Sussman-Laabs

She was deposed on 14 Feb 1684/85 giving her age as "fouer score years or thereabouts." In a 17 Oct 1688 deposition her age is given as about 83 years, and she gives her birthplace as Paris. On 30 May 1680, her age is given as 74, and she is called "an old Walloon woman from Valenciennes."

Also known as Catarina Jeronimus as she is called in a 1670 baptism record. This is presummed to be her patronymic surname, and therefore it has been assumed that her father was named Jeronimus, a name she also gave to her third son.

Immigrant ancestor to America on 25 January 1624 Catalyna came to New Netherland aboard the ship Eendracht (Unity) with her husband Joris Rapalje

In 1685 and agian in 1688, Catalina Trico, widow of Joris Janszen Rapalje, made depositions concerning her arrival in America. The first deposition was made to assist William Penn in his dispute with the Calverts over the boundary seperating Pennsylvania and Maryland, later known as the Mason-Dixon line. The purpose of her second deposition is not clear. Catalina stated that she came on the Eendracht, "whereof was Commander Arien Jorise belonging to the West India Company, being the first ship that came here for the said Company... [and] their said commander Arien Jorise stayed with them all winter and sent his son home with the ship..." She further states that Arien Jorise Tienpont sent two families and six men to the Connecticut River; two families and eight men to the Delaware River, and left eight men at the mouth of the Hudson "to take possession." She continues, "The rest of the passengers went with the ship up to as far as Albany which they called Fort Orange. When the ship came as far as Esopus, which is half way to Albany, they lightened the ship with some boats that were left there by the Dutch that had been there the year before a-trading with the Indians upon their own accounts and gone back again to Holland, snd so brought the vessel up..."

According to her deposition as printed, about 18 families were taken to Fort Orange. However, at the time the families were removed from Fort Orange to New Amsterdam late in 1626, only eight families and 10 to 12 men were there (she may have meant "about 18 families and men," unless some families had been withdrawn earlier). In her first deposition Catalina states that four couples were married at sea and that some three weeks after their arrival, these eight people had been sent to Delaware. In another statement made at the same time and for the same purpose, another colonist, Pieter Laurenson, said the first Dutch settlement on the Delaware consisted of three or four Walloon families.