ACentury of De Halve Maen: Celebrating a HundrethAnniversary

by David William Voorhees

WITHIN THE IMPOSING granite-facedRenaissance-style walls of the University Club, Manhattan’s premier Fifth Avenue social club, a novel idea was presented to the Holland Society board of trustees and vice-presidents on May 4, 1922. Holland Society President Arthur Van Brunt rose to address this second joint gathering of trustees andnewly formed vice-presidents seated around the massive conference table. He spoke firmly, recommending our Society publish an “informal bulletin” to be sent to all of the Society’s members to “keeptheminformedofmattersofinterest” and Society activities Six months later, in early November 1922, the Society’s all-male membership began receiving in their mailboxes the first issue of a dark-orange-colored four-page leaflet named de Halve Maen Society Secretary Frederic R. Keator and Tunis G. Bergen were instrumentalinputtingtogethertheissue.On the issue’s second page, the editors wrote:

As a result of a suggestion made at the last joint meeting of the Trustees andVice-Presidents, theTrustees have decided that the Society shall publish four times a year an informal bulletin in the form of a leaflet, to be sent to all of the members of the Society, which leaflet will keep them informed of matters of interest occurring in the activitiesoftheSociety Hence,thisfirst issue of De Halve Maen, a name dear to every American of Dutch descent, for,althoughtheimmortalHudsonwas an Englishman, the flag under which he sailed—the horizontal tricolor of orange, white and blue—the ship and its crew were Dutch and we, in putting out into the unchartered seas which lie before this frail leaflet, can sail under thelightofnomorefavorableplanetor constellationthanthesilverraysofThe Half Moon which guided those brave mariners upon their way and brought them safely, not “to their desired haven,” but to a better one. We, therefore, bespeakforthiscraftasympatheticreceptionandasktheindulgenceofthose upon the shores to whom it comes

Appropriately,thenewsletter’sleadarticledealtwiththeincreasinglydeteriorating condition of the replica ship Half Moon, presented by the Kingdom of the NetherlandstotheUnitedStatesforthe1909Hudson-Fulton Celebration. The ship was then moored at the mouth of Popolopen Creek on the west shore of the Hudson River just north of Bear Mountain in Orange County and had been shut off from access to the riverbyarailroadtrestle.Theeditorscalled for this “valuable gift of the Government of the Netherlands [to] be placed where it canbeseenbythelargestnumberofpeople, either at a favorable spot along the New York City shore, or atAlbany.”

The dismal condition of the replica ship Half Moon and the creation of a leaflet of the same name in 1922 were symptoms of broader transformations. Mass production oflatenineteenth-centurytechnologicalinnovationswasrapidlytransformingmiddle- and upper-class lifestyles following World War I. Automobiles and motion pictures had dramatically altered leisure habits by the dawn of the 1920s.

Record players and radios were now transforming home entertainment. Radio broadcastingintheNewYorkmetropolitan area began on September 30, 1921, when Westinghouse received authorization for WJZ, located in Newark, New Jersey WOR beganbroadcasting fromManhattan on February 22, 1922. The rapid growth of radio listening is illustrated by United States President Warren G. Harding, who introduced the radio in the White House thatFebruaryandmadethefirstpresidential radio address the following June.

Interest in sports also exploded, with baseball a universal national obsession. In May 1922 construction began on Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, with its first game played between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees on April 18, 1923. Mass-media circulation in 1922, driven by advertising revenues, doubled that of twenty years earlier and was rapidly exploding with the introduction of such new periodicals as Reader’s Digest in 1922 and Time magazine the following year.

The Holland Society of New York’s social events seemed dated at the dawn of theJazzAge (TheSociety’sfirstnewsletter reminded readers on page 2, “Its correct corporate name is: The Holland Society of New York.”) Moreover, the Society entered the 1920s in financial crisis due to bad investments a decade earlier The situation worsened in 1920, when a sharp deflationary recession seriously hurt income. The treasurer reported at the 1920 Annual Meeting that the principal of the Society’s investments had a value of $10,450, with an annual income of $447.50; these numbers fell the following year to $8,987.45 investments with an income of $385.00. In 1920 it was predicted that the Society would soon be running an annual deficit of $2,500. Moreover, the membership was undergoing a small but steady decline.

