Verplanck
Spelled variously, the story of the Verplanck family in America begins with the arrival of Abraham Isaacse in New Netherland during the 1630s. This family patriarch and his wife Maria Vigne (died about 1671) lived in lower New York. Abraham Isaacse may not have ventured as far north as Beverwyck/Albany and died about 1691. We are not certain of the connection of Abraham Isaacse's contemporary, Jacob Albertse Verplanck, who seems to be tangential to the Albany family and to the early Albany record.
In 1657, daughter Catharina married one of the first Albany Schuylers while her younger sister Ariaantie was the first wife of a middling Albany mainstay. Son Isaac became an Albany mainliner and the father of at least ten children.
A puzzling individual called Abraham Isaacse Verplanck raised a family in the Albany area and was the city gatekeeper in 1695.
In 1697,only Isaac Verpanck's household was configured on the Albany census.
As Gulian became William, the family continued to adapt to its life in America.
In 1722, surveyor Philip Verplanck would be named sheriff of Albany city and county.
In 1756, the home of "widow valplantin" also included at least two adult sons.
In 1790, only one Verplanck named household was counted on the Albany census. However, three more Verplanck families were enumerated in surrounding Watervliet. Two households located in Fishkill (Dutchess County) and one on Manhattan completed the statewide family demographic. However, Verplanck daughters continued to be represented in city households. By the time of the printing of the first city directory in 1813, the name dropped from early Albany rolls.
Beginning with "Ver Planck Street," in the residential Upper Washington Avenue section of today's Albany (which is more associated with descendant and Victorian surveyor and Adirondacks advocate Verplanck Colvin), the family name has been applied to numerous locations across New York State and beyond. Mount Gulian Historic Site in Westchester County commemorates the family's earliest days in America.
Sources: This access page on the Verplanck family of early Albany is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. An online history places the family in a larger historical context. Verplanck in PFS, p. 142.
William E. Ver Planck's family-based monograph, published in 1892, is a substantial antiquarian work that seriously considers many worthwhile issues. Substantial family material linked from an article on a Verplanck bible. References to the Verplancks in the first volume of the printed Abstracts of Wills