Volkert Dirks, the son of Dirck Volckertszen De Noorman and Christina Vigne, was born on Nov 15th, 1643 in New Amsterdam. His baptism in the Dutch Reformed Church was witnessed by step-uncle Jan Jansen Damen, Philip Graer, Maria Philips and uncle Cornelis Van Tienhoven, whose title "Secretaris" appears in the record of the event. He was raised at Smit's Vly, and about 1655 (age 12) moved across the East River to the farm at Noorman's Kill. In 1667 he contracted with his father to work 200 acres of this farm, in exchange for eventually receiving title to the land. Volkert married Annetje Phillips about 1668. Her father was Phillip Langelans, who sailed from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam in 1659 on the ship "Faith" with his wife and two daughters. The other daughter was Marie, who married Grietje Dircks' son Jurian Nagel. Jurian's aunt Annetje was thus also his sister-in-law, and Volkert's nephew was also his brother-in-law.
When the Dutch recaptured New York from the English in 1673, Volkert became a magistrate of Bushwick under the short-lived Dutch authority. The English and Dutch concluded a treaty in 1674 that returned New York to English control. His name then appears on the 1675 and 1676 Assessment Rolls in Boswyck as Volkert Dierckse. In 1677 he was listed as a member of Dominie Van Zuuren's church, and in 1686 was commissioned lieutenant of militia. In the 1682 baptism of his daughter Lydia, his name was recorded as "Holbrecht Dircksen" and that of his wife was "Annitje Flippsen".
Volkert appeared on the 1683 Rate List of Bushwyck as Volkert Dircksen (assessed taxes for 200 acres). He sold some of his land in 1685, but shows up again on a land patent in 1687. In that same year he took an oath of allegiance to England. On 9 Sep 1688 Volkert witnessed at the baptism of granddaughter Antie, daughter of Cornelius Cortelyou and Neltje Volkers, at Flatbush. He died by the time of the Kings County census in 1698. After his death his widow Annetje many of his children moved to New Jersey
Dirck was born in Bushwick. Records about him begin in 1689 when he was appointed ensign of the town militia and loaned money to his uncle Jacob Dircksen (17 July 1689, signed his name 'Derck Folckerse'). His marriage to Maria De Witt, daughter of Peter De Witt and Sarah Alberts, a widow, on 25 Sep 1691 took place in the Reformed Dutch Church of Flatbush. His name was listed as 'Derick' when he served as a grand-juryman at the court of sessions in 1692. The 1698 census showed he had a wife, three children and two slaves.
He moved his family to Somerset County, New Jersey about 1700. His wife Maria died a few years later. On 27 Sep 1710 he married his second wife Jenneke Schouiwten, with whom he had no known children. He purchased land at the Harlingen Tract in Somerset County about 1710 and operated a mill business with brothers Philip and Nicholas at Bound Brook on the lower Millstone River.
In the 1720's he had four more children by his 3rd wife, Geertje Zynieltse, the last of whom was a son named Dirck, baptized on 19 Nov 1727. Dirck wrote his Will in November 1752. He died on 22 Jun 1754 at Millstone River, Somerset, NJ and was interred at the Weston Burying Grounds. His wife Geertje was named in the will and survived him until 12 Dec 1759, at age 74 according to her headstone.
Volkert was born about 1692 in Bushwick, NY. The patronymic system was in transition, as his "surname" was sometimes given as Dircksen or Derrickson. He married Dinah Van Lieuw on 16 Nov 1716 at the Reformed Dutch Church of Flatbush in Brooklyn (recorded as 'Folkert Dirk to Dina Van Leven').
Dinah's father was Frederick Hendrickse Van Lieuw (there are many variations on the spelling of his surname, including Van Lieu and Van Leeuwen), who was born about 1650 in Utrecht. Her mother Dinah Janse married Frederick on 2 Oct 1681. They lived in Jamaica (a town in Queens, northeast of Brooklyn) on a relatively prosperous farm.
Volkert and Dinah moved their family to Somerset County, New Jersey, where his father and two uncles were operating a mill. Volkert's father Dirck Volkertse died in 1754, aged 87. It appears that Volkert stayed in New Jersey long enough to see his father's estate settled - he didn't get much out of it, as he already owed his father money, but the will did name Volkert's ten children for posterity. By 1748, however, several of his sons began exploring lands along the Virginia-North Carolina border. On 18 Mar 1748, son Frederick had 600 acres surveyed on both sides of Marrowbone Creek in Halifax Co., VA, just south of Martinsville (now Henry Co.). On 18 May 1754, his son Volkert entered a claim for 400 acres in Pittsylvania County.
It was about 1755 that Volkert and his wife and children moved south. Volkert reportedly died near the Virginia-North Carolina border. The next records we have are fragmentary, but appear to indicate that Volkert's children settled in various areas along the Virginia-North Carolina border, and suffered from Indian attacks that killed several family members and neighbors. On 14 February 1758 Frederick entered a claim for 400 acres on Grays Middle Fork, North Mayo River in Pittsylvania (now Henry) Co., VA. The Moravian records then tell us that on 6 Apr 1758: "Two families, coming to us for protection brought confirmation of the rumor that the Shawnee Indians have murdered several people about 40 miles from here, in Halifax County, between the Mayo and Irvine Rivers, on the No. Carolina line."
