Resolution of the States General, 14 March 1650, inv.nr

the hat and pay a fine of six guilders. Hats were common but also unique and could be used to identify individuals. In 1656, after the disappearance of the fiscal, Cornelis van Tienhoven, the discovery of his hat and cane floating in the river was proof enough for the court to confirm this death. 28 A few years later Messack Martens was branded and banished for stealing cabbages while drunk. His neighbors knew he was the thief because he left his hat behind in the garden. 29

Figure 8. Inventory of the estate of John Winder, merchant, New York, 1678.

On account of the style

In 1657, Jeremias van Rensselaer, son of the original Patroon, wrote from New Amsterdam asking his mother for things “badly needed.” Specifically, he wanted, “a red cloth waistcoat with solid silver buttons, a pair of chamois breeches and a large lace [ruff] or two.” 30 So, it would appear he was unable to obtain these in the colony at that time, or perhaps not to his standards. But, as the colony grew, and time passed, the arrival of craftspeople meant that residents did not have to rely on trade for their personal decoration needs. Indeed, by 1660 the following people were living in the colony: Samuel the hatmaker, Albert Albertsen the ribbon weaver, and Roeloff Jansen the lacemaker. 31

An active system of apprenticeship was flourishing by the end of the century. Many of the indenture contracts include language describing the clothes and accessories due the apprentice at the end of his or her service. This was common enough that most do not list the exact items expected, but some do. In January 1698, William Evans, age fourteen years, was indentured to Abraham Splinter, cordwainer, tanner and currier, for five and a half years. The terms included:

the above said Abraham Splinter at the expiration of the above apprenticeship is to finde and provide to the said William Evans two new suits of apparel one braod cloath and one of stuffer searge six shirts six neckcloaths three paire of stockings two paire of shoes and two hats. 32

Hannah Buckmaster, aged twelve years in 1699, was placed with Joseph Latham, shipwright, and Jane, his wife, “seamstress and manto maker” for five years. She was to be taught “to make mantos, pettycoats, sew and make plain worke. . . . ” Her pay

would include room and board and the “usual provisions.” 33

Merchants in seventeenth-century New York flourished as well, and inventories of their goods appear in estate records, from the earliest liber. As one example, consider the legacy of John Winder (figure 8). In 1678 his shop contained a variety of dry goods, yards of every kind of fabric, ribbons and buttons of every sort and description, also combs, page after page of clothing, stockings and hoods, hats, caps, thirty-four “payre” of gloves, necklaces, pendants, sewing things like thimbles, pins and needles, forty-three pounds of brown thread, laces but no lace, ready-to-wear items, and shoes. 34

Conclusion

Examining the lives of seventeenthcentury New Yorkers through their accessories and ornaments provides a glimpse of both the mundane and the precious. It is an imperfect lens, perhaps, offering impressions that are incomplete or fuzzy, as a seventeenth-century camera obscura might. However, because the materials are personal, the haze of centuries clears. It is possible to imagine the pride of the schepen donning his new hat with a silver band, or the sorrow of Mary Jensen’s granddaughter, holding the golden earring brought to the new world decades before, and passed through generations. The lack of material examples is a hindrance to research in New Netherland, but the richness of the records makes it possible to see, at least glimpse, the lives of its residents.

26 E. B. O’Callaghan, trans., Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State, Albany, NY. vol. 1 (Albany, 1865), 85.

27 Ibid., 80.

28 Ibid., 178. Tienhoven may have faked his death to avoid prosecution. His brother fled the colony.

29 RNA 3: 405.

30 A. J. F. Van Laer, trans, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, 1651–1674 (Albany, 1932), 48.

31 O’Callaghan, Calendar of Historical Manuscripts,vol. 1, various.

32 “Burghers of New Amsterdam and the Freemen of New York, 1675–1866.” New-York Historical Society Collections for the Year 1885 (New York, 1886), 578.

33 Ibid., 582.

34 “New York Probate Records, 1629–1971,” images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/) New York County, wills liber 1 (1665–1683) estate of John Winder, 275+. Pelletreau, Abstracts of Wills on File, 32, 67.