It is easy to confuse Martinus with his cousin, also named Martinus Schryver. Their fathers were brothers and their mothers sisters. This Martinus was born two days before his cousin Martinus and both were baptized on the same day at the Rhinebeck Flats Luthern Church. In addition this Martinus was married only one month after his cousin. Cousin Martinus and his wife apparently never had any children though and remained in the Rhinebeck NY area while this Martinus married a girl from Ulster County in the Esopus area where he moved and raised his family. Although the Schryvers lived in Dutchess County there had been earlier ties with families of Ulster County. Martinus’ Uncle Johannes Schryver had married Breechje Terpening of Ulster County who was Martinus’ wife’s aunt. Martinus’ brother, Albertus was also married to an Ulster County girl and had moved to the Esopus area where the brothers were both members (Elders and Deacons) of the Klyne Esopus Church in 1790.  Letters from people who knew Martinus were found among his papers later in the possession of his descendants. They said he was a good man with a good family of ten children. 

Martinus was a Private during the Revolutionary War. In 1776 he served as a Private for five months under Col. Albert Pawling. In 1778 he served as a Private for nine months in Ulster Co. In 1779 he was in the Company of Capt. Bogardus and spent three months near Fishkill. In 1780 he was with the Rangers stationed at Major Houghtaling's at Esopus to protect Kingston against Tories and Indians. Also in 1780 he served one month at Woodstock NY under the command of ? Terpening (first name illegible). Martinus applied for a pension on the basis of this record of service of two years and seven months.

Several books on the life of black abolitionist slave, Sojourner Truth, refer to her fourth owner as a Martin Schriver or Mr. Scriver.  The above Martinus Schryver was in the right place and time to have been this man.  A number of books written about Sojourner, describe him as the owner of an inn/tavern where he also sold the fish that he and his family netted in the Hudson River and Rondout Creek.  

Sojourner had been born, around 1797, into slavery as Isabella, to slaves James and Betsy, who were owned by the wealthy Col. Johannes Hardenbergh. (Johannes’ family had owned several million acres of land in the Catskills). When she was only two, Johannes died and she, her parents, a brother and other slaves were inherited by his son, Charles Hardenbergh. In this way Isabella remained in the Hardenbergh family until she was nine and in those years associated with only the well-bred of America's aristocratic families, all of whom were Dutch speaking in this time and place (as were the slaves). Charles then died and she was auctioned off as part of his estate with some sheep, for $100.00, to the Nealy family. The Nealys were English speaking, so therefore Isabella was often unable to understand their requests and as a result was frequently mercilessly beaten. Within a year, according to her narrative, as orally dictated to Olive Gilbert, "Mr. Scriver" appeared at the Nealy's door and asked Isabella if she would like to go live with him. Isabella later learned that it was her father that had made the suggestion to Schryver to purchase her. The sale was agreed upon and for $105.00 he left with Isabella, now not quite ten years old, walking the five miles to his house alongside of him on his horse.

The Schryvers, who spoke Dutch, owned a large farm which was left overgrown and unimproved, while Martinus and his sons focused solely on their fishing and inn-keeping. Sojourner later described her life there as a “wild out-of-door kind of existence where she was expected to carry fish, hoe corn, gather roots and herbs from the woods for the beers, go to the Strand for a gallon of molasses or liquor, as the case might require”, or just "browse around", as she put it. This life suited her well during this time since it was void of the terror and hardship she had been submitted to at the Nealys. She described the Schryvers as “honest, kind and well intentioned people”. It appears that Sojourner was treated well while with this family and was not retained within the household (imprisoned in a sense) as most female slaves were then. It seems that she was allowed a sort of “freedom” by the Schryvers and this really may be so since additional research shows that this family was close to and in some cases related to  families that were known to be anti-slavery. Also no records have been found that Martinus ever had owned a slave before or after Sojourner.

Sojourner described that during this time she would watch the “white sailed sloops” on the Hudson River and had witnessed the earliest of steamships “throwing up smoke” . In winter she would play while there, possibly with the Schryver children, mostly boys who were her own age, tying polished beef bones to her feet for ice skates and coasting down snowy hills on barrel staves. Sojourner may have begun her adolescence there, an impressionable and sensitive age. It appears that the short time with the Schryvers left her with vivid impressions that were with her until her last years. She described a “Grand Ball” held at the Schryver tavern where the ladies wore “high crowned white caps” and gowns so starched and pressed that she could see her face in them. She recalled the couples dancing (certainly Martinus and his wife) and singing verses to the popular song of that time, “Washington’s Ball”, in celebration of Washington planting the Tree of Liberty. The words and melody remained with her a lifetime and in later photos she is seen wearing a white high crowned cap looking much like those she described. Possibly she associated this with an occasion of joy and a time of her life that brought her some pleasant memories.