The last thing the Society needed was a declining membership at this time. The subsequentdisputeoverhowtoreversethe trend brought to the fore the long-simmeringfeudbetweenthosewhosawtheSociety as a social club and those who viewed its mission as a scholarly organization.

Prohibition in January 1920 ended the Society’s Annual Smoker, the reputtion of which had fallen so low that one member recalled it as having a “downgraded beer hall atmosphere.” In 1920 Arthur Van Brunt felt it was a needless expense.

Other members felt that money was being wastedonthe Year Books andtheSociety’s scholarly publications and translations. An innovation occurred in 1920 when the trustees created the post of Domine (Society chaplain).At theApril 6, 1920,Annual Meeting, Dr. Henry Van Dyke was elected to serve as the Society’s first Domine. But it was felt more was needed to be done to maintain a broader membership.

Meanwhile,otherheritageorganizations similar to the Holland Society had also appearedthroughouttheformerNewNetherland territory; organizations which some confused with Holland Society branches. For example, at the time of the planning for the 1924 Albany Tercentenary Celebration, several descendants of that city’s early settlers formed the hastily organized “Descendants of Early Dutch Settlers of Albany” to take part in those ceremonies. The organization reformed in 1924 as the “Dutch Settlers Society ofAlbany.”

TheHollandSocietyofNewYorkmaintained cordial but firm relations with these organizations. When in 1923 the National Huguenot-WalloonTercentenaryCommissionaskedtheSocietytrusteestoparticipate in the celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of the Walloons settling of New Netherland, the trustees accepted with the reservation that “this Society was not prepared to admit the contentions of the Commission as to the settlement of 1624 being the first permanent settlement, and reserved the right to state and urge its views that the Dutch had made permanent settlements on Manhattan before that date; that we, of course, know of the settlement of 1624 and would gladly cooperate in celebrating its important tercentenary with that reservation.”

Although Holland Society members residing outside of New York City had long organizedinformallocalgroups,itwasnot until1921,duringArthurVanBrunt’spresidency, that formal steps to promote local Society chapters occurred. Van Brunt saw the promotion of these organizations as a way to help members far from Manhattan to maintain a sense of participation in the Society.Tokeepthenewlyformedbranches informed of Holland Society events, Van Brunt proposed the members’ newsletter in May 1922.

Theinitialissuesof de Halve Maen were small six-by-nine-inch, four-page orange leaflets prepared by Society Secretary Frederic Keator and History and Traditions Commitee chairTunis Bergen.The issue contained items on new members, a necrology, and Society events. While the state of the replica ship Half Moon was theleadarticle,thefirstissue’smainarticle beganonpage3.Thispiecewasareprintof an article, “When the Seagull Came,” that appeared in the Sunday News of October 15,1922.The Sunday News articledeclared that the three-hundredth anniversary of the settlementofManhattanIslandwouldoccur on May 4, 1926, to honor when the ship Zeemeeuw (Sea Gull),skipperedbyAdraen Joris, brought Pieter Minuit as “governor.”

TunisBergentookexceptiontothe1626 date and followed with a lengthy response. “Whether a date earlier than 1926 should not be selected as the proper date for such a celebration of the 300th Anniversary of the Settlement of Manhattan Island is a question on which there is some difference of opinion,” he wrote. Bergen argued that individual settlers had arrived since 1613 and they “were real settlers and men of enterprise and daring inspired by the appeals of Willem Usselinx in the Netherlands for a score of years or more to the people of HollandtogotoAmerica,notonlyforcommerce and enterprise, but ‘to establish new Republics there,’ gain a ‘vantage ground against their enemies, the Spaniards, and civilize the natives.’” The January 1923 issue of de Halve Maen then introduced a series of brief sketches on the leading personalities of New Netherland, “whose lives most of us know little and of whom, in any event, we need to be reminded.”

