New Horizons Genealogy

"Specializing in New England and New York Colonial American Ancestry"


1730-1774, 1794-1800
Second River Dutch Reformed Church
Marriage Records
City of New Brunswick
Essex County, New Jersey


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The Reformed Dutch Church at Second River (now Belleville), in Essex County, was an offshoot of the Acquackanonk (now Passaic) Church, and was organized in 1700. These two Churches were ministered unto by the Rev. Guliam Bertholf, 1700-1724, and by the Rev. Henricus Coens, 1725-1730. The Second River Church then separated from the Acquackanonk Church, and had for pastors the Rev. Cornelius Van Santvoord, 1730-1732 (in conjunction with Staten Island), the Rev. Gerardus Haeghoort, 1735-1776; the Rev. Matthew Leydt, 1779-1780 (in conjunction with Gansegat, now Fairfield); the Rev. Henricus Schoonmaker, 1784-1794 (in conjunction with Acquackanonk); the Rev. Peter Stryker, 1794-1809, and 1810-1812.

Dominie Bertholf was pastor of the Hackensack Church until his death, in 1724, and appears to have kept the records of all his charges in the Hackensack books. The Belleville Church has its own registers of communicants, from 1726; of marriages, from 1730 to 1774, and from 1794 to date; of baptisms, from 1727; and of its consistories, from 1726. It is now known what has become of the marriage records between 1774 and 1794; it is probable that they were kept by the pastors in the registers of other churches of which they had charge.

The following lists are furnished by the Holland Society, from its copy of the records from 1726 to 1774; from 1794 to 1801, the lists have been copied from the original register, kept by the Rev. Peter Stryker. It is to be regretted that he did not give as full details as his predecessors.

The following are explanations of some of the place-names occurring in these records:

1Her maiden name was Anna America.
2Goline. Julian.
3Peter Schuyler.
4Daniel.
5The Rev. Jedediah Chapman, pastor of the Presbyterian church at Orange, 1766-1800.
6Query: Freehold.
7For some account of this Van Rype and the Bradbury family, see History of Paterson, by William Nelson, I., 158.
8See ibid., 161.
9Doubtless an error for Urians; i. e., Thomas, son of Juriaen or Urian Van Rype.
10Dan'l or Daniel.
11The words in brackets are not in the church record, but are in the return made to the County Clerk.