de Halve Maen, Winter 2012 by The Holland Society of New York

de Halve Maen

Journal of The Holland Society of New York Winter 2012

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de Halve Maen

The Holland Society of New York 20 WEST 44TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10036 President Charles Zabriskie Jr.

Treasurer

Secretary

Donald Westervelt

Rev. Everett L. Zabriskie III

Domine

Associate Domine

Rev. Everett L. Zabriskie III

Rev. Paul D. Lent

Advisory Council of Past Presidents Roland H. Bogardus Colin G. Lazier Peter Van Dyke Walton Van Winkle III

Kenneth L. Demarest Jr. Rev. Louis O. Springsteen W. Wells Van Pelt Jr. William Van Winkle

Magazine of the Dutch Colonial Period in America VOL. LXXXV

Adrian T. Bogart Ralph L. DeGroff Jr. John O. Delamater Robert G. Goelet

Gregory M. Outwater Robert R. Schenck Alexander C. Simonson Henry N. Staats IV Samuel K. Van Allen R. Dean Vanderwarker III Stephen H. Van Ness Kiliaen D. Van Rensselaer Stuart W. Van Winkle Charles W. Wendell

Editor’s Corner

Imagining New Netherland: An Art Historian’s Perspective on the Visual Culture of New Netherland by Alena M. Buis

Sean F. Palen

Vice-Presidents

Editor David William Voorhees

Production Manager

Copy Editor

Annette van Rooy

Mary Collins

Editorial Committee

Peter Van Dyke, Chair Kevin A. Denton Henry N. Staats IV

Winter 2012

David M. Riker Charles W. Wendell

Book Review: Firth Haring Fabend, New Netherland in a Nutshell: A Concise History of the Dutch Colony in North America by Joshua Van Kirk

Burgher Guard Captain

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 R. Dean Vanderwarker III Mid-West Robert R. Schenck New Amsterdam R. Dean Vanderwarker III 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 Kenneth G. Winans Patroons Kipp Cronk Van Aken Potomac Christopher M. Cortright Rocky Mountain Richard C. Ten Eyck 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 Lt. 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 LCDR James N. Vandenberg, CEC, USN

Buildings on Paper: Our Current Knowledge and Understanding of New Netherlandic Architecture by Jeroen van den Hurk

Trustees Emeriti

David M. Riker David William Voorhees John R. Voorhis III Ferdinand L. Wyckoff Jr. Stephen S . Wyckoff

NUMBER 4

IN THIS ISSUE:

Trustees Christopher M. Cortright Eric E. DeLamarter Robert Gardiner Goelet Andrew A. Hendricks John T. Lansing Colin G. Lazier John G. Nevius David D. Nostrand Robert D. Nostrand Edwin Outwater III

Winter 2012

Here and There in New Netherland Studies

Society Activities

In Memoriam

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 © 2012 The Holland Society of New York. All rights reserved.

Cover: Study for the engraving “N: Amsterdam, ou N: Iork in Ameriq.” (c. 1700). Gift of Lucius Wilmerding, New-York Historical Society.

Editor’s Corner

HE PHYSICAL ASPECTS of culture—that is, the materials used in daily life—help define our perceptions. Tools, buildings, tableware, artwork, and the mundane objects we so often take for granted provide parameters in how we relate to our environment. As famed Dutch historian Johan Huizinga wrote, “Culture means control over nature.” Through the objects that we craft, our identities, both as individuals and cumulatively as a society, are expressed. Chroniclers of America, however, too often have neglected New Netherland’s material culture, or, have segregated it into an isolated topic outisde the historiograhic mainstream in the development of the American cultural identity. The authors in this issue of de Halve Maen challenge the tradition of isolating New Netherland’s material culture. In their essays, the authors instead suggest that we need to take a fresh look at New Netherland’s visual culture, see it as a dynamic force of expression undergoing constant change and transformation, and create new ways of defining the processes. In her essay, for example, Alena Buis seeks to uncover how New World contexts and social spaces translated and altered Old World Dutch visual perceptions. By closely looking first at the artworks produced about New Netherland for the European market, then at the artwork imported into New Netherland, and, finally, at the works created by the colony’s artists she suggests that we need a more theoretically minded approach to New Netherland’s visual culture. In a similar manner, Jeroen van den Hurk examines the processes by which the New World shaped Netherlandic building traditions. Cartographic images, Buis notes, provided the primary way by which New Netherland entered the European consciousness. Yet these images, she tells us, often, mingled and blurred, resulted in an idealized world of “the exotic” that shaped expectations. In return, imported paintings, prints, maps, and illustrated books, as well as graphic representations adorning utilitarian and domestic goods from furniture to ceramics and tiles, circulated in New Netherland. Finally, roughly two-hundred and fifty paintings produced in the region—mostly portraits and scripture paintings—survive from the period of 1690 to the 1750s. Formerly categorized as “folk art,” Buis finds describing these works as primitive as unproductive. Rather, she suggests that they must be considered in the context of the “competing sources of prints and complex functions of paintings in the contact zones of colonial societies as collating multivalent modes of representation.” Jeroen van den Hurk focuses on what the surviving

manuscripts tell us about New Netherland’s built environment. Such sources range from official instructions that the West India Company’s headquarters sent to its New World Directors to inventories of carpenter tools, court cases involving workmanship, fire ordinances, and building contracts. The instructions sent to Director Willem Verhulst in January 1625, for example, give insight into the Company’s vision of city planning. The ideal city, as Van den Hurk interprets these instructions, reflect the Roman castrum, “combining defensive, capitalist, and secular elements,” and point toward well thought-out plans for initial settlement and future development. Building contracts give us a better insight into architectural details. Van den Hurk compares surviving New World contracts with contemporary building contracts from the Republic. The result is not, unsurprisingly, the similarities between the two, but the very interesting differences between them. He finds that the documents point toward the creation of a “viable type of architecture” in the region decades before English political and cultural rule. Using key elements that define Netherlandic architectural traditions, Van den Hurk demonstrates that New World circumstances shaped New Netherland architecture from the beginning, and that the story of the built environment in New Netherland early became one of adaptation and regional differences. Both of these essays point toward a necessary reassessment of New World Dutch culture. “A concerted effort must be made by art historians to not only identify and describe examples of visual culture,” Buis writes, “but also to further theorize how images of New Netherland came to circulate throughout Europe and contextualize the paintings, prints, and other iterations of visual culture that appeared in the colony.” Van den Hurk’s combining of architectural and documentary evidence presents us with a richer understanding of the origins and evolution of New World Dutch architecture. By doing so, he gives us a new appreciation of how the cultural identity that the settlers of New Netherland created long outlasted the arrival of the English and became a major component in the creation of the American identity today.

David William Voorhees Editor

de Halve Maen

Imagining New Netherland: An Art Historian’s Perspective on the Visual Culture of New Netherland by Alena M. Buis [H]ere our attention is arrested in the beautiful landscape around us; here the painter can find rare and beautiful subject for his brush.

N HER SEMINAL text The Art of Describing art historian Svetlana Alpers claims that in the Dutch Republic during the seventeenth century: the visual culture was central to the life of the society. One might say that the eye was a central means of self-representation and visual experience a central mode of self-consciousness. If the theatre was the arena in which the England of Elizabeth most fully represented itself to its self, images played that role for the Dutch.2 While a Student Scholar at the New Netherland Research Institute in 2011, the scarcity of visual descriptors of New Netherland surprised me. Paintings, drawings and prints of other Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) a n d D u t c h West India Company (Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie or WIC) possessions are in contrast, much more abundant. Though few, even Albert Eckhout and Frans Post’s paintings of Brazil attest to the short-lived presence of the Dutch in South America.3 While Alena Buis is a Ph.D. candidate in the Art Department of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Her dissertation examines the global reach of visual and material culture in early modern Dutch trade networks. She is editing with Janice Helland and Beverly Lemire a book of essays Craft and Community: The Material Culture of Politics and Place (forthcoming), and recently published articles in Dutch Crossing, The Material Culture Review and The Craft Journal. A version of this paper was presented at the 35 th Rensselaerswijck Seminar in Schenectady, New York, on September 14, 2012.

Winter 2012

—Adriaen Van der Donck1 textual documentation dominates the recording of the colony, what role did selfrepresentation and visual experience play in New Netherland? How did New Netherland represent itself to its self and itself to a European audience? Or even a broader global audience as facilitated by the networks established by Dutch trade companies? In what follows, I investigate the ways in which a dynamic visual culture was translated and transformed in the differing context and altered social spaces of the New World. Historiographical issues persist in the marginalization of New Netherlandish artistic production on both sides of the Atlantic. While recognizing the Eurocentric tendencies for Dutch art history to focus on themes and issues within the borders of the United Provinces, even Julie Hochstrasser’s recent “Remapping [of] Dutch Art in Global Perspective” excludes North American settlements.4 Paralleling this marginalization, chroniclers of American history have ignored Dutch contributions to American culture, in favor of a version of national origins centered on the English settlements.5 Art historians typically begin the narrative of American visual and material culture, with eighteenth-century schools.6 This common mythology not only overlooks the complex iterations of early emigrant producers but also, more problematically, fails to include prior centuries of indigenous artists within the canon. From an art historical point of view, the lacuna of scholarship on visual culture produced, consumed, and circulating in and about New Netherland also speaks to issues surrounding how art histories are written. What is documented and discussed and, more importantly, what is not written, re-

veals trends in taste over nearly four centuries of collecting and connoisseurship. Very few paintings, prints, pamphlets, or other iterations of visual culture of Dutch origin from the colonies exist and even fewer have an established provenance. This does not mean that art was absent from European settlements in Nieuw Amsterdam, Beverwijck, and the surrounding areas. Instead, the lack of images surviving in present collections was due to drastic shifts in the consumption of art as the colony adapted to Anglicized culture. In 1779, after finding stacks of pictures in New York City garrets, artist and naturalist Pierre Eugène Du Simitière explained that those “chiefly painted in oils, boards . . . of those kinds the Dutch settlers brought a great many with their other furniture,” had been deemed as “unfashionable when the city was modernized.”7 By the eighteenth century visual culture had become dominated first by British standards and then later Adriaen van der Donck, A Description of New Netherland, Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna, eds. (Lincoln, Nebr., 2008), 17.

2 Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (Chicago, 1983), xxv.

Both Eckhout and Post were members of Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen’s much acclaimed party of artists, naturalists, and cartographers sent to document the WIC colony of New Netherland.

Julie Hochstrasser, “Remapping Dutch Art in Global Perspective,” Cultural contact and the Making of European Art since the Age of Exploration (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2011): 43–71. 4

5 Joyce Goodfriend, ed., Revisiting New Netherland: Perspectives on Early Dutch America (Leiden, 2005): 3.

James Thomas Flexner, First Flowers of our Wilderness: American Painting, The Colonial Period (New York, 1969): 66; Wayne Craven, Colonial American Portraiture: The Economic, Religious, Social, Cultural, Philosophical, Scientific, and Aesthetic Foundations (Cambridge, 1986).

Flexner, 66.

