General Notes

Married AT Age 14 OR 15

First White Female Born IN New Netherlands

Sarah was the first baby born at Fort Orange. Volume III, 19th Century Documentary History of New York states: that her mother was the "first white woman" to live in what is today Albany. When Sarah's mother was older and living on Long Island, one document referred to her as "the mother of New York."

"when she lived on a farm on Long Island, she was hailed as the first European child born in the colony that would become New York State. She was given a land grant by Dutch authorities in honor of her place in the colony's history. " S. Wick

"The West India Company was not fully preprepared for action until the winter of sixteen hundred and twenty-three, when it put forth vigorous efforts toward colonization, unmindful of the protest of [King] James’s minister at the Hague against further "settlements and occupations" by the Dutch on Hudson’s River, as the English now called the Mauritius. Hitherto traffic had been the sole employment of the Dutch in New Netherland, and few thought of being buried there. They must be weaned from the fatherland before they could become founders of a permanent State. Agriculture and the family tie alone could accomplish this desirable result; and to this end, thirty families of Walloons, who had taken refuge in Amsterdam, were sent over in the spring of sixteen hundred and twenty-three to found a colony. These were Protestants from the frontier between France and Flanders, and no better material for a healthful colony could have been found than the one hundred and ten men, women, and children, who landed on Manhattan early in May. Some of them went up the river and seated themselves in the present Ulster County; four couples who had been married on the voyage went to the recently discovered Delaware, or South River; two families and six men sailed up the Connecticut to the site of Hartford, to settle, build a fort, and assert Dutch jurisdiction over that region, by virtue of Block’s discoveries; and the larger portion sat down upon lands now covered by the cities of Brooklyn and Williamsburg, on Long Island. There Sarah Rapelje inhaled her first breath, and her memory has been perpetuated as the first white child born in the province of New Netherland.

May, and his successor, Verhulst, ruled alone, but in the year sixteen hundred and twenty-six, Peter Minuit arrived as governor, with a council of five grave men; a Koopman, or general commissary (who was also secretary of the province), and a Schout or sheriff to assist him. His political chart was the will of his employers, expressed in instructions and ordinances, and he at once commenced the work of founding a state, on the basis of law and order, with great vigor. His first care was to strengthen the title of the Dutch to Manhattan. He procured a council of the Indian chiefs, and purchased from them the entire island, of twenty-two thousand acres of land, for hatchets and other things valued at sixty guilders, or about twenty-four American dollars. This just and expedient measure forms a pleasing parallel to Penn’s transaction under the Shackamaxon elm, more than half a century later, and contrasts favorably with the injustice which made the New England Indians, the Susquehannocks and Powbatans, and the tribes of the Neuse ......."
From: Pg. 439, "History of New Amsterdam; or New York as it was in the days of the Dutch governors. Together with papers on events connected with the American Revolution; and on Philadelphia in the times of William Penn.", by Ashabel Davis, Publ. R. T. Young; 1853; 252 pages. See: http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/

"IN TERMS of European settlement, the Rapeljes are the first family of New York. A retired Grumman engineer, 64-year-old Peter Rapelje lives in Glen Cove [he is/was a member of Grumman Radio Club and his email is/was: " N2PYV, prapelje@optonline.net, Peter Rapelje"] and is the keeper of a trove of family records dating to colonial days that chart the family's history. These records show that within a year of her birth, Sarah moved with her family to a log fort at the southern tip of Manhattan island and, shortly after, to a farm across the harbor on Long Island. This meant that the Rapeljes were in the first group of whites to live on Manhattan, and in the first group to buy land from the Indians and move to the settlement that would be called Brooklyn." Steve Wick, "14 Generations - New Yorkers since 1624, the Rapeljes are on
a mission to keep their history alive." Long Island History at http://www.lihistory.com/3/hs3lilf2.htm

First white female born in New Netherlands.

Sara is thought to be the firstEuropean female born in the colony of New Netherlands, which then covered the present states of New York, New Jersey, and a portion of Connecticut.

The early historians of New York and locality, led astray by a petition presented by her, April 4, 1656 (when she resided at the Waaleboght), to the governor and council, for some meadows, in which she states that she is the first born Christian daughter in New Netherlands, assert that she was born at the Waaleboght. Judge Benson in his writings even ventures to describe the house where this took place. He says: "on the point of land formed by the cove in Brooklyn, known as the Waaleboght, lying on its westerly side, was built the first house, a one-story log house, on Long Island, and inhabited by Joris Jansen Rapalie, one of thefirst white settlers on the island, and in which was born Sarah Rapalie, the first white child of European parentage born in the (N.Y) state." In this, if there is any truth in the depositions of Catalyn or Catalyntie Trico (daughter ofJeronomis Trico of Paris), Sarah's mother (a copy of which may be seen on pages49-50, and 51 of vol. 3 of New York Documentary History), they are clearly mistaken. In her deposition taken on the 14th day of February 1684-5, before Col.Thomas Dongan, governor of the province, she states that she came over in 1623or 1624, to the best of her rememberance. In the other, taken "at her house onLong Island, the Wale Bought this 17th day of October, 1688" before William Morris, justice of the peace, she states she was aged about 83 years, and was bornat Paris; that in 1623 she came to this country in the ship Unity, commanded by Arien Jorse, that as soon as they came to "Mannatans", now called New York they sent two families and six men to "harford River," two families and six men to Delaware River, eight men they left at New York to take possession, and the rest of the passengers, about eighteen families, went with the ship as far as Albany, the called "Fort Orange". That deponent lived in Albany three years, thatin 1626 seh came from Albany and settled in New York, where she lived afterwards for many years, and then came to Long Island where she now lives:

Sarah,therefore, undoubtedly was born at Albany instead of the Waalegoght, and was probably married before she removed to Long Island, there being no reason to suppose that she resided there when a single woman, without her parents.