de Halve Maen, Summer 2018 by The Holland Society of New York

de Halve Maen

The Holland Society of New York 708 THIRD AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10017 President Andrew S. Terhune Vice President Col. Adrian T. Bogart III Treasurer R. Dean Vanderwarker III

Magazine of the Dutch Colonial Period in America VOL. XCI Secretary James J. Middaugh Domine Rev. Paul D. Lent

Advisory Council of Past Presidents Roland H. Bogardus W. Wells Van Pelt Jr. Kenneth L. Demarest Jr. Walton Van Winkle III Robert Schenck William Van Winkle Peter Van Dyke Charles Zabriskie Jr. Trustees Laurie Bogart Bradley D. Cole D. David Conklin Christopher M. Cortright Eric E. DeLamarter David W. Ditmars Philips Correll Durling Trustees Emeriti Adrian T. Bogart John O. Delamater Robert G. Goelet Robert Gardiner Goelet David M. Riker Kent L. Stratt

Andrew A. Hendricks David D. Nostrand Gregory M. Outwater Samuel K. Van Allen Frederick M. Van Sickle Stuart W. Van Winkle Kenneth G. Winans David William Voorhees John R. Voorhis III Ferdinand L. Wyckoff Jr. Stephen S. Wyckoff Donald Westervelt Rev. Everett Zabriskie

Summer 2018

NUMBER 2

IN THIS ISSUE: 26

Editor’s Corner

Dutch Colonial Fortifications in New Amsterdam and Vicinity 1614–1676

by Jaap Jacobs

Dutch Architecture in the New World: A proposal for a new typology of classification

by Ian Stewart

Burgher Guard Captain Sarah Bogart

Book Review: Alice Sparberg Alexiou, “The Dutch”: Bouweries and Early Settlement in New Amsterdam

Vice-Presidents Connecticut-Westchester R. Dean Vanderwarker III Dutchess and Ulster County Florida James S. Lansing International Lt. Col. Robert W. Banta Jr. (Ret) Jersey Shore Stuart W. Van Winkle Long Island Eric E. DeLamarter Mid-West David Ditmars New Amsterdam Eric E. DeLamarter New England Niagara David S. Quackenbush Old Bergen-Central New Jersey Gregory M. Outwater Old South Pacific Northwest Edwin Outwater III Pacific Southwest (North) Kenneth G. Winans Pacific Southwest (South) Paul H. Davis Patroons Robert E. Van Vranken Potomac Christopher M. Cortright Rocky Mountain Col. Adrian T. Bogart III South River Walton Van Winkle III Texas James J. Middaugh Virginia and the Carolinas James R. Van Blarcom United States Air Force United States Army Col. Adrian T. Bogart III United States Coast Guard Capt. Louis K. Bragaw Jr. (Ret) United States Marines Lt. Col. Robert W. Banta Jr., USMC (Ret) United States Navy LCDR James N. Vandenberg, CEC, USN

by Sarah Bogart Cooney

Here and There in New Netherland Studies

In Memoriam

Editor David William Voorhees Production Manager Odette Fodor-Gernaert Editorial Committee Peter Van Dyke, Chair Christopher Cortright John Lansing

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, 708 Third Ave., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10017. Telephone: (212) 758-1675. Fax: (212) 758-2232. E-mail: info@hollandsociety.org Website: www.hollandsociety.org

Copy Editor Sarah Bogart

David M. Riker Rudy VanVeghten

Cover: Jan Luyken (1649-1712), sketch of carpenters for Het Menselyk Bedryf (Amsterdam, 1694). Teylers Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands.

Summer 2018

Editor’s Corner

N A SEMINAL 1985 article in the Winterthur Review on Dutch material culture, the historian Dr. Alice P. Kenney wrote, “Although the contributions of many ethnic groups to American history have been recognized, comparative little attention has been given to the Dutch settlers of New York, New Jersey and Delaware, despite the fact that they were among the earliest colonists.” In truth, she notes, that “many Dutch traditions did indeed survive in the Hudson River Valley throughout the English colonial period.” Among these traditions are those of architecture. Drawing on the work of Rosalie Fellows Bailey, Roderic Blackburn, and others, in recent decades a substantial literature has emerged on the survival of Netherlandic architectural traditions in North America. This issue of de Halve Maen touches upon current trends in the exploration of New Netherland’s architectural legacy. Jaap Jacobs’ essay on the fortifications of New Amsterdam and its vicinity is part of a larger overview of fortifications built or planned by the Dutch in North America between 1614 and 1676. Ian Stewart explores the classification of Dutch architecture in North America. And in a book review, Sarah Bogart Cooney looks at the continuing legacy of the Dutch in shaping Manhattan’s urban landscape. The first colonists needed protection, Jacobs reminds us, be they forts, blockhouses, or palisades, against hostile groups. As early as 1625, West India Company instructions refer to a “fort on Noten Island,” where the first company’s first permanent colonists had settled a year earlier. Beginning in the 1620s, Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan was the West India Company’s headquarters in New Netherland. It controlled access to the Hudson River and was “a palpable symbol of the Company’s rule over the colony,” Jacobs notes. “Yet, despite the wealth of documentary and visual information on Fort Amsterdam,” he tells us, “its beginnings are shrouded in mystery.” The outbreak of hostilities with the Native Americans in the 1640s and with England in the 1650s made it clear to the Company directors that an upgrade of their fortifications was needed, including the establishing of defensive structures in the surrounding New York Bay area, on Staten Island and Long Island. In 1653, the New Amsterdam city government decided “to fence off the greater part of the city with an upright stockade and a small breastwork against an attack.” When in June 1654 an English attack seemed imminent, a small rampart and breastworks were placed before New Amsterdam’s City Tavern on the East River. By early 1664, the need to improve fortifications became urgent. Predictably, planks in palisades had rotted, contemporary descriptions show Fort Amsterdam in constant need of repairs, with “hogs, sheep, goats, horses, and cows” roaming free on the ramparts. Yet, Jacobs notes, the Company directors thought it best the repairs be done in the “cheapest manner” and hampered them up to the takeover by the English in 1664. Jacobs’ essay provides a brief fascinating overview

of each site, focusing on material aspects rather than on strategic and operational objectives or military use. Much more information, he suggests, can be found in later sources dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as archaeological findings and report. As a case in point, he notes that Fort Amsterdam, renamed Fort James after the Duke of York by the English, was eventually demolished in 1790. The construction on its site of the U. S. Customs House from 1902 to 1907 appears to make archaeological research unlikely. “Overlays of historic maps on the modern topography suggest that the footprint of the Customs House does not completely cover the original location of the fort.” Thus, Jacobs concludes that a full interdisciplinary analysis of colonial fortifications in New Netherland remains to be written. In the issue’s second essay, Ian Stewart questions how scholars have endeavored to classify New World Dutch architecture. What gives it its innate “Dutch sense,” he asks? Despite varying degrees of success, he finds a solid classification system for Dutch architecture is still lacking and “falls short of the entire picture.” In these pages he proposes a new approach for categorizing New World Netherlandish structures—“an approach that is governed not only by form and style, but also by methods and materials of construction.” If a common pattern of construction in the early period of the colony is found, regional variations in the Mid and Upper Hudson River Valley and the southern portions of the New Netherland cultural area soon appear. Therefore, Stewart posits, if the defining characteristic of a Dutch topology is questionably Dutch, should it be considered? A more precise classification system, he suggests, may be constructed by considering materials combined with siting and form for a complete picture of the structure. By doing so, he believes a more exacting classification system of Netherlandish architecture in North America can be created. Sarah Bogart Cooney in a review of Alice Sparberg Alexiou’s latest work, Devil’s Mile: The Rich, Gritty History of the Bowery, notes that the impetus behind the development of the Bowery as one of Manhattan’s iconic highways has from its inception been “a place to turn a profit, and thus it has remained.” Cooney illuminates in this review the excitement that scholars and the general public alike can feel in the recovery, examination, and history behind our shared heritage. Too often we take our present for granted without knowing the forces that shaped it. Understanding the past gives meaning to the present and vision for the future. Preserving physical remains of our Dutch material culture is a beacon that lights our path forward.

David William Voorhees Editor

de Halve Maen

Dutch Colonial Fortifications in New Amsterdam and Vicinity 1614–1676 by Jaap Jacobs

ANHATTAN AND THE surrounding area formed the center of New Netherland beginning in the 1620s until the English conquest in 1664. The first colonists, mainly Walloons, settled on Governors Island, only to move within a few years to the southern tip of Manhattan Island where Fort Amsterdam was constructed. The village around the fort grew into New Amsterdam, necessitating further fortification in subsequent decades. As the population of New Netherland increased, Dutch and English colonists settled on Long Island, Staten Island, and across the Hudson River in what is now New Jersey. In order to ward off hostilities by Native American groups, many of the villages were furnished with fortifications, mostly palisades and blockhouses. This development accelerated after the 1655 Peach War. Fort Amsterdam, the colonial headquarters of the Dutch West India Company, was intended to be the Dutch mainstay against attacks by other European powers, but its state of repair and lack of provisions, as well as its location amid a population center, diminished its defensive potential. The dilapidated condition of Fort Amsterdam was a major argument in favor of surrendering New Amsterdam to the Jaap Jacobs is affiliated with the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and lectures and publishes widely on New Netherland. He received a Ph.D. from Leiden University in 1999. His published works include The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth Century America (2009). He is currently writing a biography of Petrus Stuyvesant. This essay is part of a much larger work on the Dutch fortifications of New Netherland prepared for the New Holland Foundation http://www.newhollandfoundation. nl/en/2015-jaap-jacobs-atlas-dutch-northamerica/. The author thanks Oscar Hefting, Hans van Westing, Charles Gehring, Janny Venema, Diana Wall, Anne-Marie Cantwell, Joel Grossmann, and especially Paul Huey for their input.

Manatus Map, 1639, showing placement of Fort Amsterdam (marked A) on the tip of Manhattan. English in 1664. This essay on the fortifications of New Amsterdam and its vicinity is part of a larger overview of the fortifications occupied, built, or, in a few instances, planned to be built in the Dutch colony of New Netherland and elsewhere in North America between 1614 and 1676. An earlier list of fortifications, published in Report Identification Mission Atlas of Dutch America (New Holland Foundation, 2012), provided the starting point. The thirty defensive structures described in the 2012 preliminary survey broke down into two categories, A: forts and blockhouses; B: stockades and other perimeter defense structures. The full report categorizes the defensive structures according to geographical regions—New Amsterdam and vicinity, Delaware River Valley and Bay, Hudson River Valley, including part of the Mohawk River, and defensive structures that do not belong in the three previously mentioned regions.

tivities of the colonists, the instructions for Willem Verhulst, drawn up in Amsterdam in January 1625, refer to a “fort on Noten Island.”2 This makes it likely that the settlers erected a defensive structure, probably a blockhouse, in order to defend themselves after the oceangoing ships had departed for Europe. A possible location for a small fort was near the wind-powered sawmill that is depicted on the 1639 Manatus map in the northwestern corner of the island.3 Presumably this fort fell out of use when the colonists moved to Manhattan soon afterwards. Considering the subsequent use of Governors Island, especially in the nineteenth century, it was considered unlikely that traces could be found. But in the late twentieth century, subsurface testing in the northeastern corner of the Governors 1

Jannelle Warren-Findley, Governors Island, National Monument, New York, New York: Historic Resource Study (Washington, D.C., 2006), 4. http://www.nps.gov/history/ history/online_books/gois/gois_hrs.pdf (accessed October 17, 2014).

Nooten Eylandt/Governors Island— 1623/1624: The island the Native Americans called Pagganck (“nut trees”) is one of the locations where colonists under the jurisdiction of the Dutch West India Company first settled in 1623/1624.1While little firsthand information is available about the ac-

“fort op t’ Noten eylant;” A. J. F. van Laer, trans. and ed., Documents relating to New Netherland, 1624–1626, in the Henry E. Huntington Library. San Marino (San Marino, Calif., 1924), 48; F. C. Wieder, De stichting van New York in juli 1625. Reconstructies en nieuwe gegevens ontleend aan de Van Rappard-documenten (‘s-Gravenhage, 1925), 125.

Governors Island Historic District Designation Report. New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Report (June 18, 1996), 6.

