Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg
| Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg | |
|---|---|
| Born |
c.1640 Holstein, Germany |
| Died |
c.1712 Little Egg Harbor Township, Burlington County, New Jersey |
| Other names | Hendrick Jacobs Henry Jacobs |
| Occupation | linguist, interpreter |
| Spouse(s) |
(1) __________ Sennicksdotter (a daughter of Sennick Broer) (2) Mary Jacobs |
| Children |
by first wife:
by second wife:
|
(1) __________ Sennicksdotter (a daughter of Sennick Broer)
by first wife:
by second wife:
Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg (pronounced "Falkenberry" in Swedish) (c.1640—c.1712), also known as Hendrick Jacobs or Henry Jacobs, was an early American settler along the Delaware River, and was considered to be the foremost language interpreter for the purchase of Indian lands in southern New Jersey. He was a linguist, fluent in the language of the Lenape Native Americans, and in early histories of New Jersey he is noted for his service to both the Indians and the English Quakers, helping them negotiate land transactions. Though he was from Holstein, now a part of Germany, he was closely associated with the Swedes along the Delaware because his wife was a Finn and a member of that community.
In 1671 Falkenberg lived on property belonging to his father-in-law, Sennick Broer, on the Christina River, now in Wilmington, Delaware. He later moved to the vicinity of Burlington, New Jersey where he lived for nearly two decades, and where he was visited by two journalists of the Labadist sect who were looking for a place to establish a new community. The journalists provided the only known record of Falkenberg's place of origin, and also described his dwelling place, a Swedish style log cabin. By 1693 he had moved from the Delaware River across the Province of New Jersey to become the first European settler in Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, near Tuckerton. Here he dug a cave for a home, but later built a large house made of clapboard where he lived until his death, sometime after 1711. Falkenberg wrote a will in 1710, but for unknown reasons it was not probated until thirty-three years later. While he had only two known children to reach adulthood, each by a different wife, he has a large progeny as the ancestor of the Falkinburg family of New Jersey and the Fortenberry and Faulkenberry families of the southern United States.
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