Genealogical history of Hudson and Bergen counties, New Jersey

The De Clarks Family of Bergen County

The De Clarks are still numerous in Bergen County. Daniel de Clerque (de Clark) emigrated to America prior to 1676. The name of his first wife does not appear, but the couple brought two or three children with them and had two baptized in New York (Daniel and Abraham, twins) March 13, 1678. His wife died soon after, and he married (2), March 4, 1685, Geertje Cozines, a widow, by whom he had no issue. Two of his sons, John and Henry, were evidently married when they left Holland, the family having sailed from Amsterdam. Both John and Henry subsequently had children in New York. Another son of Daniel, Jacobus de Clark, was born in Holland. Daniel, in 1686, became one of the Tappan patentees with the Harings, Blawvelts, Smiths, and others, and removed to Tappan, where, in 1702, he was made a Justice of Orange County, and he took the census of Orangetown the same year. He was probably the first Justice ever appointed in the county. At that time there were only a few families huddled at Tappan, and Daniel seems to have been the biggest man of them all. The marriage of his son Jacobus to Antie Van Houten, September 14, 1706, is one of the earliest in the county. Jacobus had eight children, all of whom reared large families and gravitated southward into Bergen County.

Source: Harvey, Cornelius Burnham, Editor; Genealogical History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey, New York: The New Jersey Genealogical Publishing Company, 1900.

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