Olive Gilbert who later wrote and published Sojourner’s narrative deduced that Sojourner did not particularly improve herself intellectually or in ways of refinement in the year and a half that she was with the Schryver family, and in fact claimed that it was there that Sojourner had learned to curse!

It was apparently true that Sojourner did have a habit of cursing. She also smoked a long white clay pipe (a not uncommon practice among Dutch women of this time) and because of her unusual height some actually felt that she was really a male!. Carleton Mabee, a history professor at SUNY New Paltz, feels that Sojourner may have had a learning disability of some sort which prevented her from ever learning to read or write.  An early letter described Sojourner as always ranting and raving and “preaching” so it is even possible that she had Tourette’s syndrome, a symptom of which can be uncontrollable cursing or strange outbursts. Since such disabilities were poorly understood back then, it was all blamed on the Schryvers!  

Martinus and his wife were members of the Klyne Esopus Church in Ulster Park NY and Isabella/Sojourner was sold after only a year and a half, in 1810, for about $175.00 to a fellow parishioner, John Dumont, where she remained for the next sixteen years. While Sojourner may not have become a "lady" in the company of the Schryvers, she may have gained other important strengths in her short stay with them. Speaking one's mind was more acceptable among the Schryvers' class of people and often interpreted as rude behavior by the gentry. When Sojourner became the image of the strong black woman (and essentially a role model for all women) it was this quality that often defined her. Possibly we can give some credit to these strong, hard working ancestors for the part they probably played in forming the powerful woman that Sojourner eventually became.

Many have questioned why Martinus sold Sojourner, why he didn’t free her, etc. The era when slavery was acceptable is difficult to understand. Certainly one cannot “free” a 12 or 13 year old girl. I feel that Martinus may have found that having a pubescent female in a household of seven sons was not a healthy situation. It is said that he personally looked for a family he felt would treat her with kindness and found a fellow parishioner of his church to take her in. (a family with two daughters). Accounts though infer that Sojourner may have been abused by the wife of this next family though.

It appears that in their later years, Martinus and his wife Margriete,  visited their daughter, Sophia, who lived with her husband and family in Cicero NY, some distance away. Martinus is buried in Onondaga Co. so apparently died while there on one of these visits.

Martinus’ great grandson, Adelbert M. Scriber had been interested in his ancestry and tried to find out his Scriber roots. Among A. M. Scriber’s papers was found a worn scrap upon which he had scribbled “Simeon Schriber, Bros. Philip, Rondout, Grandfather came here in 1822.”

It is possible that A.M. may have been told this by his father and jotted it down. Philip would have been A.M.’s grandfather and Philip did have a brother Simeon. This appears to be additional evidence that Martinus Schryver was A.M.’s great grandfather.

Research indicates that A.M. descends from  Johann Emerick Schreiber and then from his son Martinus Schryver. Martinus had a son Philip (as shown in Kingston church records). Philip named a son Martin after his father. A.M.’s father was John Eli, Martin’s brother. Martin had a son Robert Philip Schryver who was A.M.’s cousin. (the middle name Philip after his grandfather) Among A.M.’s family’s photos we have found a group photo of the children of Robert Philip. It is clear that we have the correct ancestral line here.

After Martinus' death, (which may have occurred at the home of his daughter Sophia Schryver Terpening in Cicero NY) Margriete apparently returned to Esopus and remained there until May of 1839, then went up north by way of the Hudson River to the Erie Canal and then by canal boat to Onondaga Co. where she chose then to live her remaining years with her daughter, Sophia, and husband, James Terpening, in the town of Cicero NY. Margriete related in a letter soon after that the journey cost her much pain and distress because of her great age and infirmity and therefore she was unable to attend court to apply for her husband's pension.

Margrietje Terpening was a daughter of Pvt. Gerrit Terpening and  Johanna "Annatjen" Boehm, in Klyne Esopus Church, Esopus NY.  She was born in 1752 and christened on 12 April 1752 in Ulster Co NY.

Margrietje died in Cicero (Onondaga County)  NY, in 1844.  She was 92.

Note:  Their marriage record spells her name Margritta.

Thanks to Susan Schock for much of Martinus' biography .