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The earliest mention of Fort Amsterdam is found on the second page of Isaac de Rasiere’s letter to the Amsterdam Directors of the West India Company written on July 28, 1626. From Stokes, Iconogaphy of Manhattan.

in four months, construction of Fort Amsterdam could have started either in July– October 1625 (that is, before the winter of 1625/1626) or in April–July 1626.9 As many consider the construction of the fort to be the founding moment of New York, the lack of documentary evidence pointing to a single year is particularly vexing and is preferably overlooked.10 Yet, such a short 4

Holly Herbster, “A Seventeenth Century Dutch Windmill on Governors Island,” invited paper delivered at the TwentySeventh Annual Symposium sponsored by the Professional Archaeologists of New York City (PANYC) in association with The Museum of the City of New York, May 6, 2007, Museum of the City of New York, New York N.Y.

5 Report Identification Mission Atlas of Dutch North America, 14. 6

According to Frans Westra, “Lost and found: Crijn Fredericx,” de Halve Maen 71 (1998), 7–16, Crijn Fredericxsz was Quiryn Fredericksz van Lobbrecht who in later years served as a qualified military engineer in the army of the Dutch Republic. In some publications and websites, it is suggested that the Dutch East India Company in 1620 asked the English architect Inigo Jones to design a fortification for Manhattan. The reference for this is to be found in an article by architectural historian Hugh Morrison in Architectural Record (August 1945), 146. The article does not contain documentary evidence, which consists of a letter purportedly in the possession of Colin Johnston Robb, architect of Loughgall, County Armagh, Ireland, who was, however, not known for being trustworthy. Until the original letter surfaces, the involvement of Inigo Jones is uncorroborated and remains doubtful. “by de hant doen nemen de fortificatie volgende het concept No C twelck ghenaemt sal werden Amsterdam.” Van Laer, Documents Relating to New Netherland, 152; Wieder, De stichting van New York, 155.

Island National Historic Landmark District identified structural remains of what could be the sawmill or a defensive structure.4 Yet this location does not agree with the 1639 Manatus Map. An alternative location for the original Dutch fortification is the center of the original island, as suggested by Oscar Hefting and Hans van Westing after visual inspection in 2012.5 This could mean that the remains of the first Dutch fort are buried under Fort Jay, which dates from the late eighteenth century. Further research, including eighteenth-century documentation and a geophysical survey of the open area around Fort Jay, is required. Fort Amsterdam 1625/1626: Fort Amsterdam was the headquarters of the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland. Located at the southern tip of Manhattan, it controlled access to the Hudson River and was a palpable symbol of the Company’s rule over the colony. Despite the wealth of documentary and visual information on Fort Amsterdam, its beginnings are shrouded in mystery. The two main areas of uncertainty are the year of construction and the shape and size of the fort. As to the dating, the Company issued in April 1625 instructions to engineer and surveyor Crijn Fredericxsz.6 The instructions ordered him and others in charge to take up “the con-

struction of the fort, which is to be called Amsterdam.”7 In 1626, some kind of fortification was apparently in place: secretary Isaac de Rasiere reports in his letter to the Amsterdam directors that he arrived on July 28, 1626, “before Fort Amsterdam.”8 As a relatively simple fortification could be constructed

“voor t’ fort Amsterdam;” Van Laer, Documents Relating to New Netherland, 175; Wieder, De stichting van New York, 162.

Westra, “Lost and found: Crijn Fredericx,” 11.

Jaap Jacobs, Op zoek naar Nederlands New York. Een historisch reisboek (Amsterdam, 2009), 33–37.

Plan for a five-pointed fortified settlement. Fort Nieuw Amsterdam in Suriname. Etching from J. J. Hartsinck, Beschryving van Guiana, II (Amsterdam, 1770).

de Halve Maen

The earliest-known view of Fort Amsterdam is the socalled “Hartgers View.” The depiction, first published in 1651 by Joost Hartgers in Amsterdam, but presumably dating from several decades earlier, shows the fort in reverse.

construction time does not align with the instructions and that is where the question of the shape and size of Fort Amsterdam comes into play. The Amsterdam directors specified the construction of a large fivepointed fortified settlement (a pentagon with a diameter of almost 984 feet in a square of 1,854 by 1,476 feet), surrounded by an outer ditch (ringhsloot) of twentysix feet wide. Within this area all colonists would have their lodgings, and it would encompass public buildings as well as a central market square of about ninety-two by 154 feet.11 These instructions were not fully executed as planned as the bedrock on the location of choice was too close to ground level for a deep ditch to be dug, and elevations made building a fortification of the suggested size an impossible task.12 It is likely that soon after 1626, director Minuit and his councilors decided to build a much smaller four-pointed fort. Reports from 1628 indicate that the colonists on Manhattan were

building a fort there, to be named after Amsterdam, having four bastions and constructed outside entirely with stone, as the ramparts crumbled away like sand, and are now to be more substantial.13 The reference to crumbling ramparts suggests that the original five-pointed fort consisted of earthen works. The earliestknown depiction of Fort Amsterdam is the so-called Hartgers View, first published in 1651 by Joost Hartgers in Amsterdam,

but presumably dating from earlier. The engraving shows a completed five-pointed fort of impressive size and in all likelihood reflects an imaginary situation, suggesting it was drawn by someone in the Dutch Republic rather than in the colony.14 The small four-pointed fort under construction in 1628 may have been more or less completed by 1635. Much of the work was carried out by black enslaved workers, owned by the West India Company. They also built a “large house” and “the guard house,” presumably located in the fort.15 Although the information from 1628 indicates the plan was to build the entire fort in stone, later documentation suggests that only one point was completed that way. The rest of the fort consisted of wooden palisades and earthen bulwarks. As a result, repairs were required throughout the fort’s existence. In 1636, director Wouter van Twiller complained to his superiors in Amsterdam: As to our fort, it falls entirely to ruin, as it is built up of wooden palisades, which at present are completely rotted. It is very necessary that it be entirely built in stone (as it was begun), as the palisades cannot stand more than three or four years at the most, which would put your honours to excessive expense. And if Your Honours decide so, then it will be necessary to pay attention to this when sending people and necessities, in which case the men doing such work must be paid extra, like it is done at Pernambuco and in other places, because the men are

kept in proper obedience and to their 11

Document E in Wieder, De stichting van New York, and Van Laer, Documents Relating to New Netherland. 12 Jaap Jacobs, “’The Great North River of New Netherland,’” Hudson River Valley Review 30 (2014), 2–14, herein 6. See also P. Meurs, “Nieuw-Amsterdam op Manhattan 1625–1660,” in P. J. J. van Dijk, ed., Vestingbouw overzee: militaire architectuur van Manhattan tot Korea (Zutphen, 1996). 13 “bouwende aldaer een Fort dat de naem voeren sal van Amsterdam, met vier puncten voor aen, t’eenemael van buijten met steen opghewrocht, mits de Wallen santachtigh nedervielen en nu bestandicher blijven souden;” Nicolaes van Wassenaer, Historisch verhael alder ghedenckweerdichste geschiedenisse, die hier en daer in Europa, als in Duijtsch-lant, Vranckrijck, Enghelant, Spaengien, Hungarijen, Polen, Sevenberghen, Wallachien, Moldavien, Turckijen en Neder-Lant, van den beginne des jaers 1621 . . . tot octobri, des jaers 1632, voorgevallen syn. Amstelredam: Ian Evertss Cloppenburgh en Jan Janssen, 1622–1635, 21 vols., vol. 16, fol. 13v (October 1628). For this and other quotations from Van Wassenaer I have made use of the transcription of Eric Ruijssenaars, Tom Weterings, and Judith Brouwer, for which many thanks. J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland 1609–1664 (New York, 1909; reprt New York, 1967), 88 [hereafter NNN]. De Rasiere also suggests that the building of a small fort was in progress in 1628: “t’ Begonnen fortien Nieu Amsterdam Is geleyt op eenen punt Responderende overt noten Eeijlandt.” Likewise Michaëlius: “Men is besich met een forteresse te bouwen van goede berghstenen, die n[iet] verde van hier by menichten leggen.” Kees-Jan Waterman, Jaap Jacobs, and Charles T. Gehring, eds., Indianenverhalen: De vroegste beschrijvingen van Indianen langs de Hudsonrivier (1609–1680) (Zutphen, 2009), 45, 72. 14 I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island 1498-1909, 6 vols. (New York, 1915–1928), 1: 133–36. Stokes and others have suggested that the view has been reversed, employing the argument that the fort was located on the west shore, and not on the east shore. But that presumes that the later four-pointed fort was built on the same location as the planned five-pointed fort, which may not necessarily have been the case. See also Meurs, “Nieuw-Amsterdam op Manhattan 1625–1660,” 27. 15

Arnold J. F. van Laer, trans. and ed., Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1638–1642, New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, vol. 1 (Baltimore, 1974), 112–13 [hereafter NYHM 1], (March 22, 1639; original lost).

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Instead, the directors of the West India Company chamber Amsterdam, thought it best if the repair of Fort Amsterdam was to “be effected in a proper and in the cheapest manner, with good clay and firm sods.” Director Kieft was advised to make use of

Detail from a 1648 pen and ink watercolor of New Amsterdam discovered in the Albertina collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna in 1991. The view shows the dilapidated condition of the fort at the time of Petrus Stuyvesant’s arrival in New Netherland.

bounden duty.16 When Van Twiller’s successor, Willem Kieft, arrived in 1638, he found the fort in a bad state. According to depositions made at his request, Fort Amsterdam [was] wholly and entirely dilapidated, so that people could go in and out of said fort on all sides, with the exception only of the stone bastion; all the cannon off the gun carriages.17 The use of the singular suggests that at this point in time only one of the points had actually been constructed in stone.18 This, however, is contradicted by the description provided by the French Jesuit Isaac Jogues, who visited New Amsterdam in 1643: This fort . . . is called Fort Amsterdam; it has four regular bastions, mounted with several pieces of artillery. All these bastions and the curtains were, in 1643 but terraces, most of which had crumbled away, so that one entered the fort on all sides. There were no ditches. For the garrison of the said fort, and another which they had built still further up against the incursions of the savages, their enemies, there were sixty soldiers. Within the fort there was a pretty large stone church, the house of

the Governor, whom they call Director General, quite neatly built of brick, the storehouses and barracks.19 The deposition drawn up at the request of Kieft asserts that the director’s house inside in the fort was in need of repairs too. An ordinance of 1644 makes clear that the dilapidation affected the morals of some of its inhabitants: it was considered necessary to promulgate a prohibition “to throw out ashes and other filth within the fort” or “to make water within the fort.”20 In later years it became customary to clean Fort Amsterdam on Saturdays.21 The war with the Native Americans in the 1640s made clear to the West India Company that an upgrade of the fortifications was in order. Although Director Kieft pointed out both the benefits and the current state of the fort, the authorities in the Dutch Republic very likely balked at the projected costs: For a better defense against the enemies, as well as to maintain the respect of the [European] neighbors, it would be useful to construct Fort Amsterdam (which is now so dilapidated that one can walk into it over the walls without using the gate) in stone, which according to the estimate of the Director would only cost twenty to twenty-five thousand guilders.

