Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

Notes on tJje iFamds of mt molt
by William de Wolve as one of the witnesses. Right Hon. Sir Henry
Drummond Wolff, G.C.M.G. (son of Rev. Dr. Joseph Wolf, a converted
Jew), lately a leading Member of the British Parliament, Envoy Extraordinary
and Minister Plenipotentiary to Turkey, and High Commissioner
to Egypt, bears arms similar to those of the German patent. There is
also a Sir James Weston Wolff of county Hants, England, who was
authorized to assume the arms given with the German patent. Burke's
' General Armory '
that name now existing- in Engfland."
gives
a Be Wolfe coat of arms, showing a family of
Such is the prestige of the family of De Wolf in its European homes.
It would be highly gratifying if a relationship could be traced between
any European branch of the family and those who have inherited the
name, and honored it, in this western hemisphere. This, however, is not
as yet possible. All we can do, therefore, is to record what we know of
the beginnings of the history of those De Wolfs of America in whom we
have a family-interest, to disentangle, so far as we may be able, some ques-
tions of descent, and to notice some of the distinguished men of the name
in our family—leaving it for others, hereafter, to complete both the
genealogy and the biography.
In the early history of this country we have been able to find but
three persons of the name of De Wolf, beside our ancestor. One was
Abraham, of whom we know only his name and that he was in New
Amsterdam in 1661. The earliest found was Abel De Wolf, whose appli-
cation for a mining-license in the Catskill Mountains was granted by the
authorities at Amsterdam 25"' April 1659.
"In 1661 Dirck De Wolf obtained for seven years the exclusive
right of making salt in New Netherland, having secured from Gysbert
op Dyck his grant of Coney Island. Owing to the hostility of English
settlers in the immediate neighborhood he was obliged to abandon this
enterprise, notwithstanding the military aid rendered by Governor Stuy-
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