The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1886-07-08
FIRST PENSION-HUNTING WIDOW.
The Claims of Sarah Rapalyc and the
Dangerous Precedent That 1t
Established.


est differences of opinion as to the JUS
tice OF thus invoking the executive pre-
rogatlve in defense of the treasury, but
with that we have nothing to do other
than to use it for peg upon which to
hang historical incident. Widows
are credited by many married men and
most bachelors with possessing superla-
lively winning ways. True it is that
they present more strikingly novel
claims for consideration in support of
their demands for treasury pap than
the most original tramp who personates
a long since deceased soldier. One of
the widows whose hopes were recently
crushed by the unsentimental president
remembered in her eighteenth year of
widowhood that her husband fell out
of baggage wagon one day and prob
ably hurt himself. He never found it
out, but that was only little obstacle
for determined widow. Another wild
ow discovered eight years after the late
lamented's demise that he had been
struck by piece of shell in the foot
and side and thus contracted neuralgia
of the heart. At the date of the alleged .
wounding the husband was absent
from his company on leave of absence
in consequence of a real old-fashioned
dose of fever and ague, and the poor
man never to his dying day imagined
that he was SCARED hero who had
marks of two fragments of shells upon
his mangled body. But the widow dis
covered it, probably aided and advised
for consideration by an astute pen
sion agent. But these modere female
petitioners are not up to the standard
by long way. They are more than
two hundred years behind the age, and
were outdone by the very first woman
who tried her hand at a petition for
pension, and that woman also was
Brooklyn woman, and, more, she was
the first white person born in New
Amsterdam, OF, for the matter of that,
on the American continent north of
Virginia. The story is illustrative of
the old saw that there is nothing new
under the sun save the spectacle of
man paying forgotten loan.
The old PATRON families of Bergens,
Bogarts, and Polhemuses glory in being
the lineal descendants of Sarah
Rapalye, the first born of Joris Jansen
de Rapalye, the first settler in Brook
lyn, who got possession of a tract of
land at the Wallabout. Sarah, it is
claimed, was born in Brooklyn, or what
was earlier, Williamsburgh, but this
appears to be an error, for this remark
able lady was born at Fort Orange
(Albany) on June 29, 1925. Two years
later Joris Jansen Rapalye removed to
New Amsterdam, where he remained
until the last child was born, when he
took his large family to the Wallabout,
where he had four hundred acres of
land given him by the Dutch West
India company 1t was in 1850 that
the grandmother of all the Rapalyes,
Bergens, Polhemuses, and Bogarts
crossed over to Wallabont. In 1859
she had married Hans Hansen Bergen,
the progenitor of the Bergens who
spread over Long Island and New Jer-
sey. Hans Bergen settled on the
Rennegaconck farm, with his wife's
parents The United States marine
hospital now occupies the site. Hans
Hansen Bergen. whose pet name
among his neighbors was Hans the
Boor, obtained a patent for an addition
oil four hundred acres of land at Rem
negaconck, which carried his possess
sions from the creek of that name
emptying into the Waale-b bocht to what
is now Division avenue. Hans was
tobacco planter and a crony of Gov.
Van TwIller. When he passed to his
reward. 1864, his good wife was so we'll
disposed toward the married state that
she lost no time in providing new
father for her six children and Theunis
Gysbert Bogart was the fortunate man.
Although Sarah was descended from
Il line of French Huguenots, her father
and mother both being Parlsians, her
lifelong association with the thrifty
Hollanders and her years of wifehood
with Hans the Boor appear to have i'm
bued her with quite a Dutch eye for
the main chance. Anyway, year af
ter making Theunis Bogaert happy she
conceived the idea of getting pens
sion, and even went step further;
she wanted to be relieved of taxation.
Sarah did not want feeting gold in
monthly pittances. She wanted good,
oldfashioned real estate, and to that end
she memoralized the governor and
council in 1856, petitionlng that a piece
of land four hundred acres in extent,
adjoining the farm she lived upon at
the Wallabout, be granted to her. She
complained that certain grasping neigh
bors who had pieces of land of their
own persisted in moving the meadow
and the honest Hans Bergen not having
enjoyed the distinction of fighting in
any war recently wound up, she set
her claim upon the ground that she
was widow and was burdened with
seven children. If the council would
give her the four hundred acres and re-
NIT the taxes she thought she could get
along. The lady. like many other ladies
before and since, was absentminded
and neglected to state that her days
of widowhood had closed their mourn
full engagement year and half
before and that one of the said
seven children of this forlorn
widow with four hundred acres
OF her own was Aartje, the first
born to her second husband, Theunis
Bogaert, baptized on Dec. 19, 1866,
But in 1866. as in 1886, slight omis-
sion OF SO little consequence was not
taken into consideration when by grant
h.