16 “Aengaende ons fort vervalt geheel inde gront doordien het met houten pallessaden is opgeleijt, die jegenwoordich geheel verrott sijn, soude seer nootsaeckel. wesen het geheel in steen (als het begonnen is) opgehaelt wiert doordien de pallessaden boven de 3 a 4 Jaren t’ hoochst niet connen staen, het welcke Ue excessive oncosten soude causeren, en Ue daertoe geresolveert sijnde soude noodich sijn het senden vant ‘t volck ende andere nootwendigheden daer op te letten, in welcken gevallen soodaniche luyden daer aen werckende extraordinaris moste beloont werden, gel. in parnamb. ende op andere plaetsen geschiet, omdaer door de luyden in behoorl. gehoorsaemht: ende schuldige plichte te houden; Dutch National Archives, The Hague [hereafter Nat. Arch.], archive 1.05.01.01 Old West India Company [hereafter OWIC], inv.nr. 51, doc. 28 (24 August 1636); A. J. F. van Laer, ed. and trans., “Letters of Wouter van Twiller and the Director General and Council of New Netherland to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company, August 14, 1636,” New York History 50 (1969), 44–50. Many of the documents of the Dutch National Archives referred to here are accessible online via http:// www.gahetna.nl/collectie/archief. 17 NYHM 1: 131 (April 16, 1639; original lost). From Van Laer’s transcription: “t’ fort Amst. gans ende geheel vervallen heeft gevonden, dat men van alle kanten in ende uyt dito fort conde gaen, behalven alleen de steenen punt, alle de stucken uyt de roo paerden.” http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/8213/5110/4053/RegisterofPSVol1Transcript.pdf (accessed March 8, 2014). 18 Cf. Paul Huey, “Dutch Colonial Forts in New Netherland,” Eric Klingelhofer, ed., First Forts: Essays on the Archaeology of Proto-colonial Fortifications (Leiden, Boston, 2010), 141–68, herein 153. 19 “Ce fort qui est a la pointe de l’isle enuiron 5 ou 6 lieues de l emboucheure s appelle le fort d’Amsterdam, il a 4 bastions reguliers munis de plusieurs pieces d’artillerie. Tous ces bastions et les courtines n’estoient en l an 1643 que de terasses qui la pluspart etoient tout éboulées at par les quelles on entroit dans le fort de tous les endroits, il n y auoit point de fossez, il y auoit pour la garde dudt fort et d un autre qu ils auoient faict plus loing contre les incursions des sauvages leurs ennemis 60 soldats, on commencoit a reuétir de pierre les portes et les bastions. Dans ce fort il y auoit un temple basty de pierre qui etoit assez capable—le logies du Gouuerneur qu ils appelent le directeur Gñal basty de brique assez gentiment, les magazins et logements des soldats;” Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1689. The Original French, Latin and Italian Texts, with English Translation and Notes, 73 vols. (Cleveland, 1896–1901), 28: 104–106; NNN, 259. 20 “de assche ende andere vuijlicheijt int fort neder te smijten;” binnen t fort haer water niet te laten;” New York State Archives [hereafter NYSA], New York Colonial Manuscripts, 4:191 [hereinafter NYCM] (7 June 1644); Arnold J. F. van Laer, trans. and ed., Council Minutes, 1638– 1649. New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch. Vol. 4 (Baltimore, 1974), 222 [hereafter NYHM].The documents of the New York State Archives referred to here are accessible via http://digitalcollections,archives. nysed.gov/. 21 “(gelijck wij ingewoonte hebben dat Saterdags de fortresse Amsterdam wort opgeruijmt en schoon gemaeckt);” NYSA, NYCM 18: doc. 72, p. 9 (ca. October 1, 1659; Charles T. Gehring, ed. and trans., Delaware Papers (Dutch period). A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Regulation of Affairs on the South River of New Netherland, 1648–1664. New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, vols. XVIII–XIX (Baltimore, 1981),168.

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his soldiers to carry out the work.22 The inability of the Amsterdam chamber to allocate funds to the construction of fortifications in New Netherland hampered the state of repair of Fort Amsterdam up to the takeover by the English in 1664. As a consequence all the efforts to keep the fort in good condition had to come from the colonial government in New Netherland. But it wasn’t easy. The West India Company soldiers argued that construction work was not part of their task, unless separate compensation was forthcoming, so the bulk of the work was in all likelihood carried out by Company slaves, assisted by those sentenced to hard labor.23 Likewise, funding had to be raised from the local community. Within a few months of his arrival in New Amsterdam 1647, director-general Petrus Stuyvesant introduced a new excise on wine, brandy, and liquors. The income was intended to defray the costs of several public buildings, including the fort. The description provided in the ordinance echoes the earlier laments of Van Twiller and Kieft, with the walls providing little obstacle to man or beast.24 In discussing options with his councilors in August 1647, Stuyvesant raised the question with what building material the fort should be improved: “with sods, as the directors order, or with stones, as it was first begun?” To director general and council, with the benefit of local knowledge, it was obvious that the option preferred by the Amsterdam directors would in fact be more expensive: If the fort is to be repaired and rebuilt as it ought to be, that is, all around with stones and mortar, by which means alone it can be hereafter maintained, the soil hereabout not being suitable for building up the fortress with sods, unless every year new and nearly as large sums be expended thereon, it will require a con-

Watercolor of New Amsterdam and the fort, attributed to Johannes Vingboons, 16641667.

siderable sum of money in wages alone, both in laying and hauling the stone and burning the lime.25 A year later, nothing had been done, but as director general and council still hoped to start the work, the discussion focused on how the fort “ought to be formed, in its old shape with four points, or enlarged to five?”26 The answer was four, presumably because retaining the existing shape would be less expensive and maintain the defensive capabilities. Even so, the failure to improve the fort, partly because the colonial community argued it could not contribute, was used as an argument against the West India Company by some of its opponents. At the same time, the fort suffered from hogs, sheep, goats, horses, and cows, which the colonists let roam free on the ramparts. In June 1650, director general and council tried to keep animals away by threatening to fine their owners. Yet the multiple repeats of this edict suggest that little heed was paid.27 In November 1651 Stuyvesant admitted that indifferent progress had been made over the last two summers. Little work had been done by the Company’s enslaved blacks and other servants, as a large part of the available work force had been employed in constructing Fort Casimir on the South River. Meanwhile, the damage done by animals had not stopped as the fiscal had been negligent in fining the owners.28 It is therefore surprising that the Amsterdam directors in April 1652 expressed their happiness upon learning that Fort Amsterdam was mostly in a good defensive condition. It is likely that letters from director general and council had conveyed the impression that the plan to rebuild the fort in stone had already been carried out.29 When the First Anglo-Dutch War broke out, the directors quickly ordered their man in New Amsterdam to put Fort Amsterdam,

Fort Orange, and Fort Casimir, in proper defensive states, so as to be able to defend themselves against English colonists.30 Director general and council thereupon took various defensive measures, for instance “repairing and strengthening the fort, the old moat be dug up and fortified with 22 “Ten derden dat tot beter defensie tegens de vijanden, als oock om ‘t respect bij de nabuuren te behouden dienstigh waere het Fort Amsterdam (t welck nu soo vervallen leijt datmen sonder de poort te gebruijcken over de wallen daer in loopt) ten eersten van steen op te maecken, t welck naer gissinge bij den Directeur maer 20 off 25 duijsent guldens soude costen;” “dat het selve bequamelijck ende met de minste kosten van goede cleij, aerde ende vaste sooden sal konnen geschieden;” Nat. Arch. archive 1.01.02 States General (hereafter SG), inv.nr. 12564.30A (December 15, 1644; E. B. O’Callaghan and B. Fernow, trans. and ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 15 vols. (Albany, 1853–1883), 1: 152–53 [hereafter DRCHNY]. 23 For instance, NYSA, NYCM 4: 300 (July 3, 1647); NYHM 4: 382). 24

NYSA, NYCM 4: 303 (July 4,1647; NYHM 4: 388).

“met sooden gelijck de Ed: heeren bewinthebberen ordonneren ofte met steen gelijck het eerst begonnen is;” “dat de forteresse soo die gerepareert, ende opgemaeckt sal worden, als het behoort dat is Rontom in steen ende calck geleyt, door welcke middel sy alleen int volgende can onderhouden worden, sijnde d’aerde hier ontrent niet bequaem, t’fort met sooden op te setten, ten ware men alle Jaren weder nieuwe en by cans Even groot oncosten daer aen deede sal deselve vereyschen een merckelijcke somme van penningen alleen aen Arbeyts loon, soo van metselen als steen te halen ende calck te branden;” NYSA, NYCM 4: 328–29 (August 26, 1647; NYHM 4: 428–29). 26 “Alsoo met Goodes hulpe noch Iets aent fort hoopen te beginnen, hoe de Raaden verstaen t’selve geformeert te worden, of in sijn oude postuyr met 4 pointen ofte in 5 vergroot.” NYSA, NYCM 4: 415 (September 9, 1648; NYHM 4: 563). 27 [Adriaen van der Donck], Vertoogh van Nieu-Neder-Land, Weghens de Gheleghentheydt, Vruchtbaerheydt, en Soberen Staet desselfs (’s-Gravenhage, 1650), 33: “Het Fort daermen onder schuylen sal/ en daer so het schijnt noch alle de authoriteyt van daen komt / leyt als een Molshoop / of een vervallen Schans / daer is niet een Affuyt op / of daer staet niet een stuck Canon in behoorlijcke Ropaerden/ of op goede Beddinghe / men heeft van eersten af/ gheroepen datmen het repareren soude / met vijf puncten legghen / en Royaels maken / de GemeensMannen zijn oock aenghesproocken om Penninghen daer toe / doch sy excuseerden het / om dat de Gemeente seer arm was / yeder een was oock vol miscontentement ende vreesden dat den Directeur indien hy hem eens op zijn Fort verlaten mocht / veel wreder en straffer wesen soude / tusschen desen is het blyven steecken.” New York City Municipal Archives [hereafter NYCMA], Old Dutch Records (hereafter ODR) 1: 23 (27 June 1650); Berthold Fernow ed., The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 Anno Domini, 7 vols. (New York, 1897, repr. Baltimore, 1976), 1: 16 [hereafter RNA]. The documents of the New York City Municipal Archives referred to here are accessible via https://newamsterdamstories. archives.nyc/nycmarecords-new-amsterdam. 28 NYSA, NYCM 5: 20-21 (November 15, 1651; Charles T. Gehring, trans. and ed., Council Minutes 1652–1654. New York Historical Manuscripts Dutch, vol. 5. (Baltimore, 1983), 13–14 [hereafter NYHM 5]. 29 NYSA, NYCM 11: doc. 53, p. 20 (April 4, 1652; Charles T. Gehring, trans. and ed., Correspondence 1647–1653. New Netherland Documents Series, vol. XI (Syracuse, 2000), 155). 30 “in behoorlijcke defenderinge;” NYSA, NYCM 11: doc. 71, p. 3. (August 6, 1652; Gehring, Correspondence 1647–1653, 183).

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gabions.”31 They also planned “to build some new inner lines of fortifications, so that one can be protected by the other and, if necessary, we can retreat from one to the other.” To carry out this work, diggers and excavators were hired at two guilders a day.32 Willem Beeckman was appointed as overseer of brush and wood choppers to make the gabions.33 Whether all these plans were actually carried out is unclear, as soon afterward, just when an English attack appeared imminent, news of peace in Europe arrived. By 1656, new repairs to the fort were considered necessary. At the repeated request of Stuyvesant and his council, the Amsterdam directors recruited three masons “to expedite the walling in of the fort” and send them over to New Amsterdam.34 Soon after Bartholomeus van Schel and the other masons had arrived in New Amsterdam, they complained that their salary of fourteen guilders a month was not sufficient as prices in New Amsterdam were quite high. They especially complained of “the heavy work and the wear and tear to their clothes.” In the request, their task is described as “to complete the stone wall around the fortress.”35 This suggests that the existing earthenworks were not removed immediately, but that the stone wall was

erected outside of the existing perimeter. After their request was granted, work progressed steadily. In July 1659, Stuyvesant reported to Amsterdam that if the masons kept up their work, one end of the fort would be ready next summer. The next task would be to make carriages for the guns. Stuyvesant informed the directors that these could be made in the colony, except for the iron parts which had to be imported from the Dutch Republic.36 An anonymous English description of New Amsterdam indicates that the building works were completed in 1661: . . . and a Fort foursquare, 100 yards on each side, at each corner flanked out 26 yards. In the midst of the East and westside is a gate opposite to the other; the walls are built with lime and stone, and within filled up with Earth to a considerable breadth for planting guns, whereon are mounted 16 guns. In this Fort is the Church, the Governors house, and houses for soldiers, ammunition, etc.37 This report aligns to some extent with how Fort Amsterdam is depicted on the Castello Plan. Yet there are some differences as well, such as the number of guns. While the 1661 description lists sixteen guns, the Castello

Plan depicts only twelve. It should be taken into account that the Castello Plan, while based on a survey made in New Amsterdam around 1660, was made by Johannes Vingboons in the second half of the 1660s 31 “dath neffens de reperatie ende verseeckeringe vande fortresse opgegraven ende met schans corven besett worden de oude Gracht;” NYSA, NYCM 5: 268 (June 13, 1654; NYHM 5: 144). 32 “andere nieuwe affsnijdinge ende bin[ ] te maecken om d’eene uijtd’ andere te [beter?] te connen defendeeren. Ende bij noot van d’een[e naer?] bij d’andere te connen retijreren: welcke [ ] noodich sijn hoe eer eer hoe beter begonnen [ ];” (transcription corrected by Janny Venema, New Netherland Research Center); NYSA, NYCM 5: 278 (June 14, 1654; NYHM 5: 147). 33 “Opsiender vande Rijs ende houthackers tot schanschorren;” NYSA, NYCM 5: 285 (June 16, 1654; NYHM 5: 150); Charles Gehring, “An Undiscovered Van Rensselaer Letter,” de Halve Maen 54 (1979), 3: 13, 28. 34 “t ommeuren des forts ten spoedigst doen voortgaen;” NYSA, NYCM 12: doc. 69, p. 3 (December 22, 1657; Charles T. Gehring, trans. and ed., Correspondence 1654–1658. New Netherland Documents Series, vol. XII [Syracuse, 2003], 156; NYSA, NYCM 12: doc. 45, p. 5 (19 December 1656; Gehring, Correspondence 1654–1658, 106): “de fortresse aldaer met een klipsteenen muyr werde omsingelt.” 35 “swaer werck en het veel verslijten van cleederen;” “omme de steenen muer omde fortresse te voltrecken;” NYSA, NYCM 8: 776, 788–89 (March 19, 1658). 36 NYSA, NYCM 13: doc. 17, p. 23 (July 23, 1659; DRCHNY 14: 443). 37 Royal Society, London [hereafter RS], Classified Papers, vol. 7i (Architecture, Ship-building, Geography, Navigation, Voyages, Travels), doc. 8 [hereafter Cl.P/7i/8] (September 1661; NNN, 422).

