Sunset at Gowanus Bay

Sunset at Gowanus Bay
Sunset at Gowanus Bay, Henry Gritten, 1851

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Monmouth County Orphans Court; William Williamson and David Brewer

The two files linked below are documents recorded at the July 1820 term of the Monmouth County Orphans Court at Freehold, New Jersey. The documents were received from William B. Bogardus. Please refer to the post of June 6, 2013 for an explanation to their origins.

The papers help to reconstruct two late 18th and early 19th century families of Monmouth County. The first document, William Williamson, division of real estate, names the living children of William Williamson, and also names the children of his deceased daughter, Jane (Williamson) Brewer. William Williamson, a son of David Williamson and Geertje Voorhees (as identified by William J. Hoffman in his manuscript notes regarding the various Brouwer families) was married to Helena Brower, a daughter of Aris (Aaron) Brower and Neeltje (Eleanor) Cooper. She was a descendant of Jan Brouwer of Flatlands, Long Island. The daughter Jane, who was deceased when the issue of the distribution of the real estate of William Williamson came before the Monmouth County Orphans Court, was married to Cornelius Brewer, a son of Benjamin Brower and Maria Lane. He was also a descendant of Jan Brouwer of Flatlands (Benjamin was a younger brother of the above mentioned Aris Brower, both being sons of Jan Brouwer and Helena Van Cleef). The document names William Williamson's other living children, including two married daughters. Baptism records for the children are found in the register of baptisms for the Dutch Congregations of Freehold and Middletown.

The second document is an application of David Brewer, one of the orphaned heirs of William Williamson. The "application" or petition asks the court to direct a division of the property of William Williamson. It states that David Brewer is one of the children of Jane Brewer, deceased, a daughter of WilliamWilliamson, deceased. Also named in the application are David's siblings, Gilbert, William, Johnston and Elizabeth Brewer. As mentioned above, their father was Cornelius Brewer (Brower) and he was alive as late as 1850, when he is found on the U. S. Federal census at Atlantic, Monmouth Co., New Jersey as the head of a household that included his second wife, Lydia, his son David Brewer, and daughter Elizabeth Brewer.

The above two documents are numbers 2 and 3 as abstracted in Part 1 of Early Monmouth County Court Papers. Some details on the above mentioned families can be found at the Brouwer Genealogy Database website. They are not complete and I anticipate updates to the families in the future.

BGB 286

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