viii                                 PREFACE

The Beekman family is undoubtedly one of the most
distinguished families of America, because Wilhelmus
Beekman's sons and their descendants held high civil and
military positions of honor and responsibility as well as
those requiring learning and literary attainment, and they as
well as his daughters married into the most distinguished
families of America.

The families of Wilhelmus Beekman the fotinder of the
Beekman family who came to America in 1647 and of Jan
Thomasse Van Dyke who came to America five years later
were very well acquainted and their sons and daughters
were good friends. The Beekman estates at Flatbush, Long
Island, were not far distant from the Van Dyke estates at
New Utrecht, and again the estates of the Beekmans living on
or near the Millstone River, New Jersey, were near to the
estates of the Van Dykes.

The Van Dyke family frequently intermarried into the
Beekman family and although smaller in the number of
descendants must be considered with the Beekman family
as among the distinguished founders of America.

The author has tried to include in this family history all
the descendants and their children of whom he had a record,
but in many cases he could not ascertain the name of some
person and had to leave it out.

"Great families of yesterday we show and Lords whose
parents were the Lord knows who" (Daniel de Foe in
The True-Born Englishman).

W. B. A.