Fort Amsterdam as depicted on the Castello Plan of New Amsterdam. After 1664 by Johannes Vingboons based on an earlier plan by Jacques Cortelyou.

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for the purpose of adorning the walls of one of the dwellings of the Archduke of Tuscany. It is unlikely that the Archduke would be enthralled by a truthful depiction of the muddy village that New Amsterdam was. Thus Vingboons, who had never been to the New World, created an image that showed European civilization in all its glory domesticating the New World. While the Castello Plan contains some elements that shed light on the state of New Amsterdam, it should not be interpreted as truthful in all its details.38 Despite Stuyvesant’s efforts, Fort Amsterdam was in a bad condition when the English frigates arrived in 1664. A deposition made two years later gives an unfavorable assessment of the state as well as the location of the fort: It is notorious and manifest that the fort is, of itself, very weak, and, in regard to its situation, incapable of being defended very long, as houses have been built almost all around it, which must first be burnt or pulled down, to the ruin and detriment of the poor citizens. In addition to the above, it is also to be noted that the ground to the north on the Here wegh [“Broadway”], scarcely a pistol shot from the fort, is much higher than the curtain walls and bastions of the fort; so much so, that the battery platforms, and in some places, the square can be seen from it. Moreover, the walls of the front in some places were not above eight or ten feet high, and without ditch or palisades, so that scaling ladders could at once be brought to the wall.39 After taking over New Netherland in 1664, the English renamed the fort Fort James, after the Duke of York. It was eventually demolished in the summer of 1790. The debris was used as landfill.40 While the construction of the Alexander Hamilton U. S. Customs House on the location of Fort Amsterdam from 1902 to 1907 at first sight appears to make archaeological research unlikely, finding remains of earlier buildings should still be considered a distinct possibility. Overlays of historic maps on the modern topography suggest that the footprint of the Custom House does not completely cover the original location of the fort.41 The southeastern bastion is partly on the location of Bridge Street, whereas both western bastion and part of the parade ground are located on State Street. While ground disturbances due to sewer and road construction are to be expected, chances are

Plan of Fort James, named by the English after James, Duke of York, as it appeared in the 1690s. Plan after Samuel Miller, New Yorke Considered and Improved A.D. 1695 (London, 1695). that structural remains will be discovered. Remains of Fort Amsterdam and its successors may also be found under the basement of the Custom House, depending on the construction method used.42 Staten Island 1641: The outbreak of hostilities with the Native Americans in the early 1640s necessitated establishing some kind of defensive structure on Staten Island in order to defend the few colonists who lived there. In 1641, it was decided to build “a small redoubt at as little expense as possible” for that purpose.43 It is unlikely that the plan was carried out as there are no further references to it throughout the 1640s. In 1656, following the 1655 Peach War, new plans for a fort were drawn up. In this case, the decision was taken by Hendrick van der Capelle, who was the patroon of Staten Island but never journeyed to the New World. Van der Capelle ordered captain Adriaen Post “to erect a fort on said island pursuant to the order sent over, into which he and [the colonists] can retire in case of another such hostile attack on the part of the Indians.44 This suggests that Van der Capelle furnished captain Post with specific instructions as to how the fort was to be built. Yet the plan appears to have been aborted when the danger of Indian attacks abated. Further colonization of Staten Island stalled until the issue of ownership was resolved. From 1661 onward the island was settled under the direct jurisdiction of the West India Company and efforts to defend the island were again taken up. In 1662, the colonists were protected by a small

garrison of six soldiers and a year later the Amsterdam directors urged Stuyvesant to take proper care of the defense of the mouth of the Hudson River, although they later admitted that their instructions were based on incorrect information.45 Nevertheless, in April 1664, Stuyvesant reported back that it had to some extent been taken care of: both New Utrecht and the as yet unnamed 38 Martine Gosselink, New York New-Amsterdam: The Dutch Origins of Manhattan (Amsterdam, 2009), 123; Jacobs, “ʻThe Great North River of New Netherland’,” 7. 39 “dit is het kennelijck en blijckelijck dat de fortresse in sigh selfe seer onsterck & ten aensien van de situatie niet lange gedefendeert conde werden, als sijnde rontom bijcans met huijsen betimmert, die alvoren tot ruine & bederf van de arme borgers hadden moeten verbrant ofte afgebroken worden ook staet behalven het voorverhaelde te notere[n] dat het landt noortwaert, op de here wegh qualijck een pistool schoot van het fort gelegen, veel hoger is als de gardijnen & bolwercken des forts, ook so datmen van daer de voetsolen op de battrijen & op sommige plaetsen het pleijn des forts konde sien; behalven dit waren de muren des forts op enige plaetsen niet boven de 8 a 10 voeten hoogh en sonder dat graft off palissaden, so datmen daadlijck de storm leren aen de wal conde brengen.” Nat. Arch., SG, inv.nr. 12564.57 (7 March 1666; DRCHNY 2: 474–75). 40 Huey, “Dutch Colonial Forts in New Netherland,” 155. 41

Stokes, Iconography, 2: plate 87.

Joan H. Geismar, 17 State Street: An Archaeological Evaluation Phase 1 Documentation (New York, 1986), 4–5; Huey, “Dutch Colonial Forts in New Netherland,” 155–57. 43 “een cleyn Redoutjen te maken met de alderminste costen soo doenlijck is;” NYSA, NYCM 4: 101 (September 12, 1641; NYHM 4: 120). 44 “een fort volgens overgesonden ordre te leggen daer in hij mit dieselve jn cas van gelijcke vijantlicke [ ]nt[ ]ten der wilden, soude cunnen retirieren;” Nat. Arch., SG, inv. nr. 12564.42 (October 4, 1656; DRCHNY 1: 638). 45

NYSA, NYCM 14: doc. 64, 5 (July 15, 1662; DRCHNY 13: 223); NYSA, NYCM, 15: doc. 7, p. 5 (March 26, 1663); NYSA, NYCM 15: doc. 12, p. 2 (April 16, 1663; DRCHNY 14: 525); NYSA, NYCM 15: doc. 97, 1–2 (January 20, 1664; DRCHNY 2: 218).

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village on Staten Island were previous summer against an attack by wild barbarians provided with suitable blockhouses which are built by putting beam upon beam and for their better defense are each furnished with two or three light pieces, of which one or two are stone pieces; the hamlet on Staten island, being the weakest and too far to be assisted in time, is enforced with ten soldiers for its greater safety.46 When explaining why the fort on Staten Island quickly surrendered when the English arrived later that year, Stuyvesant supplied some more details. In 1667 he clarified that Staten Island . . . is situated two full miles from the fort [Fort Amsterdam]. It is inhabited only on the south side, behind the range of hills, and consequently out of sight of the fort, by ten to twelve men barely able to bear arms, who, in order to be protected against a sudden attack of the barbarians (in the midst of their houses, which are lightly constructed from straw and clapboards) about a year ago erected a small and light wooden blockhouse, about eighteen to twenty feet square, and borrowed from a certain Cornelis Steenwijck a light piece, shooting a one-pound ball, and one from director and council, a little iron <stone> piece; its garrison consisted of six old soldiers, unfit to join the others against the Indians. The aforesaid blockhouse and hamlet is located within sight of Najeck, where the frigates lay at anchor, not a mile from the ships and it was therefore impossible to come to its assistance or to take the guns away from there, unless one could have faced the English with an equal force of ships.47 At the end of the eighteenth century the location just behind Signal Hill was used for other fortifications, which gradually developed into the complex now named Fort Wadsworth. The village, later named Oude Dorp [“Old Town”], was located a few hundred meters to the south, at South Beach, probably close to Ocean Avenue.48 New Amsterdam Perimeter Defenses 1653: In March 1653, when the news of the outbreak of the First Anglo-Dutch War arrived in New Amsterdam, director general and council met with the newly instituted city government of burgomasters and schepenen to discuss improvement to

the city’s defenses. The meeting decided “to fence off the greater part of the city with an upright stockade and a small breastwork, so as to be able to draw all inhabitants behind it in time of need and defend as much as possible their persons and goods against an attack.”49A joint committee was set up to supervise the work. After some discussion about costs, the committee decided upon “palisades of twelve or thirteen feet.”50 A few days later, when carpenters came in to hear the conditions upon which the work was to be carried out, the specifications had been drawn up in detail: The palisades must be 12 feet long, 18 inches in circumference, sharpened at the upper end and be set in line. At each rod a post 21 inches in circumference is to be set, to which rails, split for this use, shall be nailed one foot below the top. The breastwork against it shall be 4 feet high, 4 feet at the bottom and 3 feet at top, covered with sods, with a ditch 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep, 2 ½ feet within the breastwork. The length of the ground, to be lined with palisades is 180 rods, the end of the rods being the last of the money. Payments will be made weekly in good sewant.51 The commissioners included a drawing of what they envisioned in the margin of the court protocol. This plan however turned out to be far too expensive, and only a few days later the commissioners decided to use planks [plancken] instead. Even so, a fence of 2,340 feet of nine planks high required 1,404 planks and 340 posts, for a total of over three thousand guilders.52 A month later, director general and council, upon hearing new rumors from New England, in a joint meeting with the city government decided to add a ditch to the defense works on the northern edge of the city. All inhabitants were called upon to dig a ditch [graft] from the East River to the North River, which was to be four to five feet deep and eleven to twelve feet wide, sloping inward slightly toward the bottom. At the same time, the carpenters were urged to complete their work on the palisade. By early July, the palisade had been completed both along the northern edge as well as along the Strand at the East River. The city gate at the side of the East River was very likely also constructed at this time.53 Predictably, the planks at the north end palisade did not last very long. Nor did the defenses along the East River withstand the