To elevate the tone of the Society’s dinners, Trustee Dr. Fenton Turck had originated the idea of presenting a medal toadistinguishedpersonwhowouldspeak that evening on a cultural subject. At the Society Meeting on December 4, 1922, Augustus Thomas, executive chairman of the Producing Managers’ Association, spoke about the stage, and Carl E. Akerley, of the American Museum of Natural History, spoke of his experiences hunting gorillas inAfrica.At the conclusion of the speeches, Dr Turck presented to Thomas a gold medal for his contribution toAmerican drama and to Akeley a medal for his contribution to science, exploration, and literature. These are the first gold medals presented to non-members of the Society

During the Holland Society’s first half century the date of the annual banquet occurred in January On January 18, 1923, theSociety’sthirty-eighthbanquetwasheld at the Hotel Astor on Broadway and 44th Street in Manhattan. About 237 members and guests, including representatives of othersocieties,attended.PresidentEdward De Witt presided as toastmaster While the new minister from the Netherlands, Jonkheer Dr. A.C.D. de Graeff, was not able to be present, Consul-General for the Netherlands Dr. D. H. Andreae was present and spoke. The other speakers were: William Elliot Griffis, author and lecturer, whospokeon“Holland”;DixonRyanFox, professorofhistoryatColumbiaUniversity, whospokeon“OldNewYork”;andRobert E. Dowling, life member of the New-York Historical Society and an authority on NewYork conditions, who spoke on “New York of Today.” Knight MacGregor, who performedattheDecember4meetingagain sang accompanied by Miss Wallace.

The third issue of de Halve Maen appeared in April 1923. Its lead article was devoted to the Annual Meeting held on April 6, 1923, at which De Witt Van Buskirk was elected Society president But three items in that issue are particularly noteworthy.

The first item was that at the conclusion of the business meeting Dr Turck introduced Daniel Chester French, the distinguishedAmericansculptorand,“after givingabriefnarrativeoftheprincipalfacts inhislife,eulogized hisworkandachievements,” President Van Buskirk presented to French the gold medal of the Society

A similar medal was also presented to Dr William A. Murrill, curator of the New YorkBotanicalGarden,aleadingauthority in the science of mycology. Murrill then addressed the gathering on the subject of “Fungi and Their Relation to Forestry in America,” illustrated by stereopticon pictures.Canadian-bornHenriPontbriand,one of the great tenors of the day, sang several solos to piano accompaniment.

The next item of interest was a statue of William the Silent that had been planned at the formation of the Holland Society in 1885buthadneverbeenexecuted. In1912 Tunis Bergen had gone to the Netherlands toprocureareplicaoftheequestrianstatue of William the Silent at the palace in The Hague or the civilian statue in the Plein at The Hague. The Royal family refused permission for a reproduction of their statue, and the decision was made to have the statue inthe Plein reproduced.The cast was, however, lost during World War I. The newsletter announced that in January apowerofattorneyhadbeengrantedtoDr W.Martin,professorofartattheUniversity of Leiden and director of the Royal Art GalleriesatTheHague,tocontractwiththe FonderieNationaledesBroncesinBrussels for the “execution of the statue, according to terms substantially agreed upon.” It was anticipated that the statue would be completed shortly and thus a site for its placement commenced. The statue would finditshomeatQueensCampusofRutgers UniversityinNewBrunswick,NewJersey, in 1928.

OfparticularnoteintheApril1923issue isFranklinDelanoRoosevelt’sappealtothe Societymembersto“preservethepictureof oldlandmarks.Roosevelt,anewlyinstalled Trustee in 1923, would continue as such until 1938, although he became governor of New York in 1929 and President of the United States in 1932. “The Holland Society has, in its long series of Year Books,” he wrote, “preserved for all time a chain of unique records, mostly those of churches, and relating to the early Dutch settlers in NewYork and New Jersey Most of the old records have now been published either by this Society or by other agencies, such as the office of the State Historian and local historical societies.” Roosevelt continued:

There remains a work which I should personally be delighted to have The Holland Society undertake. Excellent monographs have been published on the old colonial homes in Massachusetts, Virginia, and other localities. No careful attempt has been made to preserve the likenesses of the many houses and other buildings of Dutch origin which still exist, especially in New York and New Jersey I would, therefore, suggest that time is ripe for a collection of views of these Dutch buildings. By Dutch, I do not mean necessarily those buildings which were first erected while this was still a Dutch Colony—such a field would be altogether too limited. I mean, in addition, those buildings which were erected by the earlier Dutch settlers and under influences which were predominantly Dutch.

