Chrétien Deyo

“Grandpère,” the patriarch of New Paltz, and ancestor of Jane Maria (Deyoe) Adams. A French Protestant who had taken refuge in the Palatinate, he came to the colony of New York about 1675 with his family, in company with Abraham Hasbrouck, who that November married his daughter Maria. His name is on the Indian deed of 15 Sept 1677 (“de Yoo”) and on Governor Andros’s confirming patent of 29 Sept 1677 (“Doyo”), one of the twelve patentees, with his son Pierre; and all four of his daughters married patentees, Maria and Anne the Hasbrouck brothers Abraham and Jean, Elizabeth Simon LeFevre, and Margaret Abraham DuBois. LeFevre: Christian “was called ‘Grandpere’ or grandfather in the old documents and was, in fact, the grandfather of most of the children of the youthful settlement” (source).

He made his will on 1 Feb 1686/7, by mark: “I give to my son Peter Doyou fifty rix dollars, that my son was indebted to me and then to share equally with all of the rest of my children of my estate and further I do give to my son’s son, Christian Doyou, forty pieces of eight and a small gun and then I do hereby give unto my five children all ye rest of my estate … and I do desire that my corpse may be buried at ye New Paltz.” He was the first of the patentees to die. His children settled the estate among themselves that October, including “the negro of our father.”

His origin is uncertain: Hasbrouck makes him a refugee from St-Pol in Artois, or perhaps Pontarlier, and finds a Chrétien DuJou among the French at Mannheim in 1601, too early to be this man (source).

Research: research/ellingwood/Ellingwood_Wives_Families.md.