Family:Jan Hood and Rachel Van Benschoten (1)

The Tunis Hood book says:

Fast on the heels of the Van Meter brothers and joist Hite, had come Alexander Ross, Morgan Bryan and their Quaker associates, moving into the section north of the present city of Martinsburg, Berkeley County, and adjoining Jefferson County, West Virginia, in the area of the Upper Potomac River. Among the early deeds issued by Ross and Bryan was one to John Hood under date of November 12, 1735. The land granted comprised 1,175 acres, described as beginning at the mouth of Back Creek, and extending along the Potomac River easterly to the mouth of Tuliasis Branch which is at the approximate location of the village of Little Georgetown, West Virginia, three miles north of Hedgesville, and ten miles north of the city of Martinsburg. The original copy of John Hood’s patent to this land, issued by King George II of England, is presently lodged in the Virginia Land Oflice records in the Virginia Archives at Richmond, Book P, p. 230. The land covers a section of scenic beauty overlooking the Upper Potomac River, called the Cohonguroota earlier by the Indians, opposite Fort Frederick State Park in Maryland. Most of this original tract is now owned by several Newkirk families, descendants of Barent Nieuwkerk and wife, Rebecca Van Bun­schoten Nieuwkerk, who accompanied the John Hood migration from Kingston, N. Y., to Virginia. (See Newkirk Family History, pp. 26-27.) John Hood sold a substantial part of his land directly to Barent Nieuwkerk, who by that time had Anglicized the spell­ing of his name to Barnet Newkirk. He was a brother-in-law of John Hood. Their living descendants are therefore distant cousins.

1. ↑ 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)
   pp. 20, 806.
2. ↑ Hood, Dellmann O. (Dellmann Osborne). The Tunis Hood family : its lineage and traditions. (Medford, Oregon: D.O. Hood, c1960 (Portland, Ore. : Metropolitan Press))
   p. 77.