de Halve MaenJournal of The Holland Society of New York

Fall 2011

Fall 2011 41

PresidentCharles Zabriskie Jr.

Treasurer SecretaryRalph L. DeGroff Jr. Rev. Everett L. Zabriskie III

Domine Associate DomineRev. Everett L. Zabriskie III Rev. Louis O. Springsteen

Advisory Council of Past PresidentsRoland H. Bogardus Kenneth L. Demarest Jr.Colin G. Lazier Rev. Louis O. SpringsteenPeter Van Dyke W. Wells Van Pelt Jr.Walton Van Winkle III William Van Winkle

TrusteesGeorge E. Banta Jr. Robert R. SchenckBromme H. Cole Alexander C. SimonsonRobert Gardiner Goelet Henry N. Staats IVAndrew A. Hendricks Peter G. Ten Eyck IIColin G. Lazier Samuel K. Van AllenJohn G. Nevius R. Dean Vanderwarker IIIDavid D. Nostrand Charles W. WendellRobert D. Nostrand Donald WesterveltGregory M. Outwater Stephen S. Wyckoff

Trustees EmeritiAndrew W. Brink David M. RikerAdrian T. Bogart David William VoorheesJohn O. Delamater John R. Voorhis IIIRobert G. Goelet Ferdinand L. Wyckoff Jr.

Burgher Guard CaptainSean F. Palen

Vice-PresidentsConnecticut-Westchester Samuel K. Van AllenDutchess and Ulster County George E. BantaFlorida James S. LansingInternational Lt. Col. Robert W. Banta Jr.Jersey Shore Stuart W. Van WinkleLong Island R. Dean Vanderwarker IIIMid-West Robert R. SchenckNew Amsterdam R. Dean VanderwarkerNew England Charles Zabriskie Jr.Niagara David S. QuackenbushOld Bergen-Central New Jersey Gregory M. OutwaterOld South Henry N. Staats IVPacific Northwest Edwin Outwater IIIPacific Southwest Kenneth G. WinansPatroons Kipp Cronk Van AkenPotomac Christopher M. CortrightRocky Mountain Richard Conger Ten EyckSouth River Andrew S. TerhuneTexas James J. MiddaughVirginia and the Carolinas James R. Van BlarcomUnited States Air Force Col. Laurence C. Vliet, USAF (Ret)United States Army Lt. Col. Adrian T. Bogart IIIUnited States Coast Guard Capt. Louis K. Bragaw Jr. (Ret)United States Marines Lt. Col. Robert W. Banta, USMC (Ret)United States Navy LCDR James N. Vandenberg, CEC, USN

EditorDavid William Voorhees

Production Manager Copy EditorAnnette van Rooy Mary Collins

Editorial CommitteePeter Van Dyke, Chair

Andrew W. Brink David M. RikerKevin A. Denton Charles W. Wendell

de Halve MaenMagazine of the Dutch Colonial Period in AmericaVOL. LXXXIV Fall 2011 NUMBER 3

The Holland Society of New York20 WEST 44TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10036

IN THIS ISSUE:

42 Editor’s Corner

43 An Extraordinary Discovery:A Contemporary Picture of HenryHudson’s Ship, the Half Moonby Eduard van Breen

51 Peter Minuit and New Sweden’sRocky Relationship withNew Netherlandby Samuel Heed

55 Book Review

56 Here and Therein New Netherland Studies

57 Society Activities

58 In Memoriam

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

De Halve Maen (ISSN 0017-6834) is published quarterly by The HollandSociety. Subscriptions are $28.50 per year; international, $35.00. Back issuesare available at $7.50 plus postage/handling or through PayPaltm.POSTMASTER: send all address changes to The Holland Society of New York,20 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036.Telephone: (212) 758-1675. Fax: (212) 758-2232.E-mail: info@hollandsociety.org Website: www.hollandsociety.org

Copyright © 2011 The Holland Society of New York. All rights reserved.

Cover: Jan Gerretsz, “Leupe 320 Chart” (1611), National Archivesof the Netherlands, The Hague.

42 de Halve Maen

Editor’s Corner

OCEANGOING VESSELS WERE the space ships of the seventeenth century, and, as the fictional Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock

of the Starship Enterprise do for audiences today, theadventures of the seventeenth-century sea captains andtheir mates inspired generations of young men andwomen during the Age of Exploration to venture intounchartered territories. Early modern states jealouslyguarded maritime secrets; shipwrights and ships’ car-penters were highly paid technicians. During this era,the Dutch became the world’s foremost shipbuilders andtheir vessels laid the foundation for the Dutch seaborneempire’s Golden Age.

This issue of de Halve Maen focuses on two Dutch-built ships that played pivotal roles in the European ex-pansion into the New World: the Dutch East IndiaCompany’s Half Moon and the Swedish Navy’s KalmarNyckel. Eduard van Breen and Samuel Heed in theiressays in these pages thus introduce us to the excitingworld of early modern exploration, discovery, and tech-nology.

Eduard van Breen tells us that there “are few trulyfamous ships in the world,” and that the Half Moon,“made famous by Henry Hudson’s voyage to NorthAmerica in 1609,” belongs to this “exclusive club.” Henotes, however, that there remained no known contem-porary depictions of the ship; or rather, that is until now.Van Breen has found, bolstered by overwhelming evi-dence, a contemporary image of the Half Moon, whichhe introduces to the public for the first time in this is-sue of our journal. In doing so, he takes the reader onan exciting journey in the making of a unique discov-ery—a discovery that, he writes, “should first be ex-plained, shared, indeed savored.”

Samuel Heed coordinates educational programs in-spired by “a full-scale and faithful reconstruction” ofPeter Minuit’s flagship, the Kalmar Nyckel. The origi-nal Kalmar Nyckel, purchased for the Swedish Navy in1629, Heed reminds us, launched Sweden’s colonialventure in the Delaware River Valley. Yet, although theKalmar Nyckel flew the Swedish flag, Heed points outthat the original ship was built in an Amsterdam ship-yard, was Dutch by design, crewed by mostly profes-sional seamen from Holland and Zeeland, and captainedby a Dutchman. In addition, New Sweden’s first gover-nor and inspirational leader was none other than thevery same German-born Huguenot and former gover-nor of New Netherland, Peter Minuit. The early storyof America is thus not the tale of just one nation but theconfluence of many peoples. This, for Heed, is high-lighted by the site where Minuit’s 1637-1638 expedi-tion aboard the Kalmar Nyckel landed at present-dayWilmington. Known today as the Rocks, this site, atthe juncture of three rivers and five seventeenth-cen-

tury empires, reminds us of the “contingencies” of his-tory. “Things did happen in certain ways most assur-edly,” he writes, “but they did not necessarily have tohappen in the way or ways that they did.”

