Background
Roosevelt was born in New Amsterdam to Claes Maartenszen van Rosenvelt, the immigrant ancestor of the Roosevelt family in America, and baptized October 2, 1658 in the Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam.
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Nicholas Roosevelt
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He was the first Roosevelt to hold an elected office in North America, as an alderman. By 1680, he had moved to Esopus, near Kingston, New York, another early Dutch settlement in the New Netherlands. There, on April 5, 1680, he signed a petition asking for a minister for Kingston.
During his time in Esopus, he was a fur trader on friendly terms with Native Americans.
In 1690, he returned with his family to New York, where he was listed as having the occupation of a "bolter." He was made a freeman on August 23, 1698. Nicholas Roosevelt was an alderman from 1698 to 1701 and again for the West Ward in 1715.
He died in New York City on August 30, 1742. He had ten children, the first four baptized at Esopus and the rest in New York: Jannetie (1683), Margaretta (1685), Nicholaes (1687), Johannes (1689), Elsie (1691), Jacobus (1692), Rachel (1693.
Died young), Sarah (1696), Rachel (1699), and Isaac (1701.
Died young).
Politics
Politically active, he was a supporter of the party of Jacob Leisler, who had led an insurrection in 1689 in support of the succession of Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau to the English throne in the Revolution of 1688.
