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    Catalyna Benson (1688-1755)

    BIRTH: 24 Aug 1688, Albany, Albany, New York, USA
    DEATH: 4 Mar 1755, Greenwich Village, New York County (Manhattan), New York USA
    FATHER: Johannes Benson (1655–1715)
    MOTHER: Lysbet Van Deusen
    SPOUSE: Jacob Sammons (1683–1750)

    Catalyna Benson was born on August 24, 1688, in Albany, New York, the daughter of Lysbet and Johannes. She married Jacob Sammons on March 27, 1706, in Manhattan, New York. They had 12 children in 25 years. She died on March 4, 1755, in Greenwich Village, New York, at the age of 66, and was buried in New York, New York.

    The Life of Catalyna Benson

    A Dutch Daughter of Albany and Matriarch of the Sammons Line.

    On a late‑summer day—24 August 1688—in the bustling Dutch‑English crossroads of Albany, a daughter was born to Johannes Benson and Lysbet Van Deusen, two families whose names were already woven into the early fabric of New Netherland. They named her Catalyna, though in the Dutch records she appears as Catalyntje, a name that carried the cadence of the Low Countries into the forests of the Hudson Valley.

    Albany in 1688 was a place of transition. The English flag flew over Fort Orange, but Dutch remained the language of the hearth, the market, and the church. Catalyna grew up in a world where Dutch women managed households with formidable skill, where kinship networks stretched from Albany to Kingston, and where the Reformed Church anchored community life.

    Her father, Johannes Benson (1655–1715), was part of the generation born in New Netherland but raised under English rule. Her mother, Lysbet Van Deusen, descended from the old Beverwyck families whose names filled the early baptismal registers. From them, Catalyna inherited a sense of continuity—of belonging to a people who had carved out a place for themselves along the Hudson long before the English Crown took notice.

    A Young Woman of the Dutch Church

    Catalyna’s childhood would have been shaped by the rhythms of Albany’s Dutch community:

    • the tolling of the Dutch Reformed Church bell,
    • the bustle of the fur trade,
    • the seasonal migrations of Mohawk and Mahican traders,
    • the constant negotiation between old Dutch customs and new English governance.

    She learned the domestic arts expected of a Dutch colonial woman—spinning, weaving, dairying, and the management of a household that might include not only children but servants, apprentices, and extended kin. These skills were not merely practical; they were the backbone of Dutch family life in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys.

    Marriage in Manhattan: A New Chapter Begins

    On 27 May 1706, in the Collegiate Dutch Church of Manhattan, Catalyna Benson married Jacob Sammons (1683–1750). The marriage record survives in the church’s ancient registers, a testament to the movement of Dutch families between Albany, Kingston, and New York City.

    Why the marriage took place in Manhattan is not recorded, but the Benson family had ties to both Albany and New York, and the Collegiate Church was a spiritual home for many Dutch families who traveled for trade or family alliances.

    The young couple began their life together in the Dutch communities of the Hudson Valley before eventually settling in the Mohawk Valley, where land was more plentiful and Dutch families were steadily expanding northward.

    Motherhood on the Frontier of New York

    Between 1708 and the early 1730s, Catalyna bore a large family—children whose baptisms appear in the Dutch Reformed registers of New York and Schenectady. Among them were: Aegje (two daughters of the same name, the first dying in infancy), Johannes, Thomas, Elizabeth, Sampson (the Revolutionary War patriot), Dirk, Margarietje, Lanah, Benjamin, Rachel, and Mattheus.

    Her household was typical of Dutch frontier families: large, industrious, and deeply rooted in the church. Catalyna’s children grew up speaking Dutch, attending Reformed services, and learning the skills necessary for life in a region where farms bordered Mohawk lands and where Dutch, English, German, and Indigenous cultures intersected.

    A Woman of Two Worlds

    Catalyna lived through a period of profound change. She was born under the last years of Dutch cultural dominance in the Hudson Valley, came of age under English provincial rule, and raised her children in a world where Dutch traditions persisted even as English law and language spread.

    She witnessed:

    • the transition from Dutch to English governance,
    • the growth of Albany and Schenectady as trade centers,
    • the steady migration of Dutch families into the Mohawk Valley,
    • the early tensions that would eventually erupt into the French and Indian War.

    Through it all, she maintained the cultural continuity that defined Dutch colonial families—faith, language, kinship, and the management of a household that served as the center of family life.

