Tag: Merlet

More on Gedeon Merlet

Posted on by Mark

Gedeon Merlet

Born 1624, Roucy, Champagne, France

Died Feb 1683, Mansfield, New Jersey

Fled the religious persecution in France, moving to the Leyden in the province of Zuid in the Netherlands.

According to his marriage record, Gedeon moved from Gouda in the Netherlands to Leiden during the month of Devember 1643.

Married Marguerite Martijn 21 Aug 1644 in the Walloon Church, Leiden, Netherlands.

Moved to Mannheim, Palatinate, Germany in about 1650, remaining there until their emigration to America.

Emigrated to New Amsterdam (New York) with his wife, four sons, his uncle Philip Merlet, and his wife’s cousin Jeanne Martijn, aboard the ship “De Purmerlander Kerck” on 12 October 1662.

Shortly thereafter, on 19 March 1663, Gideon, along with a number of other emigrants, petitioned the General and Council of New Netherlands for “grants of land and seed grain, with provisions for six months.” Gideon subsequently received a grant of land on Staten Island, and it is there that he and his family settled.

Occupied as a carpenter between 1625 and 1675.

Appointed constable of Staten Island in 1671 by Governor Francis Lovelace, and on 2/14/1674, he was appointed a magistrate by Governor Coive.

Later married a Mary Taylor??

Nicknamed “La Plante”

Died at Piscataway, NJ, after 11/1/1675 (when he received a land patent in Staten Island and at the mouth of the Fresh Kill), and prior to 3/20/1684 (when his sons listed the land as inherited)

Before 1643 he was from Gouda, from where he fled (he was a Huguenot) In 1643 joined the church in Leide (Leyden), Holland, where Anabaptists took him in. He was married there and his first three children were born there. Moved to Mannheim (Germany) in the 1650’s, where two more sons were born. Moved back to Holland between 1658 and 1662, and then moved to New Amsterdam (New York City) in 1662.

Married 6 (or 21?) August 1644 in Leyden, Holland, where he was a carpenter living in Sand Street. Best man was Phillippe Merlet (an uncle).

Father to Josue or Josias (bap. 9/17/1645, Leyden, m. Sarah Peatt Aliar Leflure, d. 1710, Woodbridge, NJ), Marie (bap. 11/11/1646, Leyden, died prior to 1662), Esechias (bap. 7/26/1648, Mannheim, died prior to 1662), Poulus Merle or Paul (b. 1653/4?, m. Jeanne Mereau, see this site, some sites claim Paul is also Esechias, but ocean passage record belies this?), Abraham Marlatt (bap. 2/7/1656, Mannheim, d. 1714, m. Elizabeth), Jean Pierre (John Peter, bap. 5/2/1658, q.v.), Anne (b. New Amsterdam [New York], died 8/25/1681, New York, drowned with a friend Mary Marshall, after a canoe overturned in Hellsgate on the East River).

Descendants also known as Marlatt, Marlette, Marlott, Merlette, etc. The name of Merlet (originally Marle or a diminutive or Merle or its diminutive) came to be pronounced “MAR-LETT” by the English-speaking neighbors of Gedeon Merlet or Marlett of Staten Island and New Jersey. The connection between the two names MARLE and MERLE, and later Marlett, Marlatt, and Mellott, can be traced back to French language and custom. For example, the arms of the MARLOT family of Champagne show three “MERLETTES” (martlets). Thus the merlette was the symbol in battle for the family named Marlot.

The French suffixes frequently changed to suggest a certain branch of the family. Both names may have been used interchangeably, but the English would definitely have prounced the spelling Merlet as MAR-LETT. I believe this is why so many of Gedeon’s descendants maintained that spelling. John Peter, evidently, dropped the “r” and was frequently referred to as John Peterson Melot, Mellat, or Mallat. Theodore’s 1694 baptismal record shows the spelling MELOT, which became Mellott among his son John Mellott’s descendants, mainly in Pennsylvania. Theodore himself signed his name MALOT, whereas most of his second wife’s (Catherine de la Chaumette or Delashmutt) children carried on the Malott spelling.

Gedeon Merlet was one of many Huguenots who found freedom from religious persecution in Holland during the first half of the 17th century. Under the promise of lands and aid in getting started in the New World, he with some twenty-nine other refugees came over to the New Netherlands in October, 1662, on the ship “Purmerland Church.” With him were his wife Marguerite Martin and four minor sons, namely Joshua, born 1647; Paul, born 1654; John, born 1656; and Abraham, born 1658.

Early in the year following his arrival, 1663, Gedeon Merlet, with six other Huguenot immigrants, joined in a petition to the Director General and the Council of New Netherlands for grants of suitable land, provision for temporary subsistence, and seed grain so that, as they stated, “the supplicants may exert their industry and zeal without obstruction in the cultivation of the land, not only for their personal benefit, but also for the welfare and good of the whole country. They also promised ultimately to fully repay the Council for such advances. This petition, the original of which is now on file in the state archives at Albany, was approved, and in the instance of Gedeon Merlet resulted in the assignment of land to himself and his sons in Staten Island, much of it in the vicinity and possibly covering the site of this church edifice. Here he lived the balance of his life, and his children grew to manhood.”

