INFLUENCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 237 



6. The Banker Family 



The examples given above are extreme, to be sure; they 

 were selected just because they are extreme. But it is just 

 as true that every family whose early ancestors showed some 

 striking trait reveals that trait now and again in the offspring. 

 One can find evidence of this in almost any intelligently 

 compiled genealogical history. Take, for example, the 

 Banker family. There were two Dutchmen who were early 

 settlers in New York State: Gerrit, who settled about 1654 

 in Albany, and Laurens, who settled some years later in 

 Tarrytown. They were, apparently, not related and their 

 descendants have not intermarried. The two lines present 

 some striking contrasts. 



'* Gerrit appears to have been well educated for that time 

 and was a very successful merchant and Indian trader, 

 accumulating a considerable property. His descendants 

 were largely merchants, although many become farmers." 

 In general they maintained a high degree of culture and 

 social rank. Several of them attained to positions of promi- 

 nence in the affairs of the Colony before and during the 

 Revolution, For example, the first Treasurer of the State 

 and the first Speaker of the Assembly were both from this 

 family, while several held commissions in the Revolutionary 

 Army. Since that period they have been less prominent in 

 pubUc affairs, although maintaining a position of high social 

 standing and respectability." 



Laurens, on the other hand, had no education, could not 

 write his name, at least when a young man, and was a laborer 

 and farmer. His descendants "may be said in some ways 

 to have started at the bottom. The family prior to the 

 Revolution was obscure, its members were chiefly laborers, 

 farmers, and artisans with only limited opportunities for 

 education and acquiring but little of this world's goods. In 