An important aspect of both essays are the apparentcross-cultural currents flowing throughout them—theDutch-built Half Moon captained by the EnglishmanHenry Hudson, the Dutch-built Kalmar Nyckel sailingfor the Swedish Navy. “Interconnected contests,” Heednotes, “shaped our destiny and our identity.” Van Breen’sjourney of discovery, for example, follows the paths ofships belonging to one of the early modern era’s trulygreat multinational trading corporations, the Dutch EastIndia Company [Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie]or VOC. While historians often focus on the finite na-tion-state, in reality the Age of Exploration was, likeStar Trek’s starship Enterprise, led by motley collec-tions of people. Globalization propelled men and womento new territories and fueled the European race to es-tablish colonies throughout the world in both hemi-spheres and both sides of the Equator. Nor must we for-get the indigenous peoples who warily greeted thesestrangers—their aliens—with gifts of raw materials,food products, and labor.

At the forefront of this human movement was the sail-ing vessel. Ships served as the instrument of explora-tion, they carried merchants and colonists, brought rawmaterials to metropolitan centers and carried manufac-tured products to far away lands, spread news and cul-tural attitudes, and, too frequently, were the implementskings and politicians used as weapons to harness theanger of marginalized peoples against the power andinfluence of the multinational corporations while con-solidating their own power.

Today, we are fortunate in having historic replicas ofboth the Half Moon and the Kylmar Nyckel, keepingnot only alive the technologies of the past but teachingus about the age that so shaped our own. As Eduard vanBreen writes of the Half Moon, “This famous instru-ment of history continues her voyage of discovery toinspire us today.” Make use of these educational tools,support their maintenance, and enjoy their programs,so that they may continue to inspire future generationsof young men and women to explore the unlimited pos-sibilities of our human potential and the never-endingunchartered territories of the universe.

David William VoorheesEditor

Fall 2011 43

Precisely on the four-hundred-yearanniversary of its making, “At thebottom of the island Madagascar, inthis bay called Santo Lucia,”November 1st, 1611.

THERE ARE FEW truly famousships in the world. The HalfMoon, a Dutch East India ves-

Eduard van Breen is a Research Fellowfor the New Netherland Museum and vol-unteer sailor on the replica ship HalfMoon. He has lectured on the ship’s his-tory and is currently working on a bookdetailing the entire course of the HalveMaen from 1608 to her loss in battle withthe English in 1618. He thanks especiallyJames Armstrong and Menno Leenstra. AlsoEdward Knoblauch, Dr. Andrew Hendricks,William Reynolds, and Janny Venema, forkeeping the wind in the sails. Bea Brommer,Hans Kok, Martijn Storms, and Henk denHeijer for sharing their indepth knowledgeof the VOC and cartography. Further, EugeneAlbert, Anneke Beekhof, Marielle Hageman,Ab Hoving, Irene Javorsky, Maartje van derKamp, Ingrid Kastel, Marcel Kroon, MartinLiebetruth, Kerstin Schellbach, Alco Weeke,Dietlind Willer, and, especially, René Janssenof the Dutch National Archives, and all whoresponded with enthusiasm and dedication.

sel made famous by Henry Hudson’svoyage to North America in 1609, be-longs to this exclusive club of ships,but a ship that was not known to havedepictions.

For the first time, a contemporary de-piction together with overwhelmingevidence that the image is of the HalfMoon can be presented. The ship’s im-age emerges on an ancient map prosai-cally known as the Leupe 320,1 a docu-ment that is part of the miles of origi-nal documents, maps, and manuscriptsthat relate to the Dutch East India Com-pany (VOC) deposited in the DutchNational Archives. Many of these docu-ments remain unexplored to this day.The smaller of two ships, the HalfMoon can clearly be seen on this largesea-chart that measures 52 cm x 38 cm(20/5"x15") even though she appearstiny and racing nearly out of view. Herlines evident, her comparative size tell-ing. She is traversing from left to rightin front, straight out of the seventeenthcentury.

A unique discovery with extraordinaryodds: This discovery should first be ex-plained, shared, indeed savored, beforeevidence is presented that this unique ren-

dering of a yacht can only represent theyacht Half Moon.2 There are countless il-lustrations of VOC ships made throughthe centuries. Many are generic lookingvessels with broad outlines; other depic-tions give great detail clearly done by pro-fessional illustrators with apparent deepunderstanding of the workings of a sail-ing vessel. All such illustrations of shipswere aimed to be duplicated in a pub-lished format, and for many it will neverbe known with certainty which vessel theoriginal artists had in mind.

Contemporary drawings of VOCships on charts, on the other hand, by1 The chart is officially labeled “NL-HaNa.4.Vel 320,”herein after called “Leupe 320” after Pieter Arend Leupe,chief archivist of charts in the Imperial Archives in TheHague from 1863 to 1881. For biographical informationsee Dr. Th. Ch. L. Wijnmalen, “Ter Herinnering aan P.A.Leupe,” Bijdragen Taal-Land en Volkenkunde vanNederlansch Indie, 4 vols. (Den Haag, 1881), 1: 232-45.See also P. C. Molhuysen and P. J. Block’s biography inNieuw Nederlandsch biographish woordenboek, volume8 (Leiden, 1930) and J. G. Frederiks and Jos F. vandenBranden, Biographisch woorden boek der Noord enZuidnederlandsche Letterkunde (Amsterdam,1888-1891).2 The Half Moon was a ship type called a “yacht” inEnglish, but far from being a ship of leisure, the term jachtor jagt in Dutch for this type of ship embraced at the timethe idiomatic meaning of two Dutch verbs denoting“hunting” and “speed.” The Halve Maen appears inDutch under a variety of spellings such as halve Mane.Known in French as La Demi Lune and in German as Derhalbe Mon, in this essay the English Half Moon is used.

An Extraordinary Discovery: A Contemporary Picture of Henry Hudson’s Ship, the Half Moon.

by Eduard van Breen

Above: The Leupe 320 chart, National Archives of the Netherlands.

44 de Halve Maen

men who knew their ships are extremelyrare. There are perhaps a dozen such de-pictions known to exist. This rarity is mostsurprising considering how many VOCcharts were made. There were the officialnavigation charts [Paskaarten] mostly onvellum drawn by the chief cartographerand supplied to each ship before its jour-ney. An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 suchcharts were created between 1595 and1794, the two-hundred-year period of theDutch East India Company including thedevelopmental years before its incorpo-ration in 1602.3 Yet, fewer than 350 sur-vive in museums, libraries, national ar-chives, and several private collectionsaround the world.4 Then there were chartsthat represented updates of the officialcharts—a category to which the Leupe320 belongs. Mates and chief mates onboard all Dutch East India Company shipshad standing orders to take notes, fill inblanks, and make improvements on the‘mother’ charts. Done on board, theseupdates were made in journals as well ason separate sheets of paper, specificallysupplied for this purpose. It was a key partof the mates’ core duties and the reasonwas straightforward. While by1595 manylands had been discovered, such informa-tion was kept highly confidential by com-peting nations. Also, large portions of theworld had yet to be explored, such as (andimportantly) many critical landfalls, ha-vens, bays, roadsteads, anchorages, rocks,

shallows, and other coastal details.Knowledge of such particulars repre-sented not only vast profits for a ship’scompany but these sea charts, with alltheir depth soundings and critical shorefacts, meant the difference between lifeand death. Thus, wherever and wheneverpossible, the “mother” charts were evalu-ated, yet precious few of these updateshave survived.

