The documents in this section of the DGS web site are provided, in most cases, for their historical interest, and not for their accuracy. Documents that should not be included in personal genealogical databases, or treated as matters of historical fact, are so indicated.

We have no clear evidence that the commonly-assumed birthplace of David Demarest (Beauchamps-le-Vieux, west of Amiens and south of Abbeville) is accurate; in fact at least three Beauchamps fit the bill for David's possible birthplace, and each has claims that suggest it is the most likely location for David's birth.

Riker's Harlem (1881) contains the earliest sets of references to David Demarest's life in Harlem and modern-day New Jersey. A primary source of information for David D. Demarest and Mabel Boyce Spell, Riker's book was difficult to obtain until Cornell University converted it to electronic form for its Making of America project. Photofacsimile sections relevant to David Demarest (4.2 MB) are available in PDF format, and the entire text is available in machine-readable form (410 KB).

David D. Demarest's Huguenots on the Hackensack (1886) is the first print treatment focusing on David Demarest, and is noteworthy today largely for (a) its transcription of the marriage record of David and Marie Sohier and (b) its assertion of David's birthplace as Beaucamps-le-Vieux and his birthdate as 1620. Full of local color and special pleading, the text is fun to read. All genealogical records contained in this text have been superceded. Demarest's essay is available in photofacsimile reprint in PDF format (4.5 MB), an annotated edition with notes by the DGS in PDF format (3.1 MB), and HTML annotated form.

In Voorhis Demarest's 1964 text, we find Mabel Boyce Spell's now-famous Narrative, which is noteworthy for elaborating on Riker and David D. Demarest, and for yet a different transcription of the marriage record of David Demarest and Marie Sohier, as well as for, intertextually, several important David Demarest artifacts: deeds and his will in particular. This photofacsimile edition of the Narrative, in PDF format (7 MB), includes high-resolution images of those artifacts. Mabel Boyce Spell's Notebook, referenced by Franklyn Frick and other Demarest researchers, is the DGS's single most-sought-after historical artifact.

1881 - Riker's Harlem

1886 -- Demarest's Huguenots on the Hackensack

1928 -- Louis Piers de Boer's report to William H.S. Demarest

1938 -- Mary and William H.S. Demarest's The Demarest Family

1964 -- Voorhis Demarest's The Demarest Family

1984 -- Franklyn Frick's The Demarest Family Chart