de Halve Maen, Winter 2016-2017

de Halve Maen

Journal of The Holland Society of New York Winter 2016-2017

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de Halve Maen

The Holland Society of New York 20 WEST 44TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10036

President Andrew Terhune Treasurer Secretary Eric E. Delamarter R. Dean Vanderwarker III

Domine Rev. Paul D. Lent

Roland H. Bogardus W. Wells Van Pelt Jr. Peter Van Dyke William Van Winkle

Kenneth L. Demarest Jr. Robert Schenck Walton Van Winkle III Charles Zabriskie Jr.

Trustees Adrian Bogart III Christopher M. Cortright David W. Ditmars Philips Correll Durling Andrew A. Hendricks John T. Lansing James J. Middaugh John G. Nevius

David D. Nostrand Edwin Outwater III Gregory M. Outwater Alexander C. Simonson Kent L. Straat Samuel K. Van Allen Frederick M. Van Sickle Stuart W. Van Winkle

Trustees Emeriti Adrian T. Bogart David M. Riker Ralph L. DeGroff Jr. David William Voorhees John O. Delamater John R. Voorhis III Robert G. Goelet Ferdinand L. Wyckoff Jr. Stephen S . Wyckoff Burgher Guard Captain Sean F. Palen Vice-Presidents Connecticut-Westchester Samuel K. Van Allen Dutchess and Ulster County George E. Banta Florida James S. Lansing International Lt. Col. Robert W. Banta Jr. Jersey Shore Stuart W. Van Winkle Long Island Eric E, DeLamarter Mid-West John T. Lansing New Amsterdam Eric E. DeLamarter New England Charles Zabriskie Jr. Niagara David S. Quackenbush Old Bergen-Central New Jersey Gregory M. Outwater Old South Henry N. Staats IV Pacific Northwest Edwin Outwater III Pacific Southwest (North) Kenneth G. Winans Pacific Southwest (South) Paul H. Davis Patroons John Van der Veer Potomac Christopher M. Cortright Rocky Mountain Col. Adrian T. Bogart III South River Andrew S. Terhune Texas James J. Middaugh Virginia and the Carolinas James R. Van Blarcom United States Air Force

Col. Laurence C. Vliet, USAF (Ret) United States Army Col. Adrian T. Bogart III United States Coast Guard Capt. Louis K. Bragaw Jr. (Ret) United States Marines Lt. Col. Robert W. Banta Jr., USMC (Ret) United States Navy CMDR James N. Vandenberg, CEC, USN

Editorial Committee Peter Van Dyke, Chair

David M. Riker

VOL. LXXXIX

Copy Editor Mary Collins

Winter 2016

NUMBER 4

IN THIS ISSUE: 50

Advisory Council of Past Presidents

Editor David William Voorhees Production Manager

Odette Fodor-Garnaert

Magazine of the Dutch Colonial Period in America

Editor’s Corner

51 New Netherland and the Dutch

Moment in Atlantic History

by Wim Klooster 57 Rediscovering Klinkenbergh:

Refuge for Lutherans

by Rudy VanVeghten 67

Book Review: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World

68

Here and There in New Netherland Studies

69

Society Activities

70

In Memoriam

by Dennis Maika

The Holland Society of New York was organized in 1885 to collect and preserve information respecting the history and settlement of New Netherland by the Dutch, to perpetuate the memory, foster and promote the principles and virtues of the Dutch ancestors of its members, to maintain a library relating to the Dutch in America, and to prepare papers, essays, books, etc., in regard to the history and genealogy of the Dutch in America. The Society is principally organized of descendants in the direct male line of residents of the Dutch colonies in the present-day United States prior to or during the year 1675. Inquiries respecting the several criteria for membership are invited.

De Halve Maen (ISSN 0017-6834) is published quarterly by The Holland Society. Subscriptions are $28.50 per year; international, $35.00. Back issues are available at $7.50 plus postage/handling or through PayPaltm.

POSTMASTER: send all address changes to The Holland Society of New York, 20 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036. Telephone: (212) 758-1675.

Fax: (212) 758-2232.

E-mail: info@hollandsociety.org Website: www.hollandsociety.org Copyright Š 2017 The Holland Society of New York. All rights reserved.

John Lansing Henry N. Staats IV

Cover: Adriaen van Nieulandt, Allegory of the Peace under Stadholder Willem II (1650), Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam.

Winter 2016

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Editor’s Corner

N

EW YORKERS TEND to see Manhattan as being at the center of the world. Indeed, Russell Shorto’s engrossing 2004 best-selling The Island at the Center of the World—undoubtedly the most influential work portraying New Netherland since Washington Irving’s 1809 publication of Knickerbocker’s History of New York—underscores this conceit. As Shorto wrote, “this island [Manhattan] would become a fulcrum in the international power struggle, the key to control of a continent and a new world.” For many historians, New York City’s role in defining modern democratic western society was virtually preordained by its Dutch origins.

The two essays in this issue of de Halve Maen present a more nuanced view of New Netherland: Wim Klooster’s placement of the West India Company’s North American colony within the context of the larger Dutch colonial empire, and Rudy VanVeghten’s search for understanding the meaning of a tiny seventeenth-century Hudson River settlement south of Albany.

Wim Klooster tells us in his essay that New Netherland’s birth and subsequent history “should be considered in a somewhat different context from that of the rest of the early seventeenth-century Dutch Atlantic.” He thus sets New Netherland apart from broader Dutch imperial plans. As a result, he notes, New Netherland remained an insignificant player in the Dutch colonial empire and in the Dutch imagination.

According to Klooster, it was not until the First AngloDutch War of 1652–1654 that New Netherland began to receive attention. The North American territory claimed by the Dutch now appeared better placed than any other colony to attack the English. When the Dutch lost Brazil to the Portuguese in 1654, the “complexion of Dutch America suddenly looked very different,” and New Netherland now moved out of the periphery of the Dutch Atlantic. Yet, Klooster tells us, forces were underway that kept New Netherland as a footnote in Dutch history. Through his lens, New Netherland’s seventeenth-century importance within Dutch imperial ambitions takes on a different hue than that presented by New York centrist historians.

In a somewhat similar manner, Rudy VanVeghten takes issue with some popular concepts about the Dutch settlement of North America. In an intricately woven essay, he explores a largely forgotten community that now lies within the towns of Coxsackie and Athens, New York.

Known in the seventeenth century as Klinkenbergh, and later Loonenberg, this community, he reveals, has an interesting story to tell. Taking us on a detective’s tour through data culled from deeds, court minutes, and church records, VanVeghten ultimately attempts to discover the origin of the community’s unique “melodic” name. By connecting the dots of data, he creates a fascinating portrait of a small

but thriving community.

First settled by several Dutchmen from Albany in 1665, within a few years VanVeghten discovers that Klinkenbergh expanded into a neighborhood complete with its own scandal and a diverse assortment of residents. But what particularly made the community unique, he informs us, is that it became a center for the growth of Lutheranism in the Hudson River Valley. It is in the theological realm, then, that VanVeghten takes issue with current common assumptions about the seventeenth-century Dutch. “Toleration of religious conscience that became a trademark of the European Netherlands during the Reformation of the sixteenth century,” he notes, “was largely absent in New Netherland during the seventeenth century.” However, at Loonenbergh and northward towards Coxsackie and Kinderhook, he finds that “Lutheranism flourished for a long time.” VanVeghten thus ultimately seeks to explain how this island of Lutheranism arose within larger Calvinist New Netherland.

If New Netherland did not play the central role in seventeenth-century Dutch consciousness, nor was the ultimate foundation for religious toleration in North America, that should not deter us from understanding its much deeper influence in the development of our world. For within the span of a few short generations, the Dutch created a culture that still informs the American landscape. For that very reason, we must continue to probe and explore their world so that we can better understand the forces that shape our world today.

It is always painful to lose a Holland Society Member due to the inevitable passage of time. But it is particularly difficult to lose a Member who for so many decades became a bulwark of strength that it is impossible to think of the Society without them. The recent passing of the Reverend Louis O. Springsteen is such an example. Lou, a gentle man of broad intellect, long served as a Holland Society Trustee, as President of the Society from 1990 to 1993, Secretary of the Society from 1993 to 2009, Domine in 1994–1995, and as Associate Domine from 1995 to 2011. Under his compasionate guidance, the Holland Society prospered.

He is sorely missed.

Please note that beginning with the Spring 2017 issue, de Halve Maen will become an online publication with printon-demand hard copies available upon request.

David William Voorhees Editor

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de Halve Maen

New Netherland and the Dutch Moment in Atlantic History

by Wim Klooster

Dutch ships returning from Brazil in 1605. Painting by Hendrick Vroom. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

I

N 1644, an indigenous revolt broke out in Maranhão, the northernmost Dutch conquest in Brazil. The rebels held the Dutch responsible for the introduction of smallpox, and also resented the Dutch enslavement of Amerindians and the treatment of native laborers.1 The revolt ended the three-year Dutch occupation of Maranhão and caused the wanderings of hundreds of servants of the West India Company, many of them soldiers.

450 of them suddenly showed up on the island of Curaçao, which the Dutch had wrested from Spain a decade before. The colony’s ruling council did not extend a warm welcome to these guests, largely because the local food situation had been precarious in the preceding three years.2 Most of the arrivals were therefore sent on to New Netherland, and several of them drowned on the Princess (Amelia), the same ship on which Director Willem Kieft and minister Everardus Bogardus perished.

The men from Maranhão provide one example of the various ways in which Wim Klooster is Professor at Clark University, where he has taught since 2003. His books include The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the SeventeenthCentury Atlantic World (2016), Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History (2009), and Illicit Riches: Dutch Trade in the Caribbean, 1648–1795 (1998).

New Netherland was connected to other parts of the Dutch Atlantic world. It is not hard to list other instances. However, New Netherland’s birth and subsequent history should be considered in a somewhat different context from that of the rest of the early seventeenth-century Dutch Atlantic.

New Netherland deviated from most of the Dutch Atlantic world, where virtually all strongholds were conquered from the Iberian enemies: the Brazilian capital Salvador (1624), Recife/Olinda (1630), St. Martin (1631), Curaçao (1634), Elmina (1637), Luanda (1641), and São Tomé (1641).

These conquests marked the Dutch Moment in Atlantic history, a period in which the Dutch not only constructed a real empire of their own that tied together North and South America as well as Africa and Brazil, but were also deeply involved in inter-imperial shipping and trade.3 The Atlantic became a major theater of war after the resumption of warfare between the Dutch and their Iberian enemies in 1621. The newly founded Dutch West India Company fought the “hereditary” enemy by fire and sword. The opening of an Atlantic front, it was expected, would bring the war at home to a happy conclusion. The Company directors therefore embarked on an overly ambitious military program. In an effort to extend the war of liberation against Habsburg Spain to the Atlantic world, the directors developed a Grand Design that aimed at the conquest

of both the possessions of Spain and Portugal—the Iberian neighbors who had been united under one crown since 1580.

In the first stage of the Design, one fleet was to conquer Salvador da Bahia in Brazil and another Luanda, the main Portuguese slave-trading port in Africa. Sugar was what the directors were after. Occupying Salvador would enable the capture of the sugar region of northeastern Brazil, while dominance in Luanda would ensure a steady migration of Africans to work the plantations. But from the start, this hyperambitious plan left much to be desired.

New Netherland did not feature in this project. Nonetheless, some residents of the United Provinces interested in Dutch Mark Meuwese, Brothers in Arms, Partners in Trade: Dutch-Indigenous Alliances in the Atlantic World, 1595– 1674 (Leiden, 2012), 167–69; Rita Krommen, “Mathias Beck und die Westindische Compagnie: Zur Herrschaft der Niederländer im kolonialen Ceará,” Arbeitspapiere zur Lateinamerikaforschung 2 (2001), 1: 40–45; Johan Nieuhof, Gedenkweerdige Brasiliaense zee- en lant-reize: Behelzende al het geen op dezelve is voorgevallen. Beneffens een bondige beschrijving van gantsche Neerlants Brasil, zoo van lantschappen, steden, dieren, gewassen, als draghten, zeden en godsdienst der inwoonders: en inzonderheit ein wijtloopig verhael der merkwaardigste voorvallen en geschiedenissen, die zich, geduurende zijn negenjarigh verblijf in Brasil, in d’oorlogen en opstant der Portugesen tegen d’onzen, zich sedert het jaer 1640. tot 1649. hebben toegedragen (Amsterdam, 1682), 44–45.

1

Resolution of May 18, 1644, in Charles T. Gehring and J. A. Schiltkamp, eds., Curacao Papers 1640–1665, New Netherland Documents, vol. 17 (Interlaken, N.Y., 1987), 36.

2

Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World (Ithaca, N.Y., 2016).

3

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The Dutch fleet (in front) led by Piet Heyn surprises the Spanish treasure fleet (in the background) in the Cuban bay of Matanzas, 1628. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. expansion around the globe in the years of the Grand Design made mention of the new colony, but they did so in passages that focused on developments in the Atlantic theatre of war against the Iberians. For example, Alexander van der Capellen (c.

1594–1656), representative of the province of Gelderland in the States General and counsel to Stadholder Frederick Henry, wrote in his notes in August 1624 that a yacht had reached the Dutch island of Texel with the happy news of the WIC’s conquest of Salvador. Van der Capellen then writes, “A few days before a ship arrived from Virginia, from a place of which our men took possession on behalf of the States General.”4 In other words, the settlement of New Netherland had begun. Six months later, Dutch humanist Arnoldus Buchelius (1565–1641) wrote in his diary about martial Dutch fleets leaving the home ports. Before he moved on to rumors floating around about the adventures of a Dutch East India Company fleet (the socalled Nassau fleet) on the coast of Peru, the war in Brazil, and captures of Dutch ships plying the Atlantic, Buchelius notes: “It is said that some construction workers are to be sent to Virginia to cultivate the land in some quarters discovered by our men.”5 The Grand Design must have also elicited enthusiasm among young men who ended up in New Netherland. In the

wake of Piet Hein’s remarkable capture of the mighty Spanish treasure fleet in 1628, the WIC had no difficulty filling its ranks.

That event may have inspired someone like Govert Loockermans, the young man from the Southern Netherlands who would work himself up in New Amsterdam from cook’s mate to powerful merchant.6 Loockermans and other inhabitants of New Netherland could, of course, not be engaged in warfare against the Spanish enemy. Settlers certainly had to be on their guard for enemies, but were not protected by the same number of soldiers that were typical in other corners of the Dutch Atlantic. Compared to New Amsterdam around 1640, there were three times more soldiers in the Dutch West African garrison in Elmina, six to seven times as many in Curaçao and the Dutch colony on the African island of São Tomé, ten to fifteen times as many in Angola, and over one hundred times more in the various garrisons in Brazil combined.7 Brazil was indeed a major destination for soldiers serving the West India Company. During a ten-month period in 1639–1640, 3,276 soldiers were sent from the Dutch Republic to transatlantic destinations, 97 percent of whom were shipped to Brazil compared to only one half of one percent to New Netherland.8 In another respect, New Netherland was similar to other Dutch colonies. They

all shared a preoccupation with precious metals, inspired by the old myth of El Dorado, believed by some to be a native king who covered himself in gold dust, somewhere in northern South America.

