Hans Hansen Bergen - Descendants

Descendants

The descendants of Hans Hansen Bergen continued to reside in Brooklyn and Kings County, New York for centuries, and owned extensive tracts of land across Brooklyn. As late as the mid-nineteenth century, Bergen family members grew up in Brooklyn speaking Dutch. Several family members – including John Teunis Bergen and Teunis Garret Bergen – represented the area in the United States Congress, as well as owning the forerunner of The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper.

Other descendants include John G. Bergen, the police commissioner of the New York City Police Department during the New York Draft Riots of 1863, and DeWitt Clinton, Mayor of New York City, Governor of New York State and United States Senator from New York. Bergen's descendants married into other early New Amsterdam families, including the Vanderbilts, the Voorhees, the Wyckoffs, the Cortelyous, the Denyses, the Suydams, the Vanderveers, Bensons among others. Among Bergen's present-day descendants is the American political figure Howard Dean.

The definitive history of the family of Hans Hansen Bergen and his descendants was that written by Teunis Garret Bergen in 1866. In it Bergen wrote of the derivation of the name that it is common in the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland, and that although some descendants attempted to link it with old world aristocracy, "if any of the Bergens of this vicinity have fallen into this delusion, they may as well at once descend from the lofty eminence to which they have elevated themselves, and conclude that they are descended from the commonalty instead of the aristocracy."