Person:Johannes Van Bunschoten (8)

From Source:Van Benschoten, William Henry. Concerning the Van Bunschoten or Van Benschoten Family in America : A Genealogy and Brief History:

JOHN V.B.'s baptism like that of his father, Solomon, is not to be found in any church records. He was, I take it, born about 1730, since he was the youngest of his father's family. Nor does any minute of his marriage to Sarah Rappelye survive. She was either a daughter or granddaughter of Jacob and Saertien (Sarah) Rappelye who were of the Raritan country of New Jersey and later passed up into the Dutchess and Ulster regions of the Hudson. Sarah was a favorite name in that family; one is found baptized in New Jersey on Apr. 30, 1712, another on Oct. 9, 1720, both of whom, however, are too early for our Sarah.

We find John and Sarah acting occasionally as sponsors. Outside of the church records very little survives regarding them. By his father's will he shared in the real estate on the Esopus meadows. Of this land he sells ten acres on July 4, 1765. Through this transfer we learn that he was a "miller" for the wording runs, "I, Johannis Van Bunschoten, of the Corporation of Kingston in the County of Ulster and Province of New York, Miller," etc. A surviving account shows that his sons John and Peter were attending "the English school in Kingston from the 15th May to the 16th Oct. Anno Domini 1777," — up to the very day, in fact, on which the British burnt the town.

We find him among the signers of the "Roll of Honor" at Kings ton on Apr. 29, 1775. In 1778, of certain "Military Stores at Marbletown" which were stored at various patriotic houses in that vicinity for safety, I find there were "at Van Benschoten's 10 boxes of balls, I Cag of Flints." This inevitably was John Van Benschoten's and is superlative evidence of his loyalty to the American cause. Evidently he had retired to Marbletown on the burning of Kingston; his stay there, however, was temporary. He belonged to Col. Johannes Snyder's Regiment of Ulster County Militia and must have seen whatever service that regiment as a whole saw. It was at Fort Montgomery in 1777, and again in 1779, and in the Highlands on many other occasions and was often out on frontier duty. In 1782 John is found in the "John P. Dumond class" of Col. Snyder's regiment furnishing a man for the new levies. He himself served in the "New Levies" under Col. Albert Pawling and Major Elias Van Bunschoten on the western frontier in 1781. These troops were billeted about on the inhabitants and there exists in the archives at Albany an account for the subsistence of a detachment of an officer and fifteen privates of whom John Van Bunschoten was one.

In 1780 John was made a Deacon of the Kingston Church; in 1784 he was elected a Trustee of the Corporation of Kingston. Nothing further do I find regarding him; the time of his death as well as that of his wife is unknown, as are also their places of burial.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 3598, in Van Benschoten, William Henry. Concerning the Van Bunschoten or Van Benschoten family in America: A Genealogy and Brief History. (Poughkeepsie, NY: A. V. Haight Co. Printers, 1907)
   p. 659,.

   no birth nor baptismal record found, but listed as youngest child in Solomon's will. There is also no record of his death.