American schools and Dutch styles were deemed increasingly to be “folk,” a trend best characterized in literature by Washington Irving, who’s caricatures of Diedrich Knickerbocker, Rip van Winkle, and other satirical views on early Dutch settlers that appeared in popular culture well into the twentieth century. Furthermore, the lack of interest in Dutch colonial art speaks to historiographical hierarchies. Many of the works that did appear or were produced in the Dutch colonies were by lesser-known artists. Traditional art histories have been dominated by the study of canonical works by great masters: for example Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn and Jacob Van Ruysdael. More typical examples were works by “minor masters” like Vincent Adraiaensen, who painted a landscape itemized along with other paintings in the will of Hendrick Kip, who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1637 and died in 1671.8 More recent methodological turns have called for a more thorough examination of the circulation of works, diffusions of styles, and expanding spheres of influence supported by early modern trade and its increasing globalization, that have typically fallen outside the boundaries of a teleological narrative, exposed by modernist academic trends. This turn bodes well for studies of visual culture in New Netherland that, while greatly under explored, was dynamic, increasingly hybrid and ebbed and flowed like the seas that bore the merchants and their goods—including works of art—around the world. Instead of studying “great geniuses” and their corresponding periods and styles, the sort of art historical examination I would like to see emerge from the study of New

Netherland, deals with the production of images and objects in the contact zones of visual culture where “cultures, meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths.”9 For as Claire Farago has proposed as a rallying cry, in her recent text on cultural contact in the wake of early modern globalization, a more nuanced understanding of transcultural art: goes all over the world and deals with all kinds of practices, representational systems, cultural conditions—not only at the level of social history, but at deeper epistemological levels. It should study what happens when new identities are formed, when new communication occurs, when representational practices that have never been in contact before are suddenly in collision and contention, when the readability of the art changes because of contact, and when people’s lives are changed because of their altered material culture.10 I can think of no better description for future scholarship on the artistic production of New Netherland. Keeping this in mind the following essay is a closer examination of a few works, that function as brief case studies of a more theoretically minded approach to the visual culture produced first about the colony of New Netherland, then for export to the settlers of New Netherland, and finally by the first self proclaimed artists of the colony. This is by no means a comprehensive overview of a vast visual culture dynamic over a century and throughout the Atlantic World, but rather a pre-

liminary organization of my thoughts on how New Netherland was socially constructed through the production and consumption of images. Describing New Netherland: How did New Netherland represent itself to its self and itself to a European audience, or even a broader global audience as facilitated by the networks established by Dutch trade companies? Maps and the images that accompanied cartographic studies were one of the primary ways New Netherland was described to the rest of the world. Complete with a map that also included a view of Nieuw Amsterdam, the second printing of Adriaen van der Donck’s Description of New Netherland in 1656, cannot be overestimated as a source of textual and visual information on the colony.11 Since the late sixteenth century, maps and related cartographic imagery played an important role in the social life of people in the Dutch Republic. The newly emerging, prosperous middle class purchased globes and atlases as educational aids, serving a didactic purposing helping adults and children alike in understanding contemporary politics and global economies. Not only did Simon Hart, “How Hendrick Kip bequeathed his Estate,” de Halve Maen 37 (October 1929), 3: 54.

Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Professional 91 (New York, 1991): 33–40.

10 Claire Farago, “On the Peripatetic Life of Objects in the Era of Globalization,” Cultural contact and the Making of European Art since the Age of Exploration (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2011): 36–37.

Frans Blom, “Picturing New Netherland and New York. Dutch-Anglo Transfer of New World Information,” The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks, Siegfried Huigen, Jan L. de Jong, and Elmer Kolfin, eds. (Leiden, 2010): 110.

Carel Allard, Detail of Totius Neobelgii Nova et Accuratissima Tabula (1674–1709).

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mapping provide a literal imaging for residents to “see” their expanding empire, but it also signified a rational ordering of the world through which categorizing, and organizing space became possession. For Benjamin Schmidt, “the signs and symbols of geography shaped the contours and circumstances of colonial expansion” and these images engaged “the drive to colonize abroad and simultaneously convince rivals at home of the legitimacy, feasibility, and enforceability of their imperial claims.”12 As European audiences wanted to know more about the lands from which the exotic commodities like spices, woods, ceramics, and precious metals were coming from maps started to include more visual information. The images found at the corner of the Visscher map, first published in 1650, and Montanus, map from about 1671, were part of a broader visual idiom that became popular with the increase in Dutch global mercantilism. At the time of their production a tidal wave of changes in European ideas and visual conventions was growing out of the expansion of European trading networks, then becoming global in reach. The resulting flood of images of exotica published in books and pamphlets, and on maps—of parasols, parrots and palm trees, as examples—reflected the actual European experience of faraway places. But afterwards, through a process of transmediation, the meanings of these multifarious images became mingled and blurred; and so an idealized world of ‘the exotic’ entered the European consciousness, and became a fixture of European thinking and imagery—with sometimesodd results.13 Exemplifying Benjamin Schmidt’s concept of transmediation, textual, geographic, and visual descriptions of New Netherland demonstrate the ways “images, forms, and motifs relating to exotic subjects could (and commonly did) cross from medium to medium—from travel books to maritime atlases to decorative arts.”14 In the imagery decorating maps, North America is depicted as fertile, and exotic, offering commodities ripe for European consumption. Even more specifically, New Netherland is represented in these images as lithe, fertile, usually nude or nearly nude indigenous peoples proffering the untapped wealth of territories previously unexplored by Europeans. These images fit well within predetermined

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Possibly Pieter van den Berge, Nieu Amsterdam (c. 1700) tropes for Dutch visual culture had a wellestablished tradition of images of fecundity that drew heavily on classical sculpture. From the monumental in Jacob van Campen’s painting the Triumph of the Indies at the Paleis Huis den Bosch in the Hague and the sculpture atop the Amsterdam Town Hall to the more vernacular graphic frontispiece of Olfert Drapper ’s Historic Description of Amsterdam the allegorical woman or Holland’s Maid was a symbol of the goods and materials laid at the Dutch doorstep through trade. As the networks of the VOC and the WIC expanded, so to did the pictorial vocabulary used to describe the reaches of Dutch commerce. Increasingly, the images that emerged emphasized a culture of exchange. Art historian Elisabeth de Bièvre has categorized many of the images that were produced in Amsterdam during the seventeenth century as images of exchange “in which two or more people are seen in the act of a hand-over” with the visual subplots giving viewers “nonverbal information about the society in which the representation was both produced and consumed.”15 Preparatory drawings for the coat of arms for the New Amsterdam are excellent examples of the symbolic importance of commodities in images of exchange. Created in about 1630 for presentation to the WIC, the design included a modified version of the arms of the City of Amsterdam, with the incorporation of several distinctly North American elements such as a crouching beaver above the three silver Saint Andrew’s crosses, the two large beavers flanking the central

shield, a stylized GWC [WIC] logo and, of course, garlands of flowers and fruit symbolizing the abundance and fertility of the New World colony.16 The presence of locally specific commodities coupled with a gesture of exchange in this is apparent in many of the images of New Netherland. Another example of this visual culture of exchange is an engraved copper plate of Nieu Amsterdam in the I. N. Phelps Stokes Collection of the New York Public Library. This image is typical of the type of views that were produced during the later half of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth century by publishers like Carel Allard, Pieter Schenk, Pieter Mortier, and Pieter van der Aa. While the artist is unknown, a director of the print room of the Amsterdam Museum noticed that the figures closely resemble others by an engraver named Pieter van den Berge, a native of Amsterdam active also 12 Benjamin Schmidt, “Mapping an Empire: Cartographic and Colonial Rivalry in Seventeenth-Century Dutch and English North America,” William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 3 (July 1997): 549. 13 Alena Buis and Kevin Brown, “Trifling Things: The Sara Lewes Lepel and Vork,” Dutch Crossing 36, no. 3, (November 2012). 14 Benjamin Schmidt, “Collecting Global Icons: The Case of the Exotic Parasol,” Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Eds. Daniela Bleichmar and Peter Mancall (Philadelphia, 2011): 33. 15 Elisabeth de Bièvre, “The visual subplot: local art, global trade and the socio-ethnic of exchange, Amsterdam 1580-1680,” Crossing cultures: Conflict, migration and convergence. The proceedings of the 32nd International Congress of the History of Art, Jaynie Anderson, ed. (Carlton, 2009). 16 Deborah L. Krohn and Peter N. Miller, eds., Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick (New Haven, Conn., 2009): 173–74.

in Paris and Hamburg during the late seventeenth century.17 A careful analysis of the architecture suggests that the townscape represents New Amsterdam circa 1643, but certain artistic license has been taken to condense the view in order to depict important landmarks like the West India Company buildings and the Stadt Huys. In the foreground, a man holding tobacco leaves gestures to a woman in contemporary European dress holding a basket of fruit. Between them are packages ready for shipping and behind them in the secondary picture plane are halfnaked Africans carrying unidentifiable goods. Although slightly rearranged, this image of Nieu Amsterdam contains all the iconographical elements commonly appearing in pictures associated with the Hollands Maid. Despite sharing a pictorial vocabulary easily recognizable at the time of its production, this is the type of image, typically found outside of traditional art historical discourses, primarily because it is so difficult to categorize according to modern standards. It does not fit well within the canonical narrative for several reasons: not only is it difficult to ascribe the work to the hand of an individual maker or even makers, it also appears in several different versions, challenging the notion of originality ascribed to unique objects. A very similar version appeared around 1700 in Carel Allard’s Orbis Habitabilis with the caption Engelse Quakers en tabak planters aende Barbados. Here the cityscape is replaced with a view of the island of Barbados but the primary figures in the foreground and the objectified Africans blending in with the landscape are almost identical. Another extant version from Pieter van der Aa’s Les Forces de l’Europe, Asie, Afrique et Amérique (1726) contains the same tobacco planters in Barbados but is brightly colored to further emphasize the paleness of the woman’s skin with the darkness of the enslaved Africans behind her. This reuse of imagery to illustrate different geographic locations should serve as a cautionary tale to historians eager to view early modern print culture as objective illustrations of daily life. What is clearly evidenced by this succession of prints made well into the eighteenth century, is that they demonstrate the mechanics of publishing in Amsterdam, Dordrecht, Leiden, and other centers producing scientific, commercial,