There were two more categories ofcharts: beautifully decorated “showcharts” [Sierkaarten], meant as importantgifts, and engravings, where such chartscould be used as wall decoration. Why sofew of the original charts and their up-dates have survived can be explained:these charts were merely instruments andpart of a work in progress. Each time aVOC ship returned to the Netherlands themate was under obligation—with a mini-mum penalty of deduction of wages fornon compliance—to turn his work overto the VOC chief cartographer. The latterposition was much sought after by men-of-maps as it represented the most forwardportal of an ever growing world. All ofthe most famous Dutch cartographers,such as Petrus Plancius, Willem and JoanBlaeu, and Hessel Gerrits held this posi-tion at one point in their career. As car-tographers for the VOC, theirs was a mostvital role—comparing the continous flowof newly arrived updates of charts, notesand journals, with previous charts and ear-

lier understanding of the seas and straits.This system of methodically updatingcharts with new information, plus thehuge size of the Dutch fleet, resulted inDutch charts and maps being the best inthe world. The other consequence of thescrutiny on arrival was that many origi-nal sea charts were either made redundantor were already obsolete. Their beautyonly cherished much later, the mono-chrome sea charts were simply discardedas they were never meant to be more thanworking documents.5

Moreover, vellum sea charts and theirpaper updates were fragile to begin with.They had to survive the long voyage toand from the Indies. On occasion, whenships passed each other, copies would besend back to the Netherlands by return-ing ships with the result that copies wouldarrive back in the Netherlands earlier thantheir originals. Mostly, however, VOCmaps would stay on board for the dura-tion of a journey that would typically takea minimum of several years. They wouldhave to endure all weather changes fromcold dampness to hot humidity. Thus,even when returning maps passed thescrutiny of the central cartographer, cop-ies were made by a different artist in aneffort to preserve the data, often on stur-dier and more permanent parchment.

Not surprisingly, the rarest originalVOC sea charts of any kind are those fromthe earliest decades of the Company, thefirst decades of the seventeenth century.Considering the odds of a sea chart drawnon paper surviving the centuries makesthe Leupe 320 document itself unique, letalone one that contains a contemporane-ous depiction of ships.

To fully appreciate the odds of a newdiscovery one has to take into account theship itself, because the Half Moon is not

3 R. van Gelder, quoted by R. Paesie in Caert Thresoor29, no. 1 (2010), estimated that during the time of the VOC(1602-1753) some 50,000 to 100,000 sea charts wereproduced. Only some 350 survive. http://vorige.nrc.nl/wetenschap/article2572741.ece; June 30, 2010.4 The Dutch East India Company, or de Verenigde OostIndische Compagnie (VOC), built 706 vessels in theperiod 1602-1699 and 755 vessels between 1700 and1794. See J. R. Bruijn, F. S. Gaastra, I. Schöffer, withassistance of E. S. van Eyck van Heslinga, Dutch-Asiaticshipping in the 17th and 18th centuries, 3 vols. (TheHague, 1979-1987), 1: 52, hereafter cited as DAS.5 F. W. Stapel, Pieter van Dam Beschrijvinge van de OostIndische Compagnie (’s Gravenhage, 1927), 1: 402-403.6 The states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,Pennsylvania, and Delaware arose out of Dutch initiativesin the early seventeenth century. See Jaap Jacobs, TheColony of New Netherland a Dutch Settlement inSeventeeth-Century America (Ithaca, N.Y., London 2009).

Above: typical seventeeenth-century sea chart without illustrations. (1673);Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden.

Fall 2011 45

just any ship. For more than four-hundredyears countless books, scholarly papers,and essays have been written about theHalf Moon and her English pilot HenryHudson, beginning almost immediatelyafter she set in motion in 1609 a chain ofevents that directly lead to the creation ofNew Netherland and, by extension, sev-eral colonies that later became part of theUnited States.6 Such was her importanceto the world that over the centuries legionsof authors, historians, and maritime ex-perts have conducted extensive researchinto the ship’s past only to speculate howthe original Half Moon appeared.7 In ad-dition, there have been two periods ofpeak interest in searching for a renderingof the Half Moon; each before the con-struction of a full size replica—at the ter-centennial celebration of 1909 and beforethe current replica ship in 1989.8

In this volume of work there appearsnever to have been a single report thatmade reference to the Leupe 320 chart.Rare by itself, exceptional in having adepiction, and unique that it was neverlinked to the Half Moon, while so manytried to find it, can the chart establish withcertainty that this depiction of a yacht isnone other than the Half Moon?

The Half Moon in St. Lucia Bay: theevidence. The Leupe 320 chart is datedNovember 1, 1611. It was signed “JanGerretsz opper stieijerman op heet schipbanda” [Jan Gerretsz chief mate of theship Banda]. Gerretsz also conveyed onthe chart that he and his ship had arrivedin St. Lucia Bay on October 7, 1611.

Two vessels are depicted on the Leupe320: One is the large ship Banda, the other

a smaller yacht unnamed and unmen-tioned by Jan Gerretsz.9 From VOCrecords we know that the Banda was partof a three-ship fleet that left the Nether-lands by way of the roadstead of the is-land of Texel in the north of the provinceof Holland on May 2, 1611. The threevessels were the 900-ton Bantam, the 800-ton flagship Banda, and the 80-ton yachtHalf Moon.

If this is not the Half Moon on theLeupe 320, which possible other yachtcould have been present in St. Lucia Bay

alongside the Banda that November1611?