winter weather unscathed. By the spring of 1654, the city government of New Amsterdam witnessed “to their sorrow the dilapidated state of the works erected last year, consisting of walls of earth and palisades along the river” and asked the inhabitants of the villages of Breuckelen, Midwout, and Amersfoort, across the river, to supply them 46 “sijn voorleden somer tegens den aenval van de Wilde Barbaren, versien van bequame blockhuijsen van balck op balck en tot desselfs meerdere verseeckeringe elck met 2 a 3 lichte stuckjes daeronder elck een a 2 steenstuckjes, en de bijeenwooninge opt staaten Eijlant als de swackste, en het varste om tijtlijck gesecondeert te worden gestijft met 10 soldaten tot desselfs meerdere verseeckeringe” (transcription by Janny Venema, New Netherland Research Center); NYSA, NYCM 15: doc. 121, p. 3 (April 26, 1664; DRCHNY 14: 546). 47 “dattet Staten Eijlandt twe goede mijlen weeghs is gelegen vande fortresse, ‘t welck hierboven geen schoot weeghs genoemt wordt, is alleen aende suijdt sijde achter het gebergte, en dienvolgens uijttet gesicht vande fortresse, bewoont van 10 a 12 soo en soo weerbare mannen, die om tegen de barbaren, voor een subiten overval beschermt te sijn (int midden van haer huijsen, die van stroo en klapborden licht waren opgetimmert) omtrent een jaar geleden, een kleijn en licht houten blockhuijs, omtrent 18 a 20 voeten vierkant, daar opgemaekt hadden, en van enen Cornelis Steenwijck geleent een licht stuckjen, schietende een ll eijsers, en een kleijn eijsere <steen> stuckjen van Dr: en Raaden, en tot besettinge van dien 6 oude soldaten, onbequaem de andere tegens de Wilden te volgen; leggende t voorss blockhuijsje ende bijeenwooninge in’t gesichte van Najeck, waer de fregatten ten ancker lagen, geen mijle weeghs vande schepen aff, en daerom onmooghlijck om gesecondeer[t] te werden, ofte het schut vandaer te voeren, ten ware dan, dat men de Engelschen met egale macht van schepen het hooft hadde connen bieden;” Nat. Arch., SG, inv.nr. 12564.57 (29 October 1666; DRCHNY 2: 443). 48 Margaret Lundrigan, Staten Island: Isle of the Bay (Charleston, S. C., 2004), 15. 49 “t’ meestendeel vande Steede [te] beheijnigen met opstaende palisaden ende een cleijne borstweeringh, om bij tijt van noot alle d’ Jnwoonde[ren] daer binnen te trecken, ende soo wel mogelijck is [ ] persoonen en goederen tegens een aenvall te def[enderen];” NYCMA, ODR 1, p. 95 (13 March 1653; RNA 1: 66). 50 “palisaden van 12 a 13 voet;” NYCMA, ODR 1, p. 99 (15 March 1653; RNA 1: 69). 51 d’ palisaden lanck 12 voette, dick int rond 18 duym [ ] van palisaden d’ toppen gespitst en op een lijnne geseth [ ] op t elcke roede een pael van 21 duym [ ] aen d’ riggels daer toe de klooven een voet vande [ ] der palisaden sullen gespeijckert worden.

Een borstweringh daer tegen, hoogh 4 voet onde[ ] vier voet ende boven 3 voet met soden opgeset, we[lcke] met een grip van 3 voet breet ende 2 voet diep [ ] grip 2 ½ voet binnen d’ borstweeringh sal comen de lenghte dat af te setten is sal sijn ontrent 180 [roeden] t’ eijnde vande roede ist eijnde gelt. d’ betal. sal geschieden weeckel. in goet sewant;” NYCMA, ODR 1, p. 103 (17 March 1653; RNA 1: 72). Cf. Christopher Moore, “A World of Possibilities: Slavery and Freedom in Dutch New Amsterdam,” Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris, eds., Slavery in New York (New York, 2005), 29–56, herein 51, who, without reference to sources, erroneously assert that a palisade of logs was constructed by Company slaves. 52 NYCMA, ODR 1, p. 104 (20 March 1653; RNA 1: 173). 53 NYSA, NYCM 5: 120–23 (20 April and 12 May 1653; NYHM 5: 69–70); NYCMA, ODR 1, pp. 123–124 (28 July 1653; RNA 1: 90-91); Gehring, “An Undiscovered Van Rensselaer Letter,” 28.

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Sketch of New Amsterdam’s palisades as envisioned in the margin of the court protocol in 1653.

with new palisades.54 It is unlikely that this suggestion was greeted with enthusiasm. Although some repairs were carried out, the wrangling over the expenses continued, but to the great relief of the New Netherland colonists, news of peace in Europe arrived later that summer. New measures to improve the city’s defenses were agreed upon only when the Indian attack of September 15, 1655, instilled urgency into the city fathers. On September 20, 1655, the city government decided “that the aforesaid erected works shall be put straight with planks of five to six feet high, nailed to the side of the palisade.”55 In collaboration with director general and council, burgomasters and schepenen decided upon a “voluntary” subscription, for which purpose all inhabitants of the city were assessed.56 In 1656, Stuyvesant again needed to remind the city government of its duty to keep the defenses in good order. Mindful of the situation in the Dutch Republic, the burgomasters and schepenen replied that the burden of fortifying a “frontier place” [frontierplaetse] like New Amsterdam should not exclusively be born by the city’s inhabitants. In their view, the costs should be defrayed from the general revenue [gemeene lants middelen].57 Despite continuing discussions like these, some additional work was done to strengthen the outer defenses. This included a prohibition to build houses within a cannon shot from the city walls58 as well as the planned construction of new defense works consisting of a double row of palisades, with two or three openings which could be closed by night, both for reasons of security and to

prevent smuggling.59According to Stokes, the palisade was by 1660 furnished with two stone bastions, named Hollandia and Zeelandia.60 These, however, are mentioned for the first time in 1691,61and the names instead suggest that the stone bastions were constructed either during the Dutch rule of 1673–1674, after a joint Zeeland-Holland naval force had retaken the city, or during Leisler’s Rebellion. These bastions were torn down in 1699 and the stones were re-used in building the new City Hall.62 Stokes’s assertion is also at odds with the Castello Plan, which does not depict two but five bastions along the wall, as well as a half moon structure at the side of the East River, and a bastion at the side of the Hudson River. Even though the information on the Castello Plan should be interpreted with caution, the existence of bastions is confirmed by the anonymous 1661 “description of the towne of Mannadens”: The land side of the towne is from the Northwest corner unto the North E. gate 520 yards and lyeth neer N.W. and S.E. having six flankers at equal distance, in four of whch are mounted 8 guns.63 If this description is trustworthy, then the defense at the north side had been improved considerably within a short time. Yet the plans put forward by Stuyvesant in the same month suggest that this was not the case. The director general desired further repairs with sods to the palisades as well as the construction of a forward star-shaped sconce at Maiden Lane. Both corners at the North and East River were to be fortified with a hornwork of horizontally positioned logs. The elevations on the shore of the

North River, which could provide shelter to landing forces, had to be levelled and a proper palisade erected. Stuyvesant wanted a battery on the north side of the city as well as on the little cape [t Capsken] at the south point. As funds were scarce and the need arguable, it is unlikely that any start was made to execute these plans.64 By early 1664, the need to improve fortifications was much more urgent. The New Amsterdam city government sug54 “tot haer leet wesen siende het vervall der opgerichte wercken bestaende in aerde wallen en palisaden langs de revier laestleden Jaer;” NYCMA, ODR 1, pp. 214-215 (23 March 1654; RNA 1: 177– 78). 55 “dat de voorige gemaeckte wercken met planken van 5 a 6 hoogh sullen opgehaelt worden tegens palisaden op sijn cant aengespijckert;” NYCMA, ODR 1, pp. 399-401 (20–30 September 1655; RNA 1: 363–65). 56 Jaap Jacobs, New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America (Leiden, 2005), 330–33. 57 NYCMA, ODR 2, 4–7 (4 & 8 September 1656; RNA 2: 161–64). 58 “dat niemand sal vermogen te timmeren binnen het canon schoot van deeser stede wallen;” NYCMA, ODR 1, p. 48 (1 October 1657; RNA 1: 32); NYSA, NYCM 8: 961 (30 August 1658). 59 NYSA, NYCM 8: 879 (25 May 1658), 947–48, 955–58 (19, 22, 26 August 1658). 60

Stokes, Iconography, 4: 201.

Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1880 (New York, 1881), 403-404. 62 E. B. O’Callaghan, comp., Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State, Albany, New York. Part II. English manuscripts, 1664–1776 (Albany, 1866), 271 (18 August 1699); Minutes of the Common Council of New York 1675–1776 in Eight Volumes (New York, 1905), 2: 82 (18 August 1699). 63

RS, Cl.P/7i/8 (September 1661; NNN, 423).

“een sterres[chans?] op de hoogthe ontrent het Maegdepa[edtje];” “een hoorenwerck van balck op ba[lck];” “een behoorlijcke posten heijnige pallissaet aen pallissaet;” “een subtantiele en bequa[eme] batterije opt Capsken” (transcription by Janny Venema, New Netherland Research Center); NYSA, NYCM 9: 793 (22 September 1663).

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gested building a stone wall [steene muer] strengthening the East River city gate with a bulwark [bolwerck], and erecting a closed palisade [dichte geslooten palissaden] along the East River from the city gate down to the roundel [rondeel] at the City Hall. Down to the little cape another palisade would provide protection, while the cape itself required a water fort [water fort]. Along the North River palisades were also required to prevent enemy forces from landing. Through a loan on its citizens New Amsterdam was able to raise a total of ƒ27,500. Making use of the labor of West India Company soldiers (who were required to do guard duty only one day out of three), the city government very likely made some progress over the summer. As it was, the improved fortifications were not put to the test when the English frigates arrived later that year.65 New Amsterdam City Hall 1654: On June 13, 1654, when an English attack on New Amsterdam seemed imminent, director general and council decided that in addition to strengthening other fortifications, “the City Tavern is to be ensconced with a small rampart and breastworks, upon which 2 or 3 light artillery pieces are to be placed.”66 As news of the Treaty of Westminster, agreed upon in Europe on April 15, 1654, reached New Amsterdam on June 16, it is not likely that plans for such a fortification were implemented straightaway. The Castello Plan shows only five trees and two fences at the location, although that may be the result of Vingboons adding detail to the original map that was sent over. The 1661 English description of New Amsterdam, however, mentions “the Stat-house, before wch is built a half moon of stone, where are mounted 3 smal bras guns, tho it be large enough to mount 8 guns on it.”67 In 1671, a fortification was still in place at this location, as one of the magistrates was charged to supervise “the Managemt in Repairing of

The small rampart and breastworks before City Hall with several light artillery pieces. Depiction is a nineteenth-century redraft of Jaspar Danckaert’s 1679 sketch. the half moon before the state house.”68 The construction is depicted on the so-called Labadist General View of circa 1679.69 Presumably the last remnants were removed once landfill and new buildings obstructed the line of sight to the East River and made a fortification at this location obsolete. This essay, based primarily on seventeenth-century archival material, aims only to provide a quick overview and description of each object or site. It is limited in scope, focusing on material aspects and less on strategic and operational objectives or military use. Information from later sources, such as dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, has only been included when it was readily available. The same applies to archaeological findings and

report. A full interdisciplinary analysis of colonial fortifications in New Netherland thus remains to be written. 65

NYSA, NYCM 10–3: 81–84 (21 February 1664); NYCMA, ODR 4: 337–40 (24 February 1664; RNA 5: 29–33), 443 (9 September 1664; RNA 5: 107–108); Jaap Jacobs, “Soldiers of the Company: The Military Personnel of the West India Company in New Netherland,” Herman Wellenreuther, ed., Jacob Leisler’s Atlantic World in the Later Seventeenth Century. Essays on Religion, Militia Trade, and Networks by Jaap Jacobs, Claudia Schnurmann, David W. Voorhees, and Hermann Wellenreuther (Münster, 2009), 11–31.

66 ”de stadts herberge met een Clijnwerckje ende borstweeringe te beschansen ende op de selve 2 a 3 lichte stucken te planten;” NYSA, NYCM 5: 268 (13 June 1654; NYHM 5: 144). 67

RS, Cl.P/7i/8 (September 1661; NNN, 421).

NYCMA, Original Records of the Common Council, vol. 6, p. 78 (16 July 1671; RNA 6: 315). 69

Stokes, Iconography, 1: plate 17, 224–30.

