admin A First Irish-American
The first Irish pioneer in New York was Thomas Lewis, who came to Manhattan Island when New York was the Dutch New Amsterdam. He was known as Thomas, the Irishman, and his Dutch name was Thomas Lodewycksen, or Lodewyckz. A resident of Belfast, he was driven from home by the Cromwellian wars, followed his sister into Holland, and sailed on the ship Blue Dove for New Amsterdam, his fare being paid by the West India Company, on condition that he remain here three years. His trade was that of a carpenter. Fie arrived September 5, 1656, and after a short stay at Fort Orange (Albany), where he was in business as a builder, he married Gesje Barents, and returned to New Amsterdam, where he appears to have become owner of a bark. He then was put in command of Governor Stuyvesant’s yacht, and made many trips to the Redoubt (Rondout), Wildwyck (Kingston), and the Delaware River. He engaged extensively in the shipping business, making voyages in his own vessels to Boston, Rhode Island, Virginia and Delaware. In 1674 he was listed as the seventeenth richest citizen of the city, and owned property on the water-side (Pearl street), between Wall and William, and on the South street (now William), between Hanover Square and Walk He died in 1684 at the age of fifty-six, having had eight children, his oldest son, Lodiwick Lewis, coming from Belfast to New York after the father’s death. The descendants of three of his sons, Barent, Liendert and Thomas, are scattered throughout the Hudson valley.
SOURCE: Vol, I, No 16, April 20, 1912 Genealogy: a journal of American ancestry
