Link to Catharyna on Wikipedia

Most if not all histories of the history of Dutchess County, New York, and in particular of the town of Fishkill, make early and frequent mention of Catharyna Rombouts (often referred to later as "Madame Brett" -- but her story begins with her baptism on 25 May 1687 in New York City, the daughter of Francis Rombouts and Helena Teller.

Family Background

Catharyna's parents had each been married twice before their union, and her mother had quite a few children from her prior marriages. Francis (originally François) Rombouts, a Walloon born in the Bishpric of Liège, who came to New Netherland as supercargo on a Dutch West India Company shipment, became a prosperous merchant, alderman of New York City and in 1679 the city's twelfth mayor. Helena Teller was the daughter of William Teller, a prosperous merchant himself in Albany, who had arrived in very similar circumstances, though of ethnically Dutch German ancestry and born in Scotland.

The Rombout Patent

A few years before Catharyna was born, Francis and two partners had made an agreement with the indigenous Wappinger confederation to purchase a tract of land on the east side of the Hudson River in what would soon be defined by the Province as Dutchess County. This was called the Rombout Patent after the British subjects' right to own the land was confirmed in 1685. The land covered about 85,000 acres, and no European settlement to speak of had taken place there. It was, to them, utter wilderness, and a good number of indigenous people not party to the agreement with the Europeans remained, a potential (and soon to be real) precursor of violence. Francis and his partners probably planned to trap animals for fur on the land, but they did not act immediately, and then they began to die.

Francis probably didn't expect his wife to have any use for this land in her lifetime, and his other children had died young. Thus, in 1691, as he took ill and anticipated his death, he recorded a will, in which he devised that his one-third share in the Rombout Patent, as well as his home in the City, go to Catharyna, to be hers upon reaching the age of majority or marrying. After two codicils which resulted in some clarifications and an increase of the share of his other assets that his wife would receive (to 4,000 guilders). By April 21st, 1691, he had died. Eventually see Francis Rombout's profile for details and evidence of the above.

Marriage and Life in New York City

By 1703, Catharyna was sixteen years old, and by license dated 25 November of that year, she married Roger Brett, said to be a lieutenant in the Royal Navy who may have been of an aristocratic family, who was an acquaintance and perhaps even a friend of the province's new governor, Lord Cornbury. It has additionally been asserted that Roger had arrived with Lord Cornbury upon his appointment in 1701 as governor of the neighboring Province of New Jersey.

Catharyna and Roger began a family in the ensuing years, almost certainly living in the Rombouts estate on Broadway (formerly Heere Straat under Dutch rule), and perhaps with her mother. The estate extended to the Hudson River, and was described as "the handsomest of them all," with "picturesque gardens".

Probate and Patent Land Division

Catharyna's thrice-widowed mother died in 1707. Although her father had been quite generous to Catharyna in his will, her mother seems not to have been so. She willed that Catharyna would receive from her a mere nine pence, her other assets divided between children and grandchildren from her earlier marriages. This might have been a slight, but it also might have reflected her expectation that her other children had more use for additional property, given Catharyna's inheritance from her father, and her marriage to a man with an excellent connection in government.

Helena's other act of consequence to our story was a non-action -- she apparently did not fully execute her husband's will to the satisfaction of Catharyn and Roger. What that might have entailed is not clear. It seems that at this time, there was a 1/3 share in a land that was unsettled, and that no one had taken any action to decide how the shares would translate to boundaries within the patented land. Helena may have done nothing, but no one else had, either.

Nonetheless, when she died in 1707, Francis Rombout's estate was deemed unsettled, and Lord Cornbury conveniently appointed Roger Brett to finish the job, "the estate not having been fully administered upon by the widow," according to an abstract. Roger and Catharyn might have had some intent to find a way to receive other assets, or perhaps Roger was just the right person to handle the settlement of the estate given that the land was the remaining matter.

In Dutchess County

It does seem that the Bretts seized executorship in order to do something with the land. By petition, the Bretts and the heirs to the other two thirds of the patent achieved a partition in 1708, setting the stage for some form of settlement to begin.

Unlike others who came into large tracts of land in Dutchess County, who simply entered into leases with tenant farmers as absentee landlords, the Bretts moved in.

They must have almost immediately built a mill near where Fishkill Creek contributes to the Hudson River in 1708, they mortgaged land in 1709 to raise additional funds, and they did also begin to place tenant farmers on lots.[6] It is believed they built their home, which today is the oldest building still standing in Dutchess County, in 1709. The mill was a vital ingredient, as the farmers, who by-and-large raised wheat, were best served by processing it locally -- and if the Bretts did the processing, then of course their share of the profit from the land was further increased.

This area came to be known as Matteawan, which was later subsumed by Fishkill and eventually carved out as part of Beacon, New York.

The Bretts lived, during this time, in both the City and Matteawan. The Kings Highway into the area being but muddy trail, they would sail by sloop up and down the Hudson. In fact, their fourth child is said to have been named Rivery because he was born on the river.

Around 1716, it seems that whomever was at the helm of the sloop on which Roger stood as he approached Fishkill Landing misjudged the weather. A gust caught the sail and apparently the ensuing flying jibe caught Roger unaware. The boom struck him in the head, sending him into the water where he drowned -- a tragic and somewhat inglorious end to the life of an officer of the Royal Navy, who might have looked forward to his later days as a leader of the budding Fishkill community.

Catharyna suddenly found herself in the wilderness with no husband and three children.

At this point, we ought to remind ourselves that, as a woman in 1716, many would have expected Catharyna to retreat to the City and/or at least to remarry quickly. But she did neither. Instead, in cooperation with George Clarke, Secretary of the Province of New York and the grantee of a large mortgage by the Bretts on which they had funded their early activities, she recruited wealthy friends and family from the City and Long Island to purchase lots of the land that had been mortgaged, and eventually paid back George Clarke through these transactions. One example is their sale of 959 acres to Cornelius van Wyck.

Catharyna and others developed Fishkill into a hub of agricultural activity, and her mill was in the center of the action. People in town may have begun to refer to her as Madame Brett in these years, although some argue that this reference came from historians who felt compelled to "dress her up."

Regardless of what they called her, if Fishkill had a business leader, it was Catharyna Brett.

Late in her years, and in addition to running the mill, dealing in and letting real estate, and running the family farm, Catharyna led the creation of a partnership to found the Frankfort Store House at Fishkill Landing in 1743. The storehouse served as the way-point for goods to come and go from the Fishkill area and further solidified the town's role as a hub of commerce. This storehouse, and most of Fishkill, in fact, played a vital role in the Revolutionary War over four decades later.

Only one of the Bretts' children survived her. In her will, executed and proved in 1763, she devised portions of her land holdings to go to her older son Francis, that he might eventually allocate them to his children, and she allocated smaller properties individually to a number of her grandchildren by her son Robert.

Catharyna died in the Spring of 1764, and was buried in the Dutch Reformed Church in Fishkill near the pulpit. A plaque honoring her is mounted in the church.