navigational, and artistic knowledge. Predating modern notions of originality, early modern print culture was produced through fierce completion as “materials were poached, pirated, and otherwise pilfered by competing printers for republication in other genres or editions, not to mention other languages.” 18 Authors, typesetters, and publishers were all looking at each others work and copying, embellishing, borrowing, quoting, and reprinting information—both visual and textual—to manufacture a particular understanding of the New World. But more important, they show how stereotyped many of the images of the New World were. In the European imagination, the exotic trappings of New Netherland could be reinvented as Barbados, with a slight change in the landscape and the retitling. Bringing Art to New Netherland: As a result of this culture of exchange, paintings, prints, maps, texts, broadsides, books, and other materials combining image and text would have easily ended up in New Netherland. In his extensive research on art and economies, Hans van Miegroet has demonstrated how the flow of images and art works circulate through networks established initially by the trade of other goods.19 While his research follows the movement of Spanish paintings after other commodities had first established routes for goods to flow, van Miegroet’s methods can easily be applied to a Dutch context. In much the same way the linen trade developed exchange networks throughout Mexico, an economy based on beaver pelts would later support the exchange of images throughout the Mohawk and Hudson River valleys. Although little material evidence exists, the steady stream of ships back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, and then through inland exchange, allowed for paintings and even more so portable prints, maps, books to circulate through New Netherland. In the early years of the 1620s and 1630s it is unlikely that many paintings, prints, and object d’art crossed the Atlantic in Dutch ships filled to the brim with items more necessary to survival. This changed in the 1640s and 1650s when luxury goods from around the world became readily available and more stable colonies developed as viable markets.20 As a result of the highly visual culture of the Dutch Republic, images often appeared in unexpected places. Along

with luxury goods like paintings and prints, graphic representations adorned utilitarian and domestic goods: biblical and religious scenes were carved into wood seating and storage furniture, logos and insignia were an important part of bale seals and other commercial packaging, and perhaps most visible are the pictures ubiquitous on ceramics both for food service and storage—plates, vases, jugs —and architectural—tiles. The problem facing scholars is that the more vernacular forms of works on paper like pamphlets and prints do not survive and although numerous examples of material culture with images are extant, their utilitarian nature has prevented the documentation of provenance often required to facilitated research and they are typically dismissed as inferior decorative arts within art historical discourses. Although few are extant, inventories give a glimpse into what pictures may have come to New Netherland in the seventeenth century. Thirty-nine paintings were listed in the contents of Mayor Cornelis Steenwyck’s house, nineteen were owned by Sara Webber, and a further seventeen by Margarieta Van Varick. Most of the paintings in these inventories were seascapes and landscapes, still lives, and genre scenes. The estate of barber surgeon Jacob de Lange inventories his paintings room by room. In his front room hung two banquet scenes, three landscapes, two still life works, a genre scene, and a portrait; in the chamber there were two more banquet scenes, a biblical scene, two more landscapes, and other lesser value works possibly prints; the side room contained sea and landscapes, various prints and “5 East India pictures with red frames.”21 While probably not typical of most colonists artistic holdings, de Lange’s collection reveals the breadth of I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909: Compiled from original sources and illustrated by photo-intaglio reproductions of important maps, plans, views, and documents in public and private collections, 6 vols. (New York, 1915–1928): 38.

18 Schmidt, “Collecting Global Icons: The Case of the Exotic Parasol,” 33. 19 Hans J. Van Miegroet and Neil De Marchi, “Flemish Textile Trade and New Imagery in Colonial Mexico (1524–1646),” in Jonathan Brown, ed., Painting for the Kingdoms (Mexico City, 2010). 20 Louisa Wood Ruby, “Dutch Art and the Hudson Valley Patroon Painters,”in Joyce D. Goodfriend, Benjamin Schmidt and Annette Stott, eds., Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609–2009 (Leiden, 2008), 28.

James I. Owre and Kenneth Scott, Genealogical Data from Inventories of New York Estates 1666–1825 (New York, 1970), 39.

de Halve Maen

Artist Unknown, Portrait of a Woman (c. 1620s).

images available to buyers well connected to art markets in the United Provinces. One of the few paintings known to have been in New Netherland is a portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bayard (c. 1636– 1638) now in the collection of the NewYork Historical Society. Depicting her first husband Samuel Bayard’s parents, Anneke Stuyvensant (Petrus’ sister) most likely brought the panel with her when, widowed, she joined her brother in the New World. The work was among the four paintings described by du Simitière when he visited the home of Stuyvesant’s grandson in July 1768 as “two figures Some of his family a Woman Setting with a large ruff about the neck & a man Standing all tolerably well done tho decay’d Specially the last [sic].”22 Although the artist is unknown, Walter Liedtke, Curator of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of New York firmly attributes the painting to an artist active in the Dutch Republic, noting that the landscape appears to be by a follower of Jan van Goyen and the figures are similar to those painted by Pieter Codde.23 While the Bayard portrait is a rare example of painting with a known lineage, perhaps more typical of the life of an object in colonial diaspora, is a portrait of an unknown woman on display at Crailo.24 According to family legend this was previously thought to be a portrait of Por-

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trait of Margaretta Van Slichtenhorst. Further research in the Netherlands undertaken by Charlotte Wilcoxen in the 1980s uncovered that the portrait was most likely painted in the 1620s by an itinerant German painter, and therefore not of Slichtenhorst who was born in 1628. The presence of the Slichtenhorst coat of arms, does suggest that it was perhaps a portrait of her mother, Aeltje Van Wenkum, who passed away before she and her father Brant Van Slichtenhorst, left Nykerk for New Netherland where he would become director of Rensselaerswijck.25 This is work is problematic based on attribution for it is difficult to firmly ascertain the identity of the artist and the sitter, but it is a rich source of information on how visual culture was employed in colonial projects. Separated by an ocean from home and family, portraiture served as a vivid material reminder of home for diasporic communities. A more in-depth analysis of this portrait speaks to a shift from thinking about the attribution of masterworks to a more nuanced view of the networks created as people—both artists and those sitting for portraits—and objects were moving throughout the Dutch colonies. The endurance of this type of portraiture speaks to a greater function of visual culture—the forging a cohesive cultural identity in the contact zones of New

Netherland where the heterogeneous crafting population included what Ruth Piwonka described as “a lively mélange of Dutch, New England, and Scottish limners, French and Quaker woodworkers, Dutch silversmiths, and Palatine housewrights” along with indigenous and enslaved populations.26 In the wake of such political turmoil and upheaval involved in the colonization of the New World, creating a cohesive “imagined community,” to borrow Benedict Anderson’s term, would have been particularly relevant.27 As a means of projecting political power and attempting to establish a legitimate cultural legacy, portraiture became one of the first artistic traditions established in New Netherland and following transculturations of the early eighteenth century after the English asserted their political presence. As suggested by Piwonka and Blackburn, as commercial ties with Patria waned perhaps the increase in a native visual production indicates “a loss of cultural selfconfidence replaced, as the collective memory of the homeland faded, with a self-conscious need for art as a manifestation of identity, reassuring the Dutch that they were not just a remnant in the wilderness.”28 Art Produced in New Netherland and New York. In Memoirs of an American Lady, Anne Grant recalls that during the early eighteenth century the best bedroom of the Schuyler home near Albany, New York was “hung with family portraits, some of which were admirably executed; and in the eating room . . . were some fine scripture paintings . . . one of Esau coming to demand the anticipated blessing.”29 Of the roughly two-hundred and fifty paintings that survive from this pe22

Quoted in Stokes, 786.

Krohn, 195.

24 Igor Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in Arjun Appadurai, eds., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986), 64–91. 25 Collection Files. Crailo State Historic Site, NYS Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. SM.1972.7 26 Ruth Piwonka, “Dutch Colonial Arts,” in Eric Nooter and Patricia U. Bonomi, eds., Colonial Dutch Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach (New York, 1988), 88.

Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1991).

28 Roderic Blackburn, “Painting and Sculpture: Dutch,” The Encyclopaedia of the North American Colonies (New York, 1993): 315.

Anne Grant, Memoir of an American Lady, 1808 (New York, 1909), 171.

riod of 1690 to the 1750s—over two hundred portraits, thirty scriptural paintings, and some landscapes—seven artists have works confidently attributed to their hand —John Watson, Nehemiah Partridge, Pieter Vanderlyn, John Heaton, and three members of the Duyckinck family—as well as other unidentified limners, all with varying ties to the Dutch community.30 Although other genres must have been depicted, Grant’s description of the Schuyler collection reflects the prevalence of two types of images produced—portraiture and scriptural scenes—that have survived. Because it was associated with a particular person and a familial reference for a family, portraits were among the more recorded genre of visual culture.31 More of these types of works were brought or imported from patria and relatively well documented, they provided a visual lexicon for early North American artists to draw from. Portraiture flourished in and around New Amsterdam long after it had become New York City. One work with ties to New Amsterdam, but still defying firm attribution, is a portrait of Pieter Stuyvesant first thought to be by Rembrandt, then possibly Henri Couturier, but now listed by its current owner the New-York Historical Society (N-YHS), as artist unknown.32 This work is an excellent example of how art historical processes have determined survival of an object. The initial attribution to Rembrandt probably had less to do with careful connoisseurship and more to do with the popularity of Rembrandt’s works with American collectors at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Although rejected by the N-YHS, attributions to Couturier, a Dutch artists found working in New Amsterdam are based on Minutes of the Executive Board of the Burgomasters of New Amsterdam records, stating that Couturier’s wife requested payment for a portrait of Stuyvesant and others of his sons.33 Based on a wellestablished Dutch portraiture convention, Stuyvesant gazes solemnly out at the viewer. He wears amour and a patriotic orange sash typical for officers in the burgher guard signifying his political authority and national allegiances. Accessories feature prominently in later portraits of women like Ariaantje Coeymans by Nehemiah Partridge (c. 1722), Susanna Truax attributed to Pieter Vanderlyn (1730), Magdalena Douw possibly by John Heaten (c. 1740) and others to depict a world shaped by consumer-

Attributed to John Heaten, Magdalena Douw (c. 1740).

ism.34 In many ways these paintings can be viewed as extensions of images exchange, with the material culture so carefully included symbolizing commerce. The pictorial vocabulary in the visual language of trade continues in the images that were produced in the New World. Luxury fabrics, fashionable footwear, and relatively cosmopolitan furnishings stand in for a larger dialogue on trade and worldly goods. Emphasizing the global reach of early eighteenth century material culture, according to Joseph Roach, “the four corners of the world were represented synecdochically or metonymically in the form of selected costumes, sets, properties, and (where racial difference is concerned) makeup—hence the powerful symbolic importance that emanates from accessories.”35 With a keen period eye, viewers at the time would have understood the symbols of trade ubiquitous in portraiture well into the eighteenth century.36 Louisa Wood Ruby has suggested that in light of the English dominated government, portraits of the Schuylers, the de Peysters and other elite Dutch-Americans, demonstrate aspirations of a social status associated with the English aristocracy. For the most part, art historians have recognized the artists working in New York City’s reliance on British mezzotints. However, what many scholars fail to note is the extent to which the contemporary British conventions were derived from previous Dutch sources. Among the most important figures in establishing a market for aristocratic portraiture were Dutch émigrés like Sir Peter Lely, who was born in Holland but became the keeper of Charles II’s pictures, and his successor, court portraitist Sir Godfrey Kneller, also of Dutch decent, who introduced later continental trends to England.37 This transcultural production is fascinating because it means that DutchAmerican painters like Vanderlyn and Partridge, while not professionally trained in the emerging Paris salons or European academies, were looking at other forms of visual culture, that they were familiar with the prints, and other items circulating. In the most recent study of Hudson River Valley artistic production, Wood Ruby argues that limners like Pieter Vanderlyn and

John Heaten, were not working from prints. However, she contradicts herself when she notes the similarities between the architectural setting of Heaten’s portrait of Magdalena Douw and illustrations in Dutch Bibles available by 1700.38 These too were prints, but very different kinds of vernacular religious imagery that accompanied biblical literature. Indicating regional variations slightly differing the output of places like Albany from New York City, prints and the scriptural painted scenes they inspired appear to have been quite popular in Hudson River Valley homes. While not present in the churches, religious imagery was literally and figu30 Mary Black, “Remembrances of the Dutch Homeland in Early New York Provincial Painting,” New World Dutch Studies: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America 1609–1776 (Albany, 187). 31

Wood Ruby, 29.