In 1611, the year of the chart, a total ofthirteen vessels departed from the Neth-7 None of the five source documents on which all subse-quent works about Hudson’s 1609 voyage are based offerany image of the Half Moon: Hessel Gerritsz, Descriptioet Delineatio Geographica Detectionis Freti ab H.Hudsono inventi (1612), Emanuel van Meteren, Historieder Nederlanden (1614), Samuel Purchas, His Pilgrimes(1625), Johannes de Laet, Nieuwe Wereld (1625), Pietervan Dam, Beschrijvinge Oost Indische Compagnie (1701).Nor can we find a depiction in the six “golden analyses ofnote”: N. C. Lambrechtsen, Korte Beschrijvingen (1818),Henry C. Murphy, Henry Hudson in Holland (1909),Georg Michael Asher, Henry Hudson, the Navigator(1860), John Meredith Read, A Historical Inquiry Con-cerning Henry Hudson, His Friends, Relatives And EarlyLife, His Connection With The Muscovy Company AndDiscovery Of Delaware Bay (1866), Thomas A. Janvier,Henry Hudson: a brief statement of his aims and hisachievements (1909), and the unsurpassed l’Honoré Naber,Henry Hudson’s Reize onder Nederlandse vlag (1921).8 A contemporary depiction of the Half Moon was notlocated during the peak years in Hudson publishing aroundthe centennial celebrations in 1909 and 2009.The currentHalf Moon replica, built in 1989, is the scholarly vision ofits founder Dr. Andrew Hendricks. The New NetherlandMuseum-Half Moon is under direction and command ofits director and skipper William (“Chip”) Reynolds.9 The maker of the Leupe 320 chart, Jan Gerretsz,mentioned his ship Banda, the name of the skipper of theship Banda (Rollef Sijmesz) and his own name and rank(chief mate) twice and the fact that he, Gerretsz, createdthe chart on November 1, 1611.

Anno 1611 den 2e maij sijn onder’t beleijdt van den CommandeurLaurens Reael nae Oostindien geseijlt [:]“Anno 1611 the 2nd of May under the direction of CommandarLaurens Reael sailed to the East Indies [:]”National Archives of the Netherlands..

Left: Plancius-Claesz map (1600).St. Lucia, Madagascar (red arrow),Maritiem Museum Rotterdam.

46 de Halve Maen

erlands to the Indies. By May 2nd of thatyear, however, only four vessels (in-cluding the Banda and the Bantam) andonly one yacht, the Half Moon, hadbegun the long voyage east.10 This wasa promising start for the inquiry. Toexclude that the mystery yacht couldperhaps be a lingering ship that hadrevisited or stayed in St. Lucia Bay, theinvestigation turned to every Dutchyacht that ever sailed to the Indies.

There are two periods to consider.The first was the period leading up tothe founding of the VOC (1595-1601),during which a total of fifteen yachtsmade the voyage to the Indies as wellas a number of larger vessels. Of theyachts, one was last identified in Eu-rope in 1601, four were captured orsunk before 1602, and the remainingten were last observed leaving Bantam,Java, between 1601 and 1603. Recordsnote that these yachts remained in theIndies. Given their age by 1611, it isalso safe to discount these as havingbeen capable of sailing all the way backfrom the Indies to the island of Mada-gascar.

The second period, the relevant VOCperiod of 1602-1611, a total of nineyachts including the Half Moon sailedfor the Indies, of which four were cap-tured, burned, sunk, or had fallen intodisrepair prior to the Half Moon’s sail-ing in May 1611. Of the remaining fourvessels, the whereabouts of two yachts

are known with certainty: the Brackwas in Japan at the time and the muchlarger Witte Leeuw was in the Moluccanseas, which are south of the Philippinesand north of Australia in the most east-ern part of the East Indies archipelago.Clearly, both yachts were very far awayfrom Madagascar. The two remainingyachts, the Griffioen and Hazewindt,can safely be discounted being presentsome 3,500 nautical miles to the eastof their known locations.11 By elimina-tion there could only be one yacht inSt. Lucia Bay in November 1611, theHalf Moon.

Approaching the inquiry from yet adifferent direction—after all, theremust be no doubt—could the HalfMoon returning to Amsterdam in 1611be included in St. Lucia Bay at the ex-clusion of other yachts? Here, an addi-tional discovery was made. An unusedsource confirmed the date of departure,the never before published Brievenboek[book of letters] of Middelburg. Thiscollection of notes created for and bythe Zeeland Chamber is a fascinatingfolio. Because it is a notebook ratherthan a collection of neatly finisheddocuments, one can almost follow theoriginal author ’s pen through thecrossed out corrections, deletions, add-ons, and all. Here we find the entrywhen the Banda and the Half Moondeparted from Texel, reconfirmingother documents with certainty:

Ons is seer aengenaem te verstaan hetvertreck der schepen wt Texel gelijck hetvertreck des Schips Banda ende hetJacht de halve mane op 2en deser[maand] wt Texel . . .

We have noticed with pleasure the de-parture of the ship Banda and the yachthalf moon at the 2nd of this (month)from Texel

This evidence compliments a near un-broken timeline between Dartmouth Har-10 The Dutch East India Company’s (DAS) shippingbetween the Netherlands and Asia 1595-1795. J. R.Bruijn, et al, Huygens Instituut, Koninklijk Nederlands,Hist. Genootschap, KNHG Http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DAS/search see also the completedata base vocsite.nl.11 It is known that on February 2, 1612, the Half Moon metthe Hazewindt on the roadstead of Bantam, Java. Theletters and journals (see further in this article) detailing thejourney of the Banda and the Half Moon make no mentionof either the Griffioen or the Hazewindt in the IndianOcean, nor have any such documents ever been found oridentified.12 Ever since Henry Murphy discovered two VOCrecords in 1859, these have been quoted by all subsequentauthors as the confirmation of the departure of the HalfMoon on May 2, 1611. See Murphy, Henry Hudson inHolland, 59. These records are the VOC AmsterdamHarbor record [uitloop boekje’van schepen van 1603 toten met 1700] and the VOC Zeeland chamber “Memoriael.”Both list the Banda and Half Moon leaving Texel on May2,1611. The two ships were part of a three-ship fleet. Theship Banda and yachtship Half Moon were equipped andfinanced by the Amsterdam chamber. The ship Bantamwas organized by the Enkhuizen chamber. The standarddatabase for all Dutch East India voyages, DAS recordsthat the Banda had left Texel already on March 16, 1611.This is clearly not correct as resolutions by the Amsterdamchamber were still being made regarding the ship in April1611. DAS does state that the Bantam (not the Banda)and Half Moon both left on May 2, 1611. A mix-upregarding the Bantam and Banda is also not possible.From the administrative records of Enkhuizen the Bantamcan be placed in Texel, as soldiers were mustered there aslate as April 30, 1611, for this ship. Also, we have therecord of payment of the pilot of the Bantam (to Texel) onMay 10, 1611 [NA 1.04.02 (VOC) 14854 [BoekhoudingEnkhuizen 1608-1619, 225]. While the harbor record [hetuitloopsboekje] is not always correct, as it was often latercompleted, there is little doubt that this record is correctand that the three ships left Texel on May 2, 1611. Thementioned document, the newly discovered and neverbefore published brievenboek Middelburg, clearly con-firms all three ships leaving together [NA 1.04.0 (VOC)7291]. Moreover, the May 2nd departure date was laterverified by a passenger on board the Banda, Jan Maertsenvan Campen in a letter to Patria, and an eye witnessaccount by Johann Verken, who recorded in his journal onMauritius that both the Banda and the Half Moon had leftTexel together on May 2, 1611, after having spoken to thecrew. Both references are discussed below.