Roosevelt’s appeal met with success and his vision would be published in two volumes: Helen Wilkinson Reynolds, Dutch Houses in the Hudson Valley Before 1776 (1929), and Rosalie Fellows Bailey, Pre-Revolutionary Dutch Houses and Families in Northern New Jersey and Southern New York (1936). Roosevelt’s notes and editedmanuscriptsremainedintheHolland Society archives.

The final issue of de Halve Maen’s first volume appeared in July 1923. The issue concentrated on the vice-presidents and branches, and followed up on appeals to record New Netherland’s homes and graveyeards. Kiliaen Van Rensselaer was theleadingNewNetherlandfigurefeatured in that issue.

Thereafter, the newsletter continued to develop. The April 1924 issue carried an unusual and humorous warning for members to lookout for an old man, who has personally visited several members and obtained money from them on the recital of his story that he is a native Hollander (which he probably is, because he has the appearance and accent of one) without money or work and in need of money to get to a distant city where he has friends. He usually says that his surname is the same as that of the person to whom he appeals, except that his own is the originalDutchspelling.Heistall,thick set,ruddycomplexion,smoothshaven, whitehair Hehaslatelybeenoperating in New Jersey after duping New York members.

In 1928 the newsletter was expanded to aneightandahalf-by-eleven-inchpageformat. During the next few years, the issues appeared sporadically, with no issues published in 1930 and 1931. In 1932 Wilfred Talmanassumed de Halve Maen editorship and began the transformation of the newsletter into today’s journal. Talman gave a breezy tone to the description of Society events,injectedhistoricalfillers,andadded woodcuts. When in July 1943 Walter Van Hoesenassumededitorship, de Halve Maen was totally revamped in a glossy format. It was not until 1956, however, when a resolution“designedtoimproveandexpand de Halve Maen and other publications of the Society” was adopted, that historical articles by Society members began to appear with some regularity.

Richard Amerman’s assumption of the editorial helm in July 1958 began another transformation for de Halve Maen “In this effort,” he wrote, “we cordially invite memberseverywheretoactasreportersand photographers.”TheSociety’smembership didnotfillAmerman’scallforparticipation, and soon non-Society “guest writers” began to appear One of the first was Arthur Peabody,aseventh-gradestudentatAlbany Academy, whose award-winning essay on Domine Johannes Megapolensis was published in the July 1959 issue. By the 1960s essays by such scholars as Kenneth Scott,

When in July 1976 the Rev. Howard Hageman assumed de Halve Maen editorship, the journal truly acquired a scholarly cast.InJanuary1977Hagemanwrote:“The Editor’sdrawerissofullofexcellentmaterial for future issues that he is embarrassed topredictjustwhatwillbeappearinginthe nextissue.”Thejournalbegantoattractthe attention of the leading scholars of New Netherland history In the 1980s, the New Netherland Institute inAlbany supplied de Halve Maen with many excellent articles frompapersofthelatestresearchpresented at its Rensselaerswijck conferences.

In 2022, a century later, many of the challenges that faced the Holland Society of New York in 1922 remain. Discussions over whether the Society is meant to be a social club, a genealogical society, or a promoter of scholarly endeavors; what kind of membership should the Society consist of; and currently, what anniversary date (1623, 1624, 1626) will the Society use to celebrate New Amsterdam’s quatercentenary During the past century, de Halve Maen has recorded for the public how the Holland Society of New York has successfullynavigatedthesechallengesand presented an ever-changing understanding of New Netherland and its contribution to modernAmerica. The plan is for de Halve Maen to continue navigating these waters in the century to come.