My ancestor Maria Thomas Badie was a wealthy woman who was married three times. In surviving legal documents, Maria used Thomas or Badie as her surname, not those of her husbands. (1) In records, the most common variants of her name are:

• Maria Thomas Badie
• Mary Badie
• Mary Badye
• Mary Thomas
• Maria Thomas
• Maritie Tomas

She had 13 children, ten surviving to adulthood. All ten married and had children. Doing some quick math, easily, nearly 100,000 persons living today can claim ancestry. (1)

Pictured above is the gift of silver communion beakers that my ancestor Maria Thomas Badie gave to the church on October 3, 1684. She gifted them to the Dutch Reformed Church of Breuckelen (now Brooklyn) in celebration of the church’s 30th anniversary. The beakers were made by her son-in-law, Juriaen Blanck Jr. who was a silversmith, married to her daughter Hester van der Beeck. His father, Juriaen Blanck Sr. had also been a silversmith. The father had learned his trade in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and was the first documented silver and goldsmith to practice in New Amsterdam. (1)

Maria Thomas Badie and her husbands and her children are found in the church records for the Dutch Reformed Church in Breuckelen (Brooklyn) in New York.

The silver communion beakers are engraved with female representations of Hope, Faith, and Charity, which I found quite fitting as we are celebrating Women’s History Month and our female ancestors.

Faith, Hope, and Charity represent the three great virtues. The symbols of faith, hope and charity are a large cross, a cross with an anchor and a heart. These three theological virtues are virtues that God puts into the soul. Charity is often called love and represented by the heart.

Faith, Hope and Love refer straight to God and symbolize the Holy Trinity.

The word Faith, from Latin fides, refers to one who trusts, who confides and relies on something. Faith is the Theological Virtue for which one believes in God. Hope, from Latin spes, is the Theological Virtue which responds to the attainment of Eternal Happiness of human beings. Love, used as a synonym of Charity, is the Theological Virtues that permits man to love God above all else and his neighbor as himself. Just as God loves any creature, Christians are invited to love their neighbors unconditionally, especially children, poor people and enemies. (3)

According to the Apostle Paul, Love is patient and kind, it does not envy or boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, it does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth, it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres and it will never end because Love never fails.  

And now these three remain:
Faith, Hope and Love;
but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

The Dutch Reformed Church of Breuckelen (now known as Old First), was one of the first congregations in New York City. In 1654, Governor Pieter Stuyvesant established three “collegiate” churches in the towns of Breukelen (Old First), Flatbush and Flatlands. Through various changes in locations and configurations, the three churches have survived and celebrated their 350th anniversary in 2004. The congregations were serviced by Domine Johannes Theodorus Polhemus who traveled to all three on Sundays. (2)

The earliest worship services in Breuckelen were conducted under a tree, then in a barn. By 1666, the first church structure to be built in Breukelen was erected on a highway, now known as Fulton Street. (2)

It has been rebuilt and moved a few times over the centuries and the current location of that branch of the original church of Breuckelen, Old First, is located at Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street. Its first church structure was completed in 1886, a chapel on Carroll which still stands and is used for programming and community events. Around this time the church on Livingston Street was sold to developers and demolished. The iconic church now worshipped in as Old First was dedicated in 1891. (2)

My ancestor Maria Thomas Badie’s parents were Thomas Badie and Ailtje Braconie (aka Aeltien Brackhonge). The couple were French Huguenots living in Belgium, who emigrated to the Netherlands before embarking for New Amsterdam (New York). The family must have come to New Amsterdam early in the 1620’s if one follows a timeline relating to other events. (1)

Thomas Badie was Ailtje’s first husband and searching through records no other child has been found. When he passed, Ailtje inherited the estate. She married two more times, to Cornelis Lambertszen Cool and to Willem Bredenbent. While Lambertszen may have had other children, none seem to have survived, making Maria Thomas Badie the only heir, Ailtje having had no children by her third and last husband. Ailtje and Willem’s joint will in 1670 left everything to Maria. (1 & 4)

Maria Thomas Badie may have married her first husband, Jacob Verdon, before she arrived in the New Netherlands, or they may have met after her arrival.  The records indicate that their two known children were both born in the New Netherlands. (5 & 6) Unfortunately, Jacob died shortly after the birth of their two children. Maria Badie was still in her 20’s and she married as her 2nd husband, Willem Adriaenszen Bennet. He was an Englishman, and a cooper by trade.  About the same time that he married Maria Badie, he purchased, along with another man, 930 acres of land at Gowanus, from the Indians. The house he built there may have been the first house built by a white man in Brooklyn.  In 1639 he purchased his partner’s interest. During the 1643 Indian raids on Long Island, the house was burned and destroyed (6) Maria’s husband, William, and her stepfather, Cornelius Cool, died, possibly in these Indian raids. 

She married third to Paulus Vanderbeek. Actor James Van der Beek is a descendant of Paulus Vanderbeek and Maria Thomas Badie. There were children born to all three of her marriages. Maria inherited property from her mother, her stepfather and her husbands. She was a very wealthy widow when her last husband died. Some believe she was one of the wealthiest persons in New Amsterdam (New York).

