Information from Kney55@aol.com
AWT file # 12982, dated 16 Jan 1999, received Feb 2000.
HUGO FREER WAS A FRENCH HUGUENOT. HE CAME TO THE USA IN 1676 TO NEW PALTZ, NEW
YORK. FGRA SHOW CHILDREN WERE BORN IN
NEW PALTZ. HISTORY BOOKS SHOW CHILDREN
ARRIVED IN THE USA WITH THEIR PARENTS FLEEING FROM FRANCE.
SOURCES OF INFO ARE:
HISTORY OF NEW PALTZ AND ITS OLD FAMILIES. BYU LIBRARY (974.7-L.52)
FGRA
PEDIGREE CHART IN ISSAC V. CARLING FAMILY HISTORY BOOK-BOX
8670.1
E-mail I rec'd with
slightly different information and a little extra:
I am trying to find
out the real name of Hugo Freer, b abt 1638 in Herly-en-Boulonois, France. He d 28 Jun 1698 in New Paltz, Ulster, NY. Me
married Marie de la Haye at the French Congregation in Mannheim on 2 Oct
1660. She d after their third child, a
son named Hugo, Sr., was b in 1666. Hugo
brought baby Hugo to NY with him and married Jeanne Wibau.
Can you help me find
Hugo Freer real name. Apparently he
changed it to escape persecution by the French against the Huguenots.
Please contact me at
judyschor@aol.com. Thanks.
Frere or Freer -
French family; Huguenot Refugees. The first Abraham Freer was the son of Hugo
Frere, a Huguenot who had fled from France, and was one of the first settlers
of New Paltz, New York.
"Subjects of the
French King, persecuted for being Protestants, left their native country and
fled to foreign lands. Borne on this
wave of immigration and prizing liberty of conscience above everything else, the
brave hearted men who afterward settled New Paltz, fled across the frontier,
and found an asylum in that part of Germany known as the Palatinate of
Pfaltz. Here they could not long remain
in peace, for the armies of their cruel monarch repeatedly invaded and ravaged
the Palatinate. Scattered like leaves by
the autumn blast, they were tossed hither and thither, and by 1663 some had
found their way to the village of Kingston on the Hudson, in New York.
As their numbers
increased , they longed for a settlement where they may speak their own French
language and form a community by themselves.
Twelve heads of
families, known later as the Patentees, purchased from the Indians 39,000 acres
of land. The original deed is yet
preserved, showing how the Indians made marks for their signatures. It is dated 1677.
HUGO FRERE: Hugo
Frere was one of the twelve purchasers.
He had probably just arrived in America, bringing with him his wife,
Marie Haye, and their three eldest children, Hugo, Abraham, and Isaac. Many of the Freer family papers are written
in French. In 1683 Hugo Frere was chosen
a Deacon of their church, and in 1690 an Elder.
This would show that he was a man of known piety and excellent standing
in the little community. His will was written in French. It is said that during the first settlement,
there was perhaps no family that furnished a larger proportion of eminent men
than the descendants of Hugo Freer the Patentee. In New Paltz is a broad street called "
Street of the Huguenots." A little
book in the Genealogical Library says of it, " This street cannot boast of
heroes, but it has been the home of the People – Pioneers who helped lay the
foundations of our great country. Those
people set up a government that was unique.
Descendants of these people have gone to all parts of the world. To them, to the early Huguenot Settlers, we
dedicate this book."
ABRAHAM FREER ( Son
of Hugo Freer ) married Aegre Tietsoort, daughter of a Dutch settler, William
Tietsoort, the son of Abraham Tietsoort
William Tietsoort
and his wife Neeltje Swart - ( Petition on record in New York Land Papers,
volume 4, p. 104 ). Willem Tietsoort
lived among the Indians at Schenectady for about 22 years, so he must have been
there as early as 1676. Willem says he
was a blacksmith, and states that he and others in the year 1690, were
surprised and suffered in the fearful massacre of the settlers at Schenectady
by the French and Indians.
