On Mother’s side of the family one of the earliest ancestors in this country was Pieter, son of Claes, who came from Holland to New Amsterdam in 1636. Very few of the Dutch emigrants had surnames—they were merely “sons of”. Pieter was later identified in the records as Peiter Claesen, who in 1655, superintended the bowery and cattle of Peter Stuyvestant. The entry in colonial records dated July 10, 1655, reads: “Pieter Clausen agreed to fodder and winter, according to custom, all the cattle which Petrus Steuyvestant has at present in his bowery at Amersfoot (Flatlands), also to sow all the land that is suitable for sowing, provided that he deduct from the rent the grain sown thereon. For said service the sum of 325 gr(?) be paid; to leave the manure of his own and the general’s in the bowery.” He was magistrate of Flatlands from 1655 to 1664. When Peter Stuyvestant surrendered New Netherland to the British, Pieter Claesen was required to take another name or to adopt a surname and he chose “Wykhof” which meant “Household Courtier” or “Clerk of the Court,” but the family soon changed to the English spelling of Wyckoff. Little is known of the Robbins line except that great grandfather Wyckoff Robbins was born in Ohio, married and moved to Missouri. One son, my grandfather, Edwin Augustus, married Betsy Hartwell in Bowen, Illinois, in 1869. The Hartwells had come from England to Massachusetts in 1636. Later one of the family had married a French Huguenot named Dee in New Jersey, whose family had settled first in North Carolina. Betsy’s mother was that Dee. Her father, John N. Hartwell, married three times and had fourteen children, an economic necessity in those days. One of them lost his life in the War Between the States. John N. was a close friend of young Abraham Lincoln in Illinois, and always supported and admired him. One of Grandmother’s stories recalled the day she was sent into the field where her father was plowing to tell him of Lincoln’s death. They returned to the house and her father prepared for his journey to Springfield where he went to “pay his list respects to a great man and his good friend.” Grandfather Robbins had spent nearly two years in Andersonville Prison during the war. Ill and discouraged, he did not want to settle down with his family. Then he met Betsy, fell in love, married her, worked as a carpenter and made a home in Quincy, Illinois. He was restless so they decided to take advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862 and find land for themselves in the West as other discharged soldiers were doing. They went to Missouri, Colorado, and finally to New Mexico. Farming did not appeal to Grandfather but the lure and adventure of mining did. However, he found that his trade of carpentry furnished a better living than the mining game. After several years in Silver City he came to Pinos Altos as chief carpenter at the Deep Down where a St. Louis syndicate was building a mill. It was here