His two grandfathers, Levi Van Etten and Benjamin Carpenter, served in the Third Orange County Regiment in the Revolution. His great-grandfather, Anthony Van Etten, was so active a patriot that he was killed by Tories in 1778. His great-grandfather, Johannes Decker, was the famous Major Decker who protected the frontier of the southern part of the State throughout the Revolution, and his grandmother, Margaret Decker, was one of the children at school in the old log schoolhouse, near the farm house where the doctor was born, on that July day when Brandt surprised them at their lessons and killed and scalped their teacher. He entered the service September 3, 1861, as surgeon of the Fifty-sixth Regiment of New York Volunteers. He rose step by step from regimental surgeon to the rank of division surgeon of the Third Division of the Eighteenth Army Corps. After the war he returned to Port Jervis.
On September 7, 1865, he was united in marriage with Maria, daughter of Nathan Bristol, of Waverly, N. Y.
Two children were born of this union, Dr. Nathan B. Van Etten, a practicing physician in New York City, and Eleanor B. Van Etten, who resides with her mother in Port Jervis.
Dr. Van Etten died suddenly at his home in Port Jervis, July 7, 1894, from concussion of the brain, the result of a fall.
CHARAC J. VAN INWEGAN was born April 14, 1851, in the town of Deer Park. He has always followed merchandising, succeeding to the business which his father established in Huguenot, which he still carries on. In 1880 he opened a store in Port Jervis in connection with his brother, John C., who took charge of the latter establishment. Charac J. has dealt extensively in wood and each season has shipped thousands of cords to New York. For a time he owned the Huguenot Springs Hotel, and he owns two store buildings in Port Jervis, N. Y. He has been twice married. His first wife was Catherine, daughter of Isaac and Catherine (Rose) Cuddeback, and after her death he married Ellen S., daughter of Peter P. Swartwout. By the first union one son was born, Willard. The children of the second marriage are Lyman C., Harold B., Allen J. and Ralph S. Mr. Van Inwegan is a member of the Masonic Lodge of Port Jervis. In politics he is a democrat and has served as postmaster at Huguenot for some years. His wife is a member of the Reformed Church.
HENRY NEWTON VAN KEUREN, son of Henry L. and Eleanor (Crawford) Van Keuren, was born in the town of Shawangunk, Ulster County, N. Y., in 1842. Mr. Van Keuren was educated at the district schools of his native place, and at the age of twenty-seven engaged in business in the town of Crawford, Orange County.
In 1869 Mr. Van Keuren married Helen, only daughter of John Hill, Jr. She died in 1870. In 1873 he married Miss Catherine Ronk, of the town of Crawford, who died in Newburgh in 1888. Mr. Van Keuren acquired a competency in business and lived for many years in retirement in Newburgh. He was fond of travel and visited all the countries of Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land, and made a tour around the world in 1897-1898. He died in Germany in 1907.
Mr. Van Keuren's ancestors came from Holland in 1864, and were among the early settlers of New York. The homestead in Ulster County, in which four generations were born, was a house of shelter and refuge in the days of contests with the Indians.
CLARENCE C. VAN NESS was born in Edenville, Orange County, March 28, 1869, and after finishing his schooling was in the meat business for six years, and then engaged in the milk business. He has become a breeder of fine horses. His father, John J. Van Ness, died in 1891, aged seventy-three, and his mother, whose maiden name was Anna A. Barrett, died in 1904, aged sixty-three. The father had been a hotel man in Edenville twenty-seven years. A daughter, Mamie E., is the wife of John F. Knapp, of Newark, N. J.
JOHN W. VAN NESS was born in Bellvale, Orange County, October 29, 1852; was educated in the district school, and then assisted his father, Peter Van Ness, who was a wheelwright until he died in 1884, when John continued the business. For eight years he was a partner of John Hazen in the Hotel Windemere at Greenwood Lake, and was postmaster four years by appointment of President Harrison. Hazen & Van Ness purchased George E. Reed's general store in Warwick and continued it four years. He then came to Warwick and leased the Demorest Stables, and after seven years, in 1900, bought the Campbell and Longwell Stables with five horses and is now running them with forty-five horses and at the same time interesting himself in agricultural pursuits. On December 9, 1880, he married Miss Mary A. Hazen, of Greenwood Lake. They have one child, Maud, born September 23, 1881, who is at home. Mr. Van Ness was collector of the town of Warwick one year.