Yet another account, written years later by Benjamin Sharp, tells us more about the Indian raid: "In an early day, at the first settling of the Mayo River, now Patrick County in Virginia, the Indians made a horrid breach in that settlement, but I am unable to name the year or month in which it happened. Several families were destroyed and a number of prisoners carried off. Richard Fulkerson, an uncle of my wife, and his family, with the exception of his wife and two small children, were killed; and although I have seen both their children after they grew up, yet I cannot say by what means they escaped from the massacre.
Sharp's mention of prisoners may help solve another mystery. In the fall of 1764, Col. Henry Bouquet of the Royal American Regiment led an expedition to the Ohio Country to demand surrender of the tribes that participated in Pontiac's War during 1763 through the first half of 1764. He was successful in this, and also in obtaining the return of all captives taken since the outbreak of hostilities in 1754. Among the captives "delivered up from the Shawanese Indians" and returned to Augusta Co., Virginia on 5 January 1765 was "Eliz' Fulkison, 16 Years Old taken about Seven years ago from Smiths River Augusta County." This may have been a daughter of Folkert's son Richard, taken captive as a 9-year-old seven years earlier in 1758. Her family presumed dead, it is likely her rescuers just dropped her off at the settlement in Augusta County.
Moving from the relative calm of New Jersey farm life to the perilous frontier took its toll on Volkert's family, but also led it to achieve new strengths and successes. They had ten children: Dirck, Frederick, Mary, Volkert, Dinah, Peter, John, Deborah, James and Abraham.
Abraham was born in Somerset Co., New Jersey and baptized at the Readington Dutch Reformed Church on 18 May 1740. He moved with his family to North Carolina when he was about 15. His father died before they reached their destination in Rowan County, and his oldest brother was killed shortly after they arrived. He married Sarah Gibson in Rowan Co., North Carolina, on 2 July 1766.
Four years later he and his brother James moved both their families to the "Overmountain" region of southwest Virginia. Abraham fought in the Revolutionary War (Battle of King's Mountain, 7 Oct 1780). The 1782 property tax rolls for Washington County show that he had 16 horses, 27 head of cattle and no slaves (although an 1818 Scott County property list shows him with 3 slaves and 4 horses). The Washington County records also show he had land surveyed in 1782: Abraham Fulkerson...540 ac...Preemption Warrant...in the Poor Valley and on the waters of the north fork of Holstein River...Beginning in a gap of the Poor Valley knobs on the west side of the Big Lick Branch...up the branch through the gap in the above valley...along the foot of the knobs...cross the valley at the foot of Clynch Mountain...on the side of the Mountain above Tally's Lick...leaving the mountain and across the valley on the north side of the Poor Valley Knobs...October 22, 1782
Abraham's house, which he built around 1783, still stands. Its continued preservation was aided by placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
On 24 Nov 1814, Abraham was appointed as a commissioner in Scott County. Within the county, a magisterial district was named Fulkerson, in honor of Abraham and brother James as early settlers of that region. Thereafter it was listed on tax rolls and still appears on some maps. There is a monument to Abraham in Scott County, erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
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James was orn in Scott Co., Virginoa on 7 Jun 1768. He was 22 years old when he married Elizabeth McMillin, the daughter of William McMillin of Ireland and Mary Leeper of North Carolina.
James and Elizabeth moved to Tennessee in 1807 and then to Missouri in 1817, with four or five other families. James' cousin Isaac had moved there three years earlier with Daniel Boone, and several other Fulkerson clans were moving there about the same time. While crossing the Wabash River, several of their party were drowned. They went as far west as Lexington, MO, but returned to Cole County where other family members were settling.
James was a judge and a member of the state Constitutional Convention in Missouri before he undertook to move west on the Oregon Trail on 12 Apr 1847. His wife was Mary Ramsey Miller (dau. of James Miller and Elizabeth Kincaid).The family was struck hard during this journey, with the deaths of his wife Mary, his son Frederick, his son-in-law Hiram Dorris and his brother-in-law William Hines. They finally arrived at their destination, Oregon's Willamette Valley, on 1 Oct 1847.
In Polk Co., OR on 9 May 1848, James married Catherine "Kate" Linville Crowley, widow of Thomas Crowley who died on the Oregon Trail in 1846. (Thomas' grandfather Samuel Crowley, a frontier scout from Smith River, VA, was the first man killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, which Congress has recognized as the first battle of the American Revolution. He was thus the first American to die for his country.) Catherine also lost two sons and a daughter on the Trail, and another son died in Oregon in 1847. A Mormon emigrant to Utah wrote on 23 Jun 1847 at Cottonwood Creek:
"After breakfast I went to the top of a high bluff expecting to get a view of the country west but was disappointed in consequence of the many ridges or bluffs but a little distance beyond us. At seven o'clock the camp moved forward and immediately after was a graveyard on the left of the road with a board stuck up with these words written upon it: 'Matilda Crowley. Born July 16th, 1830, and Died July 7, 1846.'"
James was a constituent member of Oregon's Willamette Association of 1848 and a member of the Oregon territorial legislature, served as a judge, became a licensed minister (1856), was one of the founders of McMinnville College, and was a member of the college's Board of Trustees for many years. He died at the age of 80 on 31 May 1884 at Fulkerson Gap, Polk Co., OR. (Fulkerson Gap, north of the town of Dixie, was named in his honor.) Both he and Catherine were buried at Etna Cemetery near Rickreall.
Source: American Fulkerson Homepage (http://www.fulkerson.org/)