Biography
Leisler was born in the village of Bockenheim, now a central part of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in March 1640, the son of Calvinist French Reformed minister Jacob Victorian Leisler. He went to New Netherland (New York) in 1660 as a soldier in the service of the Dutch West India Company. Leaving the company's employ soon after his arrival, he engaged in the fur and tobacco trade, and became a comparatively wealthy man. He married Elsie Tymens, the widow of Pieter Cornelisz. van der Veen in 1663.
In 1674, he was one of the administrators of a forced loan imposed by Anthony Colve. While residing in Albany, in 1676 Leisler engaged in a theological dispute with the Rev. Nicholas van Rensselaer, who had been appointed to the Reformed pulpit by James, Duke of York (later King James II). His finances and reputation both suffered from this encounter, as he and Jacob Milborne were forced to pay all the costs of a lawsuit they had originated in the dispute. While on a voyage to Europe in 1678, he was captured by Moorish pirates, and was compelled to pay a ransom of 2,050 pieces of eight to obtain his freedom.
Leisler had endeared himself to the common people by befriending a family of French Huguenots that had been landed on Manhattan island. They were so destitute that a public tribunal had decided they should be sold into slavery in order to pay their ship charges. Leisler prevented the sale by purchasing the freedom of the widowed mother and son before the sale could be held. Under Thomas Dongan's administration in 1683 he was appointed one of the judges, or “commissioners,” of the court of admiralty in New York, a justice of the peace for New York City and County, and a militia captain.
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