Van Niewenhuysen, Wilhelmus

Van Niewenhuysen, Wilhelmus a minister of the Reformed (Dutch) Church, was born and educated in Holland, and called thence, in 1671, to the Collegiate Church in New York. He removed to Breukkelen (Brooklyn) in 1676, but continued to officiate frequently in New York. He was a relative and predecessor of the celebrated Rev. Henry Selyns. When governor Andros forced Nicholas Van Ranslaer upon the Church at Albany as colleague to Gideon Schaats, in 1675, Van Niewenhuysen was sent from New York to assist the aged pastor in resisting the usurpation of the civil power. His ministry in New York was peaceful and prosperous; and there is good evidence in his correspondence with the Classis of Amsterdam, and in his controversy with Andros for the prerogatives of the Church, that he was a learned, able, faithful, and judicious minister of the Gospel. Little more is known of him. He died in 1682. He was of the Coccidian school in exegesis. See Murphy, Anthology of New Netherlands, p. 179; Documentary History of New York, 3, 872-875; Corwin, Manual of the Ref. Church in America, s.v. (W.J.R.T.)