Her death is recorded in 1697. Maria Thomas Badie Verdon Bennet Vanderbeek is buried in the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery. My direct line is through her daughter from her first marriage to Jacob Verdon, Magdalena Jacobs Verdon who married Adam (Adolph) Brouwer (Brouwer Berkhoven).

As noted, Maria’s parents were French Huguenots, so her ancestry goes back to France. Her husband Jacob Verdon was born either in La Rochelle, France or the Netherlands. He was Secretary of the Dutch West Indies Company. He is reputed to have made several trips back and forth to America. His ancestry would be French as well.

My direct line from Maria Thomas Badie:

1. Maria Thomas Badie and Jacob Verdon.
2. Magdalena Jacobs Verdon and Adam (Adolph) Brouwer (Brouwer Berkhoven).
3. Wilhelmus Adams Brouwer and Elizabeth Lysbeth Simpson (daughter of Pieter Simpson and Grietje ____).
4. Elizabeth (Lysbeth) Brouwer and Harman (Harmen Gerritse) Van Sant (son of Gerret (aka Gerret Stoffelszen) Van Sant and Elizabeth Lysbeth Cornelius Gerritz).
5. Catherine VanSant and Daniel Severns.
6. Elizabeth Severns and James W. Cooper (son of William Cooper and Mary Groome).
7. Rebecca Cooper and Thomas Barton (possibly the son of Thomas Barton and Mary Kimber).
8. Catherine Ann Barton and James W. Lyons (probable son of James Lyons, see notes below)
9. Martha A. Knight Lyons and Bradford Carroll “B.C.” Armstrong (son of John A. Armstrong and Sarah “Sally” Norris).
10. George Pendleton Armstrong and Alice Elizabeth Nutick (daughter of Eli Nutick (Emig/Emich/Emick) and Margaret (Margarethe) Weiss). – My great-grandparents.

The Brouwer (Brouwer Berkhoven) line goes back to Cologne, Germany. Pieter Simpson was most likely an Englishman and his wife Grietje ____ was of a Dutch family. Although I cannot confirm the parentage of Daniel Severns, he may have been the son of John Severns and Frances Elizabeth Betts.

The Cooper and Groome families were Quakers. The Cooper line eventually goes back to Stratford On Avon, Warwickshire, England.

The parentage of James W. Lyons (II) has been a huge headache brick wall. What I do know is that he had two brothers named Joseph (Joseph James) Lyons (he married Hannah White) and John Lyons (he married Elizabeth Wiley). I am a DNA match to numerous descendants of his brother Joseph (Joseph James Lyons) and also have several DNA matches to the descendants of his brother John Lyons. Some list the brothers as the sons of Aaron Lyon/Lyons and Johanna Hatfield. This link has not been proven. I only have a few very remote DNA matches to descendants of this couple. Some list them as the sons of Samuel Lyon and Mary Lounsberry. This is based on an old U.S. Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications and in that record, they are basing the descendancy on John Lyons being the son of Samuel Lyons and Mary Lounsberry, but with his wife named Sarah Smith via their son Isaac Dickinson Lyon. I have not really found much of a DNA connection to Samuel Lyons and Mary Lounsberry. It appears the three brothers were the sons of a James Lyons, and he may have been born in New York. But DNA has shown that the brothers are connected to the Lyons families of New Jersey.

To learn more about my Nutick ancestors visit my blog post: 52 Ancestors, Week 15. How Do You Spell That? My 2nd Great-Grandfather Elias “Eli” Nutick.

To learn more about my Weiss ancestors visit my blog post: My Weiss, Fried, Propheter, and Related Ancestors from Klingenmünster, Germany.

To learn more about my Armstrong related Shephard ancestors visit my blog post: My ancestor Rev. Thomas Shepard, an English and American Puritan Minister and Significant Figure in Early Colonial New England.

To learn more about my Armstrong related Cogswell ancestors visit my blog post: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2021 – Week 45: Stormy Weather. My ancestors John Cogswell / Elizabeth Thompson – The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 – The Ship Angel Gabriel.

References:

1. Maria Thomas Badie, Silver Beaker Donor of 1684 by Jane Barber, December 18, 2018. oldfirstbrooklyn.org.
2. Early Days. History of Old First Brooklyn Church. oldfirstbrooklyn.org.
3. The Three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope and Love. November 6, 2020. Savelli Roma-Vaticano Religious Blog. savellireligious.com
4.  “Editorial Iconoclastiana,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volume 65, Issue 1, 1934, page 19. Reproduced on findmypast.com.nygbs.idm.oclc.org.
5. O’Callaghan, The Documentary History of the State of New-York, “The Roll of Those who Have Taken the Oath of Allegiance in Kings County,” “Thomas Verdon native”.
6. Marie Thomas Badie. AMERICA THE GREAT MELTING POT – Brooke Family Genealogy.

Banner image is photo of stained-glass window panel from Old First Church today. oldfirstbrooklyn.org

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