When was Jacob Aaron Westervelt born?
Jacob Aaron Westervelt
Westervelt was the eldest son of Ari and Vrowti Westervelt. Ari Westervelt was a builder by occupation. He built several houses in Franklin Street, New York, and constructed the South Church in Schraalenburgh in today's Bergenfield borough. Westervelt was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, on January 20, 1800 and was baptized at Schraalenburgh on February 16, being the first child to receive that sacrament after the completion of the new church. The Westervelts then resided at the old family homestead on Tenafly Road midway between Englewood and Tenafly. When Ari Westervelt was working on improving the riverfront, he moved, together with his infant son, to New York in 1804, to be nearer his work. It was to his father that Jacob Aaron owed his good education. His father died when Westervelt was only 14.
Hendrik Jansen van Barrefelt
Hendrik Jansen van Barrefelt (c. 1520 – c. 1594) was a weaver, a Christian mystic and the author of several spiritual works using the pseudonym Hiël.
Hendrik Jansen van Barrefelt was born c. 1520 in Barneveld in the Dutch province of Gelderland in the Netherlands and died in or after 1594 in Cologne. He married around 1550 and had several children. A former adherent of Menno Simons, the Anabaptist religious leader, Van Barrefelt became a follower of Hendrik Niclaes and joined the Family of Love. However, in 1573 Hendrik van Barrefelt had a vision and from this moment on he called himself "Hiël" (the uniform life of God). Shortly after this vision he broke with Niclaes and began to write his own works. His followers called themselves Hiëlists (lovers of the truth). Christophe Plantin, a well-known humanist, book printer and publisher in Antwerp and Leiden, also broke with Niclaes and became a follower and the central figure around Hiël.