History of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, 1887



Hermance Family - ALBERT DU BOIS HERMANCE Biography

Albert Du Bois Hermance, a prominent manufacturer of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, is a representative in both paternal and maternal lines of ancestors who date from the earliest colonial epoch. Both parents were of Dutch descent, the paternal ancestor coming to America when New York was under the Dutch rule, and the maternal ancestor coming shortly after it had passed into the hands of the English. The family name shows various changes, and appears in differing forms at different times.

(I) Jan Heermans and his sister Jannetje came from Ruyner, in the Province of Drenthe, Holland, with Captain Cornelius Maertens, in the ship "Brownfish," in June, 1658. He settled in New Amsterdam (New York), and married Engeltje (baptized November 29, 1654), daughter of Jan Jansen Brestede and Marretje Andries, in the old Dutch church, August 23, 1676. He had ten children, three of whom married Van Wagenen. About 1682 he removed to Kingston, New York, and was supervisor of the town in 1689, and trustee 1692-4, and again in 1698. His will is in the office of the surrogate in New York, dated October 28, 1724, liber x, p. 39 (new paging).

(II) Andrie, son of Jan and Engletje (Brestede) Heermans, was baptized at Kingston, New York, April 12, 1685. He married Neeltje Van Wagenen, baptized April 17, 1692, daughter of Garret Aartsen and Clara, daughter of Evert Pels. The Aartsen family took the name of Van Wagenen because their father came from a village called Wagenings, near Gilderland. Andrie had fourteen children, all of whom were baptized in the Dutch church at Kingston, New York, except the two last, which would go to show that he must have removed about 1734 to Rhinebeck, Dutchess county, New York, where he purchased a large tract of land which he owned at the time of his death, about 1769. He was a man of considerable prominence, being trustee of Kingston, 1716-24, and serving in the Ulster county militia in 1717. His will is with the clerk of the court of appeals at Albany, dated Rhinebeck, March 4, 1766, proven April 27, 1769,

(III) Garrett, son of Andrie and Neeltje (Van Wagenen) Heermans, was baptized at Kingston, New York, November 18, 1722. He married, at Rhinebeck, New York, November 4, 1748, Garretje, daughter of Ryer Schermerhorn and Marretje Ten Eyck. She was born in Livingston Manor in 1727, and was the great-granddaughter of Jacob Jans Schermerhorn, who came to America in 1636, and was a prosperous Indian trader in Beverwick, New York, in 1648. Garrett was a charter member of the Dutch church in Upper Red Hook, Dutchess county, New York, in 1766, and in 1791 served as deacon. His will has not been found, and there is no account of his death, or of any children but one.

(IV) Ryer, son of Garrett and Garretje (Schermerhorn) Heermans, was baptized August 21, 1749. He married Marretje (baptized September 16, 1753), daughter of Milli Beekman and Cornelis Swart. She was the granddaughter of Johannes Swart (or Swartout), who was the first settler of the village of Johnsville, Dutchess county, New York, and also the great-granddaughter of Wilhelmus Beekman and Catherine De Borg; Wilhelmus Beekman was pastor at Zutphen, in Gilderland, Holland, and came to America in 1647 as clerk for the West India Company, and in 1658-63 was vice-director on the Delaware river. Beekman street in New York city is named for this noted family. Ryer Heermans and his wife joined the Upper Red Hook church in Dutchess county, New York, in 1780. He died in 1805 on his farm in the town of North East, in Dutchess county, New York, leaving a wife, three sons and two daughters. His will is in possession of a grandson, Walter Hermans, of Paterson, New York.

(V) Cornelius, son of Ryer and Marretje (Swart) Heermans, was born in 1783. He married Gettyann Westfall, and they were the parents of ten children. He resided in Dutchess and Saratoga counties, New York, and died at the home of his daughter, Jane Palmer, at Galway, Saratoga county, in 1851.

(VI) Richard Hermance, son of Cornelius and Gettyann (Westfall) Heermans, was born in Dutchess county, New York, in 1816, and lived for many years on the old homestead, which is now a part of the Round Lake camp meeting grounds in Saratoga county, New York. He settled upon this shortly after his marriage, and for a time cultivated the farm. A man of mechanical and inventive ability, he turned to those lines, and removed to Stillwater, New York, where he erected a large foundry and machine shops, and came to be known as one of the most extensive and successful stove manufacturers in the country. He was the inventor of various stove attachments which came into universal use, among them the well known low-down reservoir for ranges and cooking stoves. He subsequently removed to Troy, New York, and thence to Half Moon, New York, and finally to Poughkeepsie, where he died August 20, 190l, at the age of eighty-five years. He was an exemplary member of the Baptist church. He was a Whig until the dissolution of that party, when he allied himself with the Republican party at its formation.