Charles X. Harris, “Henri Couturier: An Artist of New Netherland,”New-York Historical Society Quarterly 11 (July 1927). 32

33 Administrative Minutes of New Amsterdam, 2: 176– 177, June 12, 1663, Municipal Archives, New York City. 34 Timothy J. Shannon, “Dressing for Success on the Mohawk Frontier: Hendrick, William Johnson and the Indian Fashion,” William and Mary Quarterly, series 3, vol. 53 (1996): 20. 35 Joseph Roach,“The Global Parasol: Accessorizing the Four Corners of the World,” The Global Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 2003): 98.

Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Oxford, 1988).

37 Ona Curran, Portraiture in a Colonial Dutch Town (Schenectady, N.Y., 2010). 38

Wood Ruby, 53–55.

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ratively brought into the home through bible illustrations and sermon pamphlets that provided limners with a wide variety of subject matter. Now held in the Albany Institute of History and Art, Nehemiah Partridge’s The Flight into Egypt depicts the holy family in the foreground but in the background is a distinctly American landscape punctuated with a seventeenthcentury Hudson Valley brick house. Despite these local indications, this work is heavily grounded in European visual topos. The painting is based on an engraving by Jan Baptiste Barbe that was done after a painting by Martin de Vos, later printed by Adrian Collaert; images all produced in Dutch publishing centers. Painters would have encountered these prints in the many Dutch bibles owned by families maintaining their religious ties to the United Provinces. Produced between 1680 and 1760 with many engraved illustrations, the Keur Bible was a staple in many homes. Of the many Old and New Testament narratives available, the scripture pictures painted by not only Partridge by others, reveal an overwhelming preference for Biblical scenes dealing with travel, pilgrimages or being lost in the wilderness. It has already been widely suggested that the Dutch associated themselves with the Israelites, comparing their persecution by the Spanish to Egyptian tyranny over the Jews and this association is particularly apparent in the images produced in the United Provinces. But these themes would have been

even more pronounced, even more relevant to a group of people who literally were wandering in what they considered the wilderness of the New World. Thus Old Testament religious scenes appear frequently in homes for they readily provided themes identified with by those on the margins of European civilization. In many ways the visual culture produced first in New Netherland, and later after it became New York, was distanced from the training available in the artistic centers of Europe like Amsterdam and London. One commentator has aptly described the awkwardness apparent in many of the works produced in the early colonial period: “All these images formidable in their expressiveness, all struggling to master the human figure.”39 Although rather inelegantly executed in contrast to the sophisticated canvases imported from the refined visual culture of the Netherlands, as a scholar critically engaged with works falling outside of the Western-European art historical canon, I do not think it is helpful to discuss the work of the Hudson Valley Patroon painters as primitive or unsuccessful. Especially in the discourses on ElizabethanJacobean portraiture there is a tendency for scholars to apply derogatory terms such as “folk” and “survival style” to denigrate works created by limners and craftsmen as opposed to classically trained and intellectually motivated continental artists. Rather I would encourage viewers of

these works to consider the competing sources of prints and complex functions of paintings in the contact zones of colonial societies as collating multivalent modes of representation. Where do we go from here? Benefitting from the progress made in other disciplines like literary and cultural studies, art history is adopting postcolonial methodologies to better interpret the visual cultures produced through the complex negotiations of colonial encounter. In terms of New Netherlandish production, now needed is not only a more systematic analysis of extant prints and paintings, but also a critical examining of the modes of production, patterns of circulation, means of consumption and their social significance in light of new contact. The tremendous archival work of Roderic Blackburn, Ruth Piwonka, Mary Black, and others represents an initial phase of identification and attribution. The next step is to move beyond this first almost quantitative stage to develop and apply theoretical approaches that have been constructed to consider the integration of these images into people’s lives. Aside from Louisa Wood Ruby’s thoughtful “Dutch Art and the Hudson Valley Patroon Painters,” in Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609–2009, there has been little critical engagement with the art of New Netherland since Blackburn, Piwonka and Black’s painstaking and groundbreaking archival research in the 1980s and 1990s. As with the case of the Dutch New York between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick exhibit at the Bard Graduate Center in 2009, exhibitions can stimulate research and observations and the application of methods that examine circulation and exchange, creative cross-pollination and the movement of things and ideas. Much like the larger study of New Netherland, the images and objects have often been segregated into an enthusiastic, but isolated scholarship. A concerted effort must be made by art historians to not only identify and describe examples of visual culture but also further theorize how images of New Netherland came to circulate throughout Europe and contextualize the paintings, prints and other iterations of visual culture that appeared in the colony. S. Lane Faison Jr., Hudson Valley People, Albany to Yonkers, 1700–1900 (Poughkeepsie, 1982): 13.

Nehemiah Partridge (1683-1737), The Flight into Egypt (n.d.).

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Buildings on Paper: Our Current Knowledge and Understanding of New Netherlandic Architecture by Jeroen van den Hurk

INCE THE 1840s, numerous scholars have transcribed and analyzed surviving Dutch colonial manuscripts in search of information on the history of New Netherland and its inhabitants. These documents have shed light on the politics, economy, and social history of the colony, to name but a few topics. This essay focuses on what the surviving Dutch manuscripts tell us about the built environment of the Dutch colony between 1625 and 1683, and its potential impact on the architecture of North America. References to the built environment in the manuscripts range from official instructions sent to the West India Company’s resident director and depositions by Company carpenters to inventories listing specific spaces and carpenter tools, to court cases challenging the quality of the work performed by a craftsman, to fire ordinances, and most importantly to building contracts (figure 1). There are approximately 275 references to the built environment in the surviving colonial manuscripts that not only shed light on the architecture of the settlers of New Netherland but also on the transfer of architectural traditions. The earliest surviving records relating to the built environment are found in the instructions Jeroen van den Hurk received his Ph.D. in art history from the University of Delaware and currently works as an architectural historian for Coastal Carolina Research, a Cultural Resource Management firm in Tarboro, North Carolina. He is currently working on his first book project, which focuses on the transfer of European architectural traditions by the early settlers to New Netherland from circa 1625 to 1664.

sent to Willem Verhulst, the “provisional director” of the colony of New Netherland, in January 1625.1 These instructions give an insight into the procedures of city planning as envisioned by the Dutch West India Company. Several of the instructions for New Amsterdam follow the theories put forth by the renowned Flemish mathematician and engineer Simon Stevin (1548–1620).2 Stevin envisioned the ideal city along the orthogonal lines of the Roman castrum, combining defensive, capitalist, and secular elements. The ideal plan for New Amsterdam did not follow the orthogonal lines of Stevin’s plan but did consider how the city would have functioned spatially and organizationally. Willem Verhulst had been the commissary on the voyage over and would take on the role of the provisional director once in New Netherland. His first charge was to take care of the religious needs of the settlers, both during the Atlantic crossing and on land.3 Second, the Company instructed him that no harm should come to the Indians, and the settlers should not cheat them in any business transactions.4 Verhulst was also to distribute the new settlers that were onboard the ships with him appropriately across the colony. The population on the South River (Delaware River) needed the most new settlers to strengthen their position. The Company further instructed Verhulst to locate waterfalls and “affluent streams” to build water powered sawmills and other mills alongside.5 Verhulst himself was to take up residence on the South River and set up a council to run the colony.6 Occasionally he would be required to travel to the North River (Hudson River) to check on the state of affairs there, but in his absence two other Company employees

Figure 1: First page of the contract of Jan Teunissen, schout of Breuckelen, to erect a house for Gerrit Douman, sergeant, November 22, 1646 (New York State Library). would represent him.7 In addition, on the North River Verhulst was to commission Franchoys Fezard to build a water or wind powered sawmill and provide him with any assistance he may need to get the job done.8 In the meantime, the other carpenters were to cut wood to build barns for the Company’s livestock and houses for the farmers in the Company’s service.9 These buildings did not need to be fancy, only tight and dry in order not to waste A. J. F. van Laer, Documents Relating to New Netherland 1624-1626. In The Henry E. Huntington Library (San Marino, Calif., 1924).

2 On Stevin see Charles van den Heuvel, “De Huysbou” A reconstruction of an unfinished treatise on architecture, town planning and civil engineering by Simon Stevin (Amsterdam, 2005). 3

Van Laer, 36.

Ibid., 39.

Ibid., 47. Verhulst was also instructed to scope out strategic positions along the rivers for the location of forts. The Company would build barns and other storage places so that the crops would not go to waste, see Ibid., 60.

Ibid., 64.

Ibid., Adriaen Jorrisen Thienpont and Daniel van Cryeckenbeeck.

Ibid., 68.

Ibid.

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too much time.10 In April of 1625, Verhulst received a second set of instructions. The Company sent over three more ships to New Netherland with supplies, settlers, and livestock. Before any of the settlers or livestock was to disembark, Verhulst, or members of his council, were to suggest the best location for them to do so, on both the North and South rivers. This location should have adequate pastures, land for crops, fresh water, fishing grounds, timber to build and burn, and room to expand.11 Article 14 of the second set of instructions mentioned a surveyor named Crijn Fredericxz.12 With the help of Verhulst, Fredericxz was to locate an appropriate tract of land, between 800 and 1,000 morgens to stake out a fortification, with sufficient land for crops and pastures.13 The land had to be free of Indians, or abandoned by them, or alternatively they should get a fair trade. Cryn Fredericxsz carried with him his own set of instructions for the construction of fortifications and dwellings.14 His first task was to stake out a moat and ramparts (borstweringen) according to the concept that accompanied these instructions.15 The base plan consisted of a rectangle with one side open to the water. Side “N° A” had to be 2,000 feet long, exclud-

ing the moat. Sides “N° B” and “N° C” would meet at right angles with side “N° A” and each be 1,600 feet long and extend towards the river (that is, side “N° D”) (figure 2).16 Having staked out this rectangle, Fredericxsz had to stake out the actual fort according to concept N° C with a circumference of 3,150 feet and a diameter of 1,050 feet to the outer edge of the moat. In order to speed the work process, the council had to get as many people involved with the digging of moats, cutting trees, and sawing planks, both company employees as well as free settlers, and even Indians if they were interested.17 Concept N° A also called for the construction of ten dwellings, the first five for the Company farmers (bouwmeesters) and the remaining five for the servants (meesters knechts) of the commissary and council.18 Each house had to be built according to model “N° D” and placed on a 200 feet square parcel along side “N° A” of the overall plan. The instructions also specified the distribution of farmland (landerijen), roadways and ditches. Concept “N° B” called for twelve tracts of land to be distributed among the members of the council and the company farmers. Tracts N° 1 and 2 were to be divided by a common road that

would run directly to the fifth point of the fort and be protected by it (figure 3).19 The remaining tracts would be divided by secondary roads. The tracts of land between the second common road and the river could best be used for vineyards, or meadowlands (weylanden) in case the land in the other designated tracts was insufficient.20 As soon as the ring moat (ringhsloot) was finished Verhulst and the council had to initiate the construction of the fort, according to concept N° C, to be called Amsterdam. The diameter was to be roughly 1,050 Amsterdam feet, with a 54 feet wide moat surrounding it.21 The concept called for two gates (N° 3), one on the landside and one on the waterside (figure 4).22 If the commissary, surveyor, and council considered one gate to be sufficient then that would be permissible. A street (N° 4 and 5) would run 10

Ibid., 71.

