1738 d. 1808
4 Rip Van Dam
Baptized January 6, 1733 at Christ Church, Shrewsbury, New Jersey,
according to the Parish Register.
4 Catherine Mary Van Dam b. _____ d. 1828
Catherine Mary Van Dam's will in New York City, Will book 67, pp. 88ff.:

"Of Guilford Street, in the Parish of St. Pancras (Middlesex) London,
Spinster." Mentions nephew Anthony Van Dam Searle, "now living in her house"
if he takes the fame and Arms of Van Dam and licenses Parliament for the name
Van Dam." To be buried by her brother Anthony Van Dam at the Foundling
Hospital of St. Mary Pancras, London.

Newphe Anthony Van Dam MacKensie, 2nd son of John MacKenzie Esq. of King's
Arms Yard Coleman Street, London, Merchant....

Nephew Anthony William Searle, 3rd son of John and Martha Nole Searle of the
Island of Madeira.

Then all to the French Church of New York "in which my father and mother were
buried...for the poor... 20th of August, 1817.

Another nephew mentioned in a codicil to her will John Hopton Forbes of Ely
Place, Middlesex, Gentleman.
4 Isaac Van Dam b. _____ d. ABT 1776
m. Sarah Young
Baptized April 4, 1736 at Christ Church Shrewsbury, New Jersey according
to the Parish Register..
Sarah:
On December 21, 1785, one Sarah Van Dam married Peter Corne at Trinity
Church, New York City. But the letter from "Sarah Van Dam to her brother
George Young as dated 1784 or 1789. If it was indeed 1789 it probably was
not the same person as she signed Sarah Van Dam. On the other hand, it
the date was 1784, she might have married between the date of the letter
and the date of the marriage. It would be interesting to see if this is
the same person.
5 Susan Van Dam
m. 1782 Nicholas Romayne, M.D., b. 1756 d. 1817
Letter of Administration. Book 2, p. 360, New York City: "To Susan
Romayne the wife of Nicholas Romayne of the City of New York, Physician,
a daughter of Isaac Van Dam late of the Island of St. Eustasia, Merchant,
deceased... Whereas Isaac Van Dam...lately died intestate..." Dated
October 8, 1785.
Nicholas: Nicholas Romayne, (September, 1756 - July 21, 1817), physician, was the
eldest son of ]John Romeyn, a New York silversmith, and his wife Juliana
McCarty. His brother Jeremiah and several of his close relatives were Dutch
Reformed clergymen (W. B. Sprague, Annals Of the American Pulpit, vol. IX,
1869). Nicholas, who altered the spelling of his name, received his early
education at the Hackensack Academy under Peter Wilson [q.v.] and entered the
medical school of King's College, New York, in 1774. He secured the M.D.
degree at Edinburgh in 1780, writing a thesis on the formation of pus, De
Generatione Puris ( Edinburgh, 1780), and continued his education for a time
on the Continent. Returning to America, he settled first in Philadelphia, then
after the evacuation, in New York, where he married Susan, daughter of Isaac
Van Dam, merchant, of the Island of St. Eustatia (Collections Of the New York
Historical Society, Publication Fund Series, vol. XXXVII, 1905, p. 389).
He was one of the original board of regents of the University of the
State of New York from 1784 to 1787, and when the trustees of Columbia College
were independently chartered in 1787, he was made an original member of this
board, resigning in 1793. In 1785 he was elected professor of the practice of
physic in the revived Medical School of Columbia College, holding the title
until 1787, and in 1791-92 he was lecturer in chemistry, anatomy, and the
practice of physic; but this faculty having performed but small service,
Romayne was mainly occupied from 1787 in the instruction of private classes.
Being a man of learning and with culture, he attracted many students,
and in time he had a medical school of his own. In 1791 he addressed the
regents of the University, asking their protection and direction for the
school, and shortly afterward he and six associates, young physicians,
addressed a second memorial describing their proposed plans for instruction.
The regents were favorably disposed, and granted a charter to Sir James Jay
[q.v.], Romayne, and others as the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The
Columbia Trustees made immediate objection, representing that they were
engaged in establishing a medical department according to their charter, and
the Romayne proposal was suspended. Romayne then approached the trustees of
Queen's (now Rutgers) College at New Brunswick, N. J., for a degree conferring
arrangement, and was able to secure degrees from that institution for some of
his students in 1792 and 1793. The Queen's affair, however, placed him under
the ban of his profession in New York, and he went to Europe for further study
and observation. Here he was made a licentiate of the Royal College of
Physicians in London and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in
Edinburgh.
Romayne's next appearance was as a speculator in Western lands,
implicated in the Blount conspiracy of 1797. The scheme having failed,
Romayne, conceiving that his countrymen looked upon him with suspicion, left
the country (C.R. King, post, III, p. 258). In 1806, "by a sudden and singular
change of sentiment," he was called from his retirement and honored by
election as first president of the medical society of the city and county of
New York ( Hosack, post, p. 92).
In 1807 the College of Physicians and Surgeons, dormant since 1791, was
revived and Romayne was made president and trustee, and in 1808 professor of
the institutes of medicine during 1807-1808, in the absence of a professor, he
gave lectures in anatomy. He made the Address Delivered at the Commencement of
the Lectures in the school, published in New York in 1808. It was not long,
however, before difficulties arose.
In 1811 he and several of the professors re signed, and Romayne was back
at Queen' 5 College for degree-granting connections. Some of the more
distinguished members of the faculty had stood by him, and again in 1812
Queen's established a faculty of medicine and appointed these men to
professorships, making Romayne professor of the institutes of medicine and
forensic medicine. The school was carried on, as before, in quarters in New
York City. Twenty-one students, including Joseph Rodman Drake [q.v.], received
the Queen's degree, but in I8~6 the school was closed. Dr. Hosack said "it
fell in its own weakness" (post, p. 34). Romayne died in New York the next
year at the age of sixty-one. Samuel Latham Mitchill is quoted as having said
of him: .'His superior attainments in literature and medicine elevated him
with high notions, and filled him with contemptuous notions of some who had
been less fortunate in education than himself" (Hosack, post, pp. 90-91).

The Will of Nicholas Romayne, New York City, Will Book 54, p. 221: "being
about to sail shortly for Europe" on this 8th day of June, 1795." Sister,
Rachael, sister Jane, sister Susan, Cousin Benjamin son of Thomas Romayne,
kinsman John Romayne son of Caspar, brother Jeremiah, nephew Anthony Van Dam
Searle, cousin John Romeyn son of Dirik."
6 Susan Romayne b. ABT 1783
5 Anne Isabelle Van Dam
m. 29 May 1796 St. Pancras Old Church, London, England John MacKenzie
6 a son MacKenzie
6 Anthony Van Dam MacKenzie
Baptized August 29, 1802 St. Pancras Foundlling Hospital.
5 Sarah Van Dam
m. James Searle
6 Anthony Van Dam Searle b. ABT 1795
Nicholas Romayne said that he had a nephew Anthony Van Dam Searle.
6 Anne Isabella Searle
6 William Woodward Searle (?)
6 Edward Searle (?)
2 Deborah Van Dam
m. Henrich Hansen

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