After Henry Hudson checked out what is now New York in 1609, the Dutch headed into the area and in 1624 established Fort Albany up the Hudson. The English took over the area in the 1660s, but up north, the French and the Iroquois made life a bit tough on the rest of the folks. Johannes (Jan) Poutman from Leyden in Southern Holland was the first Putman to come to the area, arriving in Albany in 1661. And, just to show that the Indian problems lasted a long time, Jan was killed by Indians in Schenectady in 1690. The English Putnam folks didn’t arrive for almost a Century later, coming about the time of and the time right after the Revolution.
New York became the 11th State in 1788. Interesting is the fact that over 1/3 of all the Battles in the Revolutionary War were fought on New York turf. Probably why the street gang have such a field day here today in the ‘Big Apple.’
This is another state that probably not a single member of our 'Southern' Branch set foot into until my father was transferred there from Chicago in 1944. There were and are basically two groups of Putnams and Putmans in New York.
The earliest were the Dutch family that descended from Johannes Poutman or Pootman and quickly changed to Jan Putman. Jan came from the Netherlands in 1661. He was only sixteen years old at the time and was apprenticed to Philip Brower of Albany, New York. Jan was one of the early settlers in Schenectady, New York. His descendants spread all over the middle portion of the state and then many moved west after 1800. Look in the Addenda of this work for a brief early history of the DUTCH PUTMANS.
The second group was the English family that descended from John Putnam who came to Massachusetts in 1642 and settled in Salem Village, Massachusetts. In the early and mid 1700s, this family spread out all over New England, and by the latter 1700s began to spill over into New York and Canada. By the mid 1800s, there were as many English folks as there were Dutch in the Empire State. Most of the early settling by the Putnams and Putmans was in the northern, central and western parts of the state. While many people populated lower New York, New York City and Long Island, our various families sought out the rich farmlands of upper New York State.
The following census reports, from 1790 through 1940, should help in tracking these various families.