Person:Jacobus Demorest (1)

Excerpt from Pioneer Life on the Bay of Quinte

The Demorest Family

The Demorests came from the districts of Bordeaux and Picardy, where we find them distinguished for learning and zeal, and amongst the first Huguenots, against whom the wrath of both church and state was directed. Eminent alike as scholars and controversialists, they contributed largely to the theological writings that moulded Huguenot thought in the 16th and 17th centuries. We find John de Morest, a distinguished theologican, removing to Holland with his family, early in the 17th century. His son David and his wife Maria Schin and family of three sons, John, David and Samuel sailed from Amsterdam in the "Bontica," in the spring of 1663. Living two years at Staten Island and thirteen at Harlem, in the spring of 1678 they settled at Hackensack, N.J., where they had purchased three thousand acres of land. The father died in 1693. John and Samuel, the eldest and youngest sons of David Demorest married sisters named Dremin, and eleven children were born to each couple. David, the son of David and grandson of David and Maria Schin, was born, Feb. 19th, 1666; he married April, 1697, Sarah, daughter of Rev. William Bertholf, of Hackensack, and died in 1768. His son James married Mary Denyer. Another son, John Demorest, born in Rockland Co., N.Y., married Catherine Lazier, and after living in Orange County, ultimately settled in Dutchess County, where they died. One of their sons -- Guilliame Demorest -- born Feb. 16th, 1769, in Orange County, lived in Dutchess County till 1790, whence he emigrated to Canada.