Wynkoop family.

Several family trees have been prepared to assist the researcher. These are available via the links below (for online edition) or at the end of this finding aid (for hard copy edition). Names of family members who are prominently represented in the collection appear in capital letters.

Wynkoop family A (Cornelius Wynkoop and Hendrika Newkirk) Wynkoop family B (Cornelius C. Wynkoop and Maria Catherine Ruehl) Wynkoop family C (John C. Wynkoop and Lydia Sylvester) Wynkoop family D (Augustus Wynkoop and Anna Maria Silvester) Reynolds family (Samuel Reynolds and Jane Jones) Ruehl family (Martin Augustus Ruehl and Maria Katherina Bamper) Silvester family (Peter Silvester and Jan Van Schaack)

The members of the Wynkoop family who are represented in this collection resided during the eighteenth century primarily in Kingston and Hurley, Esopus District, Ulster County, N.Y., and in New York City. Principal family members of the nineteenth century lived also in Ghent and Kinderhook, Columbia County, N.Y., and in Syracuse.

The bulk of the papers were generated by Cornelius Wynkoop (1732-circa 1807), sometime merchant of New York City. Of Dutch ancestry, he was the son of Cornelius Wynkoop (1688-circa 1747), a blacksmith of Hurley who is represented in the collection by one item, a family record, perhaps in his own hand, in which he recounts his capture by a French privateer while he was en route to Curacao in 1708. The younger Cornelius settled in New York City probably by 1750 and became a bookkeeper in the shop of Mary Alexander, a prominent businesswoman and the wife of lawyer James Alexander. Wynkoop was a witness to the 1756 will of Mary Alexander, who died in 1760. He may have purchased her business, for it was about 1760 that he began mercantile trading that extended along at least one leg of the triangular route with the West Indies. He dealt in rum and molasses, among other commodities; friends and relatives were engaged in sugar refining. Before the Revolutionary War he reportedly had three vessels, two owned outright, before two were seized by privateers. In 1770, Cornelius Wynkoop, described as a shopkeeper, was admitted as a freeman of the city of New York.

Cornelius Wynkoop left New York City about 1773 and settled in the Kingston, N.Y., area. During the next years he reportedly kept school and worked as an accountant. He was commissioned in 1779 as Assistant Commissary of Issues in the Northern Department. It was at Kingston that were born the last two of the ten children of Cornelius and Maria Catherine (Ruehl) Wynkoop. Of the children, John C. Wynkoop (1761-1796) was a lawyer who studied law in Kinderhook with Judge Peter Silvester and who practiced at Kingston. Of John C. Wynkoop's children, a son was Peter Silvester Wynkoop, minister and a great-grandfather of the donor, William Niver Wynkoop; and a daughter, Anna Maria Wynkoop, who married Samuel Hawley, was the mother of Jane (Hawley) Isaacs, a correspondent of Martin Van Buren, Jr.

Catharine Wynkoop (1763-1845) married Jonathan Hasbrouck. Their son, Abraham Bruyn Hasbrouck (1791-1879), was president of Rutgers College from 1840 to 1850.

Cornelius C. Wynkoop (1772-1796) was a surveyor.

The father discontinued his own use of the middle initial C before the birth of this son, who used the initial throughout his short life. Augustus Wynkoop (1777-1836) was a merchant in New York City. His granddaughter, Sarah B. Reynolds, collected Wynkoop memorabilia and genealogical material.

Cornelius Wynkoop returned to New York City probably after 1779 once again to trade. A tax book for the First Ward of New York City for the years 1801 to 1808, which is in the collection, suggests that he may have collected taxes in his last years, besides maintaining his financial interests. In the accompanying genealogical charts, the names of family members who are represented in the collection appear in capital letters. Further biographical and anecdotal material (but little additional information on Cornelius Wynkoop's business interests) is available in the notes of Sarah B. Reynolds, "Incidents and Family History," a copy of which is filed in the collection with other Wynkoop genealogical material, and in Richard Wynkoop, Wynkoop Genealogy in the United States of America (2nd ed., New York, 1878; 3rd ed., New York, 1904). A copy of the second edition, with holograph corrections and additions presumably in the hand of Sarah B. Reynolds, is part of the collection. A copy of the third edition is available in Syracuse at the Syracuse Public Library.

From the guide to the Wynkoop family Papers, 1684-1930, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)