Ibid., 89.

Ibid., 106. It has been suggested that Fredericxsz had been to New Netherland before. It would make sense, also in light of the logic of the Laws of the Indies and not just “planting” a settlement without first seeing the location. On the Laws of the Indies see John W. Reps, The Making of Urban America. A History of City Planning in the United States (Princeton, N.J., 1965), 28–32, and Zelia Nuttall, “Royal Ordinances Concerning the Laying out of New Towns, in The Hispanic American Historical Review 4, No. 4 (Nov, 1921): 743–53, and 5, No. 2 (May, 1922): 249–54. 12

13 A morgen is the amount of land that could be plowed in a morning. They vary in size from region to region, as do most of these early measurements. A Rijnlandse morgen is 8,516 square meters which is 2.1 acres. This would suggest that they were looking for a tract between approximately 1683 and 2,100 acres. 14 For a thorough analysis of Fredericxsz instructions see F. C. Wieder, De Stichting van New York in juli 1625: Reconstructies en nieuwe gegevens ontleend aan de Van Rappard documenten (‘s-Gravenhage, 1925). 15 Van Laer, 132. Referred to as “plan A” (concept N° A) this concept did not survive. 16

Ibid., 135.

Of course the Indians were going to get paid less than the Europeans. Strong healthy men would be paid 8 stuivers a day, and women and children accordingly. The going rate for this kind of labor was 10 stuivers a day. The Indians would get some kind of compensation but would not be paid more that 2 stuivers daily. If an axe would cost 14 stuivers, he would have to work seven days to earn it. Ibid., 139–40. 17

Fortification Plans, clockwise from top: Figure 2 — Concept A (After Wieder) Figure 3 — Concept B (After Wieder) Figure 4 — Concept C (After Wieder)

Ibid., 147.

Ibid., 155.

The ramparts (N° 1) had to be 40 feet wide at the base. Along three sides of the ramparts there was to be a road. The moat was to be at least 8 feet deep. 22

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Ibid., 143.

Ibid., 144. The instructions mention “the fifth bastion of the fort” (het vyffde punt vant bolwerck), which is the only indication that it would be a pentagonal fort. 19

Ibid., 156.

between the two gates, with twenty-five parcels along it. At the center would be a market square, 165 feet long and 100 feet wide.23 Parcels 13 through 16 were to be developed first. They ought to provide enough room initially for all the settlers. The buildings facing the market square should be constructed according to model N° D—which appears to be the same model used for the dwellings for the company farmers—without the interior finishes, measuring 100 feet long by 50 feet wide.24 One side, of 25 feet wide by 50 feet deep, should function as a school, the other side, also 25 feet wide by 50 feet deep, should become the hospital (gasthuys), and the remaining central sections would function as a church. In case the population would expand over time and be in need of a larger church, it could annex the school and the hospital and increase to the full 100 feet in length by 50 feet deep. After the school, church, and hospital were built, the dwelling houses should be constructed along the market square all 25 feet square according to model N° D. They were to be connected in a sidegabled fashion so the water would run off into the street or the backyard. The roofs should be covered with thatch or straw, or if nothing else suitable could be found, wood shingles (houte tegelen).25 The attics were connected throughout and to be used by the Company for the storage of Company goods, until other suitable storage places were found. After which they would be used to store grains. The commissary would have access to all of the Company attics from his house (N° 17, 17) by doors connecting each of the attics.26 Four parcels had an irregular shape, but would be sufficient enough to build storage spaces for the tools belonging to the blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, wagon makers, farmers, and all others in the employment of the Company, as well as store ammunitions, arms, gunpowder, and lead.27 The (out)kitchens inside the fort were to be 10 feet [square?] on parcels that were 35 feet long, but on the parcels that were 40 or 50 feet long they could be bigger. All housebarns outside the fort should be constructed according to model N° E and its description.28 These instructions were to be followed to the letter, unless mistakes had been made, in which case the commissary, surveyor, and council could make changes, but had to report these to the Company

with an explanation. Cryn Fredericxsz’s instructions point toward a well thoughtout plan for the initial settlement by the Dutch West India Company. Another important source of information dealing with the early built environment is the correspondence of the patroon of Rensselaerswijck, Kiliaen van Rensselaer.29 From much of his correspondence it is clear that Van Rensselaer had several buildings constructed of brick in an effort to protect his property, and investment, against fire damage. In a letter to Bastiaen Jansz Krol, dated January 12, 1630, Van Rensselaer refers to carpenters and the erection of houses, barracks, and barns as well as to the production of tiles and brick, for the latter which he hired Cornelis Lambertssz Steenbacker.30 Over the next several years Van Rensselaer made a concerted effort to establish a profitable brickyard.31 Van Rensselaer also mentions the employment of numerous craftsmen in order to make his patroonship as self-sufficient as possible. In a letter to Wouter van Twiller in 1634, for instance, he notes that he hired Cornelis Teunisz van Breuckelen, who was not only a carpenter but, apparently, also a mason and knowledgeable about farming.32 That Van Rensselaer expected a decent return on his investment, of both materials and manpower, becomes clear from a memorandum that he sent to Arent van Curler in 1641. In it he points out that the settlers living in his patroonship should not be allowed to employ their friends and thereby exclude the carpenters and other workmen of the patroon, and that they should be sued if they did.33 A deposition given in March 1639 by Gillis Pietersen van der Gouw, a master carpenter for the West India Company, provides insight into the variety of buildings built on Manhattan, at Fort Orange, Fort Nassau, and Fort Hope during Wouter van Twiller’s tenure as Director of New Netherland.34 At Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan, for example, they worked on the guardhouse and built a small house for the soldiers to lodge in. Moreover, they reinforced the fort and built gun platforms. Outside the fort they built numerous buildings including a new bake house, a small house for the midwife, and a goat house, as well as a church and a large boatbuilding shed with a sailmaker’s loft above. In addition, the carpenters were in charge of constructing the housebarn, boathouse, and brewery at the Company

Number 1 farm, and covering them with pantiles. The Company carpenters were also responsible for the upkeep of the sawmills and gristmill. Twenty building contracts survive that give us a better insight into the architecture. A comparison of the surviving building contracts from New Netherland with seventeenth-century building contracts from the Dutch Republic reveals that they are similar in their tripartite format, formal language, and the nomenclature used to describe the technical aspects of the buildings. This indicates a mirroring of Dutch traditions by the settlers of New Netherland. The layout of the contracts was usually logical, guiding the contractor through the construction process from start to finish. Each contract consists of three sections. The first section identifies the parties involved. The second provides the particulars of the building, such as the dimensions, the number of structural bents, the number and types of windows and doors, and the presence of partition walls, cupboard beds, pantries, and other features. The third section discusses payment for labor and, sometimes, the time frame within which the project was to be finished. Comparing the surviving New Netherland building contracts with contemporary contracts from the Dutch Republic shows forty-five characteristics and reveals some interesting similarities and differences between the two. Even though some of the percentages are minute, they raise questions about the presence or omission of certain characteristics within the contracts on either side of the Atlantic. Six of these characteristics occurred 23

Ibid.

Ibid., 160.

Ibid., 163.

Ibid., 164.

Ibid., 167.

Ibid., 167–68. This is the only mention of this model.

29 A. J. F. van Laer, Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts, Being the Letters of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, 1630–1643, and other Documents Relating to the Colony of Rensselaerswyck (Albany, 1908). 30

Ibid., 160.

Ibid., 160, 207, 283, and 612.

Ibid., 280.

Ibid., 560.

A. J. F. van Laer, trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Vol 1: Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1638–1642, eds. Kenneth Scott and Kenn StrykerRodda (Baltimore, 1974), 108–110. 34

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only either in the Dutch Republic or in New Netherland. For example, only contracts from the Dutch Republic mention specific types of joints, such as dovetail joints, mortise and tenon and peg joints, and lap and scarf joints. The contracts from New Netherland, on the other hand, are the only ones to mention a ledikant, which is a type of bed, or a pantry.35 It is not necessary to discus each of the forty-five characteristics, but only to highlight some important differences and similarities to determine the key features for identifying Netherlandic architecture. Based on the percentages, seven of the forty-five characteristics occurred in fifty percent or more of the contracts from New Netherland. For the Dutch Republic this number is considerably higher, with twenty-eight of the characteristics occurring in fifty percent or more. There are easy answers for most of these discrepancies, but several require a further explanation. The lack of references to a structural bent, for instance, has several explanations (figure 5). No more than fifty percent of the contracts from New Netherland mention it, and only fifty-four percent from those from the Dutch Republic. Probably the most important reason for this information’s omission from the contracts from the Dutch Republic is the use of load bearing walls that negated the need for a bent system. The existence of long established customs within the building trade of using structural bents could also explain the absence of the reference to a bent system, in both the contracts from New Netherland and those from the Dutch Republic. There simply was no need to mention them. The reference to the dimensions of the timbers and their treatment perhaps sheds light on two important differences between the two countries. First, the availability of building materials, and second the existence of a supply system of prefabricated timber. New Netherland had an abundance of virgin forests. The chances, therefore, of a client receiving an undersized piece of timber were probably slim. In the Dutch Republic, however, the building trades imported all their timber from abroad at an added cost. The client would therefore want to be assured that he would get sufficient timber and not only specifically stated the dimensions of the lumber and the type of wood, but also often its country of origin. Less than

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Figure 5: Schematic of a Netherlandic H-bent.