    Final Years in Greenwich Village

    In her later years, Catalyna lived in Greenwich Village, then a rural hamlet north of the settled tip of Manhattan. It was a place of orchards, small farms, and country lanes—far from the crowded streets of lower New York.

    There, on 4 March 1755, she died at the age of 66.

    She did not live to see the Revolution that would transform her children’s world, nor the rise of her son Sampson Sammons as a patriot leader in the Mohawk Valley. But she laid the foundation for the family’s prominence—through her marriage, her children, and the Dutch traditions she carried forward.

    Legacy of Catalyna Benson

    Catalyna Benson’s life is preserved not through dramatic events but through the quiet, enduring records of the Dutch Reformed Church and the families she helped shape. Her legacy includes:

    • the continuation of the Benson and Van Deusen lines,
    • the establishment of the Sammons family in the Mohawk Valley,
    • the upbringing of Sampson Sammons, whose descendants would spread across upstate New York,
    • the preservation of Dutch identity in a rapidly changing colonial world.

    She stands as a bridge between the old Dutch colony and the emerging English province, between Albany’s stone houses and the frontier farms of the Mohawk Valley.

    Her story is the story of thousands of Dutch colonial women—quiet, resilient, foundational—and yet uniquely her own.

    Parents

    FATHER: Johannes Benson (1655–1715)
    MOTHER: Lysbet Van Deusen

    Married

    Jacob Sammons (1683-1750) May 27, 1706, in Collegiate Church, Manhattan, New York, USA

    Children

    • Aegje Sammons (1708–1709)
    • Aegje Sammons (1709–?) married William Waldron
    • Johannes Sammons (1712–1768) married Sytie Terwillige
    • Thomas Sammons (1716–?)
    • Elizabeth Sammons (1718–?) married Benjamin Waldron (1714-1782)
    • Sampson Sammons (1722–1796) married Rachel Schoonmaker (1726–1822)
    • Dirk Sammons (1724–1760) married Maritie Tack (1736-?)
    • Margarietje Sammons (1726–?) married Salomon Du Bois Jr
    • Lanah Sammons (1729–1793) married Isaac Du Bois (1731-1795)
    • Benjamin Sammons (1729-?) twin to Lanah
    • Rachel Sammons (1730–?) married Gideon C Low (1719-1779)
    • Mattheus Sammons (1733–?) married Rachel Ostrander (1736-?)

    Documents

    • Birth Records
    • Marriage records
      • New York City, Compiled Marriage Index, 1600s-1800s > Name: Cathalyntje Benssing; Spouse Name: Jacob Samman; Marriage Date: 1706; Marriage Place: New York City, New York, New York; Marriage ID: 2220321572; Source: The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (quarterly), 1881, selected extracts; Publisher: New York Genealogical and Biographical Society; Publication Place: New York, NY; Page: 84
      • U.S., Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989 > Name: Cathalyntje Benssing; Maiden Name: Benssing; Gender: Female; Record Type: Marriage; Marriage Date: 27 Mar 1706; Marriage Place: Manhattan, New York, USA; Marriage Church: Collegiate Church; Spouse: Jacob Samman
      • U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 > Name: Catalyntje Benson; Gender: Female; Spouse Name: Jacob Sammons; Marriage Year: 1706; Number Pages: 1
      • New York Historic Homes and Family History, Volumes I-IV > New York City, Compiled Marriage Index, 1600s-1800s > Name: Jacob Samman; Spouse Name: Cathalyntje Benssing; Marriage Date: 1706; Marriage Place: New York City, New York, New York; Marriage ID: 2220321572
      • New York Home Family History Vol 1 > The Shirley Family of England and America > Cathalyntje Benson married May 27, 1706 Jacob Sammon, son of Johannes Thomaszen, from Amsterdam; married October 3, 1677, Aechtje Jacobs.
    • Death records
      • Find a Grave > Birth: 24 Aug 1688, Albany, Albany County, New York, USA; Death: 4 Mar 1755 (aged 66), Greenwich Village, New York County, New York, USA
      • Burial: Trinity Churchyard, Financial District, New York County, New York, USA
      • New York City, Dutch Church Burials > Name: Caatje Benson; Burial Date: 04 Mar 1755
    • Other

    Relation of Catalyna Benson to Steven Barry Staggs: 6th great-grandmother

    Page last updated May 3, 2026

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