Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Rapaelje, Sarah de

RAPAELJE, Sarah de, b. in Fort Orange, N. Y., 9 June, 1625; d. on Long Island in 1685. She was the daughter of Jan Joris Rapaelje, and was the first white girl born in New Netherlands. There have been various statements regarding the residence of Jan Rapaelje at the time of her birth, for, after settling at Fort Orange, he removed to Manhattan, and thence to Waleboght on Long Island. The depositions of his wife, Catalina Trico, made in New York before Gov. Thomas Dongan in 1688, the year before her death, establish the time of her arrival and her first residence. She came to this country in the first ship that was sent to the New Netherlands by the West India company. Some travellers in 1679 mentioned Catalina Trico as “worldly-minded” and as living “by herself, a little apart from the others, having her little garden and other conveniences, with which she helped herself,” and evidently regarded her as an historical personage. Sarah was the ancestor of several well-known families in Kings county, N. Y. She married Hans Hansen Bergen, and, after his death in 1654, married Theunis Gysbert Bogaert.