The Van Dyke Family

The name Van Dyke—"from the dike"—traces to the waterways and lowlands of the Netherlands, where families took their identity from the dikes that held back the sea. In the 1600s, when New Netherland was still young, the first Van Dycks crossed the Atlantic to plant their name in what would become America.

By 1778, William Van Dyck—a young man from Somerset County, New Jersey—stood in the heat and chaos of the Battle of Monmouth, a private in Captain Vroom's company. That day, under a sun that reached over 100 degrees, the Continental Army proved it could stand against the British. William was there.

From that Revolutionary moment, the Van Dykes moved west—from New Jersey to Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and finally to Oklahoma Territory, where Benjamin Franklin Van Dyke became a lawyer and penitentiary warden. His granddaughter, Lenore Arnett Young, would live from 1918 to 2018—a century bridging horse-drawn wagons and smartphones, the Dust Bowl and the internet age.

This is their story. This is our story.

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