From the very start of westward Dutch expansion, traders and governing bodies were keen on information that could lead to gold or silver mines, the possession of which would create the same advantages— or so it was thought—as for Spain, whose American empire was based on the silver of Mexico and Upper Peru. Of course, Dutch settlers did not hesitate to engage in trade and agriculture, but the interest in precious metals endured. One of the objectives of the abovementioned Nassau fleet, which left for Peru in 1623, was the conquest 4 Alexander van der Capellen, Gedenkschriften van Jonkheer Alexander van der Capellen, Heere van Aartsbergen, Boedelhoff, en Mervelt: beginnende met den jaare 1621, en gaande tot 1654, 2 vols. (Utrecht, 1777–1778), 1: 302–303.

Arnoldus Buchelius, “VOC-dagboek 1619–1639,” diary entry of February 28, 1625, http://www.gahetna.nl/sites/ default/files/bijlagen/transcriptie_ voc-dagboek_buchelius.pdf.

5

Pieter Jan van Winter, De Westindische Compagnie ter kamer Stad en Lande (’s-Gravenhage, 1978), 230. Willem Frijhoff, “Govert Loockermans (1617?–1671?) en zijn verwanten: Hoe een Turnhoutenaar zich wist op te werken in de Nieuwe Wereld,” Taxandria 83 (2011), 5-68: 7.

6

7

Klooster, Dutch Moment, 115 (Table 1).

Utrechts Archief, Staten van Utrecht, 233, inv.nr. 231–24, fol. 190v-193, http://www.geneaknowhow.net/script/ dewit/brazil.html.

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of Potosí, Spain’s largest mining center in the Americas, in spite of its location in the interior of South America. The fleet’s organizers had erroneously counted on the automatic support of natives, who would guide the invaders to Potosí, which was presumably undefended. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Two decades later, the West India Company still considered establishing a Dutch colony in the Río de la Plata, from where expeditions to Potosí could be launched. The ruling council of Dutch Brazil gathered a force of 800 men to that end, but at the last minute they had to be incorporated into an expedition to Chile.9 The indigenous population usually served as intermediaries in the attempts to find precious metals. In Brazil, the search commenced as a result of information provided by six natives who had traveled with the Dutch to the Republic in 1625. They provided information about three different silver mines. Two of these Amerindians claimed to have held the silver in their hands.10 Thus began a long chapter in which the Dutch, assisted by German miners, tried to find rich ores near Ceará. Luck was against the Dutch. When finally, during the first Anglo-Dutch war, a large sample was sent to the Republic, English privateers captured the ship. A later attempt by Dutch merchants to dig

for silver in Brazil was also ill-starred.

When their ship, carrying miners from Liège, appeared off Recife, the Dutch flag was no longer up.11 In New Netherland, Director Willem Kieft met an indigenous man who painted his face with a shining mineral that resembled gold. The man led the Dutch to a spot near Rensselaerswijck, where he believed the ore could be found.

Some minerals were found, but it took a long time before the man’s claim could be verified because a ship carrying samples to the Republic was lost, not once but twice.

In the end, the ore turned out to be pyrite, also known as fool’s gold.12 Not in every corner of the Atlantic world were natives willing to share their knowledge of local mines. The Netherlanders, who formed part of the 1643, expedition to Chile did not realize that the Spaniards had abused local Amerindians in search of gold. The alliance with caciques (indigenous chiefs) against the mutual Spanish enemy thus fell apart at the mere mention of gold by the Dutch.13 Nor could the Dutch count on indigenous cooperation in Africa.

The Africans had already realized around 1600 that the Dutch visitors had a marked interest in gold. In his Beschryvinge van het Gout Koninckrijck van Guinea, the merchant Pieter de Marees wrote that “they say that gold is our god.” It was for that reason, he continued, that the na-

tives kept the location of their gold mines secret.14 Still, the Gold Coast seemed to offer more opportunities as an area where production had regularly expanded since the sixteenth century. After capturing Elmina—the Portuguese headquarters on the Gold Coast—the Dutch thought it feasible to undertake gold production, but all attempts to extract gold themselves came to naught.15 As long as the war with Spain lasted, New Netherland did not feature prominently in the Dutch imagination. That changed after the Peace of Munster of 1648, which ended the war with Habsburg Spain, and the outbreak of the first AngloDutch war (1652–1654). New Netherland could not be ignored in the rivalry with England, which found the Dutch in its way when trying for regional hegemony, both in the North Sea and North America. At the outset of the first war with England, Ben Teensma, ed., Suiker, verfhout en tabak: Het Braziliaanse Handboek van Johannes de Laet (Zutphen, 2009), 160. 31. Caspar van Baerle, The History of Brazil under the Governorship of Johan Maurits of Nassau, 1636–1644, trans. Blanche T. van Berckel-Ebeling Koning (Gainesville, Fl., 2011), 235–36.

9

Examination of Caspar Paraoupaba, Andreus Francisco, Pieter Poty, Antony Guirawassauay, Antony Francisco, and Lauys Caspar, Amsterdam, March 20, 1628, in “Journaux et Nouvelles tirées de la bouche de Marins Hollandais et Portugais de la Navigation aux Antilles et sur les Côtes du Brésil: Manuscrit de Hessel Gerritsz traduit pour la Bibliothèque Nationale de Rio de Janeiro par E.J. Bondam,” Annaes da Bibliotheca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro 29 (1907), 173–74. For Ceará, see Teensma, Suiker, verfhout en tabak, 76. For Paraíba, see Benjamin Nicolaas Teensma, “Het directoraat van dominee Jodocus van Stetten, anno 1645, over een veronderstelde zilvermijn aan de Rio Sucurú in Paraíba,” in Brazilië in de Nederlandse archieven (1624–1654): Oude West-Indische Compagnie: Correspondentie van de Heren XIX en de notulen van de Hoge en Secrete Raad van Brazilië, ed. Marianne L. Wiesebron (Leiden, 2011), 24–47.

10

Nationaal Archief, The Netherlands [NAN], Oude WestIndische Compagnie [OWIC] 65, Hans Sempsiell and Carel Helpagh to unknown, Fort Schonenborgh, May 3, 1649; NAN, Staten-Generaal [SG] 5763, President and Council of Brazil to the States General, Recife, August 22, 1651; NAN, SG 5763, memorandum of Huygens, lectum July 28, 1651; Krommen, “Mathias Beck,” 28. Jacob le Maire to his brotherin-law, Amsterdam, November 9, 1654, in Thomas Birch, ed., A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, vol. 2, 1654 (London, 1742), 700–701. Peter Wolfgang Klein, De Trippen in de 17e eeuw: Een studie over het ondernemersgedrag op de Hollandse stapelmarkt (Assen, 1965), 101.

11

12

Paul Otto, The Dutch-Munsee Encounter in America: The

Struggle for Sovereignty in the Hudson Valley (New York, 2006), 83. 24. “The Representation of New Netherland, 1650,” in Narratives of New Netherland 1609–1664, ed.

John Franklin Jameson (New York, 1909), 299; Jaap Jacobs, Een zegenrijk gewest: Nieuw-Nederland in de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 1999), 39.

13 Benjamin Schmidt, “Exotic Allies: The Dutch-Chilean Encounter and the (Failed) Conquest of America,” Renaissance Quarterly 52 (1999), 469.

14 Wim Wennekes, Gouden handel: De eerste Nederlanders overzee, en wat zij daar haalden (Amsterdam/Antwerpen, 1996), 321–22.

The conquest of Luanda and São Tomé in 1641. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

15 Ray A. Kea, Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast (Baltimore/London, 1982), 192–94. Henk den Heijer, Goud, ivoor en slaven: Scheepvaart en handel van de Tweede Westindische Compagnie op Afrika, 1674–1740 (Zutphen, 1997), 131.

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the WIC directors embraced a bellicose role for New Netherland by pointing out that the area was better placed than any other colony to attack the English.16 The end of this war came on the heels of the Dutch surrender in Brazil, after unpaid and poorly fed soldiers refused to defend the Dutch colony any longer against Portugal. Without Brazil, the complexion of Dutch America suddenly looked very different. In the immediate aftermath of the loss of Brazil, the Dutch were seeking new ways to involve themselves in the New World. They established Amsterdam’s colony of New Amstel in Delaware and undertook several initiatives to colonize Guiana. New Netherland received more attention as a potential settlement colony, especially in the form of Adriaen van der Donck’s Description of New Netherland and the “Conditions for Emigration” that were included in the book’s second edition.17 Van der Donck’s message was echoed in other publications. One of the characters in the 1659 pamphlet ‘t Verheerlickte Nederland, bestowed lavish praise on New Netherland: “This land seems to invite us from afar and call out: Come, you Hollanders, and inhabit me in order to enjoy the abundance of my fruits.”18

Precisely as New Netherland moved out of the periphery of the Dutch Atlantic, its survival was at risk. The Anglo-Dutch peace treaty of 1654 did not usher in harmonious relations between New Netherland and its English neighbors to the north and south. The practical value of the treaty across the Atlantic world was that of an indeterminate cease-fire because mutual resentment remained high. It was telling that in 1656 one of the Amsterdam burgomasters, and again in 1663 the Grand Pensionary of Holland Johan de Witt, proposed to Spain the organizing of a joint squadron to chase the English from their new colony of Jamaica.19 At the same time, New Netherland was a thorn in the side of English empire-builders, since it prevented the creation of a contiguous English realm on the North American eastern seaboard.

Most importantly, residents of Connecticut, and especially Governor John Winthrop Jr., set their minds on adjacent New Netherland and advocated its conquest.20 The subsequent events that led to the demise of New Netherland need not be retold here. However, it is important to note that Dutch diplomatic protests failed to have an effect. Charles II told the Dutch ambassador in London that the area had been

English from the start and that individual Netherlanders had only been admitted to settle there but no authority had been given to the WIC.21 The Dutch were then reduced to silence in the international arena.

The lack of action undertaken in the Dutch Republic to restore colonial rule in New Netherland contrasted with the massive naval response to perceived English injustices committed against Dutch interests in West Africa. This response clarified the priorities for the political elite of the Dutch Republic.

16 West India Company directors Johan le Thor, Isaack van Beeck and N. ten Hove to the States General’s deputies for West India affairs, July 30, 1652, in Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York; Procured in Holland, England and France by John Romeyn Brodhead, 15 vols.

(Albany, N.Y., 1856), 1: 483–84.

17 Frans Blom and Henk Looijesteijn, “A Land of Milk and Honey: Colonial Propaganda and the City of Amsterdam, 1656–1664,” de Halve Maen 85, no. 3 (2012), 47–56: 49–50.

18 ’t Verheerlickte Nederland door d’Herstelde Zee-vaart (1659), 12–3.

19 Manuel Herrero Sánchez, El acercamiento hispanoneerlandés (1648–1678) (Madrid, 2000), 366–67.

20 Jacobs, Zegenrijk gewest, 164–65; L.H. Roper, “The Fall of New Netherland and Seventeenth-Century AngloAmerican Imperial Formation, 1654–1676,” The New England Quarterly 87 (2014) 4: 666–708.

21 Ambassador M. van Gogh to the Secretary of the States General, Chelsey, November 7, 1664, in O’Callaghan, Documents, 3: 78.

Jan Abrahamsz. Beerstraten, “The Battle of Ter Heijde.” The naval battle near Ter Heijde on August 10, 1653, during the First Anglo-Dutch War.

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Above: Fort Elmina and the fleet of Michiel de Ruyter, J. A. de Marree, Reizen op en beschrijving van de Goudkust van Guinea, 1802–1804.

Left: Ferdinand Bol, Portrait of Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter, 1667, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

Although the Dutch slave trade got underway in the 1630s to provide Brazilian plantations with workers, it did not fade away in the period between the loss of Brazil and the conquest, thirteen years later, of Suriname. During this period, the island of Curaçao became a major transit point in the slave trade to Spanish America. In addition, Dutch slavers virtually monopolized the shipment of enslaved Africans to the French Caribbean. It was exactly during this interval that the naval expedition to West Africa took place, which reveals how important it was in the eyes of Dutch policy-makers to guarantee the continued existence of Dutch footholds on the Gold Coast to facilitate the slave trade.

It is hard to determine when tensions between the Dutch and the English in West Africa began to mount, but it can be argued that the Dutch arrest of two ships fitted out by the recently chartered English Company of Royal Adventurers and the closing off of the English lodge of Cape Coast in the early 1660s set off a cycle of violence.22 When news about these events arrived in England, a public outcry led to the organization of an expedition led by Navy Admiral Robert Holmes. His fleet achieved some remarkable successes on the Gold Coast, where—aided by indigenous allies—he bombed Dutch-held Cape Coast Castle into submission. While Holmes went on in the following days to capture two more Dutch lodges and one fort, his attempt to subdue Fort Elmina was impeded.23 Nevertheless, England had suddenly become the dominant power on the Gold

Coast. The States General were therefore forced to react. In all secrecy, they hatched a plan to reverse the English victories.

Michiel de Ruyter (1607–1676), a Zeelander with experience in the navy, whaling, and the merchant marine, was tasked with leading his squadron of twelve sail and 2,272 men from the Mediterranean to the Gold Coast.24 His expedition restored the Dutch position on many parts of the African littoral. Without firing a shot, he recovered the island of Goree with its forts before emptying an English lodge in Sierra Leone. With help from African allies, he forced Fort Cormantine, the main English stronghold on the Gold Coast, to capitulate.25 De Ruyter then received letters from the States General in which he was ordered to respond to English aggression in Europe and New Netherland by capturing as many forts in West Africa as possible and to inflict whatever damage he could in Barbados, New York, Newfoundland, and other places.26 Compared to his awe-inspiring performance in Africa, de Ruyter did not accomplish much of note in the New World.

He caused major damage to the ships and forts in Carlisle Bay, Barbados, but had to retreat after many of the men on his fleet were injured or killed.27 De Ruyter and his men went on to seize seventeen English bottoms in the Caribbean, but they bypassed New York City because of the expected scarcity of foodstuffs.

Instead, they sailed for Newfoundland, where they captured seven fishing boats and merchantmen and loaded provisions for the home voyage. Despite rumors cir-

culating in England that his fleet had been captured, de Ruyter finally reached the northern Dutch port of Delfzijl on August 6, 1665. From far and near, city and country people came by the thousands to see for themselves the men who had harmed the English enemy in distant theaters.28 Never had an admiral been welcomed back so enthusiastically. He was promptly rewarded for his achievements: only five days after 22

Ibid., 498, 549.