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Dutch Architecture in the New World: A proposal for a new typology of classification

by Ian Stewart

HEN CONSIDERING DUTCH or Netherlandish architecture in the New World, one must first define what precisely that means. Is it the form of the building that gives it its innate “Dutch sense,” or is it the construction? Scholars of vernacular architecture and architectural historians have often debated over these definitions for many of the structures that can be found worldwide. Is it form, is it style, or is it a combination of both? In this essay I propose that a new approach be taken when categorizing New World Netherlandish buildings; an approach that is governed not only by form and style, but also by methods and materials of construction.

cholars over the past century have endeavored to wholly classify Dutch architecture, to varying degrees of success, and yet a solid classification system for Dutch architecture is still seemingly lacking in American scholarship. Ian Stewart is owner of New Netherland Timber Framing and Preservation, pastpresident of the Board of Directors of the Preservation Trades Network, and a member of the Timberframer’s Guild. He received a Master’s degree in Preservation Studies from Boston University’s School of American and New England Studies. His woodworking career began at SUNY New Paltz and, later, as a restoration craftsman at Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, New York. He is involved in preserving historic traditions in woodworking, timberframing, black-smithing, and masonry skills. He received the New Netherland Institute’s Alice P. Kenney Award in 2018.

Virginia and Lee McAlester offered in 1984 one of the first scholarly attempts to create a typology for these houses in their seminal work, A Field Guide to American Houses. Their typology was purely based on what could be seen from the outside, and lacked nuance. Two decades later, John Stevens provided in Dutch Vernacular Architecture in North America, 1640–1830 a more complicated typology based on the interior form, which is helpful, but may be overly complicated. Virginia and Lee McAlester classify Dutch house forms into two distinct categories, rural and urban. They further divide the rural tradition into two, considering flared and unflared roof eaves. 1 They then further differentiate the buildings as pertaining to the three main types of exterior cladding; stone, brick, and wood.2 The McAlester’s classification can be broken down into these descriptions:

Figure 1. Abraham Yates house, Schenectady, New York, Dutch Brick Urban. • Urban Tradition: houses constructed of brick, with steep roof pitches, parpeted gables with paired end chimneys. • Rural Tradition (Unflared Eaves): stone walls with some examples in wood, no overhang on the eaves, gambrels found on this type after 1750. • Rural Tradition (Flared Eaves): constructed out of stone and wood, with flared eave overhang.3 These descriptions are a good beginning, but fall short of the entire picture. The Urban Tradition tends to be gable ended toward the street, with the primary entrance on that façade, in the early period of the colony. This can be seen in the north at the Abraham Yates house in Schenectady (fig. 1), the Abraham Glen house in Sco1

Virginia and Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses (New York, 1984), 113.

McAlester 115.

Ibid, 113.

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Figure 2. Dutch Wood and Brick, Rural, Peter Winne House, Bethlehem, New York. tia, New York, the Peter Winne house (fig. 2), as well as far south as New Paltz in Ulster County, where both the BevierElting house (fig. 8) and the Dubois Fort were constructed in this fashion out of stone. Also, in this class, constructed out of stone, is the Pieter Bronck house in Coxsackie, New York, which, with a construction date of 1663, is one of the oldest of this form extant in the Hudson River Valley (fig. 3).4

In the early eighteenth century, houses began to shift towards having their eaves pointed at the road, with the entrances in that face. The Luykas van Alen house in Kinderhook, New York (fig. 7), the brick Van Hoesen house just outside of Hudson, New York (fig. 4), and the Leendert Bronck house in Coxsackie, New York (fig. 5), are excellent examples of Dutch urban houses clad in brick, in a rural setting, with their eaves oriented

toward the road. In the mid-Hudson River Valley, this transition occurs during the same time period, with such exemplars as the Abraham Hasbrouck house and the Hugo Freer house, both within the Huguenot Street National Historic District in New Paltz. The stockade district of Wiltwijck (Kingston, New York) and the main street of Nieuwdorp (Hurley, New York) abound with buildings built out of stone and oriented in this manner. The Dutch Urban Tradition in brick is most prevalent in the Upper Hudson River Valley, with the brick surrounding a fully articulated timber frame. In the southern portions of New Netherland are to be found the remaining rural tradition structures which are wood clad over a timber frame, many of which also have later gambrel roofs, as well as the swept eaves. Curiously, between these two zones exist a significant number of houses built in the rural and urban tradition, out of stone. The prevalence of stone may be attributed to the abundance of the material, and its cost savings over the more expensive brick. There exist stone houses in all regions of New Neth4 John R. Stevens, Dutch Vernacular Architecture in North America, 1640â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1830 (West Hurley, NY, 2005), 17

Figure 3. Right: Dutch Stone Rural, Pieter Bronck House, 1663, Coxsackie, New York.

Figure 4. Below: Jan Van Hoesen house, circa 1730, just outside of Hudson, New York.

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Figure 5. Leendert Bronck house in Coxsackie, New York, an excellent examples of Dutch urban house clad in brick, in a rural setting, with its eaves oriented toward the road.

erland, but their predominance is found in the Middle Hudson River Valley, and the stone houses in the Upper Hudson River Valley tend to date from the end of the Dutch period and into the early English period, such as the Pieter Bronck house.5 Unlike the brick houses, which have fully articulated wood frames that are then clad in brick, the stone houses rely on masonry pockets to receive the major beams, leaving the roof as the only part of the house to be truly timber framed. These stone houses follow a Flemish building pattern with the large timbers set directly into the walls. Yet, unlike Flemish houses, these buildings rely on a traditionally sized tussenbalken evenly spaced throughout the building, with no joisting running between. 6 In Flanders, the joisting is usually in small timbers, or scantlings,7 running perpen-

dicularly between larger floor beams, which generally sit on masonry corbels that spring from a wall (fig. 6). This style of construction is common in Ghent and Antwerp, both in Flanders, and can be seen at Gravensteen in Ghent, and at the Plantin Moretus Museum in Antwerp, as well as at other locations.8 Within the urban tradition of buildings found in New Netherland there is a common pattern of construction in the early period of the colony. That is to say, “a ground level interior of one room approximately twenty feet by twenty feet. Some early homes began as two rooms, which joined at one gable end, forming a single unit some twenty feet deep-by-forty feet long.”9 These mass houses began with a single-room structure, described by the Dutch as a “grootkamer,” or great room. Further additions were often created continuing the general mass of the

structure, easily seen in extant houses when one knows how to read the structure. In many of these extant houses the additions have elevated floors creating an “opkamer,” or upper room. Beneath the opkamer is generally a kitchen, with a fireplace flued into the same chimney 5

Ibid., 186.

Tussenbalk, tussenbalken (plural), “through beam,” a transverse tie beam which is mortised into posts on the exterior wall, or set into pockets in houses constructed out of stone. Unlike the ankerbalk, or “anchor beam,” this member does not pass through the post and does not have the characteristic wedged tongue tenon found in New World Dutch barns.

A scantling is any small piece of wood, the word derives from the Middle English scantyllion. This tool is referred to in modern timber framing as a marking gauge. It is used to mark timbers for cutting. 8

Ian Stewart, “Glimpses of Belgian Framing,” Timber Framing: The Journal of the Timber Framers Guild 120, (June 2016), 9–11.

Harrison Meeske, The Hudson Valley Dutch and Their Houses (Fleischmanns, NY, 1998, 2001), 134.

Figure 6. Ankerbalkgebint, New World Dutch Barn, Mabee Farm and Historic Site, Rotterdam Junction, New York.

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Figure 7. A classic example of the mass house form can be seen in the brick-clad Luykas van Alen house in Kinderhook, New York.

stack as the fireplace above. One of the classic examples of this form of addition can be seen in the brickclad Luykas van Alen house in Kinderhook, New York (fig. 7). The main mass of the house was erected in 1737, with an addition built shortly thereafter. 10 The main mass has end chimneys, rising from jambless fireplaces,11 and the gable ends have the parapets common to the Dutch urban construction tradition. The addition of the house has a parapeted gable and a jambless fireplace, further lending to the belief that this addition was done soon after the erection of the main mass, as the jambless fireplace began to fall out of fashion during the middle part of the eighteenth century.

The Bevier-Elting house in New Paltz, New York, follows this same form, yet is constructed out of stone (fig. 8). The major differences in form are that this house was constructed in three separate stages, which is visible in the exterior stone work.12 The house is gable ended with three sections. The first section has a jambless fireplace, the second section is an opkamer, with an English-style fireplace with bake oven in the basement, and the third section, rising slightly higher than the second, has no fireplace. This house has no parapeted gables, instead the gables above the level of the main tussenbalkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s are wood clad. This house form is the most prevalent in the northern reaches of New Neth-

erland, and a majority of the houses identified as Dutch in the Middle and Upper Hudson River Valley conform to it. In the southern portions of the New Netherland cultural area, the houses vary more in shape and form, usually starting as this form, but having additions added to it over the years, so that while 10

Stevens, 212â&#x20AC;&#x201C;13.

A jambless fireplace is in reality the remnants of a medieval smoke hood. The chimney mass rises from three timbers which support its mass. One of these timbers is always one of the tussenbalken, sometimes oversized, with two smaller cross beams connecting back to the gable wall. The back mass of masonry from the chimney ties into the exterior wall of the building. Below the beams there was an ornate crown moulding, from which were usually hung linens to help direct the smoke. Very few examples of this fireplace are still extant, with the best preserved being at the Jean Hasbrouck house in New Paltz.

Stevens, 190â&#x20AC;&#x201C;91.

Figure 8. The BevierElting house in New Paltz, New York, follows the mass form, although it is constructed out of stone rather than brick.

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maintaining many Dutch elements, the houses do not often immediately appear as Dutch. Indeed, many of the houses in the Lower Hudson River Valley and on Long Island and in New Jersey bear elements that are stylistically English, especially on the interior. This further suggests that the Dutch communities of the south had more interaction with English settlers than the Dutch communities of the Upper Hudson River Valley did. The “Rural Flared” and “Rural Unflared” styles that the McAlesters discuss can be found throughout New Netherland, with the main difference between the Rural Unflared and the Urban form is the orientation of the gable end. The “Flared” tradition merely adds the swept eaves found from the Lower Hudson River Valley and south. Yet, there is debate as to whether the swept eave is traditionally Dutch. In my travels throughout the Netherlands I never saw a swept eave, although I have seen them in France and Wallonia, the Frenchspeaking portion of Belgium. Architectural historian Harrison Meeske suggests these “Dutch kicks” may be of Flemish origin as the “design

originally appeared in America on homes associated with settlers of Flemish origin.”13Stevens argues this point, instead giving the “bellcast” or “coyaus,” as he refers to it, a French origin, which follows what I have seen. 14 Hence, this detail, so often thought to be Dutch in origin, appears in fact to be from France or portions of Belgium, which further illustrates the multicultural nature of New Netherland, and recalls the fact that the first colonists of the southern portion of New Netherland were Walloons, and not Dutch. Therefore, if the defining characteristic of a Dutch typology is questionably Dutch, should it be considered? Stevens tackles the question of typology through the form of the building. Using “three-aisled,” “two-aisled,” “un-aisled,” “two-room (double) house,” “two-level houses,” “early center hall plans,”15 and the like, Stevens endeavors to create a more precise classification system, dependent on the interior form of the building, a clear departure from the McAlesters, which is defined purely by exterior form and siting. This allows those who are studying Dutch architecture to more exactly parse out the layout

of the structure, without considering the materials used in its construction. Almost all Netherlandish houses found in the areas of New Netherland rely on the tussenbalk (fig. 9), evenly spaced, usually four feet on center, for their main transverse-tying members, regardless of exterior cladding. Therefore, I suggest that this member is in fact the key to Dutch or Netherlandish domestic architecture in the New World. Agricultural architecture is easier to identify as New World Dutch barns use the ankerbalk, or “anchor beam” (fig. 10), as the major transverse tie. This member is easily recognizable due to its extended tongue tenon, which is wedged and pinned. If the tussenbalk is to be seen as the key ingredient of Dutch architecture, the next step for classification or typology should be the exterior cladding. This is the key to the typology I propose, the exterior building material, be it brick, stone, or wood. Following this I would add the siting of the structure, as the next 13

Meeske, 195.

Stevens, 58–59.

Stevens, 16–23.

Figure 9. Above: Tussenbalkgebint at Peter Winne house.

Figure 10. Left: Ankerbalkgebint, originally from Vragender, Gelderland, now in the Openluchtmusem, Arnhem.

