Harry Vredenburgh b. 20 June 1811; m. Elizabeth Bevins; their children:
Fanny b. 25 June 1834
Harriet b. 13 July 1836
Amanda Jane b. 19 April 1838; d. 7 Jan 1919
Charles Henry b. 13 June 1840; 27 April 1863 a prisoner War Between the States
Levi b. 23 Sept 1845; d. 18 Dec. 1918 in California
Julia b. 23 Sept. 1845
George b. 23 April 1848; d. June 1915; a teamster in Rowayton, CT
Edgar b.28 Oct 1853; d. 16 Dec 1853
Helen b. 25 Sept 1856; d. 28 March 1857
Additional Notes
AMANDA JANE VREDENBURGH
Amanda Jane married first Orville W. Pease in MA. Two sons were born there and two in MI. She married second Charles Hubbard.
She is buried in Maple Grove Cemetery along side of her first husband and three of her sons William, Lionel and Harry Pease. She had one other son, George Walter Pease. He is buried in Saint Louis County, Missouri
Contributed by: Rich and Shirley Ann Noadiah
LEVI VREDENBURGH
Guinn, J. M., 1902, Historical and Biographical Record of Southern California (Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago), p. 936.
LEVI VREDENBURGH. The superintendent of the Puente Oil Company of Chino was born at Croton Falls, Westchester county, N. Y., in 1843, and was reared on the farm owned by his father, Henry Vredenburgh. A the opening of the Civil war he was a youth of eighteen years, possessing all the love of adventure and longing for soldier's life which is characteristic of that age. Enlisting in Company A, Eight United States Infantry, he was sent to the front, where he remained for three year, until his term of service expired. The only unfortunate experience with which he met was in the battle of Cedar mountain, 1862, when a bullet entered his left knee, Imbedding itself so deeply that it was not extracted until some years later.
The identification of Mr. Vredenburgh with the oil industry began in 1865, when he went to Oil City, Venango county, Pa., and learned the business of oil-refining. Wisely he began at the bottom and learned the work through all of its grades and details. After three years he went to Buffalo, N. Y., and form there was sent, by an Oil City company, to manage and fit with machinery a mine in Mohave county, Ariz. He was glad to accept this position, as he hoped that a change of climate might benefit his son, who was in poor hearth. The Arizona company not meeting with success, he came to California, and soon afterward, in 1898, accepted a position as superintendent of the Puente Oil Company of Chino, which had been established three years before. The careful and painstaking manner in which he has filled this position proved him to be the right man in the right place. Many important additions have been made to the plant under his supervision and at his suggestion, and its large increased in business may be attributed to his executive ability.
As is generally known, Chino was the first town in this region to undertake the beet-sugar manufacturing business, and it has been the centre of much important work along this line. The sugar plant is furnished oil by the Puente Company, and the latter also supplies many other plants, as well as furnishing hot oil for the roads in this section of the county. The plant occupies sixteen acres and has a capacity of one hundred and fifty thousand barrels, daily of crude oil, beside manufacturing gasoline and refined oil. The storage capacity is one hundred thousand barrels. There are six stills, all of which, together with the condensers, are of iron. The two boilers are of thirty and sixty horse-power respectively, and are used in operating the pumps that furnish oil for the pumping of the water supply throughout the valley.
While giving his attention closely to business, Mr. Vredenburgh finds time to keep posted concerning matters of national importance, as well as those lesser affairs which have to do with municipal work. In the Chino Baptist Church he has served officially. While living in Oil City he was active in the work o the Masons and Odd Fellows. His first wife was Annie Terwilliger, of Orange county, N. Y., who died in 1877, at the age of thirty-one years. Two children were born of that union, namely; Elizabeth J., who died at twenty-five years of age; and Irving I. M. D. The present wife of Mr. Vredenburgh was formerly Violet Heckathorn, of Buffalo, N. Y.
Brown, John Jr., and James Boyd, 1922, History of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties (The Western Historical Association) Vol. III.
Levi Vredenburgh, whose home for many years was at Chino, where Mrs. Vredenburgh resides, was a pioneer oil man, gaining his experience in the early days of oil production in Western Pennsylvania, was known in the East as an expert on the technical phases of oil production and refining, and his interests finally brought him to the West, and it is generally acknowledged that he laid the secure foundation for the prosperous management of the Puente Oil Refinery.