Robert D. Porter, “European Activity on the Gold Coast, 1620–1667” (Ph.D. diss., University of South Africa, 1975), 568–70, 575, 582, 585–95; Ole Justesen, ed., Danish Sources for the History of Ghana, 1657–1754, 2 vols. (s.n., 2005), 1: 13–17.

23

24 Pieter Verhoog and Leendert Koelmans, De reis van Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter in 1664–1665 (’s-Gravenhage, 1961), 22–3, 65, 69; Porter, “European Activity on the Gold Coast,” 599–600.

25 Gerard Brandt, Het leven en bedryf van den here Michiel de Ruiter, Hertog, Ridder, &c. L. Admiraal Generaal van Hollandt en Westvrieslandt (Amsterdam, 1687), 305–12, 323, 327–28, 352; Porter, “European Activity on the Gold Coast,” 605–10, 616–21; Verhoog and Koelmans, Reis van de Ruyter, 78–80; “Particulars of Our Voyage (in Capt.

Reynolds’ ship) on the Coast of Africa,” April 1665, in W. Noël Sainsbury, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1661–1668, Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty’s Public Record Office (London, 1880), 294–95.

26 Verhoog and Koelmans, Reis van de Ruyter, 82–87; Porter, “European Activity on the Gold Coast,” 602, 610–12; Brandt, Leven en bedryf, 338.

Wim Klooster, “De Ruyter’s Attack on Barbados: The Dutch Perspective,” Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society 60 (2014), 42–53.

27

Brandt, Leven en bedryf, 369, 389–93; Verhoog and Koelmans, Reis van Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter, 91, 94–96, 103–104; Cornelis C. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast, 1580–1680 (Assen, 1971), 385–388; “Jo. Carlisle to Williamson,” July 23, 1665, in Mary Anne Everett Green, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles II, 1664–1665, Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty’s Public Record Office (London, 1863), 487.

28

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he came ashore, de Ruyter was appointed commander-in-chief of the navy.29 Summoned to the island of Texel to take charge of another fleet, he made his way through the provinces of Groningen and Friesland on two barges, loudly cheered by residents wherever he passed.30 The end of the second Anglo-Dutch war in 1667 did not usher in a period of peaceful relations. Only five years passed before a new war broke out, in which the Dutch faced multiple enemies: besides England, German princes invaded the Republic, as did Louis XIV’s France. The United Provinces survived against all odds, in part because an Anglo-French fleet of ninetythree ships did not defeat the Dutch fleet at the battle of Solebay (June 7, 1672). In the Americas, the Dutch were less successful in defending themselves. English forces subdued the Dutch islands of St. Eustatius, Saba, and Tobago, while French troops occupied the Dutch part of the island of St. Martin before an attempt was made to add Curaçao to the French empire. A fleet carrying 1,200–1,300 men was, however, repelled at the island.

Because the States General was concerned with defending the Republic, it left overseas warfare to the five admiralties.

Those of Zeeland and Amsterdam took separate initiatives. One squadron of six ships left the province of Zeeland in December under the command of Cornelis Evertsen de Jonge. His 587 men first saw action near the Cape Verde islands, where they ran into the English East India fleet sailing home, and captured two ships. In the Caribbean, Evertsen encountered a squadron flying French flags, but to his great surprise, the colors disguised another Dutch squadron, this one fitted out by the

Amsterdam admiralty and led by Jacob Binckes. The two men resolved to form a single fleet.

This fleet caused devastation and mayhem wherever it went. Its American tour started with taking prizes in the French West Indies, continued with the reconquest of the English-held islands of St. Eustatius and Saba, and was followed by a massive raid on the Chesapeake, where seven ships were captured, ten destroyed, and much damage inflicted. Even more devastating was the visit to New-foundland, which would take a long time to recover from the destruction of all facilities and the burning of virtually the entire fishing fleet. Prior to that, an impromptu attack had taken place on what used to be New Netherland, which was easily occupied. Any plans for a permanent return of New York to Dutch rule, were, however, thwarted by the Peace Treaty of Westminster, in which the Republic agreed to return all of New Netherland—and this time it was for good.

One more time, a Dutch war fleet headed for the Caribbean, commanded again by Jacob Binckes, which reinstated Dutch power at Cayenne and took the French islands of Marie-Galante and St. Martin.31 Louis XIV responded to Binckes’s actions in the West Indies by sending a fleet that managed to capture Tobago.32 The French fleet then prepared for a second attack on Curaçao, the island that had become the chief Dutch colony in the Americas. The fleet, with hundreds of buccaneers on board, however, never made it to the Dutch colony. The ships were wrecked on the coral reefs of the Aves Islands four days after putting to sea, and hundreds of sailors and soldiers drowned. Curaçao was thus

saved from a likely conquest. Nonetheless, France had won the Caribbean war.33 The events of the years 1672–1678 saw both the miraculous survival of the Dutch Republic and the loss of several Dutch colonies in the New World, including, one more time, New Netherland. Whatever imperial aspirations the Dutch elite still maintained had to be buried. It is telling that during these years, the West India Company went bankrupt and was replaced by a successor that had the same name but had lost its martial character.

No more war fleets would henceforth leave for Africa or the Americas. The Dutch Moment had passed.

29 George Downing to the Earl of Arlington, August 14, 1665, in H. Th. Colenbrander, ed., Bescheiden uit vreemde archieven omtrent de groote Nederlandsche zeeoorlogen 1652–1676, 2 vols. (’s-Gravenhage, 1919), 1: 282; Petrus Johannes Blok, Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter (’sGravenhage, 1930), 222.

30 Ronald Prud’homme van Reine, Rechterhand van Nederland: Biografie van Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter, 5th ed. (Amsterdam, 2007), 52.

31 Gérard Lafleur, “Les Hollandais et les Antilles françaises (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles),” in Entre Calvinistes et Catholiques: Les relations religieuses entre la France et les Pays-Bas du Nord (XVIe–XVIIIe siècle), ed. Yves Krumenacker (Rennes, 2010), 128. Christian Buchet, La lutte pour l’espace caraïbe et la façade atlantique de l’Amérique Centrale et du Sud (1672–1763) (Paris, 1991), 103–104.

For the devastating impact of the raid on these islands, see Christian Schnakenbourg, “Recherches sur l’histoire de l’industrie sucrière à Marie-Galante, 1664–1964,” Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe 2–4 (1981), 18; Denise Parisis and Henri Parisis, “Le siècle du sucre à Saint-Martin français,” Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe 1–4 (1994).

32

Buchet, Lutte pour l’espace caraïbe, 106-119, 149.

Goslinga, Dutch in the Caribbean and Wild Coast, 447–456, 478–481; James Pritchard, “The Franco-Dutch War in the West Indies, 1672–1678: An Early “Lesson” in Imperial Defense,” in William M. McBride and Eric P. Reed, eds., New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Thirteenth Naval History Symposium Held at Annapolis, Maryland, 2–4 October 1997 (Annapolis, 1998), 11–15.

33

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de Halve Maen

Rediscovering Klinkenbergh: Refuge for Lutherans

A

by Rudy VanVeghten

LONG THE HUDSON River within the town of Coxsackie, New York, there is a mostly forgotten location once known as Klinkenbergh.

Identified variously in old records as a farm, a hill and a village, Klinkenbergh has an interesting story to tell—a story that requires exploring both primary sources from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and a variety of secondary source interpretations during the years since.

Our story begins with data from four areas: deeds, court minutes, church records and the word’s unique etymology. It concludes by connecting these dots of data to create a picture of a fascinating little community and a possible interpretation of its melodic name.

Deed Records. Among the earliest references to Klinkenbergh are a handful of preserved deeds involving several key individuals who bought and sold land between the southern border of the Rensselaerswijck patroonship and Catskill village. This is the area today comprising the towns of Coxsackie and Athens (formerly known as Loonenburg). Below is an inventory of deeds that either specifically mention the name Klinkenbergh or involve the principal individuals in land speculation and development in the Coxsackie/ Loonenburg area.

• April 20, 1665, Jan Clute, Jan Bruyns and Juriaen Teunisse win consent of Governor Richard Nicolls and the Albany court to purchase land known as Caniskek from local Indians “on the west side of the North [Hudson] River, over against the Claverrack” and extending north to the vicinity of Beeren Island near present-day Coeymans.1 Rudy VanVeghten, descended from the upper Hudson Valley Dutch, is a frequent contributor to de Halve Maen. A former newspaper editor, he has combined his journalism skills with a love of history to research and “report” on the world in which his early American ancestors lived.

LOCATION: the earliest description of Klinkenbergh located it “over against” Claverack, in this sense indicating opposite the Hudson River. Major Abraham Staats owned property at Claverack along the creek formerly known as Abram Staats Creek, formed by the confluence of the Kinderhook and Claverack Kills. Both the stream and the surrounding area now go by the name Stockport (Google Maps).

• May 25, 1667, Jan Clute, Jan Bruyns and Jurriaen Teunisse Tappen received a patent from Governor Nicolls “for a tract of land on the west side of the Hudson river, near present-day Athens, New York. The land became known afterwards as Loonenburg.2 • April 4, 1670, Myndert Frederickse van Iveren leased to Harmen Thomasz Hun “a certain parcel of land on the west bank [of the Hudson] opposite the Claverack” for six years from May 1, 1670, to May 1, 1676. As part of the agreement, Myndert Frederickse promised to provide a house, barn, and hay rick, so long as Hun would “dig a cellar” and help “rough hew the timber.” Under the terms of the agreement, Hun was to add four morgens of cropland per year and plant a one-morgen orchard.3 • August 25, 1670, Jurian Teunisse Tappen sold to Abraham Staats and Johannes Provoost “his equal third part of land, belonging to him with Jan Bruyns and Jan Clute” (no price given).4 • April 11, 1673, Myndert Frederickse leased to Jan Helmesen “his farm called Clinckenbergh” for six years from May 1, 1673, to May 1, 1679. If this is the same farm as previously leased in 1670, no reason is given for the early exit of Harmen Thomasz Hun before the end of his contract. The new lease to Jan Helmesen shows the house and barn specified in the

earlier lease had been built. In lieu of rent, Helmesen agreed to “inclose [i.e. construct fencing] on the great flat as much land as possible.” This appears to be the first extant use of the name Klinkenbergh.5 • August 7, 1675, Jan Henderick Bruyns sold to Myndert Fredericksen “his just third part of land belonging to him in company with Jan Clute and Jurriaen Teunissen” as received by them from Gov. Nicolls in 1667 (no price given).6 • December 10, 1678, Jan Clute sold to Pieter Bosie and Jan van Loon his third part of “a certain parcel of land situated and lying over against the Claverrack” that he owned “in company with the Honorable Major Abraham Staats and Myndert Fredericksz” for 50 beavers worth of winter wheat.7

1 Jonathan Pearson, Early Records of Albany, revised and edited by A.J.F. Van Laer, 4 vols. (Albany, 1919),1:74 (hereafter ERA). The term “over against” indicates on the opposite shore.

2

Ibid, 3:465n.

Ibid., 368–70. One Dutch morgen is roughly equivalent to two English acres.

3

4 William S. Pelletreau, “Early Settlement of the Town of Coxsackie” in Frederick L. Beers, ed., History of Greene County, New York, With Biographical Sketches of Its Prominent Men (New York, 1884), http://www.rootsweb.ancestry. com/~nygreen2/beers_early_settlement_coxsackie.htm, retrieved 1/1/2016 (hereafter Beers’ History).

5

ERA 3:404-405.

Charles Gehring, trans. and ed., Fort Orange Records 1656-1678 (Syracuse, N.Y., 2000), 181–82.

6

7

ERA 3:465. Loonenburg was named for Jan van Loon.

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• April 2, 1683, Jacob Phenix sold to Teunis Pieterse and “Broer Jansz” “his interest in a certain farm called Klinckenbergh, to wit, the entire half of everything as well of the house, barn, rick and land as of the orchard, just as he, the said Jacob Fenix heretofore bought the same of Cornelis Michielse” for 104 merchantable beaver skins.8 • August 5, 1684, Cornelis Michielse sold “all his interest in the land from the Klinckenbergh to the Moordenaers kill” to Jurriaen Teunisse Tappen for the value of “fifty whole, merchantable beaver skins in silver money, wheat, or seawan at beaver’s price.”9 • October 16, 1684, Cornelis Michielse sold “all his right and title to the great flat called Loonenbergh; likewise all his interest eastward to Moordenaers kill and south and northward, as well as woodland as otherwise, to wit, the sixth part of said land” to Andries Hansen for 625 schepels of “good winter wheat,” paid over a three-year period.10 • October 30, 1685, Cornelis Michielse gains possession of Jan Hendrickse Bruyn’s share of the Loonenburg Patent and resells to Jacob Casperse Hallenbeck, Dirck Teunisse Van Vechten, Jan Casperse Hallenbeck and Jochem Collier.11 • October 31, 1685, Myndert Frederickse and his wife, Pieterje, sell their share in the Klinkenbergh farm to Cornelis Michielse (represented by Jan Becker) for 550 schepels of “good wheat.”12 • November 2, 1685, Jan Becker, on behalf of Cornelis Michielse, sells his one-half share in “a certain farm or Bowery, called Klinkenbergh” to Jacob Phenix for 274 schepels of wheat.13 • October 23, 1686, Jan Becker and Pieter Woglum, on behalf of Cornelis Michielse (“of ye Citty of N: York, yeoman”), sold his “Sixth Part” of land known as the “great flatt or Plain called Loonenburgh” (purchased by Michielse in October 1684) to Andries Hansen of Rensselaerswijck for 625 schepels of “good winter wheat.”14 • June 18, 1687, and April 8, 1689, Cornelis Michielse, represented by his attorney, and Teunisse Pieterse sell “the land over against Claverack called Klinkenburg” to Teunis, son of Jurian Teunisse Tappen.15 • September 6, 1694, Teunis Tappen sold to Jacob Caspersen Hallenbeck “all that tract of land over against Claverack called Klinkenburg, as the same was transported to him by the attorney of Cornelis Machaelis on the 18th of June 1687, and by Teunisse Pieterse on the 8th of April 1689, stretch-

RIVERSIDE FARM: This 1892 topographic map shows the geography of the Klinkenbergh hill bisected by the road today known as N.Y. Route 385. Lying at the eastern base of the hill, the riverside farm and orchard of the same name (label added to original map) were owned by the Jacob Caspersen Hallenbeck family beginning in the 1690s.

ing southward and westward as far as the Murderer’s Creek, and northward till over against the Little Nutten Hook, together with all the right and title of said Jurian Teunisse in the house and barn, the whole of the new orchard and half of the old.”16 • November 1, 1696, Cornelis Michielse conveys a quitclaim deed to Jan van Loon and Jacob Fericken for his “remaining claims in Loonenborch which are outside the purchases of Jury [Jurian] Teunisz.”17

Court Records: Deed records begin to tell the story of Klinkenbergh and its intriguing name. Records of the county court in Albany show how within a few years Klinkenbergh expanded into a small neighborhood, complete with its own scandal involving one of the principals mentioned in the deeds—the baker Cornelis Michielse.

