Gilbert Updike

     Gilbert Updike was born in 1605 at Wesel, Germany. He was the son of Lodowick Op Den Dyck and Gertrude Van Wesek. Gilbert Updike was baptized on 25 September 1605 at St Willitrode Church, Wesel, Germany. He married Katherine Smith, daughter of Richard Smith and Joan (?), on 24 September 1643 at New Amsterdam, NY (now NYC). Gilbert Updike died in 1664 at Rhode Island.
     According to John O. Austin's "Genealogical Dictionary of RI", Gilbert Updike was a physician and arrived in America in 1635, where he first settled at Lloyd's Neck, NY and then at Kingstown, Rhode Island. It is doubtful he was a physician - more likely that he had carried the title "Doctor" and this was confused with the German connotation, which means a degree in learning, not medicine.
Gilbert's original name was Gysbert Op Dyck in the old country, being changed only upon his stay in America. In 1641 he returned to Germany for a year. He was an officer in the Dutch West India Company and on 24 May 1644 he was granted a patent for Coney Island. He then went to Rhode Island, after the English took over New York from the Dutch. A treaty of peace with the Mohican and Hackensack Indians was signed by Gilbert Updike, along with others, on 30 August 1645.^1,2 Gilbert Updike was also known as Gysbert Op den Dyke.¹