The fragments of the history of this period which have come down to us, in addition to records of land purchase and and transfers, indicate that Gedeon Merlet, during the first British occupancy of New Netherlands, was appointed by Governor Francis Lovelace as a constable in Staten Island (April 20, 1671). A little later, under the very brief re-occupancy of the Colony by the Dutch, he was appointed by Governor Colve as a magistrate (February 14, 1674). We have no record of his death, which must have occurred prior to 1683, as indicated by the inheritance and division of his land.

Information from this site.

The Times of Gedeon Merlet

Posted on by Mark

The Times of Gideon Merlet

by Robin Marlatt Farr

 

The “Huguenot period” in France, which preceded the life of Gedeon Merlet and continued long after he had  led the country was a bloody, turbulent and cruel episode in terms of religious intolerance and civil warfare  even judged by the unrest that characterized the 17th. Century in Europe.

The most famous early Huguenot exile was, of course,  John Calvin who fled to Basel and established his  Church there in 1534.  By 1545 massacres of Huguenot reformists had spread widely in France almost certainly because the Reform movement had increased so rapidly in terms of  adherents.

Louis I de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, became the Protestant standard bearer and took up arms in 1562.  A Protestant army fought over a wide territory over the next several years until it was defeated at Jarnac and Conde killed. However, Conde’s sister-in-law was the Queen of Navarre and she presented her son to the Reformers to lead the Protestant army.  He became Henry IV who, in 1798, proclaimed the Edict of Nantes.  Neither Henry’s succession to the throne of France nor the Edict of Nantes really abated the religious persecution of the Huguenots. Henry’s life was in many ways  typical of the monarchs of his time.  He led a turbulent life, often switching allegiance to suit his ambitions, strong on the battlefield, fathering many illegitimate dukes and duchesses, yet sympathetic to the needs of his subjects.  He became one of France’s most popular kings.

Despite his Protestant upbringing, he abjured his Protestantism to marry the sister of Charles IX, probably recognizing that this was a more strategic way to reach the throne of France than continual warfare.  His marriage, however,  was marred by the massacres of Huguenots (known as the Massacres of Saint Bartholemew).  Henry thereupon escaped from the French Court, quickly recanted his Catholicism, and took up arms again to lead the Protestant rebel forces.  The reigning French monarch was assassinated, probably arranged by Henry who suffered the same fate later (a not uncommon occurrence in this bloody period).  Henry, King of Navarre, was now recognized as successor to the throne of France.  The surest way to Paris, however, was to convert again to Catholicism, which he did.  The famous remark “Paris is well worth a mass” is attributed to Henry at this time.

Henry as King finished the Tuileries and built the great gallery of the Louvre, restored order to a country which had been devastated by religious conflict, and proclaimed the Edict of Nantes in 1598.  Twelve years later he was himself assassinated in Paris.  The Edict awarded right of assembly, property rights etc to French Protestants. Although a bold stroke on Henry’s part, it did not end the harrassment of French Protestants.  The Catholic Clergy began what has been called a “judicial war” which intensified between 1643 to 1663 (the period in which Gedeon Merlet and his family fled from France and ultimately arrived in New Amsterdam).  A multitude of proclamations and decrees followed the Edict which attacked Huguenot family life, property rights and civil freedoms.  “Commissioners” for the Edict were established controlled by the Clergy and ruling on all Huguenot activities in the various regions of the country.  The Catholic Clergy were dedicated to the revocation of the Edict which they achieved in 1685.  One of the more obnoxious forms of harrassment was a system called “dragonnades” by which dragoons of the French army were quartered in Huguenot homes with instructions to maltreat their hosts.

Even before the revocation of the Treaty of Nantes, civil war had broken out between Louis XIII and the Huguenot forces.  The revocation of the Edict of Nantes has been termed “one of the most flagrant political and religious blunders in the history of France.”  It is estimated that more than 400,000 Protestants migrated to Holland, Prussia, England and America. There is evidence to suggest that this large migration included many skilled artisans and trades people.  (Gedeon who was a carpenter could be considered among these numbers.)  By 1715 Louis XIV proclaimed that he had ” put an end to the exercise of the Protestant religion.”

It was not until 1789 that the National Assembly, following the Revolution, restored some of the civil rights of the Huguenots and recognized the validity of Protestant marriages.  The process of recognition continued under Napoleon but was sharply reversed after the fall of Napoleon when a period known as “white terror” exposed Protestants to outrages, particularly in the south of France at Nimes and caused the Huguenots to flee again.  (Nimes was the principal centre of the Reformation in France.)

Gedeon Merlet arrived at New Amsterdam (Staten Island) on October 12, 1662, during  the period when some of the worst excesses of the “judicial war” against Huguenots were occuring in France.  However. the Merlets had arrived to a new kind of turbulence and bloodshed in the New World. Staten Island was inhabited by the Raritan indians who laid waste completely to the first white settlements by 1655, just seven years before Gedeon’s arrival.  The first permanent settlement was made in 1661, one year before his arrival.  Staten Island was a major Huguenot destination because the Dutch West Indies Company had purchased the Island and granted land to French Huguenots at the settlement of Oude Dorp (old town) south of the Narrows.  However, two years after Gedeon’s arrival the British, under the Duke of York, captured Staten Island and brought English and Welsh farmers to establish homes and farms.  The Merlets had arrived in the New World only to encounter yet more  turbulence and change.