Genealogy and family history of our Westfall family of West Virginia, from our earliest ancestors to Nathaniel Jonathan and Luvenia (Trowbridge) of Lewis County

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Maps of Areas Where The Westfall Families Lived

Juriaen Bestvall/Westfall came to American (New Amsterdam) from Leiderdorp near
today's Leiden, Netherlands

Jurien Bestvall/Westfall, sent to New Netherlands (New York) in 1642 by Kiliaen Rensselaer,
Amsterdam jeweler and a stockholder in the Dutch West India Company to his colony of
Rensselaerswyck, located along the Hudson River. Jurien soon purchased a farm in or
near the village of Esopus, a few miles south of today's Kingston, NY.

17th century map of the New Netherland Dutch colony, now New York and New Jersey.
New Amsterday (now the city of New York) and the Hudson River is on the right about mid map. The map maker was a bit off on scale.

This is a modern Google satellite view of approximately the same region as the 1656 Vanderdonck map.

Modern day map of New York Hudson River showing Troy, Albany, Kingston an Esopus,
all original Dutch settlements along the Hudson, once all part of Rensselaerwyck

Our Westfall family left New York and settled near Port Jervis, then south along the Delaware
to "the Minisink", the area near Montague and Minisink Island in New Jersey

In 1748 Abel Westfall left the Minisink and New Jersey and obtain a grant for land
in what was then Augusta County, Virginia, now Hardy County, and settled on the
South Branch of the Potomac River near what is now Moorefield, West Virginia, where
he died in 1755. His son Cornelius died in Hampshire County about 1783. Jacob Westfall,
son of Cornelius, was born about 1753, probably in Minisink, New Jersey area after his
grandfather Abel had removed to Virginia, was a soldier during the Revolutionary War,
serving in South Carolina where he contracted yellow fever, the consequences of which he suffered until his death. Jacob came to Randolph County about 1793 where he was county clerk until his death in 1795 at the age of 42, leaving three sons, Cornelius (1769-1845), Joseph also known as Josiah (1775-1802), and Jonathan (ca1786-1802). All except Cornelius died young.

Cornelius, son of Jacob, first settled in Randolph County near Beverly, where he married Elizabeth Helmick in 1796, then moved to Harrison County near Clarksburg, finally moving to the eastern part of Lewis County (now Upshur County), on Saul's Run east of Buckhannon where he died in 1845. His son, John H. (Helmick?) Westfall was born near Clarksburg in 1806, married first Elizabeth Allman in 1825. After her death in 1850, he married Lydia Wilson, widow of Solomon P. Smith. Some of John H. Westfall's children settled in Lewis County, southwest of Weston, and Collins Settlement in southern Lewis County. My great grandfather Nathaniel Jonathan Westfall, son of John H. and Lydia was born in Randolph County in 1852 and died in Akron, Ohio in 1915. My grandmother, Osa B. (Westfall) Corbett was born in Copley, West Virginia, southwest of Weston, in 1897. She died in Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1992. I lived in Fairmont, Marion County, from 2012 to 2016. While living in West Virginia my daughter and granddaughter were able to do much of my research into my Westfall family history by visiting libraries, courthouses and cemeteries in Weston, Lewis County, Upshur County and Elkins, Randolph County, W.V.

Ronald N. Wall

Modified: 15 February 2025