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Individual:
B: Holland
D: Coxsackie, Greene County, NY The Houghtaling families in America stem from two immigrants to New Yor
k State in the mid-seventeenth century, both of Dutch origin, but probably unrelated: Jan Willemsen Houghtaling, of Kingston, Ulster County, and Mathys Coenradt Houghtaling of Coxsackie, Greene County. Although this genealogy is concerned only with the descendants of Mathys, some research was necessary on Jan Willemsen's descendants in order to sort out the lines. No instance was found wherein descendants of either of these men witnessed or sponsored baptisms of each other's children, even though they attended the same churches. Descendants of Jan Willemsen were sometimes recorded with the prefix "van" before the surname, indicating that Houghtaling is a place name. Cursory research in Holland by the author shows the name appearing in the seventeenth century records of the province of Zuid-Holland as "van Hoogteijlingen," and unknown in other provinces. Mathys Coenradt and his descendants never used the "van." It isbelieved that he did not have a surname in Holland, but that he adoptedthe name Houghtaling about 1675, possibly. Twenty years after his arrival in America. In 1667 at Wiltwyck [Kingston] he was exposed to this surname when he appeared in court before Jan Willemsen Houghtaling, one ofits magistrates, who had been using the surname as early as 1661. It would appear then that Sylvester's History of Ulster County, which suggests that the two were brothers, is in error. [The given names of the immigrants' fathers were obviously Willem and Coenradt respectively. ED.]
The fifty or more variations in spelling, ranging from Hogdielen to Huf tailen to Hoochtelink, represent a good example of phonetic recordings by Dutch, German, and English clerks and ministers as this name became Anglicized and evolved into the present forms of Houghtaling, Hotaling, and Hotelling.
The first mention of Mathys Coenradtsen is the appearance of his name o n a list of boys and girls from the almshouse in Amsterdam, Holland, who were being sent to the New World to work for the Dutch West India Company and to "increase the population of New Netherlands." The letter of transmittal to Peter Stuyvesant from the Burgomasters of Mathys Coenratsen Houghtaling Family Amsterdam, noting the names and ages of the children, is dated 27 May 1655 and includes "Mathys Coenratsen, 16 years of age" (CDNY 14:3250. The late William J. Hoffman, an authority on early Dutch immigrants, states, in a manuscript in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society library, "On account of the unusual combination of names, Mathys Coenraets (the almshouse child) is probably identical withMathys Coenraets of Albany." He notes the apparent discrepancy in theirages (the almshouse child having been born about 1639, and the Albany settler about 1644), but adds, "Ages as given in records were notoriouslyincorrect and these are not far apart."'
No record of him has been found from 1655, the assumed date of his arri val in America, until 8 November 1667, when he appears in court at Kingston in a suit for wages due him from Reynr Van Coelen. Before he left the Kingston area, he was brought into court in 1668 for ostensibly declaring, "Damn the King and the Devil fetch the King " while chopping woodon a Sunday morning. From 1668 onward he lived in the Albany area (CMA3:473f). Testimony given by him at Albany in 1684 reveals his age thenas "about 40," putting his birth date about 1644, a date corroborated. rated by testimony of 1675/6, at which time he told the Court he was about 32" (ERA 3:342). In the previously cited record he stated that in 1669 he "went across the Fonteyn Vlakte to the Fonteyn kill" with Jan Bronk, Jan Roothaer, and two Indians (Sathemoes and Shermerhoorn) and "theremarked a birch tree and made the survey," which may be the basis for some historians' calling him "engineer and surveyor." While he may have been a surveyor's helper, it is unlikely that his background qualified himas a surveyor. He most certainly was a farmer who owned and traded pigs, horses and cattle. He is referred to as "plumber" in the invoice of the ship de Witte Kloodt under date 6 July 1671 (VRB 800). Between 1670 and 1685 there are fourteen references to Mathys Coenradts or Mathys Houghtaling in the court records of Albany. From these it is possible to get a picture of his character and his way of life. He resided first "behind Kinderhook," sharing a farm with his father-in-law, Hendrik Marseli, in 1673 (ERA 1:95f), until Martin Gerritsen van Bergen, prominent realestate owner and Commissary, leased him "a certain farm lying at Kockxhachkin-h heretofore occupied by Gysbert Boogaert with a house and barn" for a period of six years [1675-1681] in the acknowledgement of "love and friendship" (ERA 3:3320. Upon expiration of this lease in 1681 he crossed the Hudson River to reside again it, Kinderhook until 1683 (CMA 3:474). That year he was back in Coxsackie (CMA 3:395) where he remained. The 1697 census of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck lists him as head of a household of two men, one woman, and three children, and in 1699 he tookan oath of allegiance to the British Crown (AnA 3:279).
In 1691 Mathys Houghtaling purchased from three Mohawk Indians [Manueen ta, Unekeek, and Kachketowaa, called by the Christians Shernierhoorn, Jan d'Bakker, and Cobus respectively (ERA 2:19@] "a piece of woodland lying behind Koxhaghkye," to each of whom he paid "a cloth of duffel" (CEM 202). In 1697 this same land was officially granted to him by Governor Benjamin Fletcher (Colonial Patents 7:127), a representative of the Crown he had publicly defamed at Kingston thirty years before. The land conveyed by this grant comprised 3,500 acres of heavily wooded land in the Kalkeberg Hills west of Coxsackie, and took in part of present day New Baltimore.
At the end of 1683, when the Albany Dutch Church records begin, "Mathys and Maria Hoogteeling" were members. About 1666 Mathys had married Maria Hendrikse, the daughter of Hendrik Marselis and Catryn Van den Berg (MA 4:146). She probably survived Mathys, who died in 1706, but there is no evidence that she remarried.
Although no probate record has been found for Mathys, there is evidence that an unexecuted will exists to which earlier historians had access. In this will, Maria is named as his wife and is appointed executrix, inheriting his estate "as long as she remains a widow." If she remarried,his instructions were specific: "She shall convey ... the rest of the estate to the testator's children, to wit, Conrad, Johannes and Jacob Hooghtelinck, Trentje the wife of Richard Van den Berg, Rachel and Mathews Oooghtelinck, also Marga Morris taking the place of her mother Styje, eldest daughter of the testator." One-half of his land, identified in his will patent date and described as "lying back and west of Koshagky," wasbequeathed to his son Mathews "about 12 years old, because he is a cripple." For the remaining half, Mathews was to pay his brothers and sisters the appraised value. Conrad, named as eldest son," was given a horse when his mother remarries or dies." Captain Jonas Dow was one of the appointed guardians of Mathews. All of the original patent appears to havebeen inherited by the descendants of Mathys's eldest son, Conrad, and Matliys's second daughter, Catryntje Van den Berg.
The birth dates of the first six of the eight children of Mathys Hought aling and his wife Maria Marselis are given as estimated by Anna Hotaling in her unpublished genealogy and by other Greene County historians:
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