Anita Lott Cruikshank collection of Kings County, N.Y., family papers
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Abstract
The Anita Lott Cruikshank collection (circa 1677-1892) consists of documents concerning various families, principally from Kings County (N.Y.) and principally concerning land and estate transactions. It is surmised that the materials were accumulated by various members of the Lott family, especially Jeremiah (1776-1861) and John A. Lott (1806-1878), of Flatbush (now part of Brooklyn, a borough of New York City) in the course of various private, public and professional activities. Many documents either concern a Lott as a party to the transaction or indicate a Lott performing an official responsibility or acting as estate executor, attorney, or in some other role as advocate. Accordingly, though many of the papers concern the Lott family, most of the collection concerns other families as well. The most important example of this is a set of papers concerning the Ludlow-Willink family of New York and Flatbush. These papers include documents regarding the commercial interests of Dutch merchant John Abraham Willink (died 1852) and his estate. Willink was married to Cornelia Ann Ludlow (1788-1865); documents from her family include estate, property, and professional papers for various Ludlows and related family ancestors, among these Charles Crooke and Anthony Rutgers of New York City. In addition to the towns of Kings County, documents in the collection refer to matters in New York City, Dutchess County (N.Y.), and Middlesex County (N.J.), among other places. Among the other surnames represented in the collection are Brownejohn, Cortelyou, Couwenhoven, Lefferts, Lloyd, Stryker, Van Brunt, Van der Bilt, and Vanderveer.
Biographical / Historical
It is unknown how Anita Lott Cruikshank came to possess the varied documents in this collection. It is presumed that she was a member of the Lott family and that the materials were accumulated by earlier generations of the family in the course of various private, public and professional activities. Most of the collection can be connected to a Lott, either directly (i.e., transactions with, or among, Lotts; Lott estate papers; correspondence with a Lott; and the like) or through evidence of a Lott performing an official responsibility (e.g., surrogate court officer, county clerk) or acting as estate executor, attorney, or in some other role as advocate. Accordingly, this biographical note focuses first on the principal Lott family members appearing in the collection. John A. Lott appears to have been closely involved with estate matters for a branch of the Ludlow-Willink family, which is well-represented in the collection. Therefore, this biographical note also focuses on the members of that family appearing in the collection.
Lott Family
The presence of the Lott family in Brooklyn extends back to 1652, when Peter Lott, a French Huguenot, emigrated from the Netherlands and settled in the town of Flatbush in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Flatbush would later become part of Kings County (now the borough of Brooklyn) in 1664 after the British took control of New Amsterdam, renamed it New York, and Anglicized its place names. Several of Peter Lott's descendants were prominent citizens of Kings County who held influential public office positions at the local and state levels. The Cruikshank collection refers to several Lotts, primarily Johannes E. Lott (1746-1811), Jeremiah Lott (1776-1861), and John A. Lott (1806-1878), all of Flatbush. Johannes E., the son of Engelbert (1719-1779) and Maritje Lott, became the first Surrogate of Kings County and was also a Judge of the County's Court of Common Pleas. He and his wife, Catharine Vanderbilt Lott (1757-1840), had several children, among them Abraham (d. 1840) and Jeremiah. Jeremiah became Surrogate of Kings County, as well as a surveyor and Clerk of the Board of Supervisors.
Jeremiah and his wife, Lydia Lloyd Lott (1789-1865), had a daughter, Catharine (1807-1881), who in 1829 married John A. Lott, the son of the above-mentioned Abraham and one of 19th-century Brooklyn's most celebrated citizens. John was a senior member of the law firm Lott, Murphy, and Vanderbilt, along with prominent Brooklyn politician Henry Cruse Murphy and Judge John Vanderbilt. He was later First Judge of the Kings County Court of Common Pleas, a member of the New York State Assembly, Senator from the first district, Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Associate Justice of the New York State Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice of the Commission of Appeals.
Ludlow-Willink Family
John Abraham Willink, originally of the Netherlands, was a member of a Dutch family engaged in banking and finance. Willink married Cornelia Ann Ludlow (1788-1865) in 1816, and they resided in Flatbush. They had one daughter by adoption (Maria P. Selleck, later Mrs. W. K. James who, in 1911, would donate historical family artifacts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art). It is possible that Willink met Cornelia through business connections with her father, Charles Ludlow (died 1814) of New York City (Ludlow lived at 13 Broad Street and worked around the corner at 18 Wall Street). Charles Ludlow was married to Elizabeth Van Horne. In addition to Cornelia Ann, the Ludlows had a second daughter, also named Elizabeth. Elizabeth (sometimes referred to as "the younger") did not marry and lived her later years with Cornelia Ann and John Abraham Willink in Flatbush. Willink died on May 31, 1852. Cornelia Ann died on November 18, 1865. It is not known when Elizabeth the younger died, but correspondence in the collection from a Willink in Amsterdam to John A. Lott suggests her death occurred about November 1868.
Most of the Ludlow-Willink documents in the Cruikshank collection center on the above branch of the family. Several documents in the collection concern earlier generations of Ludlows and affiliated families as well; following are notes are those. Gabriel Ludlow (1663-1736) arrived in New York City from England in 1694. He married Sarah Hanmer, and they had eight children. It is the descendants of their eighth child, William Ludlow (born 1707), that predominate in the collection. William married Mary Duncan (1713-1779) in 1731, and they had 13 children. In the Cruikshank collection, the most significant child is the second, Gabriel William Ludlow (1734-1805). (The third child, Cary (1736-1814), also appears on some documents. William (1742-1814) and Mary W. (1748-1831) might also appear.) Many of the Ludlows, living in New York, were congregants of Trinity Church.
