Eight Miles West

A family's four centuries in America — from New Amsterdam to the Pacific, one document at a time

by Michael V. Krewson

A hand-drawn colour map of the southern tip of Manhattan in 1660: the fort at the bottom, a wall across the top, streets and garden plots between, and the East River shore lined with small houses
The Castello Plan — New Amsterdam in 1660, drawn by Jacques Cortelyou, the year Garret Croesen landed across the river at Breuckelen. The fort at the foot of the island, the wall that became Wall Street across the top, and between them the garden plots and house lots of about 1,500 people, several of them in this book. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

This is the story of one family becoming American, read from the documents it left behind. It begins with a cooper from Winschoten who landed across the river from New Amsterdam around 1660 and married a girl born in the colony, and it follows their descendants — Croesen, Kroesen, Kroessen, Kreuso, Cruse, Krewson, a dozen spellings of one name — across the Kill to Staten Island, into Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on to Ohio and Iowa and the Pacific coast, and into the twentieth century's wars. Every chapter says which of its sentences rest on a document, which are inferred, and which are family legend.

17 chapters published so far · About the book and its sources

"Seems like the whole Krewson line all the way back to the 1600s had these problems with rifts over disagreements… but no one was talking about what they were."

— Alfred G. M. Krewson to his nephew, 20 January 2005

Part I

Two Homelands, Two Flags

1605 – 1709

New Amsterdam, Breuckelen, Staten Island. The colony changes hands twice around a family that never moves.

  1. 1Two Witnesses at the FontManhattan · 5 July 1662
  2. 2The Tree Thief of BreuckelenGowanus · a day of prayer, March 1662
  3. 3Should Not Have Come Off AliveGowanus · Sunday afternoon, 31 August 1679
  4. 4The Name Came From HerManhattan · 9 September 1640
  5. 5Two Strangers Walk Across Staten IslandGowanus to the Kill Van Kull · 11–13 October 1679
  6. 6The Voorlezer's HandStaten Island · 28 September 1698

Part II

The X on the Will

1709 – 1798

Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The surname becomes Krewson in a legal document. A family buys its freedom by instalment. The Revolution passes ten miles away.

  1. 7Six Hundred Pounds of Lawful SilverSouthampton Township, Bucks County · 10 November 1712
  2. 8The X on the WillNorthampton Township, Bucks County · 4 January 1758
  3. 9LydiaSouthampton Township, Bucks County · 30 April 1784
  4. 10The Flying CampBucks County · 10 June 1776

Part III

Ohio, Iowa, Oregon

1788 – 1935

The frontier chain: four generations, one photograph, and a century the record barely sees.

  1. 11Ten Faces, Circa 1890Iowa · a photographer's studio, about 1890
  2. 12Lest His Father Find HimIowa · 1935

Part IV

The Year the Family Broke Apart

1935 – 1971

Los Angeles, Tulsa, Dublin, Berlin, the North Atlantic, Vietnam.

  1. 13The Four Hundred DollarsLos Angeles, and a farm near Tulsa · 1946
  2. 14Not Irish by BloodThe Slieve Bloom Mountains, Dublin, and London · c. 1957–1963
  3. 15IncommunicadoWest Berlin · the Western Pacific · Ireland · 1961–1965
  4. 16Vietnam, TwiceVietnam · Portland, Oregon · c. 1966–2024
  5. 17Finding BillOttawa, Illinois · Hammond, Indiana · Centerville, Iowa · 1969–2005

Part V

The People Who Kept This

1915 – today

Who wrote it down — and why a four-star general and a machinist's grandson ended up looking for the same cooper.

Not yet written.