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BUCKS INDEX

CORNELL FAMILY

GULLIAME CORNEILLE, (variously spelled, CORNELE, CORNALE, CORNELISE, in the Dutch records of New Netherlands) was of undoubted French origin, probably a Hueguenot, and possibly of the same family as Pierre and Thomas CORNEILLE, the noted dramatists and poets of Rouen, a supposition strengthened by the fact that he named his eldest son Peter, the French of which would have been "Pierre." He settled on Long Island early in the seventeenth century, and died at Flatbush prior to July 17, 1666, at which date his son Pieter GUILLIAMSE paid for the burial of both his father and mother, as shown by the town records, On August 9, 1658, he procured from Director STUYVESANTm a patent for a large plantation at Flatbush, and in 1661 he and his son Pieter purchased a "bouwery" and several building lots in Flatbush. He left five children Pieter, Gulliam or Gelyam, Cornelis, Jacob and Maria, who have left numerous descendants in Kings county, Long Island, New York, New Jersey, and in Bucks county and other parts of Pennsylvania. The name for nearly a century was spelled CORNELE, with the accent on the e.

Pieter WUELLEMSEN, as he wrote his name, the eldest son of Guilliam CORNELE, was a prominent man in the early history of Flatbush and Kings county. As above stated he was joint purchaser with his father of a large plantation in Flatbush, and later was alloted other building lots in the town. He was commissioned as "Pierre GUILLEAUM" on October 8, 1686, a lieutenant of the Flatbush company of Kings county militia. His will is dated May 23, 1689. He married in 1675 Margueritie VERCHEUR, or VERNELLE, as the marriage record give it, and they were the parents of at least five children: Gulliame, born 1679; Cornelis, 1681; Jacob, 1683; Maria, 1686; and Pieter. Cornelis, the second son, married Jannetje--and had children: Johannes, baptised September 21, 1718; Adrien baptised November 19, 1721; Cornelis, married Anne WILLIAMS in Philadelphia in 1746, and probably several others, some of whom are said to have settled in Bucks county. Pieter, the youngest son of Pieter and Margaret married Catharine LANNING and settled in New Jersey. Adrien, son of Cornelis, is erroneously confounded with Adrien, son of Guilliam, who settled in Bucks county; the former probably never lived in Pennsylvania.

Gilliam CORNELL, eldest son of Peter and Margaret, was born at Flatbush, Long Island, in 1679, married November 4, 1714. Cornelia VAN NORTWYCK, daughter of Simon and Folkertje VAN NORTWYCK, of Blanckenburg, in the Netherlands, and remained until 1723 at Flatbush, removing from there to New Utrecht, and is said to have accompanied some of his children to Bucks county prior to 1750, of which latter fact we have no proof, unless a tombstone, beside those of his sons Gilliam and Wilhelmus, in the old Dutch Reformed burying ground near Feasterville, marked "G x C", may be considered as such. He purchased a house and lot in Flatbush as early as 1708. His children as shown by the records of the Dutch Reformed churches of Flatbush and New Utrecht and from the Bucks county records, were: Adrien; Jacobus, baptised October 2, 1720; Wilhelmus, baptised July 29, 1722; Gilliam, baptised October 23, 1724; Johannes, baptised June 16, 1727, married May 23, 1750, Maria LOTT, and remained in Flatbush; Simon, baptised July 13, 1729; and Abraham, baptised October 10, 1731. Margaretta CORNELL, who married Rem VANDERBELT, of Southampton, and had a son Gilliam baptised at Southampton in 1742, is also supposed to have been a daughter of Gilliam. Of the above named sons of Gilliam and Cornelia CORNELL, four (Adrien, Wilhelmus, Gilliam and Simon) came to Bucks county, and settled in Northampton and Southampton, and where the first three left numerous descendants. Adrien was the ancestor of most of the CORNELLs who now reside in Bucks, and a more detailed account of him will be given below.

Text taen from page 51-52 of:

David, William W.H., A.M., History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania [New York-Chicago:The Lewis Publishing Company, 1905] Volume III

Transcribed May 2000 by Betty Breithaupt of California as part of the Bucks Co., Pa., Early Family Project, www.rootsweb.com/~pabucks/bucksindex.html

Published April 2000 on the Bucks County, Pa., USGenWeb pages at www.rootsweb.com/~pabucks/