Gabriel W. married Cornelia Crooke in 1764. Cornelia was the daughter of Charles Crooke, who was the son of John Crooke. John Crooke was married to Anneke Rutgers, daughter of Anthony Rutgers. All of these individuals (or their estates) are referenced in documents in the collection. Gabriel W. and Cornelia had three children: Charles, John Crooke and Mary. Charles became the New York businessman introduced above and father of Cornelia Ann, who would marry John Abraham Willink.
Sources at Brooklyn Historical Society
For the Lott family: Van Phillips, The Lott family in America... (call number CS71.L883.1942).
For the Ludlow family: William Seton Gordon, Gabriel Ludlow (1663-1736) and his descendants (call number CS71.L8465.1919); Proceedings at the laying of the corner-stone of the Ludlow and Willink Hall of St. Stephen's College, Annandale, N.Y. on Wednesday, June 13, A.D. 1866 (call number CS71.L8465.1866). (St. Stephen's College is now Bard College and the Ludlow-Willink Hall is used as its main administration building.)
Arrangement
Documents that relate directly to the Lott family, then to the Ludlow-Willink family, are presented first. These are followed by documents that appear to relate to particular families or legal or financial matters. Folders of various documents that do not necessarily appear to relate to one another are last; these are arranged chronologically.
Scope and Contents
The Anita Lott Cruikshank collection (circa 1677-1892) consists of documents concerning various families, principally from Kings County (N.Y.) and principally concerning land and estate transactions. A unifying theme or context of the collection is uncertain, but it is surmised that the materials were accumulated by various members of the Lott family of Flatbush (now part of Brooklyn, a borough of New York City) in the course of various private, public and professional activities. Most of the collection can be connected to a Lott, either directly (i.e., transactions with, or among, Lotts; Lott estate papers; correspondence with a Lott; and the like) or through evidence of a Lott performing an official responsibility (e.g., surrogate court officer, county clerk) or acting as estate executor, attorney, or in some other role as advocate. Accordingly, though many of the papers concern the Lott family, most of the collection concerns other families as well.
The most important example of this is a set of papers concerning the Ludlow and Willink families, connected through the marriage of John Abraham Willink and Cornelia Ann Ludlow. John A. Lott, acting in some capacity with estate matters, appears to have come into possession of a branch of the families' papers after the deaths of all the principals. These papers include documents concerning the commercial interests of Willink (a merchant and immigrant from the Netherlands) and his estate. Some of these documents are correspondence from Amsterdam, and are in Dutch. Documents from the Ludlow side include estate, property, and professional papers for various Ludlows and related family ancestors, among these Charles Crooke and Anthony Rutgers of New York City. The property and commercial interests of these families extended beyond Kings County so documents refer to matters in New York City (including a lease for property at 18 Wall Street), Dutchess County (N.Y.), and Middlesex County (N.J.), among other places. Willink's correspondence includes two pieces related to his interests in the Morris Canal of New Jersey.
The collection includes indentures, receipts, wills, estate settlements, powers of attorney, and other documents related to other families, primarily from Kings County. Among these are two enslaved persons' sale agreements (1796, 1806) and a sale of land in Flatbush to an African-American (1827). Many families are represented in the collection, but few documents for each. Among the surnames appearing are Brownejohn (New York), Cortelyou, Couwenhoven, Lefferts, Lloyd (Flatbush), Stryker (Gravesend), Van Brunt (Gravesend), Van der Bilt, and Vanderveer. A few corporate matters are also in the collection, including a court filing in a case concerning the Brooklyn City Rail Road Company (1854), a deed of land in Brooklyn from Union College to the Long Island Rail Road Company (1866), and a lease of land by the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Flatbush (1793).
The collection includes a small number of documents concerning Kings County public matters. Among these are the indenture of a poor girl by the Flatbush Overseers of the Poor (1812) and a docket for a case of trespass and theft and a search warrant, both from Flatbush (1828). John A. Lott's engagement with political matters is not well-represented, but there is a letter to him from Edwin Croswell of Albany discussing slavery in the territories (1849).
Subjects
Families
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People
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Conditions Governing Access
Open to researchers without restriction.
Conditions Governing Use
The material is in the public domain.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date (if known); Anita Lott Cruikshank collection of Kings County, N.Y., family papers, ARC.281, Box and Folder number; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The collection was donated to the Long Island Historical Society (now the Brooklyn Historical Society) by Anita Lott Cruikshank (Mrs. Russell Vernon Cruikshank) in 1963.
About this Guide
Processing Information
The collection is likely to have been received by Brooklyn Historical Society in its entirety at one point in time in 1963. At that time, it was stored by BHS in three "packages," each of which were later given accession numbers. These three accessions comprising the collection are 1974.126, 1974.215 and 1977.284. In 1966, item level inventories were written for 1974.126 and 1977.284, but not for the third accession. (In 2011, it was determined that the inventory for 1974.284 had some omissions and inaccuracies.) About 1980, the Brooklyn Rediscovery project drafted notes on the content of 1974.215, but did not formalize them. At some point, likely around 2005, it appears that 1974.126 and 1977.284 were each newly-arranged, but the inventory for 1977.284 was not updated and 1974.215 remained without a finding aid. In 2011, the collection was re-processed by Larry Weimer; all three accessions were merged, one arrangement scheme was applied to the entire collection, most oversize documents were flattened, and a finding aid was prepared for the whole. (The detailed 1966 inventories can still be found, most readily, in the accession files. Digital versions made in 2008 also exist.)
Oppressive descriptive language was remediated from the subject terms and scope and contents note in this finding aid as part of an anti-racist descriptive language audit performed in January 2021. Folder titles and language used in general notes at the folder level have been retained to document descriptive historical language.