Mr. Hermance married Miss Emeline Du Bois, who died in Troy, New York, November 6, 1885, aged sixty-three years, and was buried at Poughkeepsie. She was a daughter of Richard and Rachel (Carmicheal) Du Bois, and was a representative of a French Huguenot family which took refuge in Holland after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Her ancestral line is as follows

(I) Jacques Du Bois, the emigrant ancestor, was born in Holland, where (at Leyden) he married, April 25, 1663, Pierronne Bentyn, from near Lille. They left Holland about April 15, 1675, and on arriving in America settled in Kingston, Ulster county, New York, where he died December 30, 1677, something more than two years after his arrival. His widow married J. L. Pietersy. Jacques and Pierronne (Bentyn) De Bois were the parents of seven children, all of whom were born in Holland: 1. Marie, born April 2, 1664; 2. Jacques, March 29, 1665; 3. Marie, October 3, 1666; 4. Jean, October 30, 1667; 5. Anne, August 11, 1669.; 6. Jehan, July 25, 1671; 7. Pierre, March 17, 1674.

(II) Pierre, youngest child of Jacques and Pierronne (Bentyn) Du Bois, was thirteen months old when his parents came to Kingston, New York, where he was reared to manhood. He removed to Dutchess county, New York, where yet stand the massive walls of the old stone house which he erected about 1710, but which nova, bear a new superstructure. The situation is almost three and one-half miles east from the village of Fishkill, on the west side of Sprout creek, which ran centrally through his land. The timbers in the wing which supported the upper floor of the old building were of cypress, or whitewood, and were of enormous size. A high stone fireplace originally occupied the north side of the kitchen, and was sufficiently capacious to take in logs of ordinary cordwood size, and a tall man could stand in it upright. During the long winter evenings Pierre Du Bois' negroes would sit on the ends of the back logs until the blazing fire would force them to retreat. Pierre Du Bois was founder of the Dutch churches in Poughkeepsie and Fishkill, and for more than twenty years his name appears on the records of both as elder or deacon, and he served in one or other of these capacities in the church in Kingston, New York, before coming to Dutchess county. He died at the age of sixty-three years, and his tombstone is still to be seen in the churchyard of the Dutch Reformed church in Fishkill village, with the following inscription : " Here lies the body of Peter Du Bois, who departed this life the 22nd day of January, in year 1737-8, aged 63 yrs." Pierre Du Bois married, October 12, 1697, Jannetje Burhans, a maiden of Brabant, and the records of the baptism of their children at Kingston and Poughkeepsie appear as follows : 1. Petronella, January 13, 1698; 2. Johannes, October 15, 1699; 3. Jacobus, May 26, 1701; 4. Christiaan, November 15, 1702; 5. Jonathan, September 3, 1706; 6. Peter, January 16, 1708; 7. Elizabeth, October 23, 1718; 8. Petronella, January 21, 1722. Besides these, they had Abraham, John and Helena.

(III) Jonathan, son of Pierre and Jannetje (Burhams) Du Bois, received from his father a farm on the east side of Sprout creek. He married Arieantje Oosterhout, and their children were: 1. Peter, married Maria Van Voorhis; 2. Jannetje; 3. Henry; 4. Hillitje, married Benjamin Bloom; 5. Abraham; 6. Jannetje; 7. Cornelius (see forward); 8. Sarah.

(IV) Cornelius, son of Jonathan and Aariaantje (Oosterhout) Du Bois, married Charity Griffin, and their children were: 1. Peter, married Anna Ham, and (second) Mary McBride; 2. Richard (see forward); 3. Jonathan; 4. Adrietta, married Benjamin Wood; 5. Catherine, married George Hough; 6. Elizabeth, married David Peters; 7. Jane, married James Hicks; 8. Charity, married Peter Darby; 9. Cornelius, married Deborah Payne; 10. Maria, married David Albertson; ii. Sarah, married -Dye.

(V) Richard Du Bois, son of Cornelius and Charity (Griffin) Du Bois, married Rachel Carmichael, and their children were : 1. Sally, married Koert Du Bois; 2. John; 3. Betsy, married David Bedell; 4. Cornelia, married Miles Traver; 5. Pamelia; 6. Julia, married Harvey Rogers; 7. Almira, married (first) William R. Carpenter, and (second) Thomas Rogers; 8. Emeline, married Richard Hermance.