Cornelis Michielse’s involvement in the Klinkenbergh-Loonenburg area, judging

8

Ibid., 552-553.

Ibid., 576. In a footnote, Van Laer explains, “Murderer’s kill, near Athens in Greene county, N.Y. The Klinckenbergh, or Klinkenbergh, lies a little north of Four Mile point, near the Hudson river.”

9

One thing that becomes clear from these records is that they involve two large chunks of property in the Coxsackie/ Loonenburg area. One parcel was the Loonenburg patent that extended from Murderer’s kill down to the Catskill. Just north of that was the land that came to be known as Klinkenbergh, which we see from later deeds extended from Murderer’s Kill north a couple of miles to a location opposite the Hudson from Little Nutten Hook. Control of the Klinkenbergh parcel was apparently obtained by Myndert Frederickse prior to 1670, the date he first leased a new, undeveloped farm to Harman Thomasz Hun. Either Hun failed to meet the terms of his lease agreement and was released in 1673, or a second farm was established on the property that Myndert Frederickse leased to Jan Helmesen. It is within this second lease that we find the first identifiable reference to Klinkenbergh, referring in this case to the name of the leased farm and orchard.

10

Ibid., 577-578.

This entry is derived from a parablepsis error in Beers’ History where the author unintentionaly skipped from one Hallenbeck brother to the other, thus omitting two names.

The text reads: “After the sale of Fountain Flats Jan Hendrickse Bruyn’s share of the Loonenburg Patent came into the possession of Cornelis Machielis October 30th 1685. He sold it to Jacob Hallenbeck [two names missing here] and Jochem Collier. The first left his part to his oldest son Jacob Casper Hallenbeck. The second [Dirck Teunis Van Vechten] left his part to his oldest son Teunis Dirck Van Vechten.

The third [Jan Hallenbeck] transmitted his share to his son Casper Jans Hallenbeck, and Jochem Collier let his part to his oldest son, Isaac Collier. A deed reciting these facts is now in the possession of Jonas Collier.” Beers’ History, retrieved 1/1/2016.

11

12

ERA 2:290–91.

13

Ibid., 292.

Ibid., 322–23. Pieter Woglum would later escort Lutheran Minister Justus Falckner on his first voyage up the Hudson in 1704 to view his new itinerant territory.

14

15

Beers’ History, retrieved 1/1/2016.

16

Ibid.

17

ERA 3:359.

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de Halve Maen

from the deed records, began sometime in the late 1670s. Court records verify his presence in Albany County prior to April 1679, when Sheriff Richard Pretty advised that “the negress of Major Abm. Staes, named Mary, is again pregnant and in the last stages of pregnancy, and that Cornelis, the baker, who is also a servant in the aforesaid house, has already twice paid a fine to the preceeding sheriff for having slept with her.” Klinkenbergh was located across the Hudson River from Staats’ house, located near the confluence of the Kinderhook and Claverack kills.

Although he admitted fathering the two previous children, Cornelis denied the allegation regarding the third. A six-man jury on June 3, 1679, reported its verdict: “The person of Corn. Michielse is not guilty of being the father of the negress’ last child.”19 There is no indication in the record as to whether the sexual relations that produced the first two children were consensual or whether Cornelis Michielse took advantage of the Staats’ “servant” being a slave.

The wayward baker next appears in the court records on November 7, 1682, again over a matter of sexual indiscretion. Jacob Phenix accused his wife, Niesie Ysbrants, of committing adultery with his business partner Cornelis Michielse. Adultery being a capital crime at the time, a jury was once again empaneled to hear testimony. In his introductory remarks, Phenix testified about “the bad and adsurd conduct of his wife, which is intolerable to an honest heart and now notorious, being revealed by her about a month ago, ‘when I intended for special reasons to separate from my partner, Cornelis Michielse, alias d’Backer.’ ”20 The court’s verdict went against Niesie and her illicit lover. “The jury, having brought in their verdict, find that according to all the testimony and the circumstances Niesie, the defendant is guilty of adultery.”21 Although the finding was technically against Neisie Ysbrants, the court immediately expressed displeasure with Cornelis Michielse as well. “It is resolved by the honorable court that Cornelis Michielse shall be taken prisoner by the sheriff and the constables and be brought here to this place.”22 Matters continued to spiral downward for the Klinkenbergh baker the next day when the court called a special session to discuss various matters concerning him. Maj. Abraham Staats, his cross-river neighbor and former employer, accused Cornelis Michielse of slander based on evidence provided by Jacob Phenix, among others. Also that day,

Myndert Frederickse placed an attachment for “330 schepels of wheat and 22 beavers on Cornelis Michielse’s entire estate and property, on account of the purchase of his farm and cattle.”23 Niesie Ysbrants appeared penitent before the court, openly confessing her adultery and begging forgiveness. Afterwards, however, she managed to escape from prison. The court issued a summons for both Niesie and Cornelis to turn themselves in within three days. When that didn’t happen, the court issued attachments against Cornelis Michielse’s real estate.24 As part of this process on December 5, 1682, “Myndert Frederikse, appearing in court, produces his account against d’Backer regarding the purchase of his land called Klinckenbergh, showing that there is due to him fl. 563:8 in beavers, amounting at the rate of 5 schepels of wheat to the beaver to 3521/8 schepels of wheat. He requests that a memorandum may be made hereof and that the attachment

secured by him may take effect.”25 Cornelis reacted to all this by running away.

With the case still unresolved into the winter of 1683, partial closure came to one of the parties when Niesie Ysbrants’ family petitioned for her pardon. They reported she was distraught “about the manifold sins committed by her with Cornelis Machielse, which have led her, while being kept in confinement, to escape, without, however, breaking or forcing locks or bars.” The petitioners continued, “She is much perturbed 18 A. J. F. Van Laer, trans., Minutes of the Court of Albany, Rensselaerswyck and Schenectady 1665–1685, 3 vols.

(Albany, 1926), 2:401 (hereafter MCARS).

19

Ibid., 417–18.

20

Ibid., 3:295–96.

21

Ibid., 298.

22

Ibid., 299.

23

Ibid., 300.

24

Ibid., 301.

Ibid., 303–305. There seems to be some fuzzy math involved in the calculation.

25

EVOLUTION: Circa 1870, this map shows the Klinkenbergh area of Coxsackie with the name evolved to “burgh” (village or town) rather than the original “bergh” (hill or mountain). According to Town Historian Michael Rausch, the railroad shown in the map existed for only a brief time between the 1860s until its destruction in 1876. “It was called the ‘Athens & Schenectady Railroad,’ and nicknamed ‘The White Elephant,’ ” Rausch explained. The Beers Atlas map is part of the Greene County Maps collection at the Vedder Library in Coxsackie.

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in mind, on the one hand because she fears each moment that she will be apprehended by the court and at the very least publicly disgraced and exposed at the pillory and, on the other hand, because there appears before her eyes the punishment with which God threatens those who are guilty of such offense [i.e. execution].”

Softened by the plea, court magistrates (including Marten Gerritsen van Bergen, Myndert Frederickse’s brother-in-law) advised the petitioners to bring Niesie “before the magistrates to pray God and the court for forgiveness for her crimes.” When she appeared two days later, the court approved her pardon, but put her on lifetime probation. “If she shall happen to misbehave herself in one way or another her pardon will by their honors be considered as null and void and that on the contrary she will be punished as is proper for the offenses committed by her.”26 As for Cornelis Michielse, he remained at large through the winter and into the spring and summer. Various creditors sought to recoup money from his attached estate, including his former partner Jacob Phenix, Sheriff Richard Pretty and Myndert Frederickse.27 Finally, on September 11, 1683, Sheriff Pretty informed the court that Cornelis Michielse “has dared to show himself here as if he had done nothing wrong, whereupon the plaintiff took him into custody. He [Pretty] requests that for the said crimes he [Michielse] may be arbitrarily punished as an example to others.”28 Denying the accusations against him regarding both the adultery and the slander against Abraham Staats, Cornelis was remanded to jail to await another jury trial to hear his evidence. At his trial on October 2, 1683, the twelve-man jury returned a mixed verdict, “finding the defendant guilty of having committed adultery with niesie, according to the testimony and credible circumstances.” They fined him 15 pounds sterling and ordered him to pay a bond of 100 pounds to insure his future good behavior. They deferred any finding on the slander charge “because the defendant has already declared Maj. Abraham to be an honest man.”29 Cornelis appealed the guilty finding.

His appeal to the provincial Court of Assizes, however, died in transit. Records of the Court of Assizes end in 1682, at the beginning of the Dongan administration, and in 1683–1684 the court was abolished.

Unsure how to proceed, the baker appealed to the local court for a reduction of his

fine, “because he can not well afford the expense.” Court magistrates reduced the portion due to the city.30 As the deed record above shows, it was soon after this that several land transfers occurred as Cornelis Michielse attempted to settle accounts while relocating to New York City.

A Manhattan Reformed Church marriage record from 1692 relates the conclusion of the sordid tale. “Cornelis Michielszen, wed. van Niesje Ysenbrants, en Lysbeth jacobs, wed. Van Wibrant Abrahamszen, beyde wonende alhier. den 17 Apr. (Cornelis Michielse, widower of Niesje Ysbrants, and Lysbeth Jacobs, widow of Wibrant Abrahamse, both living here, [were married] on the 17th of April, 1692.)”31 As this entry proves, the two convicted adulterers Cornelis the baker and Niesie Ysbrants had married following their ignominious departure from Klinkenbergh. Niesie died a few years later.

Church Records: So the Klinkenbergh neighborhood that began with a farm about 1670 had expanded by the 1680s into a small neighborhood with at least a few residents including a farmer and his laborers, a baker and his partner. Early Lutheran Church records bring the Klinkenbergh story into the eighteenth century.

Extant records for the Zion Lutheran Church of present-day Athens start with the ordination of the Rev. Justus Falckner in November 1703 and the beginning of his itinerant ministry extending from New Jersey up the Hudson River to Albany.

Falckner’s preserved church records show that he continued to serve the Lutheran congregation “at Klinckenbergh” throughout his tenure.32 These records, transcribed from Domine Falckner’s own notes, provide a great deal of data regarding his ministry and the growth of Lutheranism in the Hudson Valley. The records include both baptisms and marriages performed by Falckner during his nearly two-decade ministry. Many of the entries list the location where the ceremony took place, and by focusing on these entries it is easy to track Falckner’s movements up and down the Hudson Valley, and particularly to focus on his visits to the Lutheran congregations in Albany County, which at that time included portions of today’s Greene and Columbia Counties.

In 1704, the first full year of Falckner’s ministry, there were only two physical Lutheran church structures identified in the records, one on Manhattan and the other in Albany. He made his first trip to the lat-

ter church in June 1704. Otherwise, he performed ceremonies at general meeting locations, often at a member’s house, such as a wedding on June 11, 1705, “at the house of Johan Caspersen [Hallenbeck] at Kockshagki.” Falckner’s first recorded visit to Klinkenbergh was on June 10, 1705, but this and subsequent Klinkenbergh visits do not specify whether it is the farm or the neighborhood bearing that name. In locations that had Lutheran worship services without the comfort of a dedicated church structure, he recorded the event as a “meeting,” such as performing a baptism “at our meeting at Klinckenbergh” (in onze vergadering op Klinckenberg) on May 26, 1706.

In 1708, Falckner paid two visits to Klinkenbergh, performing a baptism in June and a marriage in November when Jan van Loon Jr. wed Rebecca Jansen Hallenbeck. Falckner was back again in April 1709 to unite Jan Jr.’s brother Albert van Loon in marriage to Rebecca’s cousin Maria Casperse Hallenbeck.33 Falckner’s next visit to Klinckenberg was in August 1710, when he performed a baptism. He returned in early December, and this time he spent the entire winter in the northern communities, ministering to Albany and Klinkenbergh Lutherans between December 7 and April 22.

Falckner repeated this strategy during the winter of 1711–1712, but something different is apparent at this juncture. In addition to three baptisms at Klinkenbergh and one on Easter Sunday at “our church at Albany,” he performed four baptisms and a marriage at Loonenburg, including one identified as at “our meeting,” indicating worshipers gathered at this new location for the first time. Staying at the north end of his ministry route again during the 1712–1713 winter, however, all Falckner’s recorded activity was again focused in Klinkenbergh or Albany with no services in Loonenburg.

This pattern repeated during the following three winters, but the winter of 1716–1717 26

Ibid., 318–20.

27

Ibid., 339–40, 347, 360–61.

28

Ibid., 387.

29

Ibid., 396.

30

Ibid., 477.

Samuel S. Purple, Records of the Reformed Dutch Church in New Amsterdam and New York: marriages from 11 December, 1639, to 26 August, 1801 (New York, 1890, reprint, 1997), 72.

31

This and all subsequent references to the records are from Holland Society, Theodore M. Banta, sec., Yearbook of Holland Society of New York (New York, 1903), 5–58.

32

This is the Albert who later donated land in Loonenburg for a Lutheran church.

33

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ITINERANT LUTHERAN DOMINE: A title page from a book written by Domine Justus Falckner early in his Hudson Valley ministry. Written in the style of early Christian apologists, the volume defended Lutheran doctrine against attacks from the prevailing Reformed Church in New York. “The body of the book consists,” explains Falckner biographer Julius Sachse, “of a series of questions and answers.

The last two pages are taken up with hymns…of his own composition.”

(Julius F. Sachse, Justus Falckner: Mystic and Scholar, Lancaster, Pa.: New Era Printing Co., 1903, p. 87)

saw another shift in Falckner’s itinerary. For the first time since 1712, the records show another visit to Loonenburg, for a baptism at “the house of Albert van Loon.” Equally significant is the indication of both a baptism and a marriage “at the house of Francis Hardick at Klaverack,” across the river.

Justus Falckner married Gerritje Hardick at the New York church in May 1717, and the following winter, the preacher again shared his northern ministry between Klinkenbergh and Loonenburg on the west bank of the river and Claverack on the east bank.

Continuing his seasonal residence in the Upper Hudson Valley during the 1718–1719 winter, Falckner’s records show him refocusing on the evolving community just south of Klinkenbergh, where he performed one baptism and two marriages “in my lodgings at Lonenburg.” During the following winter of 1719–1720, Falckner’s northern stay extended even longer, from mid-November until mid-May, including a few brief excursions to the growing Paletine immigrant “camp” at Rhinebeck. He performed but one ceremony in Klinkenbergh that winter, a marriage in January. In addition, he crossed over to Claverack on the river’s east side in mid-April for a couple of weddings and a baptism “at the house of Hannes van Husum.” Most of his effort that winter, however, occurred in Loonenburg, including eight baptisms and seven marriages.