MASSACRE STORY:
In the severe
cold of winter, 308 years ago (from 1998), the people of the little village of
Schenectady were sleeping peacefully at night, when they were suddenly awakened
by a terrible war whoop of an Indian party.
France and England were at war.
These Indians had come down from Canada with some French soldiers. When they arrived at the village, a blizzard
was raging. The gates of the stockade
had been left open. The war party entered silently and surrounded the houses. Then with a fierce yell they started burning
the houses, breaking down the door with tomahawks, and shooting men, women, and
children. They were almost wiped out in
the attack. Innocent, liberty-loving,
God-worshiping, simple people who had never heard or known of wars in Europe
were tomahawked or stabbed, scalped or shot down and thrown dead or alive into
the flames roaring through doorways and windows of their own beloved homes.
By next morning
only two of the eighty houses were left standing. Thirty-eight men and boys had
been killed, with ten women and twelve children.. Some who escaped perished in the storm, and
records say that twenty-five froze their limbs trying to reach a shelter with
families outside the stockade.
Twenty-seven were carried captive to Canada.
From: Teresa Wilson [SMTP:zzilch@flex.net]
> Sent: Friday,
November 20, 1998 4:37 PM
> To: Evans,
Matthew [PGC:1345:EXCH]
> Subject: Re:
Freer genealogy
>
> Hi Shannon: I'll
try to answer your questions the best I can - When
the
> Freer genealogist, Ruth Heidgerd, completed her
research in 1991 after
> studying the records for two years in the Palatinate
and Mannheim, she
> concluded that Hugo's wife Marie de la Haye and their
two daughters
Marie
> and Sara died in the plague of 1665-6 which wiped out
over half of the
> congregation in seven months. Hugo married Jeanne Wibau a year later
and
> she emigrated with him.
> The first record of Hugo Freer appears as follows:
"Hughes frere jeune
> homme natif de Harly en Boulonnois et Marie de la Haye,
jeune fille,
> native
> de Douaye au pay reconquis, on ete marie en cette
Eglise le 2 Octobre,
> 1660".
Hugo's home town is spelled Herly and lies about 30 miles
> southeast
> from Boulogne on Route D-1295 which isn't more than a
wagon track about
> two
> miles east of the intersection of Route D-126 with
D-343. Marie's
> hometown
> was Douai, southeast of Lille.
> Jeanne Wibau was the daughter of Toussaint Wibau and
widow of Simon
> Floquet. She and
Hugo has a son Abraham b. 1-11-1668 and died early.
> Their second son was also named Abraham, born
6-11-1670. Then they had
> Isaac, Marie, Jacob, Joseph, Jean and Sara. Hugo and Marie had only
one
> surviving child, Hugo.
> The complete marriage and baptismal records of the
French congregation
at
> Mannheim, Germany for the period 1651 to 1710 have been
photocopied and
> are
> in the possession of the Huguenot Historical Society in
New Paltz, NY.
> As to Marie's family, the only reference was to a Noe
de la Haye, who
> appears as head of a household in 1666. He may well have been the
father
> or older brother of Marie and was apparently a widower
by 1656.
> Believe me, the records have been THOROUGHLY
searched!! For years!!
> I don;t have anything on Sarah Freer who married the
grandson of
Michael
> deVoe, but if she was connected to the Barbados Freers,
there is plenty
of
> information available.
Let me direct you back to the internet, and go
to
> http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~sfreer/freer2.html then go the the
> Freer/Frere Family Research Directory, and then page on
down to
> Barbados-Frere/Freer.
There's a lot there that was just put up
recently.
> I can take very little credit for the Freer website -
just about all of
> the
> work has been down by a great guy in Canada, Stan
Freer, who is an
> archeologist at the University of Manitoba, and a
member of the
Canadian
> Freer families, but with connections and contacts
throughout the world
> with
> other Freer families and the patience of Job for typing
all this
> information!! If
for some reason you can't get to that site, let me
know.
>
> Bye for now.
Terri
>
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