Mr. Vredenburgh was born at Croton Falls, New York, December 1, 1842, and was seventy-six years of age when death came to him at Chino on December 18, 1918. He was of Holland Dutch ancestry, a son of Harry and Elizabeth (Bevans) Vredenburgh, the former born June 20, 1811, and the latter May 20, 1815. A brief record of the children of his parents is as follows: Fannie, born June 25, 1834; Harriet, born July 13, 1836; Amanda J. born April 19, 1838, Charles, born June 13, 1840, died while a Union soldier in the service of the Federal Government April 27, 1863; Levi; Julia, born September 23, 1845; George, born April 23, 1848; Edgar, born October 28, 1853, Died December 16, 1853; and Helen born September 28, 1856, and died March 20, 1857.
Levi Vredenburgh grew up and acquired his early education in New York State. At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the Federal Army, served and fought as a private, was wounded in one battle, and for three years carried a bullet in his knee. After the war he earned his money as a worker in the timber woods of Pennsylvania, and was soon attracted to the great oil fields of the Oil Creek District of Pennsylvania. His varied experiences in the study of the oil business made him an expert on the refining processes, and he had some very responsible positions while in the East.
On August 25, 1869, Mr. Vredenburgh married Miss Anna M. Terwilliger, who was born at Leeds, Greene County, New York , in February, 1846. To this union were born two children. Elizabeth Jane, born at Sherman Well in Venango County, Pennsylvania, November 4, 1870, died February 10, 1895. Ezra Irving Vredenburgh, who was born at Meredith Cherokee Township, Venango County, April 20, 1872, was liberally educated and had a very successful career as a physician and surgeon. He died June 5, 1909, and is survived by his widow and one son Irving, born July 20, 1906, and now living at Oakland, California.
After the death of his first wife Mr. Vredenburgh married in 1880 Miss Violet Elizabeth Hechathorn. She was born June 17, 1835, in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth (Shaffer) Hechathorn, also natives of Pennsylvania. In the Heckathorn family were the following children: David, Catherine, Violet, Jacob, James Harper, Mary and William Boyd Hechathorn. William Boyd Heckathorn was born March 9, 1845, died July 17, 1907. He married Martha Jane Heckathorn, and their five children were Florence L., Myra J., Delvinasia E., Halgerdia G. and Merrill E. The mother of these children died in June, 1884, and William Boyd Heckathorn subsequently married Sarah Jane Powell, and by this union had two children, Charity P. and Chloe.
After his second marriage Levi Vredenburgh lived for several years in Buffalo, New York, then returned to Oil City, Pennsylvania, and subsequently had charge of a refinery in Cleveland. While in Cleveland he was selected by some capitalists to take charge of a placer mining proposition on the Colorado River in Arizona. He personally invested of his means in this venture, and when it failed to produce he lost both his investment and salary.
In the meantime the Puente Oil Refinery of California had been built and was operating at a loss. Some of the interested stockholders learned of Mr. Vredenburgh's presence in the Southwest, sent for him and in 1897 he took charge as general superintendent of the plant. He remained as superintendent and manager for twenty-one years, and in that time brought the business out of chaos and made it one of the best managed oil refineries in California. Failing health finally compelled him to give up his post of duty, but he continued to draw his salary from the management until his death.
Mr. Vredenburgh was for a number of years the largest stockholder and president of the First National Bank of Chino. He had bought ten acres of the townsite, subdivided and sold that to great advantage, known as the Vredenburgh tract, and about 1910 he built one of the most attractive homes, at the northwest corner of Seventh and B streets, the place now occupied by Mrs. Vredenburgh. Mr. Vredenburgh was a staunch republican, was a leader in the Baptist Church and for many years interested in the Sunday School and superintendent of the school. He was public spirited in everything he did, and his memory is cherished in this community.
Census Records:
1900 Census. San Bernardino County, CA. Chino County. Supervisors District 6, Enumeration District 236, p. A 178.
Vredenburgh, Levi, b. 1843, 56 yo, NY, married for 20 years, Supt of oil refinery, rents home.
Vredenburgh, Violet E. b. June 1834, 64 yo, NY, parents born in Pennsylvania
Vredenburgh, Ezra I, b. Ap 1872, 28 yo, PA, single, b. PA, an oil distiller
Obituary: Violet E. Vredenburgh
Notice from The Los Angeles Times, 19 October 1931
NONAGENARIAN WOMAN BURIED Chinco, October 18 Funeral services were conducted at the Baptist Church here yesterday for Mrs. Violet E. Vredenburgh, 96 years of age, a resident here thirty-five years. Mrs. Vredenburgh died at her home, 193 South Seventh Street. She was born in Pennsylvania, June 17, 1835.