Domine Falckner’s interest in Claverack becomes clear during his wintertime residence during 1720–1721. On November 20, he performed a baptism during a worship service “in our meeting in my house at Preuwenhoeck at Claverack.” Unlike the

previous winter, there were no recorded sacraments celebrated at either Loonenburg or Klinkenbergh. Instead, there were eight baptisms and five marriages at Claverack. By the following winter of 1721–1722, Falckner had renamed his residence “Gospelhoeck.”

Again, he performed most of the recorded ministerial services at Claverack, with only one baptism occurring at Klinkenbergh and nothing at all recorded in Albany.

His shift in focus was noted in a biography of Melchior Muhlenberg, a later New York Lutheran minister, in which an itemized list of fourteen congregations in the mid-eighteenth century includes Albany, Loonenburg, and Gospelhoeck, but not Klinkenbergh.34 Of these, the congregation at Albany had severely dwindled. Records show that by November 1727, the number of Albany Lutherans no longer justified maintaining a separate church. Instead, Lutheran ministerial duties were performed “in the English [Anglican] Church at Albany.”

Falckner’s last recorded service to the Klinkenbergh neighborhood came in February 1723, a few months before his death at the age of 51. Albert van Loon donated land in Loonenburg in 1724, and shortly thereafter the congregation built its first church structure, known as the “Bee Hive.”35 Later New York Lutheran Church records show that by 1730, Loonenbergh’s Lutheran presence had grown to the point where marriages were performed “at our Church in Loonenburg.”

Falckner’s replacement as New York’s Lutheran pastor was William Christoph Berkenmeyer, whose detailed records of his pastorship have been translated and

compiled into a book titled The Protocol of Albany. One pertinent entry relates a financial transaction from many years earlier that demonstrates the importance of the Lutheran congregation at Klinkenbergh.

The Pastor also reported that Mr. Sam. Van Vechten had paid a piece of eight on behalf of his brother Hannes for our pall, which must be sent to Albany. But since he had been asked for payment for two previous uses, he had informed us through Mr. Teunis van Vechten that the first time he got the pall from Albany and the second time from Klinkenberg, and that he had returned the pall to both places with payment for it. Everyone said that Mr. Van Vechten was a reliable man, who would tell only the truth.36 Samuel Van Vechten’s rentals of the pall “for two previous uses” were most likely for the death of his parents, Dirck Teunisse Van Vechten in 1702 and Jannetje Michielse (Vreeland) Van Vechten, who died after 1711. Even though the Klinkenbergh Lutheran congregation had no church of their own, they were organized enough to have a pall to rent out for funerals.

Etymology: One final primary source of information about Klinkenbergh comes from the name itself. Traditionally, the name Klinkenbergh has been generally translated as “Echo Hill.” This dates back to an essay in Beers’ 1884 History of Greene County.

According to a contribution in the book by William Pelletreau, “Klinkenberg, or Echo Hill, is the range of elevated land to the north of Four Mile Point” and included an orchard.37 It is significant that the Dutch language persisted in much of the upper Hudson Valley into the mid-nineteenth century, and it was only after Dutch eventually faded that the English translation “Echo Hill” surfaced.

With this in mind then, is Echo Hill an accurate translation? Is that what it meant to the seventeenth century Dutch inhabitants who coined the name?

Another reference from the early 1900s comes from C. G. Hine, who describes the Leonard F. Riforgiato, Missionary of Moderation: Henry Muhlenberg and the Lutheran Church in English America (Lewisburg, Pa., 1980), 73, note 44.

34

Zion Lutheran Church 275th Anniversary Celebration booklet (November 26, 1978).

35

John P. Dern, ed., Simon Hart, trans., The Albany Protocol: William Christoph Berkenmeyer’s Chronicle of Lutheran Affairs in New York Colony, 1731–1750 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1971), 140. Samuel’s sister Fytje had married Lutheran William Janse Casperse Halenbeck of Coxsackie in 1697.

36

37

Beers’ History, retrieved 12/29/2015.

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road leading south from Coxsackie to Athens (Route 385) as follows: “As we proceed, the road gradually mounts the slope of Klinkenberg, or Echo Hill.”38 Hine refers to the hill located below the town of Coxsackie, outlined by Four-Mile Point Road to the north and east, and Madarasz Road to the south, with Route 385 running over the crest of the hill. A conservation group called Scenic Hudson purchased the eastern slope of the hill in 2009, and it is now known as the Vosburgh Swamp Natural Area.39 A third secondary-source reference to the location comes from Delber Clark’s 1946 biography of Justus Falckner. His imaginative telling of Falckner’s initial voyage up the Hudson to examine his ministry route has the minister’s boat “sailing close to a concave cliff which rose from the water’s edge and overtopped the mast of the Unity.

The smooth surface of the rock echoed the travelers’ voices. This was the Klinckenberg, the Sounding Hill. A little way above this rock their course came close to the west bank, where a well-kept farm stretched along the waterside. A small stone house stood near the river. On a gentle slope behind it an orchard was just coming into bloom.”40 Where Hine identified Klinkenbergh as being inland along today’s Rt. 385, Clark suggests it is the cliffs at Four-Mile Point.

In these references, the translation of the name Klinkenbergh as Echo Hill, is problematic. Bergh is easy enough. It is the Dutch word for hill or mountain often used as a

MISTRANSLATION: Another map from Frederick W. Beers, dated 1891, shows the Klinkenbergh farm surrounded by numerous ice houses along the Hudson River. By the late nineteenth century, the term Klinkenbergh had come to be incorrectly translated as “Echo Hill.” (Image courtesy of Coxsackie Town Historian Michael Rausch).

combining suffix, such as the old Rensselaerswijck farm named Hoogebergh (high hill).

But the root klinken has no definition that means echo. Rather, it is an onomatopoetic Dutch word that refers primarily to the ringing or pealing of a bell. Among its translated definitions and synonyms are: sound, ring, peal, clink, clang and clank. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English word clink derives from the Middle Dutch klincken, “to sound, ring, clink, tinkle.” Their primary definition of the verb clink is “To make the sharp, abrupt metallic sound” such as when two metallic objects or two crystal glasses strike. Among English examples of the word in the OED is one from 1684: “As the fool thinketh, the bell clinketh.” Middle Dutch expert Dr. Charles Gehring, director and principal translator for the New Netherland Institute, could find no other pertinent definitions of the word in his resources.

None of its various meanings indicate a reference to an echo, although the related Dutch word weerklinken can mean to resound or echo. As the earliest reference to the Echo Hill interpretation comes from the late nineteenth century, it begs the question whether the seventeenth-century Dutch thought of the hill, the farm or the nearby village in terms of an echo. Or did they intentionally denote it more exactly as “ringing hill,” and if so, why? Did the hill, perhaps, have something to do with a bell, or maybe multiple cowbells, whose ringing sounds could be heard down to the river?41

It was at the river’s edge, well north of the cliffs mentioned by Clark, that Myndert Frederickse established and leased the original Klinkenbergh farm, and that name survived late into the nineteenth century.

In the deeds included above, one of the later transactions was the purchase of the Klinkenbergh farm by Jacob Casperse Hallenbeck in 1694.42 It is noteworthy that Jacob’s purchase included “the whole of the new orchard and half of the old.” This “old” orchard was likely the two-acre (onemorgen) one specified in the original farm lease from Myndert Frederickse to Harmen Thomasz Hun on April 4, 1670.

Beer’s History includes an 1884 update on the then already two-century-old Klinkenbergh farm on the shores of the Hudson River.

The residence of Mr. George Houghtaling is on the side of the Hudson River, at the place called by the Dutch settlers “Klinkenberg” or Echo Hill. This was the original dwelling place of the “Klinkenberg Hallenbecks,” and here Jacob Hallenbeck, and his son Major Jacob, and other generations lived and died, and are buried on a small hill northwest of the dwelling house, in what was called the “new orchard” as long ago as 1717.43 Coxsackie Town Historian Michael H. Rausch told me in January 2016, “The original stone Houghtaling house, in the right of the drawing [see sketch next page], is still there, and in wonderful shape.” He added, “The larger buildings across the road are gone. This property is located about halfway on Four Mile Point Road, which is between the towns of Athens and Coxsackie. The area was one of the oldest ‘landings’ for vessels to C. G. Hine, The West Bank of the Hudson, Albany to Tappan (Astoria, N.Y., 1906), 30.

38

Billie Dunn, “Scenic Hudson buys land near Vosburgh Swamp,” in the Register Star (Hudson, N.Y., May 29, 2009), online version http://www.registerstar.com/news/ article_b05f72c8-7786-5f80-b7a5-389a49f30e28.html, retrieved 1-22-2016.

39

Delber W. Clark, The World of Justus Falckner (Philadelphia, 1946), 53.

40

Myndert Frederickse is documented as having forged at least one cowbell in his Albany blacksmith shop. Janny Venema, Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652–1664 (Hilversum, 2003), 323.

41

Jacob, his brother Jan Casperse, and Dirck Teunisse Van Vechten were also among the partners purchasing Jan Bruyn’s share of the Loonenburg patent in 1685. In 1697, Jan Casperse’s son William Jansz married Dirck Teunisse’s daughter Fytje.

42

“The Houghtaling Family” in Beers’ History, http://www. rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nygreen2/the_houghtaling_family. htm, retrieved 1/29/2016.

43

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HANDSOME ESTATE: George Houghtaling’s Klinkenbergh Place was grand enough in the 1880s to merit a featured lithograph in the Beers’ History of Greene County, perhaps the high point in the history of the farm originally created two centuries earlier. (Image courtesy of Coxsackie Historian Michael Rausch.)

off-load, and load goods in the Coxsackie area.” He added, “The inland area to the south of the Klinkenberg property is a large swamp, and all the orchards and farm land that were once across the street from it are all overgrown. So, the area is really only referred to as ‘Four Mile Point.’ ” A personal site visit to the Four-Mile Point/Klinkenbergh area in April 2016 found, among other things, that there appears to be no echo discernable anywhere nearby, at least from land, and one local fisherman along the shore was unfamiliar with any nearby echo possibilities.

The Lutheran Blacksmith: Having inventoried the various primary source records above and examined the etymology of the name, it is now time to look at the context of the upper Hudson Valley of the 1670s to zoom the Klinkenbergh story into closer focus. Deed sources show the Klinkenbergh saga begins about the time the farm was leased by Myndert Frederickse van Iveren, and it entered the eighteenth century as a location important to Lutherans. To connect the dots in between, we need to look at the life of Myndert Frederickse and explore whether or not the fact that he was an elder in the Albany Lutheran Church has any significance.

Myndert Frederickse and his brother Carsten were among a sizeable number of colonial American immigrants from the north German town of Jever lying near the North Sea just west of the Denmark Peninsula.45 Myndert and Carston soon emerged among the leading craftsmen in Beverwijck/Albany. Recorded deeds show they were settled in by the early 1650s.46 In addition to hammering out such staples as ironwork for mills, door hinges and latches, nails for carpenters and of course horse-

shoes, both van Iveren brothers supplemented their workload by dabbling in the local fur trade. In a list of those involved in “The Trade” from 1660, Carston Frederickse was listed as one of Beverwijck’s more prominent traders.47 Older brother Myndert Frederickse was included on a longer list of lower-level traders.48 Other than their importance and popularity as master metalsmiths, however, the van Iveren brothers were social outcasts due to their native Lutheran religious beliefs. Toleration of religious conscience that became a trademark of the European Netherlands during the Reformation of the sixteenth century was largely absent in New Netherland during

the seventeenth century. This was in part due to the efforts of West India Company directors like Kiliaen van Rensselaer to champion the Dutch Reformed religion in America to the near exclusion of all others.49 There was a problem with this preference, however. Those promoting settlement The cellar hole of the former large barn is still visible on the site.

44

John Oluf Evjen, Scandinavian Immigrants in New York, 1630–1674 (Minneapolis, 1916), 410.

45

46

ERA, 1:203–205.

Charles Gehring, trans. and ed., Fort Orange Court Minutes: 1652–1660 (Syracuse, 1990), 491.

47

48

Ibid., 501–502.

Karen Sivertsen, “Babel on the Hudson: Community Formation on Dutch Manhattan” (Duke University, PhD dissertation, 2007), 166; Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt (Ithica, N.Y., 1977), 151, 201–202.

49

LUTHERAN IMMIGRANTS: Beverwijck/Albany Blacksmiths Myndert Frederickse and Carston Frederickse van Iveren came to New Netherland in the 1650s from their hometown of Jever, Germany, located on the North Sea about midway between Denmark and the Netherlands.

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SYMBOL OF THEIR FOUNDER: Images of a swan, representing Martin Luther, are common throughout Lutheranism. This image from Sachse’s biography of Domine Justice Falckner shows the graceful bird incorporated into the seal of the Albany Lutheran Church.

of New Netherland were unable to find a sufficient number of Reformed individuals willing to leave behind a comfortable life in the Calvinist-dominated Dutch cities in exchange for a backwoods existence on a wild and dangerous new continent. Forced to take whomever they could scrape together, a wide mixture of beliefs filtered through into the province. “No religion is publicly exercised but the Calvinist,” wrote the Jesuit priest Isaac Jogues in 1644 of the Fort Orange region, “and orders are to admit none but Calvinists, but this is not observed; for besides Calvinists there are in the colony Catholics, English Puritans, Lutherans, Anabaptists, here called Mnistes, etc.”50 After 1647, Lutherans in New Netherland had not only the WIC leadership working against them, they also had to deal with an especially closed-minded governor. Petrus Stuyvesant was the son of a Reformed Church domine. His inherent intolerance for other beliefs, including Catholics, Jews and Quakers as well as Lutherans, became one of his trademark characteristics. Over the next two decades, he made every attempt to block New Netherland Lutherans from openly congregating.51 Today’s Netherlands has a centuries-old reputation as a bastion of religious freedom.

But it was the English takeover of 1664 that brought toleration of different beliefs to Dutch-American Lutherans, Quakers, Anglicans and even to some degree, Catholics.

After New York’s first English Governor Richard Nicolls had secured the civil side of his new provincial government, he received in 1666 the following instruction from James, the Duke of York, regarding the province’s Lutherans: “Wherein it is perticulerly signifyed unto me that his Royall Highness [Charles II] doth approve of ye Tolleration given to ye Lutheran Church in theise partes I doe therefore expect that you live friendly & peaceably wth those of that

profession giving them no disturbance in ye Exercise of their Religion.”52 Religious diversity was to Prince James a personal issue. Still officially an Anglican at the time, he converted to Roman Catholicism two years later.