Brievenboek [book of letters]of Middelburg mentioning thedeparture of the ships Bandaand the Half Moon from Texelon May 2, 1611. NationalArchives of the Netherlands.

Fall 2011 47

bor in England, where Henry Hudsonparted from the Half Moon in early No-vember 1609 to pursue his quest on theEnglish ship Discovery, and the HalfMoon’s departure from the Netherlandson May 2, 1611. Combined with the ex-isting records, there is no doubt that theHalf Moon and the Banda left the road-stead of Texel together.12

But did the vessels sail together allthe way into St. Lucia Bay? At thisjuncture it is perhaps time to debunk afashionable notion that has prejudicedthe record of the Half Moon over thepast four centuries. Namely, that anyshards of the Half Moon’s history thatsurface after Henry Hudson’s voyageare relating to another similarly namedyacht. This is false. While there havebeen Big Moons, Waxing Moons, NewMoons, Old Moons, and just Moons,there is only was one Half Moon re-

13 The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has a painting, “Seabattle of Livorno of 1653” by Willem van de Velde, whichdepicts Admiral Cornelis Tromp conquering an Englishship called the Half Moon (SK-A-1364). This ship wouldbecome part of the Dutch Admiralty fleet. It may well bethe ship that was seen in the Battle of the Sont betweenHolland and Sweden in 1658. Only one other Half Moonis known to the Scheepsvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, onethat sailed to Algiers in 1669/1670 and was torched there.14 Laurens Reael, admiral of the flotilla Banda, Bantam-Half Moon, became commander on shore under the firstGovernor General of all of the Indies, Pieter Both.

corded as sailing for the VOC.13 Therewas no other ship, yacht, pinnace,shallop, or pre-fabricated boat calledthe Half Moon in VOC or other employin the Indies during the period between1595 and 1795.

The inquiry thus proceeded with con-fidence that if a historical documentcould be found that refers to the mys-tery yacht by name—for example, theHalf Moon—in connection with theBanda and linked to St. Lucia Bay, itcould only be referring to the famousyacht and not any other yacht, and thelast shred of doubt could be eliminated.And such a manuscript was found.

Two other documents led to its dis-covery. The first document is a four-teen-page letter dated July 12, 1612,addressed to the VOC Board inAmsterdam, the Gentlemen Seventeen.It was written by Jasper Janssen de

Jonge, who at the time was governorof Ambonia, the important spice islandin the Moluccan Sea. Janssen firstly in-formed the Gentlemen Seventeen thatthe admiral of the fleet of the Banda,Bantam , and Half Moon , LaurensReael, arrived on his island on March27, 1612, having sailed onboard the flagship Banda.14 Janssen continued hismultipage document and included a smallbut telling nugget as part of a mere frac-tion of a single sentence:

Map of the voyage of the Half Moon to Mauritius in 1611 and the trail of contemporary manuscriptsevidencing the presence of the Half Moon in St.Lucia Bay: Texel departure records from Holland and Zeeland;Jasper Jansz’s letter in Ambonia welcoming Jan Maertsen as passenger of the Banda; Jan Maersen’s letter toAmsterdam describing his arrival from St.Lucia into Mauritius harbor where Johann Verken on board theMiddelburg observed and mentioned the Banda and the Half Moon in his journal on the same day.Maritiem Museum Rotterdam.

48 de Halve Maen

15 Document NL.HaNa.1.04.02.1053-1-5. Transcrip-tion: “Uit een brief van Jasper Janssen, gouveneurvan Ambonia, aan bewindhebbers der O-I. Comp. teAmsterdam 12 Juli 1612,”in Archief voor degeschiedenis der Oude Hollandsche Zending, Vol-ume 5, De Molukken 1603-1624 (Utrecht, 1890), 20.16 It is not known how many passengers and soldierswere aboard the Banda. Her sister ship, of equal size,the Bantam had a company of 221 (forty-four offic-ers, merchants, and assistants, twenty-six gunners,forty-nine seamen, thirteen midshipmen and “boys,”the remainder, three companies of soldiers undercommand of a corporal). NA VOC 12 85430. Earlier,the similar sized large ships of the fleet of Willemsz.Verhoeff sailed in 1607 with 160 “eaters” [M. E. vanOpstall, De Reis van de Vloot van Pieter WillemszVerhoeff naar Azie 1607-1612 (‘s-Gravenhage, 1972),9] in 1629, after an active emigration policy waspursued the smaller 600-ton Batavia had a total of303 persons on board, including women and children.V. D. Roeper, De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629(Zutphen, 1994), 12.17 Arch 379.Inv 19, Amsterdam. Transcription in Archiefvoor de geschiedenis der Oude Hollandsche Zending,“Jan Maertsoon van Campen aan den de Kerkraad teAmsterdam. 1611,” Volume 5, De Molukken 1603-1624(Utrecht, 1890), 18.

Wt het voorsz. Schip Banda is hiergelaeten den eersamen Jan Martsen vanCampen prediker, . . .

From the before mentioned ship Bandacame to us the honorable Jan Maertsenvan Campen, clergyman.15

Janssen thus identified a passengerby the name Jan Maertsen van Campenon board the Banda.16 A significant new

lead was generated. Following the trailof the Janssen letter the investigationidentified a letter from this very JanMaertsen van Campen. And the clergy-man, having months earlier roundedCabo di Bona Ezperanza [Cape ofGood Hope] on August 25th, describedhis trip in detail to his church councilin Amsterdam in a letter from the is-land of Mauritius, dated December1611:

Weerde broederen. Nadat wij dentweeden Maey wt Texsel gheseilt waren,sijn wy met goedn voorspoet den 25Augusti ghepasseert die Caap de BeneEsperanse,ende quamen op den 7denOktober desselven jaers onder het eilantvan Madagasscher ten ancker in diebaye genaemt Santo Lucia. (Bleven)daer tot den 21 November ende quaemnden 14 December onder het eylantghenaemt Maurysyus. Alwaer wij tweeschepen vonden, die naer het vaderlantsouden varen. Het eene schip was wtSeelant, ghenaemt Middelborch, hetander van Amsterdam, ghenaemdHollandia.

Dear brothers. After we had sailed thesecond of May from Texel, we passedin good stead on the 25th August Caapde Bene Esperanse, and went for an-chor on the 7th of October of the sameyear at the bottom of the island Mada-gascar, in this bay called Santo Lucia.We stayed there until the 21st Novem-ber and came to the island calledMaurysyus on the 14th of December.There we found two ships bound forthe fatherland. The one from Zeelandwas called Middelborch, the other fromAmsterdam was named Hollandia.17

Letter by Jan Maertsenvan Campen to the Classisof Amsterdam, December1611. StadsarchiefAmsterdam.

