Jan Strycker, born in Holland in 1614. reached New Amsterdam from Ruinen wi th his wife,two sons and four daughters, in 1652, leaving behind him all the privileges and rights which were his by descent in the old world. He was a man of ability and education, for his subsequent history proves him to be prominent in the civil and religious community in which he cast his lot. His first wife was Lambertje Seubering and the mother of all his children. After her death, he married Swantje Jans, widow of Cornelius de Potter of Brooklyn. The second wqife died in 1686. In March, 1687, he married a third time, Teuntje Teuunis of Flatbush. Jan Strycker remained in New Amsterdam a little over a year, and in he year 1654 he took the lead in founding a Dutch colony on Long sland at what was called Midwout. It was also called Middlewoods. The modern name is Flatbush. On the 11th of December 1653 while still in New Amsterdam, Jan Strycker joined others in a petition of the Commonality of the New Netherlands and a remonstrance against the conduct of Direcor Stuyvesant. The petition recited that "they apprehend the establishment of an arbitrary government over them; that it was contrary to the genuine principles of well regulated governments that one or more men should arrogate to themselves the exclusive power to dispose at will of the life and property of any individual; that it waa odius to every freeborn man, principally to those whom God had Placed in a free state of newly settled lands." We humbly submit that "tis one of our ptivieges that our consent of that of our representatives, is necessarily required in the enactment of laws and orders." It is remarkable that at this early day this indictment was drawn up, this "bill of rights" was publ:i;!shed. But these men came from the blood of the hardy Northmen d inbibed with the free air of America and the determination to be truly free themselves. In the year 1654, Jan Strycker was selected as the Chief Magistrate of Midwout and this office he had most of the time for twenty years. The last time we find the notice of his election was at the Council of war held in Fort Wiilliam Hendrick, August 18, Anno 1673, where the delegates from the respective towns: of Midwout, Bruckelen, Amersfort, Utrecht, Boswyck and Gravesend selected him as "Schepen". He was also one of the embassy from New Amsterdam and the principal Dutch towns to be sent to the Lord Mayors in Holland on account of their annoyance from the English and the Indians, they complain that they "will be driven off their lands unless reenforced from the Fatherland." On April 10, 1664, he took his seat as a representative from Midwout in ithat great Landtdag, a general assembly called by the burgomasters, which was held at the City Hall in New Amsterdam, to take into consideration the precarious condition of the country. He was one of the representatives in the Hempstead Convention in 1665, and he appears as a patentee on the celebrated Nichols patent, October ll, 1667, and again on the Dongan patent, November 12, 1685. He was elected Captain of the Military company at Midwout, October 25, 1673, and his brother, Jacobus was given authority to "administer the oaths and to install him into office." Captain Jan Strycker was named March 26, 1674, as a deputy to represent the town in a conference to be held at New Orange to confer with Gov. Colve on the present state of the country. During the first year. of his residence at Midwout he was one of the two Comissioners to build the Dutch Church there, the first erected on Long Island, and he was for many years an active supporter of the Domine Johannes Theodorus Polhemus, of the Reformed Church of Holland, in that ediface. After raising a family of eight children, every one of whom lived to adult llfe and married, seeing his sons settled on valuable plantations and occupying positions of influence in the community and his daughters marrying into the familiea of the Brinckerhoffs, the Berriens and the Bel gens, living to be over eighty years of age, he died about the year 1697, full of the honors which these new towns could bestow, and with duties as a civil officer and a free citizen of his adopted country well performed. He was buried in the Cemetery of the First Church on Long Island. On page 668, Vo1. II, of the Genealogical and Personal Memorial of Mercer County, New Jersey, by F. B. Lee, 1869, we find: "Capt. Jan Srycker was named as a deputy to represent the town in a conference to be held at New Orange to confer with Governor Colve concerning land in New Jersy and they resolved that at least some of their descendants should settle there. The exactiona of the English in the matter of the their town governments, and more especially the establishment of the Church of England among them, made them long to move further away from the conquerors." Various parcels of land were purchased by companies, and the Srycker family selected the fertile soil of Somerset County for their future home. Lambertje Seubering, first wife of Jan Strycker and the mother of all his children, was the daughter of Roeloff Seberinge of Drenthe, in the Netherlands. She died after 1663 and before 1679.