Various branches of the DeGraw family have many traditions as to the origins of the family. One version has the family being of French Huguenot origins who fled to Utrecht in 1620. Another says they were French, migrated to Scotland, then to Holland and then to America. Still another places them in the Walloon immigrants. The Walloons were French speaking Belgians.
J. H. Innes in “New Amsterdam and Its People,” Vol.1, p. 35 begins, “Upon a September day in the year 1637, the yatch Dolphin lay at anchor near the mouth of the Texel. Here, amidst the crowd of Dutch men-of-war, or merchant vessels, East Indiamen, Baltic coasters, colliers from Newcastle, and fishing smacks from all parts of the North Sea, which filled that great commercial highway of the Netherlands, leading from the Auyder See out into the German Ocean, the skipper of the Dolphin hailed his brother skipper of the Herring. He was in very poor trim for an ocean voyage to New Amsterdam to which port he was bound; his vessel was leaking badly; he had no carpenter, and his crew stoutly refused to go to sea without one. Could the skipper of the Herring do anyhting for him? On board the Herring was a young carpenter named Pieter Cornelissen, whom the skipper of his vessel was able to spare; and as he was willing to go, he embarked on board of the Dolphin and reached New Amsterdam in safety, after many months at sea. Most of which was a stormy and perious voyage in which most of the cargo was ruined.”
This was the voyage which brought Leendert and his wife and five children to New Amsterdam. They must have questioned their decision during the journey. There were many storms at sea, the ship was leaky, the food rations were inadequate and the crew was in a bad mood by the time they reached New Amsterdam.
By 1638 Leendert had contracted to “borrow” some cattle soas to expand the herd and later pay back the lender with calves, milk and butter. It is assumed that the family was living in some kind of shelter on a farm Leendert worked on share for the West India Comany. They hired out their son Albert to work for Jan Damen. He kept running away and Jan Damen had to go to court to get his family to return him and pay for loss and damage. Leendert and his family stayed on the farm for 6 years, paying shares back to the oweners. The farm mentioned in this lease contained 39 morgen or 80 acres. It was situated near the East River. The land was patented to Leendert Arentsen DeGrauw on 19 Oct 1645 at the end of the lease. This land was referred to as Blyvelt’s Bouwerie, also Bouwerie #3.
About a month before he obtained the patent to the Bouwerie land, Leendert bought a house and lot on what is now Broadway. (See Map #10, block B, house 4). Although he sold this house, he later bought the one next door, #5 where he lived until his death in 1664.