Excerpt from Jasper Jansz. deJonge’s July 12, 1612, letterannouncing the arrival of JanMaertsz. van Campen aboard theBanda. National Archives of theNetherlands.

Fall 2011 49

It was thus learned that:

• Van Campen, passenger on board theBanda, had confirmed his departuredate from Texel to be the same benchmark date that the Banda and HalfMoon had commenced their journey—the now well established May 2nd de-parture date of the fleet.

• He linked St. Lucia Bay with the is-land of Mauritius by mentioning theidentical arrival date that is shown onthe Leupe 320 chart: namely on Octo-ber 7th.

• He recorded in his letter to have ar-rived in Mauritius on December 14,[1611].

And these two important documents,the Janssen and van Campen letters,brought the inquiry to the final pieceof the puzzle and Mauritius, an islandin the Indian Ocean, some 620 nauti-cal miles east of St. Lucia Bay.

Johann Verken’s Journal. A rare jour-nal from a German military captain inthe employ of the VOC, by the name

Johann Verken.18 Verken kept a detailedaccount of his years in the Indies in-cluding his homeward bound voyage onboard the Middelburg. In the journal hedescribed how he arrived on Decem-ber 7, 1611, in Mauritius and that hisship the Middelburg anchored close toanother VOC ship named theHollandia, which had arrived earlier.And these, of course, were the sameships that Van Campen had mentionedin his letter.19

On December 15th, Verken continued:

Den 15. December ist das SchiffBanda mit einem Jagschiff der halbeMon genandt daselbsthin auff dieReide kommen, welche denn miteinander den 2. Maij dieses 1611.Jahrs auss Hollandt abgefahrenwaren.20

The 15th December, the ship Bandawith a yachtship named the HalfMoon has also come to the sameroad[stead]. They had departed to-gether from Holland on the 2nd of Mayof this year 1611.

An apex was reached: the Half Moonis mentioned by name, in context, and ina contemporary account.

Verken continues in his journal to givesome interesting background details, suchas that he recognized the Banda from afew years earlier during his land campaignon the Molluccan islands when the ship,during a previous journey to the Indies,was the flagship of Admiral van Caerden.During this period he likely met with thethen current skipper of the Half Moon,

18 The German captain is referred to as “Verken,”“Vercken,” and “Verkens.” To provide consistency, inthis essay he is refferred to as Verken.19 Verken joined the VOC on November 16, 1607, as aprivate and corporal and served in battles with the Portu-guese and Spanish from Mozambique to Goa and theMoluccan archipelago, he left the Indies for the Nether-lands with the rank of captain on July 18, 1611, aboard theMiddelburg. Verken’s journal was printed almost imme-diately after his return to Zeeland on July 18, 1612. Thisjournal, in two volumes, represents the oldest journalwritten in German of the Dutch East India Company, S.P. L. ’Honoré Naber, Reisebeschreibungen von DeutschenBeamten und Kriegsleuten in dienst der NiederländischenWest.und Ost.Indischen Kompagnien 1602-1797, 2 vols.(Den Haag, 1930), 2:vii. Niedersächsische Staats-undUniversitätsbibliothek Göttingen.20 Ibid. Verken, having come from the east of the datelinewas already “in” the 15th of December.

Page from Johann Verken’s publishedJournal (1612-1613) with passagenoting that on December 15, 1611, theship Banda with a yachtship HalfMoon had arrived in Mauritius.Niedersächsische Staats- undUniversitätsbibliothek Göttingen

50 de Halve Maen

Melis Andriesz. He must have been incommunication with the crew of theships because he could have only ob-tained the Texel departure informationdirectly from them.

But clearly, in an almost exceptionalsetting of four VOC vessels in themiddle of the Indian Ocean in Decem-ber 1611, the most significant and ex-citing statement Verken made is that hementions the Half Moon by name andconfirms that the two ships had de-parted Patria together and had arrivedin Mauritius together.

In Conclusion: It is not plausible thatanother yacht was drawn on the Leupe320 sea chart by Jan Gerretsz. Such ascenario would suggest that the HalfMoon had disappeared for a time with-out any mention by Verken, who hadtalked to the crew.

The joint departure date of the Bandaand Half Moon has been firmly estab-lished through historical records, a let-ter and a journal written at the time,and a newly discovered document.Equally certain is the fact that thereonly was one Half Moon that sailed tothe Indies. Johann Verken identifiedthe Banda and Half Moon by name andconfirmed their joint arrival inMauritius on the same day that JanMaertsen van Campen mentioned in hisletter. And Van Campen, a passengerof the Banda, also mentioned that his

ship “went for anchor on the 7th of Oc-tober [1611] at the bottom of the islandMadagascar, in this bay called SantoLucia,” placing the Half Moon side byside with the Banda in St. Lucia Bay,on the same day as chief mate JanGerretsz had mentioned on his chart.

It was a beautiful yachtship. Like athoroughbred racehorse strainingagainst short reins, her sleek lines ea-

ger to go faster. With top sails unfurledand in ready gear, one could easilyimagine her acceleration. All it wouldtake was for her skipper or mate toquick order her ship’s company, sail-ors all, to hoist both her tops and douseher spritsail. She would have rushed offover the horizon with a bow wave, farahead in fast search of her mission.

The Half Moon joins the ranks of themost important ships in global mari-time history. Long before, on her wayto her destiny in the Indies, she cap-tured the imagination of Johann Verkenwho saw her in Mauritius harbor andmentioned her by name in his journal.She was fortunate that among all thelost dispatches and journals his stillexists, and that the letters by vanCampen and Janssens equally have sur-vived the centuries.

To be able to admire Jan Gerretsz’work has required an astounding arrayof interconnected events dating fromthe early VOC days to today includingthe preservation of a unique paper seachart of 1611. This chain of events per-mits the Half Moon to join the fewships that have their own contempora-neous rendering. This famous instru-ment of history continues her voyageof discovery to inspire us today.21

Above: The Half Moon as it appears on the 1611 Leupe 320 Chart.

Right: The 1989 replicaship Half Moon.Photo: New NetherlandMuseum/John W.Mangrum.

21 The Half Moon replica bears a remarkable likeness tothe contemporary image. www.halfmoonreplica.org.

Fall 2011 51

AS SOMETHING OF a specialenvoy from New Sweden andthe once and mighty Swedish

Empire, let me begin by saying that“we’re so glad to see our Dutch friends,again, and I thank Charly Gehring andthe New Netherland Institute for invit-ing me to this seminar. Welcome backto the Delaware—and this time, I thinkthere’s room enough for both of us!”