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Figure 11. Jean Hasbrouck House, New Paltz New York. An example of a Dutch Stone Urban dwelling expanded to a Stone Transitional house.

step and propose that if it is gable ended on a street, it should be considered urban. If the house is eave ended, in an urban environment, we can consider it Urban Transitional, as it is moving away from the Dutch tradition of gable ending in an Urban location. Likewise, any structure not found in a city should further be seen as Rural, as these are siting and orientation classifications, and not necessarily formal. After these categories of classification have been logged, one can then add the formal derivations that John Stevens lists. Thus, completing what should be a precise verbal description of the structure. In order to illustrate this new typology, it is best to apply it to several structures. Take, for example, the Abraham Yates house in Schenectady, which would be easily classified as a Dutch

Brick Urban dwelling, with no aisles. This is as straightforward a structure as can be looked at using this system. Moving further south, we come to the Luykas van Alen house in Kinderhook, which can be described as a Dutch Brick Rural dwelling, with no aisles. Huguenot Street in New Paltz provides clear examples of both classic Netherlandish architecture and more transitional structures. The Bevier-Elting house is soundly a Dutch Stone Urban house with no aisles, while the Abraham Hasbrouck house is a Dutch Stone Transitional house (eave ended to the street) with no aisles. The Dubois “Fort” began as a traditional Dutch Stone Urban house, but in the 1830s the original house was widened and a full second story added. The Jean Hasbrouck house (fig. 11) provides a challenge as there is evidence that

in the late seventeenth century it was a one room, Dutch Stone Urban dwelling, expanded in the 1720s to Stone Transitional house, with center hall and double pile (two rooms deep). Moving further south, we get to the Minnie Schenck house at Old Bethpage Village Restoration in Oyster Bay on Long Island (fig. 12), which can be described as a Dutch Wood Rural house with a side aisle and a “Flemish kick.” The Valentine-Losee house in Roslyn, New York, can be described as a Dutch Wood Rural house, with no aisles. It is the material combined with the siting and form that makes for a complete picture of the structure. And, while seemingly lengthy in concept, I believe this will make for a more exacting classification system of Netherlandish architecture in North America.

Figure 12. The 1765 Minnie Schenck House, Old Bethpage Village Restoration, Oyster Bay, Long Island. An example of a Dutch Wood Rural house. Photo Old Bethpage Village Restoration.

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Book Review Alice Sparberg Alexiou, Devil’s Mile: The Rich, Gritty History of the Bowery (St. Martin’s Press, 2018),

LICE SPARBERG ALEXION has written two well-received books about Manhattan, Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary (2006) and The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City That Arose With It (2010). Her latest work, Devil’s Mile, released this year, now paints an in-depth portrait of Manhattan’s Bowery from its inception as a footpath leading to farmland adjacent to the Dutch West India Company’s settlement of New Amsterdam to the high-priced real estate street of today. Alexiou tells the history of the street by highlighting the biographies of those who caused the most change—for example, Petrus Stuyvesant, the Astors, Timothy D. Sullivan, and Hilly Kristal. This method of storytelling helps truly highlight the different identities in the Bowery’s development throughout four centuries. Our primary interest is, of course, the Bowery’s inception and life as a part of New Amsterdam. This topic is the subject of the first substantial chapter of Devil’s Mile. Prior to the arrival of the Dutch, the land that became the Bowery was one of the two first “roads” on the island of Manhattan—it was a footpath used by the resident Lenape tribe. In the 1620s, following the arrival of the Dutch, the Bowery and another footpath which became Broadway were christened and used as the first roads on the island. Subsequent and frequent use of the footpath saw it expanded and formed into one of the first roads in Manhattan. By 1664, it was the primary route in and out of the city to the upper reaches of Manhattan. The Bowery was initially called “Bouwerij” (farm in English) by the Dutch West India Company, who cleared the road and the surrounding area. Although clearing the area was easy, it was difficult to find people to farm. Fur trapping and trading were more lucrative professions than carving out a farm on the island. Another popular profession, especially in the Bowery, was owning a tavern. Due to lax restrictions in the early days of New Amsterdam, taverns were prevalent.

According to Alexiou’s research, one in every four businesses in the Bowery was a bar. Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General of New Amsterdam from 1647 until New Netherland was provisionally ceded to the English in 1664, decided to make his home on this area of the island. One of his major initiatives was expanding the area of settlement beyond the tip of Manhattan. Part of the Bowery was divided into farm plots, although this initiative was not as successful as hoped. Later, needing more farms on the island, freed slaves were allowed to purchase plots of farmland along the Bowery. These new landowners were an integral part of the history of Manhattan and especially this area of the city. Stuyvesant’s farm in the Bowery spanned 62 acres. The modern-day borders of this plot of land are the following: Twenty-third Street to the north, Sixth Street to the south, Fourth Avenue to the west, and Avenue C to the east. He spent the rest of his life here, even after the colony was ceded to the English, becoming New York. This land includes Stuyvesant Town and St. Mark’s Church-in-theBowery, which is situated on the site of Stuyvesant’s former chapel. St. Mark’sin-the-Bowery sits on the oldest site of continuous worship in New York City and is the second-oldest public building. Stuyvesant is buried in the vault below the church. St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery is still a vibrant part of the community, as Stuyvesant’s chapel would have been to the residents of his bouwerie. Other Company bouweries included the bouwerie of New Netherland director Wouter van Twiller, who granted himself the largest parcel in 1632. Other bouweries were granted to Barent Dircksen van Noorden, Johanness de la Montagne, Cornelis van Tienhoven, Dominie Everardus Bogardus, Anthony Jansen of Salee, Jan Claesen, Cosyn Gerritsen van Putten, Jochem Pietersen Kuyter. Six others were owned by the West India Company, one of which Willem van Twiller leased. These bouweries, along with those on western Long Island, formed the nucleus of New Amsterdam’s agricultural economy. The Bowery did not retain a pastoral character Indeed, one of the most impor-

tant characteristics of the Bowery is that the area and the street undergoes constant change. After the Dutch ceded New Netherland to the English in 1664, farmland slowly became residential real estate. In the 1840s, the Bowery’s fame lay in two dueling theatres built by the Astor Brothers. This was the beginning of the Bowery as an entertainment district, from the Astor brothers’ theaters to the opening in 1973 of the music club CBGB. In between theater and CBGB, the street was known as the “Mile of Hell,” where over 14,000 homeless, mostly men, lived. In the late nineteenth century, an elevated railway, known as the El, towered over the street spewing smoke and ashes, which contributed to this moniker. As subways replaced elevated lines and the El was torn down, the Bowery again changed. It was one of the first neighborhoods to undergo gentrification with an influx of artists, including Cy Twombly and Mark Rothko, in search of cheap studios. Cheap artists’ studios changed to expensive hotels and real estate, pushing out all but the wealthy. After the artists started populating the Bowery, the entertainment district returned. CBGB OMFUG opened in 1973, and musicians like Patti Smith and the Ramones were popular performers. The start of the punk movement helped begin the Bowery’s rebirth. In recent years, the Bowery has, to some, “sold out” with the arrival of popular stores and expensive restaurants. However, as Alexiou notes, the Bowery was founded as a place to turn a profit, and thus it has remained. Devil’s Mile provides not only an indepth and well-researched look at New Amsterdam, but it also delves deep into the history, including more recent years, of one of New York’s oldest and most iconic streets. The book is a fascinating read for not only those interested in New Amsterdam and New Netherland, but readers intrigued by the Punk movement, the history of artists including Rothko and Twombly, and those interested simply in New York City. —Sarah Bogart Cooney Holland Society Executive Director

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100% Silk “Necktie” $85.00 “Self-tie Bowtie” $75.00 “Child's Pre-tied Bowtie” $45.00

“Lapel Pin” Designed to be worn as evidence of continuing pride in membership. The metal lapel pin depicts the Lion of Holland in red enamel upon a golden field. Extremely popular with members since 1897 when adoped by the society. $45.00

“Rosette” Silk moiré lapel pin in orange, a color long associated with the Dutch $25.00

Make checks payable to: The Holland Society of New York and mail to: 20 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036 Or visit our website and pay with Prices include shipping

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Here and There in New Netherland Studies New Netherland Institute 31st Annual Meeting

HE NEW NETHERLAND Institute held its thirty-first Annual Meeting on the evening of Friday, May 4, 2018, at the University Club in Albany. Members and non-members attended the reception, business meeting, and program. With the conclusion of the business meeting, the Institute’s Alice P. Kenney Memorial Award was presented to Ian K. M. Stewart of New Netherland Timber Framing and Preservation for his contribution to understanding the Dutch influence in New York architecture. The program then featured a presentation by 2017 Hendricks Award winner Kenneth Shefsiek entitled “The Church Disordered.” Dr. Shefsiek is Assistant Professor and Acting Coordinator for the Public History Program at University of North Carolina, Wilmington. As a public historian, his primary interests are in the operation of historic house museums, with a particular focus on interpretation and material culture, and historical memory. Following the program, the gathering headed to the New York State Museum for a private viewing of the new exhibition “a small fort, which our people call Fort Orange.” Former New York State Parks and Rereation Archeologist Dr. Paul Huey led the tour of the exhibit, discussing his work on uncovering the Fort Orange site in 1970.

New Netherland Institute’s 41st Annual Conference

HE FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL Conference of the New Netherland Institute will convene on September 22nd, 2018, at the New York State Museum in Albany, New York, The topic for this year’s conference is “Conflict and Collaboration in the New World,” The conference program will feature seven presentations by scholars of New Netherland and the Dutch Atlantic. Speakers will be Jason R. Sellers of the University of Mary Washington on “Colo-

Above: Ian Stewart receives the Alice Kenney Memorial Award on May 4th. Right: Dr. Paul Huey leads the Fort Orange exhibit tour at the New York State Museum. nization and the Disruption of the Hudson Valley’s Native Landscape,” Shaun Sayres of Clark University on “‘A Daingerous Liberty:’ Dutch-Mohawk Relations and the Colonial Gunpowder Trade,” Amy Ransford of Indiana University on “Unsettled: New Netherland and the Case for Slowing Down Histories of Colonial America,” Presentation by National Archives of the Netherlands and New York State Archives on the digitization of New Netherland’s records, Danny Noorlander of SUNY Oneonta on “‘He Deserves to Be Severely Punished’: The Banishment and Deportation of Criminals, Political Enemies, and Religious Outsiders in New Netherland, 1638–1664,” Timo McGregor of New York University on “Fugitives and Anglo-Dutch Collaboration in 17th Century America,” Artyom Anikin of the University of Amsterdam obn “Many Strangers Passing: Demographic Shifts in the New Orange Period,” and Willem Klooster of Clark University on “The Afterlife of an Empire: The Second Dutch Atlantic, 1680-1815.” Standard registration is $75; Student registration is $35. Lunch is included with registration. The New Netherland Institute Annual Dinner will follow the conference at LaSerre Restaurant in downtown Albany. The dinner program will feature the presentation of the 2018 Hendricks Award and a

talk by Ian Stewart of New Netherland Timber Framing and Preservation on Dutch architecture in the Hudson Valley. Dinner is $75. For further information, go to the New Netherland Institute website at www. newnetherlandinstitute.org

Dutchess Community College Lecture

HE DUTCH COMMUITY College is presenting a lecture by Russell Shorto on Tuesday, October 16, at 7:00 p.m., entitled the “Dutch in Us: The Remarkable Influence of the Netherlands on New York and Beyond.” Shorto will discuss how a mid-seventeenth century Dutch colony in Manhattan established the foundation for many of America’s core values, including individual rights, religious freedom and free trade. This is the second event in the Dr. D. David Conklin Distinguished Lecture Series, established to recognize DCC’s fourth president who retired in 2014. The lecture is free and open to the public. Dutch Community College, James and Betty Hall Theatre, Dutchess Hall, 90 Cottage Road, Poughkeepsie, New York. Visitors are advised to park in Lot D. For further information call (845) 431–8400.

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THE NEW AMSTERDAM HISTORY CENTER

The mission of the New Amsterdam History Center (NAHC) is to encourage public exploration of the early history of New Amsterdam and New York City, its diverse people and institutions, and its global legacy today.

