The Outwater Family — Franz Jacobsen was a native of Oudewaer, a small town on the River Yssel, between Leyden and Utrecht, Holland. This town is also the birthplace of Arminius, after whom the “Remonstrants” were called Arminians. A picture in the Stadthuys, by Dirk Stoop, commemorates the brutal excesses committed there by the Spaniards in 1575. Jacobsen came to America prior to 1657 and located at Albany. One of his sons, Thys Franz Outwater, went from Albany to Tappan, New York, in 1686, where he married Geertie Lamberts Moll (widow of Jolin Jacobs Haring). His descendants spread over Rockland County and into New Jersey. One of them, Dr. Thomas Outwater, was a noted surgeon in the Revolutionary Army. Thomas Franz Outwater, another son of Franz Jacobsen, the emigrant, removed to New York, where he married Neetie Peterse. He subsequently removed to and settled in Bergen County, south of Hackensack, where he married (2) in 1730 Jannetie Durie, widow of Cornelius Epke Banta. His children were Jacob, Thomas, John, Peter, Elizabeth, Janneke, and Annatie, all of whom married and settled around Hackensack, where their descendants still reside.
Source: Harvey, Cornelius Burnham, Editor; Genealogical History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey, New York: The New Jersey Genealogical Publishing Company, 1900.