Seriously, though, once rivals, wecan be friends again, and collaborators.We have a common interest in scholar-ship, in education, and in telling thewonderfully complex story that is ourshared colonial past—a story that reso-nates now more than ever in our glo-bal, multi-ethnic, multi-religious,multi-national, and decidedly commer-cial twenty-first century.

At the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation, wesail and run educational programs inspiredby our magnificent tall ship KalmarNyckel, the pride of the Swedish-Ameri-can fleet. She is a full-scale and faithfulreconstruction of Peter Minuit’s flagship,with a sparred length of 141 feet, a com-plex rig that takes eight miles of line, anda main mast that stands six stories tallfrom the waterline. As a quick parentheti-cal, the scale and complexity of the rigalone reminds us that life may have beenslower in the seventeenth century, but itwas not simpler or easier.

Peter Minuit andNew Sweden’sRocky Relationshipwith New Netherland

by Samuel Heed

Samuel Heed received a B. A. in historyfrom Trinity College and a law degree fromthe Dickinson School of Law. He has beenSenior Historian and Director of Educa-tion of the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation inWilmington, Delaware, since 2008. Thispaper was presented at the 34th NewNetherland Seminar, “The Dutch in theDelaware,” on September 17, 2011.

The Swedish Skeppskompaniet(“Ship’s Company”) purchased the origi-nal Kalmar Nyckel for the Swedish Navyin 1629, with monies raised through taxa-tion from the cities of Kalmar andJönköping. It was named Kalmar Nyckel[Key of Kalmar] in honor of the fortress-castle that guarded Kalmar harbor, animportant Baltic crossroads for armies andfleets since the High Middle Ages. Sheserved the Swedish Navy off and on bothbefore and after entering our story as thecolonial ship that launched New Sweden(including a notably bloody engagementagainst the Danes during Torstenson’sWar in May 1645).

Kalmar Nyckel is famous here inDelaware: she is the ship that launchedNew Sweden; the ship that brought thefirst permanent European settlers(mostly Finns and Swedes) to the Dela-ware Valley; and the ship that madefour round-trip crossings of the Atlan-tic between 1637 and 1644, more thanany other documented ship of theAmerican colonial period.

We fly the Swedish flag, as you cansee, and we are rightfully proud of ourSwedish heritage. But, truth be told, weare Dutch too. Indeed, as much as or

maybe even more Dutch than Swedish:

1. The original Kalmar Nyckel wasbuilt by the Dutch in about 1625, in oneof the shipbuilding areas of Amsterdam.This was the Golden Age of the Dutchseaborne empire, and the Dutch were themost advanced shipbuilders of the earlyseventeenth century.

2. She was of a cutting-edge new Dutchdesign—a Dutch pinnace—nimble, stout,and remarkably seaworthy, equally adeptat serving as a small warship or an armedmerchant vessel.

Top left: starboard view of theKalmar Nyckel.Right: bow shot of the KalmarNyckel.Photographs taken by KNFcrewmember Andrew Hannaduring the filming of a NationalGeographic television special.

52 de Halve Maen

3. Her crew members were Dutch as well,or mostly Dutch, professional seamanfrom Holland and Zeeland, mostly—atleast on the colonial voyages.

4. And, her captain was Dutch. JanHindricksen van der Water, who sailed heradmirably through horrendous storms onthat first voyage to New Sweden in 1638.

Thus, we are Dutch, too, and proud ofit, which is why we also fly the Dutch tri-color (as you can see here, with “all flagsflying”), usually from the mizzen top—fittingly, I think, because the mizzen sailis the one used for balance, steering, andmaneuvers.

And then, our hyphenated hero, PeterMinuit, the first governor of New Swe-den and New Sweden’s inspirationalleader, turns out to be Dutch. Or, betterstill, he is a curiously modern amalgam:German-born, of French Huguenot ances-try, and Dutch by choice and “adoption,”but unemployed in 1635 and convenientlyavailable to take up our cause and theSwedish flag. New Sweden cannot beunderstood without the background story

of the Dutch West India Company andMinuit’s prior experience in NewNetherland, first as a volunteer-scout-businessman for the Company in 1624-1625, and then again as director (gover-nor) of New Netherland from 1626 to1632. Where would we be without theDutch West India Company, both in pro-viding the Swedes with the example of acommercial colonial enterprise and, then,for firing Minuit after allowing him to ac-cumulate more knowledge and experienceabout the Mid-Atlantic region than per-

haps any other European of his day?And let us not forget our favorite

“Dutch Uncle,” Samuel Blommaert, theDutch West India Company director whoput together the entire Swedish enterprise,connecting Minuit with the SwedishRoyal Council and Chancellor AxelOxenstierna, as well as providing the criti-cal impetus of funding.

Which brings me to “the Rocks.” It wasPeter Minuit’s Swedish Expedition of1637-1638 that made the Rocks famousas the Kalmar Nyckel’s landing site and

Blue bow of theKalmar Nyckel,photograph byAndrew Hanna.

Far left: Peter Lindström’smap of Delaware Bay andthe territories of NewSweden (1654–1655). Themap is oriented with northto the left, and shows CapeMay and Cape Henlopen onthe Atlantic, Fort Casimir(Trefaldighets), FortChristina (Wilmington),Upland, tributaries, and theNative lands along theDelaware River.Left: Fort Christina (1654).The plans show the positionof Fort Christina close tothe end of a tongue of landterminating at the Rocks.

Fall 2011 53

Delaware’s origination story—and thenexus of New Sweden’s competition withNew Netherland. The Rocks still exist andprovide a wonderful focal point for whatmakes our Delaware story interesting andimportant, highlighting aspects oftenmissed in the canon of America’s colo-nial history.

First, the Rocks remind us of the “con-tingencies” of history: things did happenin certain ways most assuredly, but theydid not necessarily have to happen in theway or ways that they did. “History iswritten backwards, but lived forwards,”and the Dutch-hyphen-Swedish career ofPeter Minuit highlights the quirky and

unexpected “human agency” that under-lies the flow of events. In addition, theRocks remind us of the borderland regionthat was frontier Delaware, a contestedarea of three rivers (Delaware, Christina,and Brandywine) that brought together atleast three and maybe five empires—notjust the Dutch and the Swedes and theLenape (Algonquian speakers), but alsothe Minquas or Susquehannocks(Iroquoian rivals), and the English. Co-lonial America was filled with confusingand overlapping land claims, producinginterconnected contests that shaped ourdestiny and our identity as Delawareansand Americans. Finally, the premeditatednature of Minuit’s choice of the Rocks asthe site from which to start a new colonyin North America provides an interestingcontrast to America’s other, more haphaz-ard, founding stories.

