SEBASTIAN from SPAIN
To COURTRIGHT-cousins all:the following was provided to
me back in March, 1989, from KORTRIGHT-cousin, Mrs. Martha
Donovan of Sun City West, Arizona/Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvannia, her mother is Evelyn Kortrright Shaffer (nee:
KORTRIGHT) & her grandfather is John C. Kortright of Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvannia.following excerpts are transcribed
from "Supplement" to an Anniversary Booklet of South Kortright Church (Reformed/Presbyterian), Kortright Centre,
South Kortright, New York (1958), said "supplement" is
entitled:"WHAT's IN A NAME?" by Major Robert Adair Clark,
son of James Leal Clark (printed 1958):"...But how many of us know the actual manner of our aquiring the name, or the genesis of the word; or how the name "KORTRIGHT" (a synthetic word) came into our area?...KORTRIGHT (actually a
fabricated word) was acquired from a DUTCH FAMILY who in
HOLLAND bore such a name; whereas those DUTCH EMIGRES
ACTUALLY WERE NAMED "SEBASTIAN-SEN" (or "BASTIEN-SEN"), and
so came over from the NETHERLANDS in 1663 and so arrived in
America at NEW AMSTERDAM during the year preceeding the complete fall of DUTCH RULE, to what thereat became the English Province of New York." [taken from pg. 1]
"As for COURTWRIGHT, or KORTRIGHT, that latter "adopted"
name originated on Manhattan Island during "Province of New York" times and in 1770 fastened upon a small clearing in the wilderness, to which "Patent" land, granted to Lawrence
"KORTRIGHT",..." [taken from pg. 2].
"...After reading all available relevant genealogies and the
writings of such competent historians as Riker (whose recognized authentic History of Harlem is an invaluable plenary record of the important characters in New Amsterdam), my findings are as follows:One "SEBASTIAN" is
said to have been of SPANISH ORIGIN who CONVERTED TO CALVINISM and FLED TO HOLLAND.SEBASTIAN had two sons he
named JAN and MICHELE, born in LEERDAM; these sons (JAN and
MICHELE) of plebian SEBASTIAN, became known in HOLLAND as
"SEBASTIAN-SEN".Those two sons married, and in 1663 they with families to passage to New Amsterdam.They arrived on the same DUTCH sailing vessel, the "BENTEKOE" (BRINDLED COW)....At least one of the immigrants "SE-BASTIEN-SEN",
perhaps JAN, had lived for a time in the NETHERLANDS area
latterly known as BELGIUM (or FLANDERS) in a well-known city
which once boasted a population of 200,000, and is very near the present border of France, namely in "CourtRAI"...
the DUTCH language its name equivalent is Kort-rijk...But we
are told that the DUTCH-speaking farm boy brothers, JAN and
MICHELE, who some say "became known" after arrival in the DUTCH COLONY of NEW AMSTERDAM (later NEW YORK) as "BASTIEN-
SEN(s) from KORT-RIJK" (note spelling), ere long seemingly found it convient, especially after the abrupted "conquest" of the NEW NETHERLANDS (by the British fleet under the Duke
of York), to be known ONLY by the surname of KORTRIJK, or the readily-accomplished anglicization to something sounding like the honorable old English guild name of
Cartwright...". [taken from pgs. 6-7].
"Historian Riker, descended from good Holland ancestry, found that as the progeny of JAN and MICHELE BASTIENSEN
increased that the REFORMED CHURCH records (baptismal, etc.), as per preserved records of those days of little schooling and "easy" (phonetic) spelling, show that the offspring were known by many adopt variations or "corruptions" including KORTREGT, KORTRECHT, etc....Now...almost completely become "CORTRIGHTs"!" [taken
from pgs. 7-8].
"Be as it may, we find the SEBASTIANSENs renamed "KORTRIGHTs"..." [taken from pg. 9].
"...a Dr. Cortright, who wrote a family genealogy and based
much of his conclusions on the writings of Riker (for whose family an island in the East River is named), the larger family branch (stemming from the two HOLLAND-born
SEBASTIANSENs), who were once populous in lower ULSTER COUNTY, seem mostly to have migrated to the Middle West."
[taken from pg. 10.
signed on the last page, being pg. 11, by R. A. Clark of
Winter Haven, Fla., July, 1958.And addressed to Rev. John
Currie, Pastor, South Kortright, N.Y.
your COURTRIGHT-cousin, Gregory Thompson, great-great-great
grandson of RHEUBEN COURTRIGHT.