Taking advantage of this new promise of tolerance, Myndert Frederickse became over time one of Albany’s leading Lutheran church officials. He was the lead signatory of a petition in 1673 to retain religious liberty during the brief return to Dutch rule.53 He was also a principal in discharging the mortgage for the Lutherans’ own church property in 1680, at which time he was listed as a church elder.54 As noted earlier, Myndert Frederickse also became active in real estate transactions in the Coxsackie/Loonenburg area, beginning before 1670. Not a farmer himself (although his wife was the daughter of an early Rensselaerswijck farmer), he perhaps was inspired to become a farm landlord from the example of fellow Albany Lutheran Volkert Jansen Douw.55 Significantly, the area in which he invested was near where Pieter Bronck, another Lutheran, built his homestead in 1663.56 Many of van Iveren’s partners in these transactions were also Lutherans, and collectively they seem to have had a loose strategy in their land speculation. “Albany townsmen found economic opportunity and relief from harassment and religious oppression by acquiring land beyond Beverwyck and Rensselaerswyck,” notes Kinderhook historian Ruth Piwonka. “Lutherans joined the migration to unclaimed, unoccupied lands in outlying areas of Athens and made most of the major purchases and initial property development in the southern areas.”57 Delber Clark’s Falckner biography, cited above, also explored the migration of Lutherans into the Coxsackie area. Beginning in the early 1660s, he explained, “German and Scandinavian settlers were ready purchasers of land.” Among these,

Clark lists Pieter Jonassen Bronck, Jan Fransen van Hoesen, Jan Clute, and Albany Church Elder Jan Hendrickse van Bruyns.

“A little later, Myndert Fredericksen, from Jever in Oldenburg, became a landowner in the Athens section. This buying of land provided a place for Lutheran settlers in the area where later Zion Church at Athens was founded.”58 In order to understand Myndert Frederickse’s contribution to this southward Lutheran migration, it is necessary to explore exactly what a Lutheran church “elder” was. This is difficult, because in the seventeenth century, there was no official definition of a Lutheran elder. Rather, it was a loosely understood lay position similar to, but somewhat above, the more common and understood office of deacon.

“When a younger pastor asks an older pastor about lay elders,” notes American Lutheran scholar Albert Collver, “the older pastor just shrugs his shoulders and says something to the effect, ‘They are what they are.’ No one really seems to know what the lay elder is because we have forgotten our history.”59 Collver, however, assumes that the earliest American Lutheran congregations, in order to exist, always had an ordained minister advising their elders, deacons and other lay officers. But for the J. Franklin Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland (New York, 1909), 260. It’s interesting that Jogues separates “English Puritans” from other Calvinists.

50

E. T. Corwin, ed., Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York, 7 vols. (Albany, 1901–1916), 1: 317, 322, 352, 357, 359–60, 515–16; Stokes, 4:142; Charles Gehring and Janny Venema, Fort Orange Records (Syracuse, 2009), 87-88.

51

52 E. B. O’Callaghan and Berthold Fernow, trans., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 15 vols. (Albany, 1856–1887), 14:626.

53

Ibid., 2:617.

54

ERA, 2:73.

55

ERA, 1:353–54; 3:130–31, 435–36.

The house still stands, now run as the Pieter Bronck Museum, which, along with the neighborning Vedder Library, are valuable resources operated by the Greene County Historical Society.

56

Ruth Piwonka, “The Lutheran Presence in New Netherland,” in de Halve Maen 60 (1987), 1:4.

57

Delber Wallace Clark, “Zion Lutheran Church at Athens, New York: European Events and American Results,” in New York History 20:4 (New York State Historical Association, October 1939), 440–41. Marten Gerritsen van Bergen, also mentioned by Clark, was actually a devoted Reformed Church parishioner, not a Lutheran.

58

Albert Collver, “Lay Elders: A Brief Overview of Their Origin in the Missouri Synod Implications for Elders Today” in Concordia Journal (St. Louis, January 2006), 38. In its eccliastical sense, the word “elder” derives from the Greek presbyteros. In the earliest days of the Christian Church, before ordained leaders, it was the elders who held congregations together. It was to the presbyters of churches in Corinth, Thessalonica, Galatia, etc., that Paul wrote the epistles later canonized in the New Testament.

59

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early Lutheran churches in New York and Albany, that simply was not always the case. The Reformed-dominated civil administration systematically prevented it.

Even after 1664, when Albany Lutherans were finally at liberty to hire a minister, their selection of candidates was so sparse, they ended up with the controversial Jocobus Fabricus.60 Despite this, the Lutheran faith persisted in Albany, finally gaining an eventual degree of stability after engaging pastor Bernard Arnzius, who presided over congregations in both Albany and New York from 1674 to 1691.61 Lutheran Migration Continues: Arnzius’s death in 1691 began another gap in ordained leadership for the Albany congregation and re-inspired the southern move of Albany Lutherans to the Coxsackie area. “Absence of clergy in the 1690s made the Lutheran congregation languish,” notes Piwonka. “Several Lutheran families found relief by moving to rural areas of Albany County.”62 In particular, they migrated to those areas purchased earlier by their Lutheran brethren south of Albany and Rensselaerswijck.

It wasn’t until Domine Justus Falckner began his ministry that New York Lutheranism once again regained its footing. By that time, however, the Albany Lutheran population was largely depleted, as the baptism and marriage statistics cited above bear out. “At Lunenbergh and northward toward Coxsackie and Kinderhook, Lutheranism flourished for a long time,” writes Piwonka.63 The southward Lutheran shift is effectively symbolized by the loss of their own church property in Albany about the same time as they added a new church building in Loonenburg.

It appears the connecting link through the formative years of Upper Hudson Lutheranism was Elder Myndert Frederickse van Iveren. His efforts were recognized up and down the Hudson River. When Justus Falckner first began his ministry in November 1703, he reportedly was urged to visit Albany as soon as possible to visit the aging blacksmith.

“It had been hoped by many in both congregations that the new pastor would be able to make it to Albany in time to minister to the venerable Myndert Frederickse in his last illness. He was the sole remaining elder of the Albany congregation,” writes Albany Lutheran Church historian Henry Heins. “But unfortunately, events conspired to keep Pastor Falckner in New York City

until mid-spring. . . . They reached Albany too late, and found the old blacksmith was dead. Among the treasured possessions in his will, the loyal old churchman had specifically mentioned ‘my church book with the silver chain and clasps.’ Myndert Frederickse was the last remaining member of the Albany church council, since no new elders or deacons had been chosen since the days of the Arnzius pastorate.

His death left the congregation completely disorganized.”64 Contrast this with the following description in the Beers History regarding the church at Klinkenbergh when Falckner first took over. “In 1703 the church officers were: Jan Hendrickse Bruyn & Andreas Van Buskirk, elders; Peter Van Wopton, Kerk Meester (sexton), Lawrence Van Buskirk (voor stander), Hans Lagrancie and John Vick (deacons), Samuel Beekman (chorister).”65 Unfortunately, the church book mentioned in Myndert Frederickse’s will was not preserved as the blacksmith wished.

Had it survived, the information contained therein would no doubt help explain the gradual thirty-year shift of upper Hudson Lutherans from Albany to Klinkenbergh between the early 1670s, when Myndert Frederickse first leased out the farm named Klinkenbergh, and the early 1700s, when Falckner discovered there a fully functional congregation run by lay leaders.

have a different meaning significant to the prevalence of Lutherans in the area?

As it turns out there was another instance of religious intolerance in Albany that might have a bearing on that name. This particular confrontation between Albany Lutherans and the dominant Reformed Church occurred in January 1671. Although individual church spokesmen are not specified in the records, it is likely that as a dedicated lay church leader, Myndert Frederickse was involved in the matter: A petition is presented by those of the Augsburg [i.e. Lutheran] Confession whereby they request that the bell may be rung on Thursday evenings to announce their services.

Whereupon it is resolved to give for answer that their honors can not grant the request and that it is contrary to all reason, but that they may hold their services on the same days as those of the Reformed Church and regulate themselves accordingly on the Sabbath and likewise on Wednesdays.66 It appears from the translated wording that the petition refers to “the bell” generally used for community purposes. It is also possible that it refers to a second bell belonging solely to the Lutheran congregation. Van Iveren was, after all, a metalsmith capable of crafting a bell in his shop. But 60

Final Connecting Link: But why the name Klinkenbergh?

We have two key reference points: Myndert Frederickse’s church leadership in Albany and his ownership and lease of a farm below Coxsackie that adopted the name Klinkenbergh. Since that name apparently doesn’t connote an “Echo Hill,” as later Englishmen translated it, does the name perhaps

Piwonka, 2.

Joel Munsell, Annals of Albany, 10 vols. (Albany, 18501859), 6:47; Dankers/Shulyter, 217n; Piwonka, 2.

61

62

Piwonka, 2.

63

Ibid., 3

64

Henry H. Heins, Swan of Albany (Albany, 1976), 33.

Ann Clapper, “Zion Lutheran Church of Athens – Baptisms” in Beers’ History, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry. com/~nygreen2/zion_lutheran.htm, retrieved 12/29/2015.

65

66

MCARS, 1:211.

EARLIER FOUNDING: The sign in front of the Zion Lutheran Church of Athens claims a founding date of 1703. Records demonstrate, however, that when Domine Justus Falckner began his ministry at that time, there was already a fully formed congregation centered in the hamlet known as Klinkenbergh a few miles to the north, dating as far back as the 1670s.

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the remarkable coincidence of this bell petition is that it comes at the same time as the first known documented reference to the name Klinkenbergh. And as explained above, klinken has a primary definition referring to the ringing of a bell.

One appealing possibility is that Myndert Frederickse, upset by yet another Calvinist insult to his faith in 1671, took a bell he had cast in his blacksmith forge and brought it down to the new neighborhood evolving below Coxsackie so Lutherans there could have liberty to ring it unmolested.

Where this bell would have hung is questionable. Clark contends Falckner held services at Hallenbeck’s Klinkenbergh farm, but there is no specific documentary evidence to support this.67 Considering the geography, it is likely that what is now known as Four-Mile Point Road was originally built as an access route between the Klinkenbergh farm and the main path now known as Route 385. The intersection of those two roads comes at the base of the hill that C. G. Hine later referred to as Klinkenbergh. This makes better etymological sense in matching the “bergh” suffix of the name Klinkenbergh to the most obvious hill in the area, the 200-foot-high formation directly behind the farm that took the same name. This hill commands the local landscape, overlooking the Hudson River to the east and Murderer’s Kill to the west, and would have been the logical place to ring a bell and have it heard over the widest possible area.

Over the centuries, members of the Zion

Lutheran Church in Athens have claimed their history begins with the appointment of the Rev. Justus Falckner as pastor in 1703. But one church historian agrees that their beginnings go back even further. “The actual date of the founding of a Lutheran congregation in Athens is obscure,” explains an unidentified writer in a twentiethcentury collection of Greene County church histories. “The fact, however, that the official records begin in the year 1704, and that Pastor Justus Falckner made Athens his upstate headquarters, indicates beyond a doubt that the congregation in Athens had its beginning much earlier than 1704.

The lack of a definite date for the founding of Zion has led them to use the year 1703 simply because this was the earliest date about which there can be no question.”68 It seems a strong possibility that the name Klinkenbergh originated from the ringing of a bell calling all Lutherans within earshot to a regional “church meeting” in the early 1670s. From there, it quickly developed into a designation for the hill, the farm and the entire church neighborhood.

Carrying this hypothesis even further, it is clear that the ratio of Lutheran to Reformed residents in the Coxsackie-Loonenburg area was higher than in the repressive religious climate of Albany. It might well have been the strategy of Myndert Frederickse and Lutheran partners Jan Clute, Jan Hendricksen Bruyns, Pieter Bronck and later the van Loons and Hallenbecks, to create a new community several miles to the south as a religious refuge. If things

worked out, they might even be able one day to form their own court, with their own magistrates who would not attach barriers to their conscience.

“Oppression of Lutherans was a significant impetus for leaving Beverwyck/ Albany,” concludes Piwonka. “The right to free religious expression was of utmost importance the them.” By hanging a bell on a new hilltop gathering place, it would have become the symbol of this religious liberty, a symbol those within earshot gave a name—Klinkenbergh.

In the last days of Myndert Frederickse van Iveren’s life, his lay ministry effort reached its ultimate goal with the appointment of Domine Justus Falckner. It was Falckner who in 1704 found an alreadyorganized congregation of Klinkenbergh Lutherans and began documenting baptisms and marriages for its membership.

Here he found families with names like van Hoesen, Bronck, van Buskirk, Bradt, Hallenbeck and van Schaick from towns like Coxsackie, Loonenburg, Normanskill (Bethlehem), Albany, and across the river from Claverack and Kinderhook who had for some thirty years responded to the klink of the bell and gathered for worship at their own “church meeting” on the bergh.69 67

Clark, 61–62, 66–67.

“Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church,” in Year of History: Early Histories of Churches in Greene County, part of the collection at the Vedder Library, Coxsackie, N.Y., accessed 4-20-2016. The author might have been the Rev. Luther S. Straley, pastor of the church from 1929 to 1973.

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Clapper, “Zion Lutheran Church,” retrieved 1-24-2016.

ENDURING LEGACY: A handsome riverfront property, the historic Klinkenbergh farmhouse still stands, although the former large barn across the road is visible only as a cellar hole. It was the original house of the “Klinkenbergh Hallenbecks.”

According to local historian Michael Rausch, “Here Jacob Hallenbeck, his son Major Jacob and other generations lived and died, and are buried on a small hill northwest of the dwelling house, in what was called the ‘new orchard.’ ”

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Book Review Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016).

W

IM KLOOSTER is not the first historian to study the seventeenth-century Dutch Empire nor to put the expansive Golden Age in an Atlantic history context. But what he does is provides the most “comprehensive overview of the Dutch Atlantic” to date, creating a resource that will become the standard reference on the subject for years to come.

And comprehensive it is. Klooster, professor of History at Clark University, must have read just about everything written in Spanish, French, Dutch, English, Portuguese, and German on the Dutch Atlantic experience (see his 133 pages of footnotes), and when he found secondary sources wanting, he conducted his own research in archives in Spain, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. But Klooster does not write for historians only. Readers of all stripes will delight in the wealth of fascinating detail he liberally but meaningfully shares, accumulated through years of prodigious research. Just as seventeenth-century Dutchmen collected exotic items in Wunderkammern (53), Klooster must have his own academic “cabinet of curiosities,” the contents of which he delights in sharing. This volume, then, is a stimulating, eminently readable and fascinating guide to the seventeenth-century Dutch Atlantic for both academics and the general enthusiast.

In The Dutch Moment, Klooster sets out to explain how the “Great Transformation”—the challenge to Iberian hegemony in the New World

by Dutch, English, and French in the 1620s to 1670s—was molded by the Dutch, who constructed their “colonial project” in unique and distinctive ways. Substituting a broad Atlantic view for the perspective of a single colony or actions of a single company, Klooster concludes that the Dutch “Grand Design” can be best understood by focusing on three distinctive factors. First and most important was warfare—the Dutch empire was forged on the battlefield, with distinct military objectives that could only be met by sustained combat. Second, the Dutch pursued commercial goals associated with the acquired territory but never limited by it, ready to trade with any willing partner regardless of national affiliation. Finally, as they settled their conquests, the Dutch constructed their colonial world with the help of others and encouraged a colonial population that contained many nationalities and races.

