page_title: Jacob Aaron Westervelt
section_title: Ancestors
hierarchical_section_title: Jacob Aaron Westervelt / Genealogy of the Westervelt family / Ancestors
caption_attribution_description: English: Arms of van Westervelt, as emblazoned on the tomb, in the nave of the church in Harderwyk, Netherlands. Deutsch: Das Wappen der van Westervelt, welches das Grabmal im Hauptschiff der Kirche in Harderwyk (Holland) schmückt.
context_page_description: Jacob Aaron Westervelt was a renowned and prolific shipbuilder who constructed 247 vessels of all descriptions during his career of over 50 years. From 1853 until 1855 he was Mayor of New York City.
  Together with his partners he designed some of the fastest and most successful sailing packets, clippers and steamships ever built, among these the screw sloop USS Brooklyn and the clipper Sweepstakes, as well as many vessels for foreign governments and Royal Houses. Westervelt was awarded the Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Queen of Spain for the preparation of models and plans for three Spanish frigates. For many years he was the President of the Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Marine Society, the Port Society and the St. Nicholas Society. He was also President of the Board of Dock Commissioners for several years. After Westervelt's death, the flags at City Hall were lowered to half-mast.
context_section_description: Westervelt, as his name indicates, came from old Dutch stock. The name was known in the Netherlands at a very early period, and although the family members were not of nobility, they had been extensive property owners for many generations. The earliest mention of the Westervelts that has been recorded is of a Dirk van Westervelt and his family who resided in and around the town of Harderwijk for many years. Some individuals sharing that name appear to have been early inhabitants of Zwolle, and their descendants are still to be found there, known by the name Westerveld.
  In the middle of the 17th century a few Westervelts lived in Meppel, situated a few miles from the eastern shore of the Zuiderzee, in the province of Drenthe and three miles east of Zwolle. Amongst them were two brothers, Willem and Lubbert Lubbertsen van Westervelt, both farmers and cattle raisers, who with their wives and children decided to move to the New World. They left Amsterdam on board De Hoop ("Hope") on April 8, 1662. On their arrival on May 24, 1662, New Amsterdam (which later became New York City) was suffering from a prolonged drought as no rain had fallen for eighty consecutive days. Lubbert settled near Hackensack, New Jersey and was one of the promoters of the Dutch Church organized there in 1686. Willem was a member of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in New Amsterdam (1667), whilst his son lived at New Utrecht on Long Island. This son sold his lands in 1706 and is supposed to have moved to New Jersey, where the family has been numerous and prominent for the past 300 years. William Lubbertsen van Westervelt with his wife and six children, and Lubbert Lubbertsen van Westervelt, with his wife and four children, became the progenitors of the van Westervelt/Westervelt family in America, and were at one time the second largest family in Bergen County, New Jersey. Jacob Aaron Westervelt was a seventh-generation descendant of Lubbert Lubbertsen van Westervelt.
caption: Arms of van Westervelt, as emblazoned on the family tomb, in the nave of the church in Harderwijk, Netherlands
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