Figure 6: Kruiskozijn.

twenty-eight percent, then, of the contracts from New Netherland mentioned the dimension of the timber, whereas seventy-nine percent of the contracts from the Dutch Republic do. The reverse was that the availability of prefabricated timber was much greater in the Dutch Republic than in New Netherland. Contractors could go to wholesalers to buy their materials, or a client could purchase it for them. In New Netherland, on the other hand, this organized system probably did not exist. There are eight references to sawmills between 1625 and 1662 in the surviving documents from New Netherland, and numerous references to the use of planks, but the chances of a client getting a “rough” piece of timber were probably still much greater in New Netherland than in the Dutch Republic. Thus, seventy-two percent of the contracts from New Netherland specify the treatment of the timbers, whereas barely thirteen percent from the Dutch Republic do. The height of the floors seems to have played an important role in both New Netherland and the Netherlands. High ceilings had evolved from their functional purpose in the early “smoke house” (rookhuis). Combined with the large window openings they allowed sufficient daylight to enter into the voorhuis and penetrate into the inner hearth (binnenhaard). High ceilings also allowed for the subsequent insertion of additional floors without having to raise the roof. Almost fifty-six percent of the contracts from New Netherland stipulate a floor height—ranging between eight and twelve feet—and fifty percent of the contracts from the Netherlands do—ranging between seven feet eight inches and twelve feet. Perhaps the most telling sign of an outward cultural manifestation are the spe-

cific references to three types of windows—kruiskozijn (figure 6), bolkozijn, and kloosterkozijn. Of the contracts from New Netherland, seventy-eight percent refer to one or more of these types of windows. For the contracts from the Netherlands, it is ninety-six percent. Primarily, these windows served a functional purpose and over time had evolved as such. 35 A ledikant is mentioned in the contract betweenAnnete Dircx and the carpenters Willem Abrahamse van der Borde and Deonys Isaaksen van Hartoghsvelt. See E. B. O’Callaghan, trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, The Register of Salomon Lachaire, Notary Public of New Amsterdam, 1661–1662, eds. Kenneth Scott and Kenn Stryker-Rodda (Baltimore, 1978), 14–15. 36 The modular aspect of these windows also allowed for the creation of “glass” façades, which in some cases extended the survival of wooden façades beyond their normal lifespan. See R. Meischke, H. J. Zantkuijl, W. Raue, and P. T. E. E. Rosenberg, Huizen in Nederland. Amsterdam: Architectuurhistorische verkenningen aan de hand van het bezit van de Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser (Zwolle, 1995), 27. According to Meischke, et al., the persistence of wooden façades had little to do with the desire to hold on to older building traditions but by the desire for façades with lots of glass.

The combination of a fixed glazed half at the top and a shuttered half at the bottom allowed the owner to control both the light and air entering into a space. With the shutters closed, to keep out cold winter winds for instance, light could still enter into a dwelling. In a later development, the shuttered sections received glazed casements on the inside, doubling the amount of light that could enter a space.36 References to doors are also high in the contracts on both sides of the Atlantic. Eighty-three percent of the contracts from New Netherland stipulate a door, while almost eighty-eight percent of the ones from the Netherlands do. Identifying the placement of doors even seems to have been slightly more important than the placement of windows, especially in New Netherland, with thirty-nine percent of contracts identifying window placement versus fifty percent indicating door placement. Every building needs a door for entrance and exit, but it is not so much the reference to a door itself as it is the inclusion of a transom light above the door or windows next to it that make it more uniquely Netherlandic. In combination with the windows it could contribute to lighting interior spaces, even if in some cases the door itself served a limited purpose, regulating only entrance or egress on special occasions (figure 7).37 What, then, are the key features of Netherlandic architecture based on the information contained in these contracts? First, we can leave aside certain characteristics that have no immediate impact on the external or internal appearance of a building, such as the use of certain ma-

Figure 7: Door with transom and side lights.

terials, the exact names and functions of domestic spaces, or the specific need for cupboard beds. Second, the knowledge that several of these characteristics are not unique to Netherlandic architecture in the first place, but are in most cases universal features, such as the need for foundations, the use of cellar beams and ceiling joists, the need for a roof, and the requirement for doors, leaves us with three key features of Netherlandic architecture: the structural bent system in combination with braces, the utilization of high ceilings, and the use of typical Netherlandic window types. The house that Thomas Jansen Mingael contracted to build for Jonas Bartelsen in 1661 includes each of these three key features (figure 8).38 The dwelling had to measure thirty feet long and eighteen feet wide, with a structural frame of seven bents, three with braces. The principal posts were to be thirteen feet long with the girder placed two feet down from the

Figure 8: First page of the contract between Jonas Bartelsen and Thomas Jansen Mingael for the construction of a house, January 31, 1661 (New York City Municipal Archives).

top creating an H-bent. Mingael had to copy the façade of Gerrit Hendrix’s house, the weigh-house master of New Amsterdam. He had to make a three-light window with a crossbar frame (een drie light met een kruijskosijn), a doorframe, and a crossbar frame window in the upper gable end. Putting all the information together from the contract between Mingael and Bartelsen, combined with other typical features mentioned in the other surviving contracts, gives us a oneand-half story frame dwelling, with a tworoom plan, a central chimney, and a steeply pitched roof (figure 9). 37 Some traditions in the Netherlands refer to this door as a dooddeur or doôdeur, literally a “dead door.” The owners would only use the door for weddings or funerals, and otherwise it remained closed. The door would give access the to best room of the house and could be several feet above grade and only accessible by means of wooden steps that had to be placed there for a specific occasion. A transom light above the door was often the only light entering into the room. The term dead did not so much refer to its funerary function as to the fact that it was used so little. It was a dead asset. See H. Janse, Houten Huizen, een unieke bouwwijze in Noord-Holland (Zaltbommel, 1970; 8th printing, 2001), 63–64. 38 For an English translation of the contract see E. B. O’Callaghan, trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, The Register of Salomon Lachaire, Notary Public of New Amsterdam, 1661–1662, eds.Kenneth Scott and Kenn Stryker-Rodda (Baltimore, 1978), 4–5. 39 The Company’s secretary, Cornelis van Tienhoven, signed nine of the contracts; Salomon Lachaire, a public notary in New Amsterdam, three; Jacob Kip, the clerk in the secretary’s office, one; and Joannes Dyckman, the representative for the WIC at Fort Orange in Beverwijck, also one. Four contracts were only signed by the parties involved.

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Figure 9: Reconstruction of the house built by Thomas Jansen Mingael.

The traditional language of the building contracts from New Netherland was clearly carried over from the Dutch Republic.39 They differ little from contracts from the English colonies that display a similar tripartite arrangement.40 These were binding contracts that would assure the client that the contractor would meet his requirements and that the contractor had some legal recourse in case the client changed his mind halfway through the process. In both New Netherland and the Dutch Republic, they display varying levels of detail. None of them actually provides sufficient information to construct the buildings accurately. However, conventional phrases such as “enclosed all around” (rontomdigt), “according to the demands” (naeden Eijsch), and “to be properly finished” (nae behooren voltoijt wesen, and in behoorlijke forma sal volbracht wesen), ensured that the contractor knew what was expected of him and that the client would be satisfied with the result.41 The contracts spelled out elements that were open to interpretation, such as the type of windows or the height of the bents, or unusual requirements. In most cases the contracts from the Dutch Republic are much more detailed and several possible explanations are suggestive of the seeming differences between the elaborate contracts from the Republic and the more incisive contracts from New Netherland. First, the existence of a bidding system in the Republic probably played a role. In order for a contractor to estimate accurately the cost of a

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building for a client, he needed as much information as possible. In New Netherland there may have been less bidding on building contracts, and clients and contractors probably worked more closely together resolving any issues as they came up during construction. 42 Second, the building contracts from New Netherland were not so much intended as stand alone instructions for building a housebarn or a house, but as legal documents tying two parties together to ensure the construction of a building.43 A limited number of craftsmen had to service settlers who at times lived in remote areas. It was therefore important to make this initial legal connection to guarantee a client the full attention of a craftsman. One of the contracts from New Netherland specifically states that the craftsman could not be involved in any other work while working on a specific project.44 The building contracts from New Netherland not only reflected legal customs reminiscent of those in the Dutch Republic but also the novel circumstances clients had to deal with in the colony— circumstances that rendered the obligation between client and craftsman and the logistics of building a dwelling house or housebarn more important than the individual details of the design. A close study of the surviving Dutchlanguage building contracts from New Netherland from the seventeenth century reveals remarkable similarities with those from the Dutch Republic, documenting the vitality of Dutch traditions within the

settler building cultures of New Netherland. The documents also point toward the creation of a viable type of architecture in the decades before English political and economic rule. The culturally heterogeneous make up of the initial European settlers of the colony, the availability of different building materials, and the smaller number and skill level of the available craftsmen covering a much larger geographic area shaped this architecture from the beginning. Surviving buildings from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century reveal some of the story of adaptation and regional differences. Melding the evidence of buildings and documents provides a richer understanding of New Netherlandic architectural origins and evolution. Within the material and written evidence, we discover the ways that the architecture created by the settlers of New Netherland outlasted the arrival of the English by at least a century. 40 On English colonial contracts, see Cummings, Architecture in Colonial Massachusetts, 193–221: “Massachusetts Bay Building Documents, 1638–1726,” by Abbott Lowell Cummings, comp., 193–221. See also Catherine W. Bishir, “Good and Sufficient Language for Building,” in Thomas Carter and Bernard L. Herman, eds., Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 4 (Columbia, Mo., 1991), and Carl R. Lounsbury, “The Plague of Building: Construction Practices on the Frontier, 1650–1730,” in Catherine W. Bishir, Charlotte V. Brown, Carl R. Lounsbury, and Ernest H. Wood III, eds., Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building,(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1990), 9–47. The use of building contracts also occurs in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. See Laura Giacomini, “The Management of Private Building Yards in Milan between 1550 and 1650: a History Constructed through Building and Supply Contracts,” in Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Construction History, Malcolm Dunkeld, et al., eds., (Construction History Society, 2006), 2: 1233–49. 41 These phrases are found in the following contracts: rontomdigt (enclosed all around) (pages 13–14); naeden Eijsch (according to the demands) (pages 16–18); nae behooren voltoijt wesen (pages 13–14); and in behoorlijke forma sal volbracht wesen (to be properly finished) (pages 16–18). The English translations of these contracts can be found in A. J. F. van Laer, trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Vol. 2: Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1642–1647, eds. Kenneth Scott and Kenn Stryker-Rodda (Baltimore, 1974). 42 One example survives from New Netherland of this bidding practice from 1656, where Stoffel Jansz and Jan Roelofsz won a public bid to build a blockhouse church. See A. J. F. van Laer, trans., Minutes of the Court of Fort Orange and Beverwyck, 1652–1656 (Albany, 1920), 1: 263. 43 Carl Lounsbury used this argument in his essay on the building trade in colonial North Carolina. See Lounsbury (1990), note 39, 39–40. 44 For an English translation of the contract see A. J. F. van Laer, trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Vol. 3, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1648–1660, eds. Kenneth Scott and Kenn Stryker-Rodda (Baltimore, 1974), 203–205.

Book Review Firth Haring Fabend, New Netherland in a Nutshell: A Concise History of the Dutch Colony in North America (Albany: New Netherland Institute, 2012).

