Prisches

Prisches
Prisches
Commune
	The church in Prisches
	Coat of arms
	Location of Prisches
	Prisches Prisches
	Coordinates: 50°04′51″N 3°46′03″E / 50.0808°N 3.7675°E
Country	France
Region	Hauts-de-France
Department	Nord
Arrondissement	Avesnes-sur-Helpe
Canton	Avesnes-sur-Helpe
Intercommunality	Cœur de l'Avesnois
Government
• Mayor (2020–2026)	Jean-Claude Fovez
Area 1	23.11 km2 (8.92 sq mi)
Population (2022)	1,046
• Density	45/km2 (120/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	59474 /59550
Elevation	153–202 m (502–663 ft)
	1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Prisches (French pronunciation: [pʁiʃ]) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.^[3]

History

Catharina Trico, born at Prisches (then part of the Spanish Netherlands) emigrated in the early 17th Century to Amsterdam. On 13 January 1624, at the age of 18, she married a fellow Walloon immigrant, Joris Raparlie from Valenciennes, the record of their marriage surviving in Amsterdam archives. The two of them soon afterwards boarded a Dutch ship bound for North America and were among the founders and original inhabitants of New Amsterdam - which eventually became the present New York City. Further surviving documents indicate that Catharina and Joris had eleven children, that he died in 1662 but that she was still alive in 1680 - when an English missionary encountered her on Long Island as an old matriarch with 145 descendants. Genealogists estimate that more than a million people now living, in the US and elsewhere, can trace their descent to her.^[4]

Heraldry

Arms of Prisches	The arms of Prisches are blazoned : Azure, a fess Or. (Beaurepaire-sur-Sambre, Borre, Morbecque, Prisches, Cazilhac and Aubière use the same arms.)

References

^ "Répertoire national des élus: les maires". data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises (in French). 2 December 2020.
^ "Populations de référence 2022" (in French). The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. 19 December 2024.
^ INSEE commune file
^ The documents telling the story of Catharina Trico and Joris Raparlie are described in detail by Russell Shorto in "Amsterdam, A History of the World's Most Liberal City", Doubleday, 2013, Ch.7