Thomas or Tomys Swartwout (June 1, 1607 in

Groningen Groningen ( , ; ; or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen (province), Groningen province in the Netherlands. Dubbed the "capital of the north", Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of ...

Thomas Swartwout genealogy page
/ref> – October 1679, in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

)Municipal Archives Amsterdam, Burials book 1228, p. 26 was one of the earliest importers of tobacco from

New Netherland New Netherland () was a colony of the Dutch Republic located on the East Coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to Cape Cod. Settlements were established in what became the states ...

to western and northern

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, one of earliest settlers of New Netherland (present day United States), and a founder of

Midwood Midwood is a neighborhood in the south-central part of the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded on the north by the Bay Ridge Branch tracks just above Avenue I and by the Brooklyn College campus of the City ...

(originally Midwout),

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

Early life

Tomys Swartwout was born in 1607 in

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

to Rolef Swartwout (1575–1634) and Catryna Swartwout (b. 1579). Swartwout was one of the earliest

ers to buy and sell American tobacco in the Netherlands. He started a wholesale tobacco business in Amsterdam, joining his older brothers, Wybrant and Herman, in 1629.

New Amsterdam

Swartwout and family left Amsterdam for

in March 1652. Swartwout, Jan Snedeker and Jan Stryker solicited from Director-General Peter Stuyvesant the right to settle together on the level reach of wild land () or

flat bush Flat Bush (also known as Ormiston or Flatbush) is a southeastern suburb in the city of Auckland, New Zealand. It has recently become one of the city's largest new planned towns after being developed as an urban area of Auckland for several de ...

, adjacent to the outlying farms at Breukelen and Amersfoort. Through Swartwout's suggestion, the settlement was given the name of the village of Midwout. In April 1655, Stuyvesant and the Council of New Netherland appointed Swartwout a schepen (magistrate), to serve with Snedeker and Adriaen Hegeman as the Court of Midwout. Being one of the original settlers, Swartwout was granted letters-patent by the Council of New Netherland, Director-General Stuyvesant, and the

Dutch West India Company The Dutch West India Company () was a Dutch chartered company that was founded in 1621 and went defunct in 1792. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx (1567–1647), and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was gra ...

of 116 acres on April 13, 1655. Swartwout was one of the nineteen signers of the "Humble Remonstrance and Petition of the Colonies and Villages of this New Netherland Province" sent to Stuyvesant on December 11, 1653, an important early document in the campaign for democracy in America. Following

Adriaen Van Der Donck Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck (1618 – 1655) was a lawyer and landowner in New Netherland after whose honorific ''Jonkheer'' the city of Yonkers, New York, is named. Although he was not, as sometimes claimed, the first lawyer in ...

Remonstrance Remonstrance may refer to: * Remonstrances, a document drafted by the earls in opposition to King Edward I of England in 1297 * Remonstrance of 1317, a document sent by the Irish allies of King Edward I of England during the Irish-Bruce Wars * R ...

of 1650 about governance of the colony, the document signed by Swartwout set out discontents about Stuyvesant's authoritarian method of personally selecting, rather than electing, the council. The statement later inspired

Jacob Leisler Jacob Leisler ( – May 16, 1691) was a German-born politician and colonial administrator in the Province of New York. He gained wealth in New Amsterdam (later New York City) in the North American fur trade and tobacco business. In what became k ...

's campaign late in the 1680s for fuller representative democracy in New Amsterdam.

Personal life

In March 1630, Swartwout married Ariaentjen Sijmons in Amsterdam. She died in childbirth nine months later on December 17, 1630 after giving birth to their only child, Jan Swartwout. On June 3, 1631, Swartwout married Hendrickjen Barents Smient (b. 1609), with whom he would have eight children, among others Roeloff (1634–1715; the founder of

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

and

Hurley Hurley may refer to: Places England * Hurley, Berkshire, a village and civil parish * Hurley, Warwickshire, a village * Hurley Common, Warwickshire * Hurley Lock, a weir and lock on the River Thames United States * Hurley, Alabama, an uninc ...

), Cornelis, Barent, Trijntje, Jacomijntje and Rachel. Swartwout did not die in 1660 in

Beverwijck Beverwijck ( ; ), often written using the pre-reform orthography Beverwyck, was a fur-trading community north of Fort Orange on the Hudson River within Rensselaerwyck in New Netherland that was renamed and developed as Albany, New York, after ...

as is sometimes claimed, but evidently returned to

in the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

. He is mentioned as a witness there on several occasions, from 1664 on, as is his wife.Municipal Archives Amsterdam, Baptismal book 44 p. 93 November 2, 1664; p. 346 April 27, 1672; p. 503 Sep 21 1766 and Marital Banns book 497 p. 59 August 22, 1671; p. 474 April 2, 1672. These records concern the baptism of a grandson, Thomas Swartwout, two granddaughters, Hendrikje Koot and Hendrikje Swart, and the marriages of his daughters Trijntje and Jacomijntje. It is also clear from the Amsterdam records that most of Thomas and Hendrickje's children returned with them to Amsterdam and remained there. They lived on Herengracht. Thomys died in Amsterdam in 1679 and was buried there on October 15, 1679.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swartwout, Tomys 1607 births 1660 deaths Dutch merchants People from Groningen (city) People from New Netherland Tobacco in the Netherlands History of Brooklyn People from Midwood, Brooklyn Tobacconists Tobacco merchants