Membership Program Please support our programs or become a sponsor of one of our events. Members will receive invitations to special members-only events as well as open events. NAHC is a 501(c)(3) corporation. All contributions are tax-deductible. Select

Level

Amount

Description

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Friend

$50 - $100

Invitations to all NAHC events; access to the NAHC database

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Dual/Family Contributor Donor

$75 $250 $500

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Benefactor

$1,000

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Founder ` Corporate Sponsor

$5,000 $10,000

Admission for two people at above events Receive a complimentary copy of Exploring Historic Dutch New York All of the above plus a signed copy of New Netherland in a Nutshell by Firth Fabend All of the above, plus a personalized signed copy of The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto. Event Sponsorship Let us tailor a program to meet your corporate objectives. Contact: Esme E. Berg, nahceberg@gmai.com

Annual Membership Levels: If paying by check, please make payable to New Amsterdam History Center, 500 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1710, New York, NY 10110, attention Casey R. Kemper. To pay by credit card, please fill out the below portion: Name___________________________ Email: _______________________ Address _______________________________________________________ CC Number__________________________________ Type _____________ Expiration______________________ Code________________________ Amount_______________________

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In Memoriam Robert Audley Snedeker Holland Society of New York Life Member Robert A. Snedeker died on February 3, 2016, in Palm Springs, California, at the age of eighty-seven. Mr. Snedeker was born on August 3, 1928, in Manhattan, son of Alfred William Snedeker and Anne Marian Arkin. He claimed descent from Jan Snedeger of Olsdenburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, who arrived in New Netherland as a Dutch West India Company soldier in 1639. Mr. Snedeker joined the Holland Society in 1993. Mr. Snedeker was raised in Belleville, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City. He graduated from Belleville High School and entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambrige, with an R.O.T.C. scholarship. He received a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT. Upon graduation, Mr. Snedeker entered the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in Miami, Florida—where his hazardous duties included calling Bingo at the Officers Club—and at McClellan Air Force Base, Sacramento, California. While at McClellan his duties involved testing nuclear debris from mushroom clouds. Mr. Snedeker married Patricia Anne Haneker, in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1952. The Snedekers had three children, William Snedeker, born on December 17, 1956, in Long Branch, New Jersey, Brian W. Snedeker, born on November 1, 1959, in Neptune, New Jersey, and Lee Anne Snedeker, born on December 30, 1963, in Long Branch, New Jersey. Mr. Snedeker’s son William, a former Captain of the Holland Society Burgher Guard, predeceased him on April 15, 2011, and his wife, Patricia, predeceased him in 2012. After two years at McClellan, Mr. Snedeker moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. He then worked for the Photo Products Division of Dupont for thirteen years, leaving to pursue job opportunities in the paper industry. The Snedekers made their home for more than forty years on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Upon retirement, Mr. Snedeker volunteered at the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2012, he and his

wife moved to Pasadena, California, to be closer to their children. Patricia died later that year. Mr. Snedeker enjoyed golf and squash, crossword puzzles, butter crunch ice cream, pistachio nuts, big band music, movies and traveling. Mr. Snedeker is survived by his son Brian Snedeker of Palm Desert, California, and daughter Lee Anne Snedeker of Wallingford, Connecticut, and grandchildren Garrett and Tatiana. Services have been held.

Robert William Banta Holland Society of New York Life Member and former President of the Society’s South Florida Branch, Robert William Banta, died on April 18, 2018, in Juno Beach, Florida, at the age of ninety-seven. Mr. Banta was born on December 8, 1920, in Boonton, New Jersey, the son of Bertram Martin Banta and Mildred Elizabeth Tucker. He claimed descent from Epke Jacobse Banta, who came to New Netherland in 1659 from Friesland, Netherlands, aboard the ship De Trouw. Mr. Banta became a member of The Holland Society in 1975. Mr. Banta attended Boonton public elementary schools. He graduated from the Peddie School, Hightstown, New Jersey, in 1939, and pursued undergraduate studies at The University of Virginia, graduating in 1943. During World War II, he served with distinction as a naval aviator with the rank of lieutenant as a pilot, Torpedo Squadron Carrier Air Group 12 aboard the USS Randolph CV15. Among his decorations were the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals. Mr. Banta was a life member of Sigma Chi Fraternity. Mr. Banta married Virginia Mildred Westlake in Hopewell, Virginia, on January 8, 1944. The couple had three sons, Robert William Banta, Jr., born on June 13, 1945, in Richmond, Virginia, Bruce Allan Banta, born on June 5, 1948, in Summit, New Jersey, and Bertram Martin Banta, born on February 18, 1951, also in Summit. Following the war, Mr. Banta joined his father’s business at Banta Motors, Inc., in Madison, New Jersey. He served in the Photo Products Division of Dupont thirty years as president of this successful Chevrolet dealership. He was a member

and trustee of the New Jersey Automobile Dealers Association. During this time he also participated in local civic affairs, and as a member of Rotary International. He was a Deacon in The First Presbyterian Church of Madison. His political affiliation was Republican. Mr. Banta was a life member of the Association of Naval Aviation and of the National Rifle Association, and of the Palm Beach Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution. He was also a member of the Morris County Golf Club, Convent, New Jersey, and the Turtle Creek Club, Tequesta, Florida. His principal recreation was sailing and he was a member of the Old Port Yacht Club of North Palm Beach, Florida. Proud of his ancestors’ Frisian origins, he flew the Frisian flag on his sailboat. Mr. Banta is survived by his wife of seventy-four years, Virginia. Also surviving are his three sons, Robert William Banta Jr., Bruce Allan Banta, and Bertram Martin Banta II, six grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. His son Robert William Banta Jr. and grandson Robert William Banta III are members of the Holland Society.

Ralph Lynn DeGroff Jr. Ralph Lynn DeGroff Jr., died from lung cancer on April 19, 2018, at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson, Maryland, at the age of eighty-one. Mr. DeGroff was born on October 23, 1936, in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Ralph Lynn DeGroff, and Marion Wilson Day. He claimed descent from Jean De Groff, who emigrated to New Netherland from the Palatinate in 1674. Mr. De Groff joined The Holland Society in 1960. Known as “Tiggie,” Mr. DeGroff attended the Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland, graduating in1954. He obtained a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1958. He received a master’s degree in business from the University of Virginia Graduate School of Business, now the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1960. Following his graduation, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving with the Counter Intelligence Corps. Mr. DeGroff began his business career in 1961 when he joined the investment

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banking firm of Dillon, Read and Co., Inc., in Manhattan. He rose to become a senior vice president and partner in the firm. He left in 1981 to join Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette Securities Corporation as a managing director. He was also served as a director of Ryland Group, Inc., from 1977–1982, and was named a director of Wagner Brothers Containers, Inc., in 1989, and Winthrop Trust Company in 1994. Mr. DeGroff married Carol Colman on October 4, 1970, in Hartland, Wisconsin. They divorced in 1983. Mr. DeGroff married Marion Parsons Sinwell at the Dickeyville Memorial Presbyterian Church, Dickeyville, Maryland, on February 4, 1989. Mrs. DeGroff had two children by a previous marriage, Andrew Evans Sinwell and Marion Sinwell. The couple moved to Ruxton, Maryland, in 1990. Mr. DeGroff was an active member of The Holland Society. He was a member of the Society’s Burgher Guard, a Society Trustee for thirty-five years, and Society Treasurer. In 2013, The Holland Society Trustees awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal for Service to the Society. Mr. DeGroff’s father, a Trustee of The Holland Society was extremely interested in New Netherland history. In the early 1970s, the elder DeGroff served as chair of a committee whose mission was to translate the documents of New Netherland into English. Due to his efforts, in 1974 Dr. Charles-Theodor Gehring, a young scholar in early modern German languages, was hired to translate the seventeenth-century manusripts in the New York State Archives in Albany. Mr. DeGroff continued his father’s work after the latter’s passing in 1984. The translation project became known as the New Netherland Project and continues today under the aupices of the New Netherland Institute. The New Netherland Project dedicated the most recent volume to Mr. DeGroff and The New Netherland presented him the Institute’s coveted Alice P. Kenney Award in 2018 “in recognition for his significant contribution to colonial Dutch studies . . . and in particular for the translation work of the New Netherland Project.” In addition to The Holland Society, Mr. DeGroff served on the board of the Henry Street Settlement House—a not-for-profit social service agency—and was its president for four years. He was also a member of the Society of the Cincinnati and the Society of Colonial Wars. Mr. DeGroff served two terms on the

alumni board at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and served as Princeton class secretary from 1983 until shortly before his death. He had also been his Gilman class secretary and a Gilman trustee from 1990 to 1998. Gilman honored him with its Dawson L. Farber Award for “demonstrated loyalty, devotion, selfless service, affection, enthusiasm and spirit for Gilman School.” He was also a member of the Maryland Club and served on the boards of the Elkridge Club and the Hillsboro Club in Hillsboro Beach, Florida. He was a member of the Dickeyville Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. He was Republican in his politics. Mr. DeGroff is survived by his wife of twenty-nine years, Marion, stepson Andrew Evans Sinwell of Dallas, Texas, stepdaughter Marion Sinwell Smith of Wiltondale, Maryland, and five granddaughters. A memorial service was held on May 8, 2018, at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Baltimore.

Duncan Wheeler Van Dusen Holland Society of New York Member Duncan Whelen Van Dusen of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, died on April 21, 2018, from genetically related blood cancer at age eighty-one. Mr. Van Dusen was born on November 11, 1936, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, son of Lewis Harlow Van Dusen Jr. and Maria Pepper Whelen. Mr. Van Dusen claimed descent from Abraham Pieterson van Deursen, who emigrated to New Nethrland in 1636. He joined the Holland Society in 2013. Mr. Van Dusen attended Episcopal Academy in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, and St. Paul’s School. At St. Paul’s, Mr. Van Dusen was the head acolyte, a member of the French Club and the Missionary Society, served on the board of The Pelican, and was an officer in the Dramatics Club. He graduated cum laude. Mr. Van Dusen earned an A. B. from Princeton University in 1958, also graduating cum laude. While at Princeton he served as secretary for the Class of 1958 and as class historian. His senior thesis was published as two lengthy articles in the Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He received a Master of Public Health degree in 1961 from Columbia University. Mr. Van Dusen completed R.O.T.C. training at Princeton.

From 1962 to 1966, he served in the U.S. Army. He was the recipient of the Army Commendation Medal and Department of Army Certificate of Achievement. Mr. Van Dusen married Elizabeth Elliotte Rhea in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylavnia, on July 15, 1967. The couple had three sons, Edwin Rhea Van Dusen, born on August 8, 1968, Duncan Pepper Van Dusen, born on November 3, 1970, and Nicholas Gerhard Whelen Van Dusen, born on August 16, 1972, all in Bryn Mawr. In 1968, Mr. Van Dusen joined the University of Pennsylvania. Hevserved as an assistant administrator at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia from 1968 to 1969. From 1972 to 1977, he served as the assistant dean for the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the coordinator of UPenn Services at Philadelphia General Hospital. Mr. Van Dusen spent nearly forty years at the University of Pennsylvania until his retirement in 2009. Since 1989, he had held the position of associate secretary of the University. He also volunteered for over sixty years interviewing candidates for admission to Princeton University, receiving the Princeton Alumni Council Award for Service to Princeton in 2008. Mr. Van Dusen acted as director, recording secretary, and president of the Bryn Mawr Civic Association, and was active in numerous other community organizations. He served on the Lower Merion Township Civil Service Commission and on the board of Harriton House in Bryn Mawr. He was a member of the American College of Hospital Administrators, the American College of Nursing Home Administrators, the American Hospital Association, and Hospital Association of Pennsylvania. He also served on the Board of Managers of Ralston Center in Philadelphia from 1981 until his death. He also was heavily involved in church activities. He was a member of Our Mother of Good Counsel Parish and also of the Church of the Redeemer, both in Bryn Mawr. He was known for his warm and kind demeanor, his devotion to his family and his service to community, educational institutions and public health. Mr. Van Dusen is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, sons Edwin Van Dusen, Duncan Van Dusen, and Nicholas Van Dusen, and six grandchildren. Funeral services were held at The Church of The Redeemer in Bryn Mawr on April 28, 2018. There will also be a Memorial Mass at Our Mother of Good Counsel at a later date.

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New Website Updates! www.hollandsociety.org

Don't miss the new updates to our online presence! You can ďŹ nd digitized family Bible records, reports of branch meetings, back issues of de Halve Maen, and genealogical resources! All upcoming Society events, and other events of interest to Members, are also found on the website.