Quackenbush

After a couple years, back to my ancestry, and the Quackenbush family name.

From quackenbush.com, site owner Erik Craig Quackenbush tells us a bit about this duck, sorry, Dutch, name and its roots.

Quackenbush is a Dutch name. The first recorded use of the Quackenbush coat of arms was in 1529 by Dirk Aelbertszoon van Quackenbosch,  registered in the Leiden Armorial (1785). The motto “Vrede in Rykdom” (Peace in Wealth) was first used by his grandson Gerrit Aelbertszoon van Quackenbosch in 1578.

Van Quackenbosch from the forest of the croaking frog.
The coat of arms is: Vrede In Rykdom!
It means Wealth and Happiness!

Quackenbush is an American last name based on a Dutch name (Van Quackenbosch). This name was brought to the Americas in 1654 by Pieter Van Quackenbosch his wife and 3 sons. In the Netherlands People were named by the region they live in.
Oddly enough, Pieter came from  Valkenburg, so not sure how that lines up with the region they lived in.  Perhaps frogs and bushes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkenburg,_South_Holland

Pieter did leave an amazing legacy to his family; the gift of a name so unusual that all of his descendents can trace it right back to him.

The Quackenbush Family in Holland and America is a 200-page walk through the family name and its history.

Another local distant ancestor, Hannah Jane Vanvolkenburgh-Quackenbush
http://www.heritagepin.com/vv/gene/showmedia.php?mediaID=587

If you Google Quackenbush, you get a lot of photos of air rifles.

https://www.jgairguns.biz/subpage1.html

Henry Marcus (H.M.) Quackenbush founded the H.M. Quackenbush Company in Herkimer, NY.  His Quackenbush rifle was popular from 1893-1920.  The company’s “gallery guns” were used across the U.S. in carnivals and shooting galleries.
H.M. and his company also invented a couple other useful things, including the extension ladder, the Kaleidoscope, coat hangers, scroll saw, darts, stair rails, bathroom shelves, and most successfully nutpicks and nutcrackers.


Dennis Quackenbush continues the tradition, making air guns at http://quackenbushairguns.com/

Again, from Quackenbush.com is my favourite story.  E.Clarke Quackenbush is said to have installed the first car radio in his boss’ Packard.  He ran the antenna the length of the car.  The radio worked perfectly until the car was put into gear when they found that the antenna had wrapped itself around the driveshaft.

Wikitree has some Myths and Misunderstandings of the Quackenbush family.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Quackenbush_Myths

Bush is the shortened form of Quackenbush for those that decided to Americanize the family name.

The Frontiersmen of New York: Showing Customs of the Indians
By Jeptha Root Simms

Abram Quackenbush: — One of the earliest Low Dutch families to locate in the present town of Glen was that of Quackenbush, as the name is now written. One of Quackenbush’s boyhood playmates, near the lower Mohawk castle at Fort Hunter, was an Indian called Bronkahorse, who was about his own age. Quackenbush was a lieutenant under the brave Capt. Gardinier. Among the followers of the Johnsons to Canada was his Indian friend, who also tried to get the white Whig to go with him, assuring him that he would have the same office in the royal army. Their next meeting was in the dodging, tree-to-tree fight at Oriskany. The lieutenant heard himself addressed in a familiar voice, which he recognized as that of his early Indian friend. now posted behind a tree within gunshot of the one which covered his own person. “Surrender yourself my prisoner and you shall be treated kindly,” shouted the Mohawk brave, “but if you do not you will never get away from here alive — we intend to kill all who are not made prisoners!” The success of the enemy at the beginning of the contest made them bold and defiant. “Never will I become a prisoner,” shouted back Quackenbush. Both were expert riflemen and now watched their chance. Bronkahorse fired first and planted a bullet in the tree scarcely an inch from his adversary’s head, but he had lost his best chance, as the lieutenant sprang to a new position from which his adversary’s tree would not shield him, and in the next instant the Indian dropped with a bullet through his heart.

http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/resources/mvgw/history/062.html

 A story about Isaac Sears and Walter Quackenbush, Sons of Liberty.

So what’s my tie-in?  I’m sure I have some distant cousins with the Quackenbush name through the VanVolkenburg line.

Hezekiah Sears was my Great-Great-Great Grandfather.
Lavina/Lorine  VanVolkenburgh Sears, 1805 – @1881 was my Great-Great-Great-Grandmother.
Her nephew John VanVolkenburg Cordova Mines, Ontario writes a bit about his history.  And some more through his aunt Mrs. Almeda Van Volkingburg-Quackenbush.
Continuing on… Phylander (Filander) Van Volkenburg, great-great-great-great grandfather.
His father, Jacob VanValkenburgh, 1765-1828 married Chloe Hodges.
His father was also Jacob.
His father Paul came with Jacob about 1790 from Holland to NY then to a farm in Brockville, Ontario.
Next up, Roebuck.  Because Sears.  And Buck.