The result was an empire “quintessentially interimperial, multinational and multiracial” (6). The “Dutch Moment,” was when this distinctive empire “left its mark on navigation, cartography, planting, slavery, and trade” (7).

Klooster tracks the rise and fall of the Dutch empire in the first three chapters. He begins by describing the Dutch involvement in Iberian expansion before undertaking their own empire-building efforts. Active as raiders and traders in the sixteenth-century Iberian colonies in Mexico, Peru, and Brazil, the Spanish referred to those from both the northern Dutch and Flemish southern provinces as “flamencos” (12-13). What finally unleashed the “Dutch lion” was the Low Countries’ war for independence from the Spanish Habsburgs and the ascendancy of Amsterdam over Antwerp in the 1590s.

As they expanded their Atlantic trade, the Dutch were heavily influenced by the Portuguese, whose system of trading posts or “factories,” in Africa and theAmericas, served as models. Early involvement in the sugar and brazilwood trade linked Dutch ports with Lisbon and Brazil. By 1599, such large amounts of brazilwood were arriving in Amsterdam that inmates in the city’s first house of correction were forced to “rasp” the wood to obtain the dye for which it was popular (20). The lure of Spanish gold also motivated the Dutch, leading to privateering ventures modeled after English counterparts but undertaken by five Dutch admiralties, a decentralized naval system unique to the Netherlands. Crews of mixed nationalities manned both privateering and trading vessels. Thus, by the early seventeenth century, the Dutch had established the multinational, interimperial foundations for what was to come.

The subsequent expansion of the Dutch empire, described in Chapter Two, depended heavily on naval warfare. With policy momentum coming from Piet Heyn’s 1628 capture of the Spanish Silver Fleet, the “war machine” that was the West India Company [WIC] attacked Portuguese Brazil. The staggering size of the fleet sent to capture Recife in 1629—52 ships and thirteen sloops—was matched by its cost; WIC officials later requesting from the States General a 500,000 guilders grant and an annual subsidy of 700,00 guilders.

Brazil became the Company’s most important investment and focus; underscored by Governor Johan Maurits’s 1637 decision to outfit and launch an assault on Portuguese Elmina from Brazil rather than from the Netherlands. Control of sugar-producing Brazil introduced the Dutch to the African slave trade (discussed in a later chapter).

With firm footholds in Brazil and Western Africa, the Dutch made efforts at colonization in Western Guiana, Tobago, St. Martin, Curaçao, Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and New Netherland. Expansion in the Atlantic led to encounters with indigenous populations that revealed Dutch “preconceived notions.”

Klooster highlights the limitations of Dutch knowledge about the world outside of Europe by sharing stories about mermaid skeletons and cannibalism, that made it easier to think of indigenous peoples as uncivilized humans.

The end for the Dutch empire was signaled by the Brazilian revolt in 1645, caused by, among other reasons, the indebtedness of Portuguese planters to the WIC who now refused to pay, and by the fact that the Portuguese, who retained control of Salvador (Bahia) in southern Brazil, considered their colonial investment “too big to fail.” Interestingly, Brazil’s collapse triggered an avalanche of financial claims against the WIC and the States General, as a string of contractors, suppliers, civil servants, ministers, and even Johan Maurits petitioned for their back pay. The government ultimately refused to satisfy these claims. The subsequent loss of Brazil triggered the decline of the WIC, whose financial position had always been precarious due to the tremendous amount of capital it had invested in war and the plantation economy.

After Brazil was lost in 1654, the WIC’s Zeeland chamber organized new colonization “schemes” in Guiana, Pomeroon, and Essequibo, and Tobago, promising a “second Brazil” in “Nova Zeelandia,” but to no avail.

A final nail in the coffin, especially for New Netherland and Dutch holdings along the African coast, came from wars with England and France. With the WIC’s dissolution in 1674, Dutch military power in the Atlantic ended. The Dutch Moment was over.

In the next chapters Klooster fleshes out the story, first offering a social history of the soldiers and sailors who were essential to “underpin and expand the empire” (143). The Dutch military was barely Dutch at all, its polyglot nature evident, for example, in the composition of the 1629 fleet that conquered Pernambuco, which included Dutch, French, English, Flemish, Dunkirkers, German, Italian, and Portuguese (121). If they survived combat, soldiers were likely to suffer from disease and food shortages with little compensation for loss of eyes and limbs (124). Pay was not only poor but often not forthcoming; a familiar sight in the 1640s were their widows appearing at the doorstep of the States General claiming back wages (120).

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Klooster then moves on to economic history to explain the “interimperial” nature of the Dutch empire, reminding us that it was commerce with foreigners in Africa and European America that was “the anchor of Dutch Atlantic economy” (146). More significant than the flow of commodities back to the United Provinces was the trade in gold, silver, salt, sugar, and slaves with English, French, and Spanish colonies. What made the Dutch such attractive trading partners was their ability to provide vast supplies of manufactured goods at low prices and willingness to extend credit and assume transportation risks (147, 166). By “cruising,” that is, sailing to multiple ports on a single voyage searching for the best trading opportunities, the Dutch gained access foreign markets (164).

In the final two chapters, Klooster turns his focus to those who populated the Dutch empire. Settlement was less important than conquest or commerce. The seventeenthcentury Dutch Atlantic was “more a theater for warfare and a commercial bridge linking the continents” (189). In general, those living in the Republic were not attracted to the Americas. Most who did migrate were servants— artisans, agents of merchants, farm laborers or maids recruited by people already living in America or by their agents in the Netherlands.

Non-Dutch Portuguese Jews dominated the European population in Brazil, the Caribbean, Guiana, and Suriname, and Walloons in Guinea, Curaçao, and St. Eustatius as well as New Netherland. All migrants, however, encountered a cultural landscape dominated

by Dutch legal traditions, food ways, and religious institutions.

Non-Europeans did not have the same experience. Although officially trading partners whose freedom the States General protected, Amerindians were often enslaved on a large scale as in St. Eustatius and Suriname. The position of enslaved Africans was initially flexible and amorphous; in Dutch Salvador, black slaves were treated to some extent like indentured servants, while in New Netherland they initially were permitted certain legal rights. Nevertheless, African labor was always difficult and dangerous; the treatment of black slaves worsened with the rise of a Brazilian sugar plantation economy and the perception of slaves as investments (241). Missionizing efforts toward Amerindians or Africans were modest and rarely effective (248).

In “Epilogue: War, Violence, Slavery, Freedom,” Klooster does not mince words. “Violence was the ultimate expression of what it meant to be Dutch in both a religious and cultural sense” (259), he writes, but then clarifies this broad statement by explaining the targets of violent acts.

Although warfare was essential for the “rise and demise” of Dutch political might in the Atlantic (254), the Grand Design strategy was pursued without concern for cost, lacked a well-articulated imperial system, and clearly overextended itself. Klooster acknowledges the “commercial prowess” of private merchants and their ability to conduct massive intercolonial trade.

While he makes a deliberate effort to engage a general audience with his easy style and interesting detail, he does not shy away

from historical debates. Klooster offers his own thoughtful interpretations, for example, about the degree to which the Dutch were responsible for the rapid rise of the English and French Caribbean sugar industry, or the variations of religious tolerance permitted within the Dutch empire.

As for New Netherland, Klooster firmly believes other areas were more significant to the Dutch empire and focuses his book accordingly. However, by placing New Netherland in the broader Dutch Atlantic context, he offers some fascinating comparisons. We learn that at the same time Walloon families arrived to settle New Netherland in 1624, other Walloon families settled in Guiana and later in Curaçao and St. Eustatius. Patroonships were not restricted to New Netherland but also planned for Guiana, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius, Saba, and Tobago (199). Unlike other Dutch colonies, New Netherland’s population grew significantly in the 1650s and 1660s. Thus, by mid-century, New Netherland became the second most populous colony in the Dutch Atlantic next to Brazil.

In a single volume, Wim Klooster offers an expertly researched, carefully-crafted, skillfully written, eminently readable survey of the seventeenth-century Dutch Atlantic that will certainly become the next classic in the field. Scholars and the general enthusiast alike will be enriched and enthralled after enjoying many moments with The Dutch Moment.

—Dennis Maika New Netherland Institute

Here and There in New Netherland Studies

NNI/NNC Student Scholar in Residence Research Grant

T

HE NEW NETHERLAND Research Center (NNRC), a joint endeavor of the New Netherland Institute (NNI), and the Office of Cultural Education, New York State Education Department (NYSED/OCE), with financial support from the Government of the Netherlands, announces the NNRC Student Scholar in Residence Research Grant. The grant covers a period of up to three months in residence and provides a stipend of $5,000. A time frame for fulfilling the grant requirements will be established in consultation with the Director of NNRC. No housing, travel funds,

or health insurance are provided. Applications are due by May 15, 2017.

Scholars beyond the undergraduate level and actively working on a thesis, dissertation, or scholarly article are invited to apply.

Research must be conducted at the New Netherland Research Center, New York State Library, and the New York State Archives, Albany, NY, in the field of New Netherland history and the Dutch Atlantic world, using the records of New Netherland. Candidates must indicate their research topic in their application. Genealogical research topics are excluded. The applicant should have a working knowledge of contemporary and seventeenth-century Dutch.

The $5,000 stipend is payable in equal

installments upon submission and acceptance by the Director of NNRC of a monthly progress report. At the conclusion of the residency, the student scholar must submit a written report based on their work and deliver a public lecture on their research findings prior to receipt of their final installment.

Applications must consist of a curriculum vita, two letters of recommendation, and a cover letter outlining the research topic and work plan.

Applications may be sent to nyslfnn@ nysed.gov. Please use Student Scholar Grant as subject. Or they may be submitted to the Grants Committee, New Netherland Institute, P.O. Box 2536, ESP Station, Albany, NY 12220-0536.

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O

Society Activities

N THURSDAY EVENING, November 17, 2016, Holland Society of New York Members and their families, Fellows, and Friends gathered at the Union Club in Manhattan for the Society’s 130th Annual Banquet. The gala affair also celebrated Dutch-American Heritage Day and honored Col. Jerry Lynn Ross, a retired United States Air Force officer and former NASA astronaut, who has made a record-setting seven trips in orbit around the earth on the Space Shuttle during his NASA/Air Force career.

The glittering evening began with a cocktail reception held in the Union Club’s opulent grand hall, where Members and guests mingled and met Gold Medalist Colonel Ross as well as the new Dutch Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York, Dolph Hogewoning, his wife Anne-Marth, and Holland Society President Dr. Andrew Terhune and his wife, Marcia, and Secretary of the Third of Oktober Association of Leiden, Dr. Jurgen van der Velden.

Following cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, Holland Society President and Mrs. Terhune, Banquet Chair Stephen S. Wyckoff

Above: Holland Society Medalist Col. Jerry Ross shakes Society President Andrew Terhune’s hand as Banquet Chair Stephen Wyckoff presents his proclamation.

Left: Gold Medalist Colonel Ross proudly displaying his medal. and his wife, Lori, formed a reception line with Colonel Ross and his wife and Consul General Hogewoning and his wife. Doors were then opened onto the grand ballroom, where the Lester Lanin Orchestra played classical American foxtrots and popular Dutch standards. The tables were splendid, set with magnificent floral centerpieces reflecting the colors of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Left and above: Members and guests enjoying cocktails before the banquet.

Left: Former Holland Society Executive Director Annette van Rooy and current Director Odette Fodor-Gernaert.

Chairman Stephen Wyckoff opened the formal ceremonies by welcoming the gathering. The attendees were then requested to stand for the traditional Parading of the Beaver and singing of the Dutch and American national anthems. Following the invocation, President Terhune toasted His Royal Majesty King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Dutch Consul General Dolph Hogewoning toasted President of the United States Barack Obama, and Medalist Colonel Ross toasted The Holland Society of New York. The guests were then invited to enjoy their meal.

After a three-course dinner, which included tournedos of beef with blue cheese gratin and an apple tarte tatin, Banquet Chair Stephen Wyckoff turned the ceremonies over to President Terhune and Consul General Hogewoning. Consul General Hogewoning gave a lively introductory speech to Gold Medalist Colonel Ross. Following Society President Terhune’s presentation of the Gold Medal, Colonel Ross delivered his acceptance speech. Colonel Ross spoke of his connection with his Dutch ancestors and the importance of the Netherlands in his life experiences.

With the formal ceremonies concluded, Chairman Wyckoff thanked the gathering and those who worked to make the evening a success, and presented new Society Administrative Director Odette FodorGernaert with a magnificent floral bouquet.

Many Members and guests remained thereafter to continue dancing and mingling far into the night.

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Niagara Frontier Branch

T

HE NIAGARA FRONTIER Branch of The Holland Society of New York held their Annual Meeting on Wednesday, October 5, 2016, at the Saturn Club in Buffalo, New York. Holland Society President Andrew Terhune joined the Branch event bringing all attendees updates on what the Society is planning on accomplishing this year, and in the future. In addition, President Terhune spoke about his tour of the architectural, historical, and geographical sites within the Niagara Branch area.

The key note speaker for the evening, however, was John Krouse, President of Boston Valley Terra Cotta. Boston Valley Terra Cotta, located in Orchard Park, New York, just south of Buffalo, is a global leader in the manufacturer of architectural terra cotta for historic restoration and new construction. Mr. Krouse’s presentation gave an overview from brick making in early seventeenth-century New Amsterdam to applications of Boston Valley Terra Cotta’s products in the twenty-first century. This was a fascinating presentation describing what craftsmanship and innovation has done with terra cotta in New Netherland and New York over the

Niagara Frontier Branch Members, families, and guests gathered in October 2016 at the the Saturn Club in Buffalo, New York. past four centuries.

The attendees of the Branch Meeting included current Members, some prospective members, Friends, and interested guests.

In attendance were Holland Society President Andrew Terhune, John Krouse, Glen Van Buskirk, Scott Van Buskirk, John and

Alenka Heyer, David and Molly Quackenbush, Connie and Walter Constantine, John Boot, Edward J. Van Deusen, Robert Shibley, Jad and Shelly Cordes, Alex and Danielle Keogan, Tom and Rose Bailey, Joe and Grace Constantine, and Richard Braen.

In Memoriam Paul Ringgold Comegys Sr. Holland Society of New York Life Member Paul Ringgold Comegys Sr. of Sarasota, Florida, passed away quietly on January 13, 2016, at the Glenridge Palmer Ranch in Sarasota. Mr. Comegys was born on July 22, 1920, in Millington, Kent County, Maryland. He was the son of Paul Comegys and Mabel Spear. He claimed descent from Cornelis Corneliszen Comegys, who emigrated prior to 1658 from Lexmond, district of Vianen, Holland. Mr. Comegys joined The Holland Society in 1987.