R.FIRTH FABEND has just done us all an important favor. By synthesizing dozens of sources into a concise volume, she allows the student, teacher, genealogist, or casual reader unfettered access to the central themes of North America’s Dutch colony without the distractions of awkward syntax or archaic vocabulary. Heavy on content and sequence without sacrificing humor or style, this introductory work provides a detailed overview of a short-lived colony with a long-lasting influence. Beginning with Henry Hudson’s fated 1609 voyage up the river that bears his name and closing with the myriad ways in which remnants of Dutch culture persisted in the regions that comprised New Netherland and beyond, the author takes readers on a captivating journey through the Dutch-controlled territory of America from its inception to its abrupt demise in 1664. Fabend provides important context to the layman for the complex associations between European and Indian communities in the colony. Readers will quickly grasp the almost immediate codependence between these groups that centered on the fur trade but extended far beyond a simple exchange of pelts for cooking kettles and later rested on delicate alliances and disputed rights to land. Fabend asserts that food was sometimes traded for furs, which could suggest that certain Indian communities either lacked adequate winter provisions or perhaps preferred (or were simply exploring) elements of European cuisine, just as Europeans were incorporating indigenous plants and animals into their own diets. Readers are also told of the Indians “rejecting the trade goods stored in the Company’s warehouse” [p. 16] for lack of variety, their desire for heavy cloth imported from Europe, and their disinterest in the gold and silver prized by Europeans. In short, Fabend gives clear evidence of a symbiotic trading relationship in which both sides made demands and concessions but generally considered the exchange to

be more beneficial than exploitative. Fabend skillfully establishes how the various inconsistencies in the colonists’ collective regard for Indians contributed to instability in New Netherland. Early dominies such as Jonas Michaelius and Johannes Megapolensis maintained negative impressions of the “murderous” natives whereas Dominie Everardus Bogardus and West India Company Director Willem Kieft publicly feuded over “the director’s brutal and unchristian behavior” [p. 46] toward them which set off a chain reaction that ultimately led to both of their deaths but also the advent of New Netherland’s golden years under Petrus Stuyvesant’s leadership. Had Kieft exercised less tenacity or Bogardus more diplomacy with Kieft, New Amsterdam’s residents would have waited much longer for their first pier, school, canal, protective wall, and the completion of their church, all of which only occurred under Stuyvesant’s attentive eye. The lives of women, children, Africans, and other groups often neglected by popular New Netherland histories are also given careful treatment in this book. Fabend writes of the Dutch West India Company’s special provisions for the poor and indigent, the experiences of the middling sort, the educational instruction of boys and girls, the vocational opportunities afforded women, and the elevated legal status enjoyed by Dutch women (in comparison with their English counterparts). Even Director Kieft, unpopular in history as he was with his contemporaries, is granted a favorable reprieve. Not only did he honor a 1640 petition of slaves for freedom but he granted those same slaves ownership of the land they farmed—in effect an official act of endorsement for an early free black community in New Netherland. Perhaps most significantly for the novice reader of New Netherland history, Fabend adds dimension to the popular assumption of a singular Dutch identity among Europeans in the colony. Despite its modest size, the Netherlands was home to multiple provincial cultures and microcultures, each with its own traditions, customs, and dialects. Furthermore, immigrants from other parts of Europe and their descendants were living abroad in the United Provinces, contributing their own

traditions to the eclectic mix. Although the essence of New Netherland may have been decidedly Dutch, half of its immigrants were decidedly not, and some of those that were may have held only first or second generation roots in the father country. Thus the notion of New Netherland’s “Dutchness” becomes convoluted. Nonetheless, Fabend successfully contends that the Reformed Church and the colony’s Dutch-identifying political elite provided a central base that prompted minority groups to conform to Dutch linguistic, religious, and cultural norms so that the contents of the pot truly melted but the resulting flavor was more Dutch than anything else. Lastly, Fabend makes a compelling case for the legacy of New Netherland in both the founding documents and the emerging national character of the United States. Everything from the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment guaranteeing religious liberty to our propensity for doughnuts and coleslaw can be easily correlated to events or traditions in New Netherland. As much a work of social history as of the political events that surrounded the colony, Fabend’s New Netherland in a Nutshell will be a welcome and entertaining addition to the emerging collection of publications on the topic of Dutch-colonial history and an important resource for educators and students alike. The books lack of an index does not detract from the educational value or research potential offered by this general introduction. The author has thoughtfully included frequent thematically-based headings so readers can easily capture main ideas and skim for topics relevant to their course of study. Teachers will find such an outline particularly useful when planning lessons as part of a larger New Netherland unit, or in dividing specific reading and research assignments for their students; students will likewise benefit from the brief entries which they will find easy to absorb and retain.It belongs in every public library in New York State and on the shelf of every school classroom. —Joshua Van Kirk Executive Director Wyckoff House Museum

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Here and There in New Netherland Studies Annual Hendricks Award

HE NEW NETHERLAND Institute’s Annual Hendricks Award, endowed by Holland Society of New York Trustee Dr. Andrew A. Hendricks, is given to the best book or book-length manuscript relating to any aspect of the Dutch colonial experience in North America until the American Revolution. The Award carries a prize of $5,000 as well as a framed print of a painting by Len Tantillo entitled Fort Orange and the Patroon’s House. The prizewinner, chosen by a five-member panel of scholars, is selected in May or June. The Award is given at a ceremony in conjunction with the annual New Netherland Seminar, held in September or October. Reasonable travel expenses will be reimbursed. Two categories of submissions are considered in alternate years: (1) recently completed dissertations and unpublished booklength manuscripts, and (2) recently published books. The 2013 Award will be given to a recently published book. If there is no suitable winner in the designated category in any particular year, submissions from the alternate category will be considered. In addition, submissions from the previous year will be reconsidered for the Award. Entries must be based on research completed or published within two years prior to submission. Manuscripts may deal with any aspect of the Dutch colonial experience as defined above. Biographies of individuals whose careers illuminate aspects of the history of New Netherland and its aftermath are eligible, as are manuscripts dealing with literature and the arts, provided that the methodology is historical. Co-authored books are eligible, but edited collections of articles are not, nor are works of fiction or works of article length. An entry may be a self-nomination, an outside nomination, or in response to invitations to submit from Hendricks Award readers. Submissions will be judged on their contribution to the scholarly understanding of the Dutch colonial experience in North America and the quality of their research and writing. Three copies of a

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published book or three clear, readable photocopies of the manuscript must be submitted on or before February 15, with a letter of intent to enter the contest. Copies cannot be returned. Manuscript submissions may be in pdf format. Address entries to: The Annual Hendricks Award Committee, New Netherland Institute, Cultural Education Center, Room 10D45, 222 Madison Avenue, Albany, NY 122300001. Send PDF submissions to nyslfnn@mail.nysed.gov. Please use “Hendricks Award” in the subject line.

New Netherland Institute To Offer Prize For The Best Published Article

EGINNING IN 2013, the New Netherland Institute will offer an annual $1000 prize for the best published article relating to the Dutch colonial experience in the Atlantic World, with a special sensitivity to New Netherland or its legacy. A committee of scholars will consider entries in the fields of history, archaeology, literature, language, geography, biography, and the arts. Entries must

be based upon original research. Articles must be written in English and be published for the first time from 2010 to the present. Chapters from a monograph, works of fiction, and encyclopedia entries will not be considered. Both academic and independent scholars are invited to participate. Prize-winning articles should make an important contribution to the understanding of New Netherland and its legacy, specifically or broadly defined, exhibit exceptional research, and be well written. Submissions may come from self-nomination, an outside nomination, committee members, or in response to invitations to submit articles from committee members. Four copies of articles for consideration (non returnable) may be submitted by the author, editor, colleague, or other interested party no later than March 1, 2013. Articles may be sent either electronically (nyslfnn@mail.nysed.gov) or in hard copy to the Article Prize Committee, New Netherland Institute, P.O. Box 2536, Empire State Plaza Station, Albany, NY 12220-0536. The winner will be notified by August 1, 2013, and the prize will be presented at the New Netherland Seminar in September.

President’s Fund

OLLAND SOCIETY of New York President Charles Zabriskie Jr. has an nounced that the Board of Trustees again responded to the President’s Fund, created by the Trustees, with an annual gift of $50,000 for 2012. This gift is to support the Society’s objectives and mission, including expenditures for the general operating budget. This gift will also permit Treasurer Donald Westervelt to announce in the coming weeks that The Holland Society experienced a budget surplus for 2012. Last year’s performance was the second year in a row that the Trustees and past leaders of our great Society provided the President’s Fund with a similar gift. Without our Trustees’ support, leadership, and financial resources, The Holland Society would be unable to carry out the many facets of our mission. In the weeks ahead a further effort to support the operating budget for years to come will be launched through revenue, derived from a new, elevated giving level entitled the Benefactors Society. This will further facilitate increased annual revenue in support of the Society’s future. “I am extraordinarily proud of our Board,” Zabriskie says, “who have generously stepped up in recent years to ensure the vitality of our ongoing programs, which include publishing de Halve Maen, the Robert G. Goelet Library, archives management, scholarly lectures, scholarships, research, and educational programs.”

Society Activities Annual Banquet

EMBERS, FELLOWS, and Friends of The Holland Society of New York with families and guests attended the Society’s 127th Annual Banquet at the Union Club in Manhattan on Thursday, November 15, 2012. The gala event also celebrated Dutch-American Heritage Day. The evening began with a cocktail reception in the club’s magnificent grand hall, where Members and guests mingled and met Honored Guests His Excellency Rudolf S. Bekink, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, The Honorable Rob de Vos, Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York, Mrs. Elbrun Kimmelman, DirectressGeneral Society of Daughters of Holland Dames, William Muir Manger Jr., President of the St. Nicholas Society and Henry C. B. Lindh, President of The Huguenot Society of America. Following cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, Holland Society President Charles Zabriskie and his wife, Star, and Banquet Chairman Stephen S. Wyckoff and his wife, Lori, formed a receiving line with the Dutch ambassador and consul general at the entrance to the main dining room—which was adorned with large bouquets of flowers at each table—while members of the Lester Lanin Orchestra played background music. Once everyone had gathered in the dining room, Chairman Wyckoff welcomed the gathering and requested all stand for the traditional Parading of the Beaver. This was followed by the singing of the Dutch and American national anthems and the traditional Dutch hymn “We Gather Together.” After the invocation by the Reverend Everett L. Zabriskie III, President Charles Zabriskie Jr. gave the traditional toast to Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Ambassador Rudolf S. Bekink to the President of the United States, and LTC Adrian T. Bogart III to The Holland Society of New York. Following a delicious three-course dinner with dancing between courses to the music of the Lester Lanin Orchestra, Banquet Chair Wyckoff introduced President Zabriskie, who delighted the gathering

Above: From left to right, LTC Bogart, Elbrun Kimmelman, Star Zabriskie, Society President Charles Zabriskie Jr., Banquet Chairman Stephen S. Wyckoff, His Excellency Rudolf S. Bekink, Ambassador of the Netherlands, his wife, Gabrielle Kunk, Mrs. Marion de Vos and her husband,The Honorable Rob de Vos, Consul General of the Netherlands. Left clockwise from top: Major Burkhart and his wife, Nicole, Eric DeLamarter and wife, Clara, and Dean Vanderwarker and his sister, Meredith Martin.

with a wonderful address and introduced Holland Society member LTC Adrian T. Bogart III, who made a special presentation of a flag that flew for many months over U.S. Army headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, and was offered to the Society from the troops that Colonel Bogart commands in this dangerous war-torn part of the world. His Excellency, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands,

Rudolf Simon Bekink, made remarks in lieu of our planned special guest for the evening, General David H. Petraeus. With the formal program of the banquet concluded, Chairman Wyckoff thanked all of those who had made the evening a success and urged those in attendance to continue dancing to the music of the orchestra, which many did until deep into the night.

