General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> Jr
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8VW9-L6
Notes for Pieter Jr Praa: He was baptised in the Walloon Church, Leyden, Holland Mar.17,1658. He died at Bushwick, Kings Co., N.Y., between Aug. 6, 1739, when he executed his will, and Sept. 5, 1740, when the will was probated. He married Maria Hay at the Flatbush Dutch Church on March 15,1684.  That the infant Pieter came to America with his father, mother and half-sister in the ship "moesman" in April, 1659, is shown by his statement made in 1687, when he took his oath of Allegiance at Bushwick, that he had been in the country twenty-eight years. However, there is no mention of him in the passemger list of the ship.  After his arrival in New Netherland, he lived on his father's farm at Cripplebush, a hamlet of Breucklen close to the Bushwick line, until his father's death in 1663 and the immediate re-marriage of his mother. He contined to live with his mother and step-father until his mother's death when he would have been about twenty years of age. Whether he inherited the farm is not known.  The residence in which Pieter and Maria lived during the remainder of their long lives and in which all of their children were born and grew up, was the stone farm house erected by Christina Cappoens and her second husband, David Jochemszen, about 1760. This home was destoyed by fire in 1834, while being inhabited by John Provost, Peter Praa's gr. grandson. A new home was erected on the site in 1836, by David Provost, the gr.,gr. grandson of Peter Praa. Near by on the property was the family "God's Acre" in which were interred Peter Praa, his wife Maria and some of their children and grand-children.  Peter also owned considerable real estate in Kings and Queens Co.,N.Y., in Middlesex Co., N.J. and several houses, either by purchase or by long-term lease in the City of New York. He bought in 1687 from the heirs of Anneke Jans, wife of Dominie Eversardus Bogardus, the land known as Dominies Hook in the town of Newtown fronting on the East River and Mespat Kill [Newtown Creek]. This property consisting of 130 acres was originally patented to Anneke Jans in 1652, and was devised by Praa to his daughter Annetje as a life trust, and thereafter to her Bennet children. About 1800 the Federal Government wanted the property for its proposed Brooklyn Navy Yard, but the Bennet children refused to sell, and the yard was located at its present site in the Wallabout section of Brooklyn.  In 1719 Pieter bought 164 acres in Bushwick from the grand-sons of Dirck Volckertszen that abutted on the lands controlled by him as a trustee. These two properties covered substantially all of the area later called Greenpoint.  With the addition of Dominies Hook purchase, the area was about 2/3 square mile,and its uninterrupted frontage on the East River extended from Bushwick Creek to a point near the present Queensborough Bridge, a distance of nearly two miles. It is believed to be one of the largest individual holdings on the westerly end of Long Island at that period.  Pieter had improved real estate on Manhattan Island consisting of two houses in the North Ward of the City which he owned, and two houses in Stone St. which he had under a long term lease from the estate of Christina Cappoens.  He also owned considerable property in Middlesex Co., N.J., and also in Somerset Co. near New Brunswick. How these were acquired or what became of some of them has not been determined. These parcels were estimated at several thousand acres. In his will, he did not specifically mention these properties.  The distibution of his New Jersey properties among his heirs is not determined, other than a parcel of 808 acres located at Georges Rd in East Brunswick. This appears to have become vested in Christina Provost, his daughter, whose son Jonathan settled on it in 1805. Thereafter this farm became the home of some of his children and their descendants.  A separate clause of Peter Praa's will provided that his New Jers