Mr. Comegys, known as “Inky” to his family and friends, attended Charlotte Hall School and, in 1941, graduated from St. John’s College in Annapolis. In 1942 he joined the United States Navy, later serving as a lieutenant on a destroyer in the Pacific. Following the war, Mr. Comegys settled in Baltimore, where he joined the Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company, his employer until he retired in 1985. In

1956 the company appointed him General Agent and Managing Partner for Central and Southern New Jersey and the family moved to Yardley, Pennsylvania.

Mr. Comegys married Mary Jeanne Strong on March 5, 1943. The couple had two sons, Paul Ringgold Comegys Jr., born on January 9, 1944, and Lawrence Strong Comegys, born on September 18, 1951. Mr. Comegys wife, Mary Jeanne, predeceased her husband in 1998 and his son, Paul, predeceased him in 2009.

Mr. Comegys was active in numerous civic and community activities. During his working career his main passion was restoring the economic and civic vitality of his adopted business home, Trenton, New Jersey. In the early 1970s he cofounded Forward Trenton for that purpose. Mr. Comegys was active in the Episcopal Church and Rotary. In addition, he was a regular fundraiser for a number of organizations, including the American Cancer Society and the Red Cross. He also raised

funds for historic preservation and inner city education.

In 1981, Mr. Comegys and his wife undertook the restoration of her family home in Chestertown, Maryland, built in 1732. Following retirement, he moved permanently to Chestertown. Upon his wife’s death in 1998, he moved full time to Sarasota, Florida.

Mr. Comegys is survived by his son, Lawrence Strong Comegys, a Holland Society Member, and his wife, Jocelyn, of Aiken, South Carolina, his daughter in law, Sally Hislop Comegys, of Sarasota, Florida, five grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. A memorial service was held on June 25, 2016, at St. Paul’s, Kent, Chestertown, Maryland.

Morris Clarke Calyer Holland Society of New York Member Morris Clarke Calyer passed away on March 9, 2016, in Middletown, New York,

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after a brief illness at the age of eighty-two.

Mr. Calyer was born on July 11, 1933, in Cornwall, New York, son of Morris Francis Calyer and Sarah Maria Clarke. He claimed descent from Jochem Caljer who emigrated to New Amsterdam from Mecklenburg, Germany, about 1639. Mr. Calyer joined The Holland Society in 1966.

Mr. Calyer, affectionately known as “Mousy,” “Uncle Mo” and “Clarke,” attended public schools in Cornwall, New York. In high school he was an all-around star athlete. After completing an Associate Degree at Orange Community College, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corp.

Following military service, he continued his education at the University of Maryland.

Mr. Calyer went on to earn a law degree and then a Master in Public Administration from the State University of New York at Albany. He worked for the Federal Communications Commission as a Public Utilities Specialist and later as a judge. He retired from the State of New York Department of Transportation.

On September 2, 1961, Mr. Calyer married Marguerite Ridgaway Stone in Annapolis, Maryland. The couple had three sons, Christopher M., born on January 1963, Kevin Clarke, born on April 1965, and Sean, born on November 25, 1967.

Mr. Calyer was a life-long Terrapins fan and a diehard New York Giants fan. A lover of history and genealogy, in addition to The Holland Society, he was a member of the Cornwall Chicken and Horse Thief Detecting Society. He played golf and socialized at the Storm King Golf Club Mr. Calyer is survived by his former wife, Marguerite, his brother Vincent, his three sons Christopher M. Calyer and his wife, Sue, of Nassau, New York, Kevin Clarke Calyer, and his wife, Claudia, of St. Johnsville, New York, and Sean Calyer and his wife, Betty, as well as three grandsons. His sons Christopher and Kevin are Members of The Holland Society. Funeral arrangements were made by Quigley Brothers Funeral Home of Cornwall-On-Hudson, a mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on March 15, 2016, at St. Thomas of Canterbury Church, Cornwall-On-Hudson, and interment was at St. Thomas Cemetery, Cornwall.

Gilbert Arthur Krom Holland Society of New York Life Member Lt. Colonel (retired) Gilbert Arthur

Krom, passed away on May 19, 2016, at Port Ewen, New York, at the age of eightyfive. Mr. Krom was born on December 24, 1930, in Kingston, New York, son of Carlton Frank Krom and Dorothy Short.

He claimed descent from Gysbert Crom, who emigrated from Tiel, Gelderland, to New Netherland in 1662. He joined The Holland Society in 2001.

Colonel Krom graduated from Kingston High School in 1948. He worked in Krom’s Radio and Television until he was drafted into the United States Army, in which he served from 1952 to 1973. He graduated from Officers Candidate School at Fort Sill, the Associate Field Artillery Career Course, the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a Bachelor of General Education, and the United States Army Command and General Staff College.

Colonel Krom served in Korea, two tours in Germany, and in Vietnam. He was awarded the Legion of Merit, a Bronze Star, the Air Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the Meritorious Unit Citation, the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, and twice the VN Cross of Gallantry with Palm and twice the VN Civil Actions First Class with Oak Leaf Device. He also received the Korean Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal with five Stars, the Reserved Forces Service Medal with Hour Glass, the United Nations Service Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal. In addition, he received the New York State Conspicuous Service Star.

Following retirement from the Army, Colonel Krom worked for Handel Group, Inc., as director of service and administration. During his employment he earned a New York State Insurance Department license to be an independent adjuster for accident and health, a broker’s license, and an agent’s license for life insurance. He also earned an Associate degree in Business Administration with a major in accounting. He retired from the Handel Group in 1990.

In addition to The Holland Society, Colonel Krom was a member of the Empire State Society and of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, a life member of the Klyne Esopus Historical Society, serving as a vice president and trustee, a member of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program as a tax counselor for the elderly, and a past president of the mid-Hudson Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants. A life member of the Reserve

Officers Association, Colonel Krom served that organization as a department vice president, Ulster County Chapter president, and Dutchess County president. He was also a life member of the American Legion, where he served as a past department vice commander, Third District Judge Advocate, finance officer and trustee for Post 1298.

He was a life member of the Kingston Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a life member of Chapter 60 of the Vietnam Veterans of America. He was a perpetual member of the Military Order of the World Wars, a life member of the Association of the United States Army, and a member of the Loyal Order of Moose. Colonel Krom was an Elder in the Reformed Church of Port Ewen.

Colonel Krom is survived by his sister, Shirley M. Handel of Poughkeepsie, New York. Funeral arrangements were made by Gilpatric-VanVliet Funeral Home, Ulster Park. A graveside service followed by full military honors was held on May 23, 2016, at Fairview Cemetery, Stone Ridge, New York.

Peter Gray Banta Holland Society of New York Member Peter Gray Banta, passed away on July 12, 2016, at Hunterdon Medical Center, Flemington, New Jersey, at the age of eightyone. Mr. Banta was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, on January 24, 1935, son of Horace Ferris Banta and Alice Edna Evertz.

He claimed descent from Epke Jacobszen Banta, who emigrated from Harlingen, Friesland, to New Netherland in 1659. Mr. Banta joined the Holland Society in 1970.

Mr. Banta attended Hackensack New Jersey public schools, and from 1950 to 1953 Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. He graduated salutatorian, cum laude from Phillips Academy in 1953. In 1957 he graduated from Williams College with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Mr. Banta went on to earn a Joris Doctor from Harvard Law School. In 1960 he joined his brother, Bruce, at the law firm of Winne Banta, which was founded by his father in Hackensack, becoming a partner in 1963.

Mr. Banta worked at that firm for more than fifty-five years.

Mr. Banta married Nancy Joyce in Montclair, New Jersey, on February 15, 1963.

The couple had a son Eric Gray, born on December 20, 1965 and daughter, Lauren, born on December 1, 1964, both in Hack-

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ensack. He married his second wife, Marion Strobach, in 1982.

Mr. Banta was recognized by the New Jersey Bar Association as a top First Amendment attorney. In 1968 he successfully defended Time Inc. in a First Amendment case before the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Banta also defended the New York Times and its reporter, Myron Farber, in a challenge to the scope of the First Amendment protections accorded to newspapers and newsmen to shield their confidential sources. For many years,Mr. Banta was the lead outside counsel for the Hackensack Hospital and the Hackensack University Medical Center. He represented the Peoples Trust of New Jersey and he played an important legal role in the formation of the United Jersey Bank’s holding company. He served as attorney and board member of the Musconetcong Watershed Association.

Mr. Banta was active in the Lions Club of Hackensack, of which he was president from 1967 to 1968. He was a member of the Hackensack Golf Club, the Montclair Ski Club, the Old Chatham Hunt Club, and the Sierra Club. In 1968 he was s director of the Bergen County YMCA. From 1968 to 1970 he was a trustee of the Hackensack Area Community Chest. Mr. Banta served as a trustee and treasurer of the Bergen Community Museum and he served the Bergen County Historical Society. Mr. Banta enjoyed hiking, handball, horseback riding and fox hunting. He was an environmental and conservation activist. A Republican in politics, Mr. Banta was also a member and trustee of the Central Unitarian Church of Paramus, New Jersey.

Mr. Banta’s wife of thirty-four years, Marion, survives him. He is also survived by his son, Eric G. Banta of Littleton, Colorado, his daughter, Laurie Banta of Stewartsville, New Jersey, his grandchildren, Kyle, Peter, and Sophie, and his brother, David Banta. Funeral arrangements were made by Rupell Funeral Home of Philipsburg, New Jersey. A memorial service was held on August 20, 2016, at The Second Reformed Church of Hackensack.

Manning Willis Voorhees Holland Society of New York Member Manning Willis Voorhees passed away in Toms River, New Jersey, on September 1, 2016, at age eighty-six. Mr. Voorhees was born on October 27, 1929, son of Walde-

mar Voorhees and Mary M. Manning. He claimed descent from Steven Koerts, who emigrated from Hees, Drenthe, to New Amersfort, Long Island, in 1660. He joined The Holland Society in 1952 Mr. Voorhees attended public schools on Staten Island, graduating from Curtis High School in 1947. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Rutgers University in 1951 and a Master of Arts degree from that university in 1952. He served as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force Reserve. In 1954 he joined CityBank Farmers Trust Company, which later became CitiBank N.A. In 1990 he retired from CitiBank, having risen to vice president.

On March 22, 1952 Mr. Voorhees married Rebecca Jane Hillyer in Christ Episcopal Church on Staten Island. The couple had two sons, Peter Willis, born December 24, 1955, and David Hillyer, born July 3, 1959, both on Staten Island. Mr. Voorhees wife Rebecca passed away on February 4, 1978. He married second Lois Foran Adamo on July 5, 1980, on Staten Island.

Mr. Voorhees was active in the Van Voorhees Association, serving as president in 1991, and the Wyckoff House and Association. He was a charter member of the Gamma Zeta Chapter of the Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity. His principal hobbies were pigeon raising, photography and computers. Mr. Voorhees was Episcopalian in his religion and Republican in his politics.

Mr. Voorhees is survived by his wife, Lois, sons Peter W. Voorhees of Winnetka, Illinois, and David H. Voorhees of Woodstock, Illinois, two grandchildren, and a great granddaughter. Funeral arrangements were made by Anderson & Campbell Funeral Home of Toms River, New Jersey.

Services were held on September 10, 2016, at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lakewood, New Jersey.

Reverend Louis Otto Springsteen Holland Society of New York Life Member and former Society Domine and President the Reverend Louis Otto Springsteen passed away on December 22, 2016. Reverend Springsteen was born on September 26, 1926, son of George S. Springsteen and Elsa Otto. He claimed descent from Casper Joost Springsteen, who emigrated to New Netherland in 1652 from the province of Groningen. He was elected to membership in The Holland Society in October 1962.

Reverend Springsteen attended public schools in Forest Hills, Queens, New York. He graduated from Forest Hills High School in 1944 and went on to earn a B.A. from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1948. During World War II he served in the United States Army.

Reverend Springsteen worked for the S.S. Kresge Co. for two years in Brockton, Massachusetts. In 1953 he earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary and was ordained as a Minister in the Reformed Church in America. From 1953 to 1958 he served the New Prospect Reformed Church in Pine Bush, New York. In 1958 he became the Minister of Trinity Reformed Church in Old Tappan, New Jersey. He served that congregation until 1991, when he retired as Minister Emeritus. For a year, Reverend Springsteen served as a clerk of the then newly formed Classis of the Greater Palisades, and later served as Pastor to Pastor.

He also served as an Interim Pastor at the Old Paramus Reformed Church in Ridgewood, New Jersey, at the Old Stone Church of Upper Saddle River, and as Supervisor of the Community Church of Ho-Ho-kus, New Jersey.

On September 12, 1954, Reverend Springsteen married Carol Ellen Jamison in Pine Bush, New York. The couple had son, Howard Jamison, born on November, 20, 1955, in Middletown, New York, and daughter, Carol Ellen, born on June 15,1958, and son, Michael, born on August, 3, 1960, both in Engelwood, New Jersey.

Reverend Springsteen was an active participant in The Holland Society and Bergen County Branch. He long served as a Society Trustee, was President of the Society from 1990 to 1993, Secretary of the Society from 1993 to 2009, Domine in 1994–1995, and Associate Domine from 1995 to 2011. In 1988 he was presented with the Distinguished Achievement Medal to A Member for Service to the Society.

Reverend Springsteen was gentleman of modest demeanor, great wisdom, and a pillar of strength in guiding Holland Society affairs.

Reverend Springsteen is survived by his wife of sixty-two years, Ellen, sons Howard and his wife, Anne, and Michael and his wife, Heidi (both sons are Life Members of The Holland Society), daughter Carol and her husband, Bob, and six grandchildren.

A memorial service was held on January 2, 2017, at Trinity Reformed Church in Old Tappan.

72

de Halve Maen

New Netherland Museum

T

HE NEW NETHERLAND MUSEUM celebrated in 2013 the 25th anniversary of the launch of the replica ship Half Moon. To commemorate this anniversary, the Museum has published a beautifully illustrated collector’s book, the Spirit of the Half Moon.

The Spirit of the Half Moon $49.50

The 1988 replica ship Half Moon has forged her own maritime history. Her stories are now also part of the continuum of history that began in 1609.

Just as Henry Hudson, Robert Juet, and Dirk van Oss were participants in the 1609 voyage of discovery of the original Halve Maen, many Holland Society Members are part of this continuum. Therefore, like Hudson, Juet, and Van Oss, their names also appear in this book which begins and ends with a previously unpublished story of the original ship together with an account of the 1988 replica, its captains, bosuns, crew, and various, sometimes unbelievable, adventures.

Printed in the Netherlands, The Spirit of the Half Moon is available for purchase online. Each book is shipped with a raffle ticket for a round-trip airline ticket to Amsterdam All proceeds go to keep the ship sailing. The Holland Society of New York provided funds for the publication of this book.

For details and orders visit the New Netherland Museum Shop http://emporiumofnewnetherlandmuseum.org/products