knowledge of every branch. An expert mathematician, he is recognized as authority, not only in the lines with which he has been most intimately connected, but in the business generally, and in every capacity he has achieved eminent success. In politics he is an ardent Republican. He is a member of the Insurance Clerks' Association of New York, of Lafayette Camp, Sons of Veterans, of New York City, and of the Seventh Regiment Veterans, having been an active member of the Seventh Regiment, N. G. N. Y., from 1873 to 1878. In 1890 he settled in Arlington, N. J., where he still resides, and where he has wielded no small influence in advancing the best interests of the town.

September 10, 1874, Mr. Chapman married Josephine, daughter of Joseph and Mary Pollock, of Jersey City Heights, N. J., and their children are Walter Robert and Florence.

VEDDER VAN DYCK, a well-known resident of Bayonne, N. J., and a lawyer in New York City, is descended from Hendrick Van Dyck, who came to this country from Holland with the first Dutch settlers before 1630. These Dutchmen first settled at Communipaw, N. J., but soon found their way over to Manhattan Island.

Hendrick Van Dyck was an ensign in command of the Dutch forces in their early wars with the Indians. He was the first Schout Fiscal-a sort of judge and sheriff-in New Amsterdam, and held his office until 1652. He was one of the original grantees, from the West India Company, of plots of land at New Amsterdam, his lot being on the west side of what is now Broadway, below Trinity Church, and running to the North River. His son Cornelius removed to Albany, N. Y., where he practiced his profession as physician. This Cornelius had a son, Jacobus Van Dyck, also a physician, who settled at Schenectady, N. Y., and was the surgeon at the fort there at the time of the burning of the town, by the Indians, in 1690. Jacobus died at Schenectady in 1759. He left several children one of whom was Lieutenant-Colonel Cornelius Van Dyck, of the First New York Regiment, commanded by Colonel Goose Van Schaeck, during the Revolutionary War. From one of the other sons Vedder Van Dyck is descended, his grandfather being Jacob and his father Peter Van Dyck. His mother, Eleanor Vedder, was also a descendant of the earliest Dutch settlers who came to New Amsterdam.

Vedder Van Dyck was born at Schenectady, N. Y., on the 22d day of January, 1842, and there received his early education, first in the public schools and subsequently at Union College, being in the class of 1865, but leaving college in 1862 to join a New York regiment during the Civil War. He continued in the service until the war was over, and then entered Harvard Law School, leaving there in 1867 and being admitted to the bar of his native State. Since 1867 he has been engaged in the practice of his profession in New York City, having an office at No. 15 Wall Street. Since 1885 he has resided in Bayonne, Hudson County, N. J., where he has served a term of three years as School Trustee, and since 1894 has been one of its Health Commissioners. He married Emily Adams in New York City in 1877.

ROBERT OSCAR BABBITT was born in Mendham, Morris County, N. J., November 5, 1848, and is the son of Robert Millen Babbitt and Henrietta Jolley. On his father's side his first American ancestors were from England and on his mother's side from France. He received his early education