Excerpts from Revised History of Harlem, by James Riker, 1904.

page 327:

Sir Edmund Andros, the new governor. . . was accompanied, besides his own retinue of officers and soldiers, by several families of French refugees who had fled to England from the Palatinate, lately invaded and laid waste by the ruthless armies of Louis XIV, under Marshal Turenne. Among the refugees were Nicholas de Vaux (whence De Vouw, and De Voe), Isaac See, Isaac See, Junior, and Jean le Compte, all of whom were related. These, with Gerald Magister, evidently of the same band, came directly to Harlem on account, as it would seem, of old Mannheim acquaintances, Demarest and others. Some brought their household goods, but as choicer treasures, the Holy Scriptures in French, the French Psalm Book, and the then highly prized Book of Martyrs. De Vaux, Le Compt, and their wives, united with the church on the first opportunity, the 13th of December [1674].

page 331:

The See family, whose name in early records takes the several forms of Cie, du Cie, Sieck, Zy, and Sie, consisted, so far as appears, of the heads, Isaac See and wife Esther, their son, Isaac See, Jr., and daughter, Maria, wife of Nicholas de Vaux. The wife of Isaac See, Jr., was also named Maria. The Sees obtained two farms, 194 acres, on Karle’s Neck, Staten Island, by patent of September 29, 1677. But after living there some years, they removed to Philips Manor, Westchester County, the father and son appearing as church members at Sleepy Hollow, or Tarrytown, in 1697. Then the name was usually written Sie. Isaac and Maria had sons, Peter, born in Europe; Jacob, born 1675; Simon, born 1679, etc. The family is still numbered among the most respectable residents there, and from its branches have come several well-known clergymen.

page 347:

A suit of Nicholas de Vaux versus Pierre Cresson, for some time pending in the local court, was decided November 15, 1677. Defendant having sold plaintiff his house and lands, October 27, 1676, the bill of sale was cancelled on April 23d ensuing, when De Vaux gave Cresson a parcel of fence rails, and was promised in return the use of enough land to sow a schepel of flaxseed, Cresson to receive of the flax every fourth sheaf. Jean Baptiste de Poictier, Sieur Dubuisson, was present and heard the bargain. But before De Vaux was ready to put in his seed Jan Hendricks Brevoort leased and planted Cresson’s land on Jochem Pieters, leaving to De Vaux only a small corner, where it was sandy and unfit for his purpose. De Vaux then demanded of Cresson the use of his lot on Van Keulen’s Hook; but the latter objecting, De Vaux on September 6th appealed to the magistrates. On a hearing it was agreed to “hold the case in advice till the coming of Jean Baptiste Bison.” On the date first named it again came up, when Cresson presented Dubuisson’s written declaration. The court now demanded that Cresson “restore to the plaintiff the 250 rails which he has wrongly taken from him; and as the plaintiff has failed to perform his part of the contract, that he be condemned in the costs hereby incurred.” De Vaux removed soon after to New Jersey, and with his wife, Marie See, joined the church at Bergen, April 5, 1679. His descendants, under the name of De Vouw, or De Voe, were long to be found at Hackensack and Tarrytown.

page 347:

Nicholas de Vaux had a daughter, Esther, born at Harlem, who, in 1698, married Ulderrick Brower, of Hackensack, whither De Vaux had removed, and where, in 1706, he married a second wife, Margaret Jans, widow of Jacques Button. He died prior to 1717, when his widow married Hendrick Cammega, whose first wife was Anna M. Verveelen. De Vaux had other daughters, Susanna, born 1680, who married Thomas Brickers and Jacobus Van Gelder; Mary, who married Jacob Buys, of Bergen, and Rachel, who married Abraham Martelingh; also, by his second wife, another daughter, Esther, born 1711, his first, so named, Mrs. Brower, having just died. His son, Abraham de Vaux, or de Vouw, joined the Hackensack church in 1694, but removed to Tarrytown, to which place his mother’s kinfolks, the See family, had gone, and where he and wife Mary appear as churchmembers. I believe he had sons Nicholas and Johannes. He served as deacon in 1708, and as elder in 1724; offices afterward held by said Johannes de Vouw.

page 348:

The French refugees were gradually leaving, drawn principally to Bergen County, N. J., Staten Island, and up the Hudson, where they found other French families, and land more abundant, and to be had at a trifling cost. Gerard Magister was of the number that left. . .

page 349:

[David] Demarest’s “two miles square” purchase [about 1678?] from Mendawasey and other Tappan chiefs was commonly called “The French Patent.” From what is now New Bridge, on the Hackensack, two miles above Hackensack village, it reached up the river to a little beyond Old Bridge; and from the river eastward to the “North River Mountains,” or present line of the Northern Railroad. ...Demarest’s plan of forming a French colony on his tract, failed; though he drew to him several families, as those of Daniel de Voor, Jean Durie, Jacques Laroe and Nicholas de Vaux, and they together organized what was called “The French Church of Kinkachemeck,” and built a house of worship in Demarest’s land near the dwelling, upon a knoll just below the Old Bridge, where still remains “The French Burying Ground.”

[Note: there is also much information in this book about Frederick de Vaux’s branch of the family, contributed by “the estimable” Col. Thomas F. De Voe.]