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Mid-West Branch Meeting

HE MID-WEST BRANCH of Holland Society of New York held a spectacular reception with a concert in the Ravinia Private Dining Room on Sunday, September 30. Honoree was Edwin Outwater, the most recent recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Medal of the Holland Society. Our group was seated looking out floor to ceiling glass at the beautiful trees at Ravinia Festival grounds. They were just beginning to change into their autumn glory. The reception was turned into a full buffet and was enjoyed by the nineteen in attendance. The summer Ravinia Festival season was over and we had the entire facility and grounds to ourselves. Ms. Katinka Kleijn played selections from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major. Katinka Kleijn was born in Holland, and is an outstanding member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She explained to the attendees each of eight Bach pieces before playing them. At the end of her

Left to right, Jon Veeder, Gary Sprong, Judy Gratt, Dorothy Sprong, Stanley Gratt, John Lansing, Thomas Veeder, Sara Schellinger, John Schellinger, Robert Schenck, David Barlow,Claire Schermerhorn, Sally Veeder, Jack Schermerhorn, Stephan Donovan. Photo: Courtesy of Marcia Whitney-Schenck (not in photo). concert, she also interacted with the crowd and answered many questions relating to her music and her rise rise to musical eminence. Due to a scheduling conflict, Edwin Outwater communicated by video to explain what he does as the conductor of

the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony in Ontario, Canada, as well as the beautiful acoustics in his concert hall. Mr. Outwater has instituted a variety of innovations, including a youth series. He is often guest conductor at major symphonies all across North America.

In Memoriam Judson Steven Davis Holland Society of New York Life Member Judson Steven Davis died on December 31, 2011, at McLaren Regional Medical Center, Davison, Michigan, at the age of eighty-three. Mr. Davis was born in Detroit, Michigan, on August 3, 1928, the son of John Stephen Davis and Henrietta Mae Elferdink. Mr. Davis, a Life Member of the Holland Society since 1985, claimed descent from Christofel Davids, who migrated to New Netherland from England about 1637–1638. Mr. Davis received a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1949 and an M.B.A. in 1951 from Michigan State University, which prepared him for a fifty-two-year career as facility engineer for General Motors Corporation. He returned to school to receive an M.S. in Computer Engineering in 1972 from the University of Michigan. During the Korean War he worked to develop radar-based anti-aircraft systems. Later he was involved in the development of a number of automotive systems and helped establish General Motors’ first emission testing center. In Luxembourg and Tokyo Mr.

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Davis was a technical coordinator for design and construction of emission testing centers. In Shanghai, he served as consultant on the emissions process. He was a member of the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers. On June 27, 1953, Mr. Davis married Marjorie Jean Fendon in Lansing, Michigan. The couple had two sons and two daughters: Edward Steven, born on February 11, 1955, Patricia Louise, born on April 16, 1957, Matthew Fenton, born on August 10, 1960, and Elizabeth Anne, born on October 1, 1962, all in Flint, Michigan. Mr. Davis gave generously of his talents to his community. He served on the Davison, Michigan, City Council in 1961–1965 and in 1967–1969, and as mayor of the city from 1969 to 1971. As chairman of the city’s Parks Committee he worked to acquire, design, and develop the Davison Regional Park (1962–1969). As a devoted member of the Denison United Methodist Church, Mr. Davis served as chairman of the Building and Finance committees, the Committee on Missions, and the Committee for Church

Growth. For the latter he worked diligently through the Gideons International and the Hispanic-Latino Ministries of the United Methodist Church. From 1972 to 1975 he was president of the Flint District Board of Missions and Church Extension. Among Mr. Davis’s other active associations were the Genesee County Association for Retarded Citizens, Quality Living Systems, Boy Scout Troop No. 178, the Bayview Association Archives, and the Springfield Township Historical Society. He was passionate about historic preservation, stamp collecting, and sailing on Little Traverse Bay. Mr. Davis is survived by his wife of fiftyeight years, Marjorie, his four children, Edward Steven Davis of Fairbanks, Alaska, Patricia Louise Davis of Flint, Michigan, Matthew Fenton Davis of Felton, Colorado, and Elizabeth Anne Davis of Astoria, New York, a granddaughter, Ariana Elizabeth Davis, his brother David Alan Davis, and two nephews and a niece. Memorial services were held on January 6, 2012, at the United Methodist Church, Denison, Michigan, and at the Crouse Memorial

Chapel, Bayview, Michigan. Interment was at Greenwood Cemetery, Petoskey, Michigan. Arrangements were made by the Allen Funeral Home, Davison, Michigan.

Craig Ackerman Life Member of The Holland Society of New York Craig Ackerman died on July 13, 2012, in Charlottesville, Virginia, a month short of his eightieth birthday. Mr. Ackerman was born on August 12, 1932, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, son of John Russell Ackerman and Winifred Ryder Holt. He claimed descent from David Ackerman, a native of Oss, North Brabant, who came to New Netherland in 1662. Mr. Ackerman received a B.S. degree from Michigan State University in 1955, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He studied further at the University of Michigan in 1956. Mr. Ackerman’s business career was in finance, specifically in insurance services. In his early career he was an executive insurance director for SunAmerica, vicepresident of Great Lakes Insurance Company and of the SFC Agency, Buffalo, New York, and vice-chairman of the Federal Legislative Committee of the Consumer Credit Insurance Association, Chicago, Illinois. He later worked for ExxonMobil and Allstate Insurance before joining J. P. Morgan Chase. Mr. Ackerman married Sarah Forbes Nichols on June 6, 1959, in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. The couple had two sons: John Russell, born on November 30, 1961, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and David Holt, born on April 5, 1964, in Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania. Two of Mr. Ackerman’s recreational interests were tennis and hunting. He especially enjoyed hunting with his golden retrievers, which he also raised, and fishing for northern pike on trips with his sons to northern Quebec and Ontario. He was a former member of the Hudson, Ohio, Tennis Club and of the Western Reserve Racquet Club. He also served on the Hudson Parks and Recreations Commission and was a member of the American Field Service. After retiring from J. P. Morgan-Chase, Mr. Ackerman and his wife moved to Wintergreen, Virginia. There, he became a volunteer ambulance driver for EMS and served on the Wintergreen Partners, Inc., board for six years. Survivors include Mr. Ackerman’s wife

of fifty-three-years, Sara, son John Russell Ackerman of Hudson, Ohio, and David Holt Ackerman of Charlottesville, Virginia, and three granddaughters. A memorial service was held on August 11, 2012, at University Village, Charlottesville, Virginia.

George Downing Hegeman Jr. George Downing Hegeman Jr. died at the Bell Trace Retirement Center, Bloomington, Indiana, on September 9, 2012, four months after his 100th birthday. Mr. Hegeman was born on May 17, 1912, in Glen Head, New York, son of George Downing Hegeman and Sarah Luyster. He joined the Holland Society of New York in 1977, and claimed descent from Adriaen Hegemen, a native of Elburg, Gelderland, who spent several years in Amsterdam before migrating to New Netherland in 1652. Mr. Hegeman graduated from Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania in 1933. During his thirty-nine-year working career he was technical director of the X-ray Division of Powers-Chemco, Glen Cove, New York. He was a deacon and elder of the Brookville Reformed Church, and a former board member of the New Lots (Brooklyn, New York) and Hillside (Glen Head, New York) cemeteries. He was also a former member of the Hempstead Harbor Yacht Club. Mr. Hegeman married Bonnie Grace Blair in Elkton, Maryland, on August 20, 1937. The couple had two children: George Downing, born on August 31, 1938, and Elizabeth (“Betsy”) Blair, born on March 28, 1942. Mr. Hegeman’s wife predeceased her husband in 2006. Mr. Hegeman is survived by his son, George Hegeman of Bloomington, Indiana, and daughter, Betsy Hegeman, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. No further information is available.

Leroy Van Nostrand Jr. Attorney and community leader Leroy Van Nostrand Jr. of Amityville, New York, died on October 29, 2012, at the age of ninety-five. Born on October 24, 1917, in Babylon, New York, Mr. Van Nostrand was the son of Leroy Van Nostrand and Madelene Farrington Haff. Mr. Van Nostrand became a Life Member of the Holland Society in 1971. He claimed descent from Hans Jansen van Noorstrandt,

a native of the island of Noorstand off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein, then in Denmark, who came to New Netherland in 1639. Mr. Van Nostrand graduated from Babylon High School in 1935, and received an A.B. degree from Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1939, and an LL.B. degree in 1946 from Brooklyn Law School, Brooklyn, New York. He belonged to Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Amherst and to the law fraternity Phi Delta Phi. Mr. Van Nostrand exemplified the special role an attorney can have in service to his community. Over his career he served as counsel to twelve Eastern Long Island school districts (1960–1978), as counsel to the Suffolk County Water Authority (1963–2004), and as founding chairman of the board of trustees of Suffolk County Community College (1960– 1978). He was president of the Suffolk County Bar Association in 1970–1971, and a member for fifteen years of the New York Republican Committee and the Parliamentary Committee of the Suffolk County Republican Committee. He also served as chairman of the board of trustees of the First United Methodist Church of Amityville from 1975 to 2007. During World War II, Mr. Van Nostrand rose from ensign to Lt. Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves (1941–1945). He served in the North Atlantic Theater on Convoy Escort duty. Afterwards his main leisure pastime was sailing and cruising on his 33’ auxiliary(S&S wooden yacht). He was a member of the Unqua Corinthian Yacht Club, Narrasketuck Yacht Club, and South Bay Cruising Club. On May 1, 1942, Mr. Van Nostrand married Margaret A. Van Nostrand at the First Methodist Church, Amityville, New York. They had three children, Judith, born on May 28, 1945, and Gail, born on September 14, 1947, and David, born June 18, 1950, all in Amityville. In tribute a friend summarized Mr. Van Nostrand as “a gentleman and a true humanitarian . . . a venerable citizen.” Mr. Van Nostrand is survived by his wife Margaret, children Judith Sturgis, Gail MacFarland, and David Van Nostrand, eight grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. Services arranged by the Powell Funeral Home, Amityville, New York, were held on November 10, 2012, at the First United Methodist Church, Amityville, New York, with interment at the Amityville Cemetery.

de Halve Maen

Publications of

The Holland Society of New York Records of The Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Flatbush, Kings County, New York Volume I 1677-1720 Volume II Translated by David William Voorhees

Records of the consistory minutes, baptismal and marriage records, and membership lists of the Dutch Reformed congregations located in the present-day New York City borough of Brooklyn. Special features include transliterated Dutch text and English line-for-line translation. — Hard cover — Illustrated — $60.00 per volume

Index to de Halve Maen Volumes 52–79 indexed by Patricia Law Hatcher, FASG 1977–2006 incorporating the index of volumes 52–61 by Roger D. Joslyn, FASG, 1990 and the index of obituaries by Louis Duermyer for volumes 1–51

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