Back in the days when New York was New Amsterdam and Peter Stuyvesant ruled the little colony at the foot of the Hudson, Annke Jans bogardus was a buxom and thrifty Dutch hausfraw - buxom enought to attract two husbands and thrifty enough to preserve intact the tracts of land they left her in what was then the outskirts of the village.
After her death, title in the property passed to other hands through the fortunes of the war. In all the years that followed there has lurked within the breast of the descendants of wise old Madame Bogardus, a sense if injustice and a hope that perhaps some day the injustice would be righted.
Where once the broad Bogardus Holsteins cropped the grass towering buildings now stand and throngs run madly up and down and the rumble of subway trains shake the earth. Trinity church was built on part of the land. In 1922, Gridley and Mrs. Wright, at Wilkes-Barre, Pa, associated themselves with the association of Advocates of Justice for the Descendants of Anneke Jans Bogardus.

In the indictment returned by the Grand Jury in the District Court here today, it is charged that the whole scheme of Gridley and Mrs. Wright was a fraud on the supposed heirs. They obtained large sums of money, the indictment attests, from the assets that much of this money found its way into the pockets of the defendents. the jury believed that Gridley and Mrs. Wright played on the gullibility of the members of the association and promised to do many things to advance their cause which they contended served to keep alive the project, whith the resultant gain to the schemers, which gain would have ceased forth with if the dreams of the heirs had been realized.

It is charged that the two defendants gained full control of the association and played off the various factions in it against each other. By creating jealousies and quarrels they kept the members from attacking the two prime movers and perpetuated their profitable positions, the jury charges. Specifically, the indictment carries six counts, charging that Gridley and his aide caused letters to be mailed in Detroit to themselves in New York with the intention of defrauding the members.
Gregory H. Grederick, assistant district attorney, declared today that the amount involved is about $1000,000.

[Many of these were assumed to be from the marriage of John Drake and Magdalena Brouwers in 1618. Even the resource book, "Early Germans in New Jersey", by Chambers, 1969 on ca pp 337 puts forth the marriage of John Drake and Magdelena Browers of 1618. In a recently published text researched and written by William Bogardus of Ohio, devoted to the first five generations of Anneke Jans, there is no mention of John Drake, and he devotes two pages (pp 44 and 45 ) of the text to demonstrate his considerations and proofs to that degree. Let it suffice to say that he claims to have found the husband of Magdalena Brower bap 8 Mar, 1704 as being one William Van Note who died intestate in March 1772. He also demonstrates that the children, Joseph, John, Martha, Phoebe, Esther, Eleanor, William, Jacob, Samuel, Benjamin, Mary and Zephaniah to have been the children of John Drake of Goshen Prect., Orange Co., New York, and his wife Martha Oldfield, daughter of Joseph Oldfield and Martha Grasset. The book is both very well written and documented. And personally, Bill is a most helpful and enthusiastic fellow and researcher, always glad to help a plodding root quester like myself along with humour and patience.]

Karen M Boland
3rd November,1997