To Richard and Emeline (Du Bois) Hermance were born five children : 1. Almira, who married Warren P. Lasher, and resides in Poughkeepsie, New York; 2. Theodore, married Margeret M. Oakley, of Half Moon, New York; he was a farmer at Heightstown, New Jersey, where he died June 12, 1900; 3. Albert D. (see forward); 4. George, who resides in Dutchess county, New York; 5. Emma, married Henry R. Richmond and resides in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Albert Du Bois Hermance, third child and second son of Richard and Emeline (Du Bois) Hermance, was born at Maltaville, on the old homestead, August 8, 1847. He was educated in the public schools, the Stillwater Seminary and Fairfield Seminary. In 1860, at the early age of thirteen years, he went to Troy, New York, where he secured employment in a sash, door and blind factory, with a view to learning the business. In August, 1864, a few days after his seventeenth birthday, he enlisted in Company C, Twenty-first New York Cavalry Regiment. He was at once assigned on detached service, which continued until the close of the war, when he

was honorably discharged. In 1865 Mr. Hermance located in Williamsport, and entered the employ of Culver, Barber & Company, manufacturers of sash, doors and blinds, and with whom he remained until 1868. He now had an intimate practical knowledge of all departments of that business, and he went to Green Island, New York, to take charge of the Crampton & Belden blind factory, the largest establishment of its kind in the United States at that time, and whose operations he directed for four years. In 1872 he returned to Williamsport and for a year had charge of the planing mill of his former employers, Culver, Barber & Company. In the meantime he had originated a wood-working machine (patented in 1873) and entered upon its manufacture, overseeing the mechanical work and introducing it to manufacturers throughout the state by personal visitation. His machine won general favor, and his business expanded td such dimensions as to require larger capital and increased manufacturing facilities, and in January, 1874, he associated with himself Mr. E. A. Rowley in the widely known firm of Rowley & Hermance, for the building of wood-working machinery generally. The business was subsequently incorporated as the Rowley and Hermance Company, Mr. Rowley being president up to the time of his death, and later Mr. Hermance was president until he disposed of his interest.

Mr. Hermance is actively identified with a number of important industrial and financial institutions in the Lycoming Valley and elsewhere. He is president of the Hermance Machine Company, was one of the organizers of the National Furniture Company, is a director of the First National Bank, and is largely interested in other corporations, among them the Citizens' Water Company, all of Williamsport. He is also president of the McKean Chemical Company, of McKean county, Pennsylvania, with offices in Williamsport; of the Sergeant Gas Company of the same county; president of the Castle Brook Carbon Black Company, of, Smithburg, West Virginia; a stockholder in the Columbia Carbon Black Company of Weston, West Virginia; is a large stockholder in the Cotton State Lumber Company, which controls several thousand acres of timber land in Mississippi, and is interested in a gas and oil company in the Indian Territory. He also has large real estate holdings in Williamsport, in Pennsylvania, Dakota and New York.

Mr. Hermance has always taken a deep interest in community affairs, and has rendered efficient service as a member of the common council, and is a director of the Williamsport Hospital. He has taken high rank in the Masonic fraternity, having attained the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Scottish Rite, and being affiliated with Williamsport Consistory, S. P. R. S. He is a member of Reno Post, No. 64, Grand Army of the Republic, and of the Country Club, of Williamsport. He is also president of the Antesfort Fishing Club of Lycoming county, and a member of the Triton Fishing Club of Triton, Canada; and the Caledon Mountain Trout Club of Canada. Arduous as he is in his attention to the many important commercial enterprises with which he is identified, he has a well defined idea of the value of relaxation, and delights in outdoor sports, spending three months of every winter in fishing in Florida, besides shooting caribou in the north. He is ever ready to pass pleasant hours with congenial companions, of whom he has many, and even asserts that he makes his multifarious business enterprises secondary to the amenities and pleasures of life. In politics he is a Republican, and a staunch supporter of the principles and policies of the party. He was reared a Baptist, but is an attendant of the First Presbyterian church of Williamsport.

In 1870 Mr. Hermance married Miss Agnes Levan, daughter of E. M. D. Levan, of Williamsport. No children have been born of this marriage.


Source: Genealogical and Personal History of Lycoming County, John W. Jordan, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1906.










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