The premeditation here presupposesprior knowledge. Minuit had been to theSouth River before in 1624-1625 as a vol-unteer-scout for the WIC, and most likelyhad travelled the Minquas Kill (ChristinaRiver) and seen the Rocks first-hand. And,from his time and work as director ofNew Netherland from 1626 to 1632,Minuit knew all the strategic reasonsthe Rocks made for an ideal site from

Swede Rocks, circa 1890,site of the first landing ofthe Swedes in Delaware in1638.

Peter Lindström, FortChristina (S) and the villageChristinahamn (I) during theDutch siege of 1655. TheDutch ships, the Waag (A)and the Spegel (B) are shownanchored at the mouth ofFiske Kyl (Brandywine, O).Surrounding the fort are thesiege-works; an earthwork(D) on Tennaconck's land(C), across Christina Kyl orRiver (E). The little harbor(R) is to be seen at the left ofthe fort.

54 de Halve Maen

which to launch New Sweden. In ourstory in other words, he knew where hewas going, and why, and what he woulddo when he got there. There were five rea-sons for his choice, each of which tellsus something important about the wayDelaware was founded:

1.The Rocks provided a natural wharf forthe easy off-loading of supplies andequipment—no small convenience in aNew World barren of infrastructure;

2.The site was ideal for a small fort, pro-tected on either flank by marshy groundand sited on a narrow peninsula—be-tween the Brandywine and Christina riv-ers—with easy access to fresh water;

3.The Rocks were on the west side of theDelaware, and on a major waterway-thor-

oughfare, for direct access to the interiorlands where the furs, and Susquehannockswho controlled them, were located;

4.The Rocks were about two miles westof the Delaware, and beyond the pryingeyes of any Dutch or English visitors whomight want to dislodge the Swedish settle-ment; Fort Christina was never designedto dominate the Delaware River—it waslocated for defense and so that a prosper-ing colony could be established before theDutch or English could dislodge it—pos-session being nine-tenths of the law theneven more than now;

5.And, best of all for those who appreci-ate irony in their history, Minuit knew theDutch had not “perfected” their landclaims in this area off the western bound-ary of the Delaware—meaning that, once

he signed purchase treaties with the localtribes, his claim on behalf of the SwedishEmpire would be superior to that of anyDutch claim even, and especially, accord-ing to the Dutch interpretation of inter-national law that they were using in theircontest against the English. Nice touch,Peter!

Through it all the Rocks remain atouchstone. They tell us important sto-ries about Delaware and America’s co-lonial past, stories that are eithermissed entirely or underappreciated inthe standard textbook compressions.The Rocks have seen it all, were therebefore “we” arrived, are likely to re-main long after we are gone. Theyspeak to me—and what stories theycould tell, especially at night, whisper-ing softly . . . .

The Kalmar Nyckel at sunsetin Cape Cod Bay.Photograph by AndrewHanna.

Carl Milles Monument withthe Rocks, at lower left, FortChristiana State Park,Wilmington. The twenty-five-foot granite monumenttopped with the settlers’ ship,the Kalmar Nyckel, a giftfrom the people of Swedento the people of the UnitedStates, was dedicated onJune 27, 1938, to celebratethe 300th anniversary of thelanding of the first Swedishsettlers.

Fall 2011 55

Book ReviewL. F. Tantillo, writer and illustrator, withCharles T. Gehring and Peter A. Douglas,The Edge of New Netherland (Nassau,New York: L. F. Tantillo Fine Art and Al-bany: New Netherland Institute, 2011).

READERS OF de Halve Maenshould be familiar with fine art-ist Len Tantillo’s historical and

marine renderings. Reproductions ofmany of his beautiful paintings haveappeared in issues of this journal overthe years, as, for example, his depic-tion of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon infull sail on the Hudson River that gracedthe cover of the summer 2009 issue. WithThe Edge of New Netherland, Mr.Tantillo turns his considerable artistictalents to the Dutch settlements alongthe Delaware River in the seventeenthcentury.

The Delaware, or South [Zuyt] River,communities, the southernmost regionof the Dutch colony of New Netherland,has largely been neglected by histori-ans. Instead their focus has been on theHudson River settlements. As a correc-tive to this neglect, the New NetherlandInstitute called for its 2011 Seminar tobe held in New Castle, Delaware, witha focus on the Dutch in the Delawareregion. The Edge of New Netherland isLen Tantillo’s contribution in this dis-cussion.

In this work, Mr. Tantillo takes thereader back to the early Europeansettlements of the Delaware River Val-ley through the perspective of theDutch and Swedes who first colonizedthe region. In doing so, Tantillo pro-vides the reader with an evocative per-spective of the early European settle-ment on the banks of the DelawareRiver as seen through an artist’s eye.

To provide historical context, and asan introduction to this work, Dr.Charles Gehring’s article, “De SuytRiver New Netherland’s DelawareFrontier,” which appeared in the Sum-mer 1992 issue of de halve Maen, isincluded. This was a wise choice as allof Mr. Tantillo’s text that follows re-lies on the reader having a basic un-derstanding of the history of the area,especially relating to the conflicts be-

tween Dutch and Swedes between 1638and 1655.

Mr. Tantillo’s forte is in the artisticrealm, and he furthers Dr. Gehring’s in-troduction with beautifully illustratedsections on New Netherland, the geog-raphy and topography of the region,beavers and furs, as well as trading andother activities of the colonists. Themain focus of this work, however, ison the creation of Fort Casimir in 1651under the instructions of West IndiaCompany Director Pertrus Stuyvesantand its subsequent history.

“Fort Casimir is fascinating becauseit is so unremarkable,” Tanillo writes.“It was made of wood and dirt, waspoorly maintained, failed every time itwas tested in battle and rotted away todust” [p. viii]. He goes on to tell us thatas architecture, the fort was “Not muchto marvel about.” What makes FortCasimir so interesting for Mr. Tantillois that it was typical of the simple for-tifications built in New Netherland.

In the second section of this work,entitled “The bastion,” Mr. Tantillo de-scribes fort building in both seven-teenth-century Europe and NorthAmerica in general terms for the lay-man, and explains the manner in whicha fort, like Fort Casimir, might havebeen constructed.

In perhaps the most intriguing sec-tions of the book, sections three andfour, Tantillo focuses on Fort Casimiras an archeological, architectural, andartistic interpretation of a historic site,and takes us through the process bywhich the past is visualized. The chal-

lenge for Tantillo was to recreate the fortfrom “only one (contemporary) picture ofFort Casimir that wasn’t much like it re-ally was!” [p. 58].

Tantillo’s exploration of historicalrepresentations of the fort when com-pared with more recent archeologicaldiscoveries becomes a thought-provok-ing discourse on how perceptions ofphysical objects through their depictioncan appear to be distortions to anothergeneration. Using his background in ar-chitectural design and visual art, Mr.Tantillo decodes the historical andcombines it with the new revelationsto render a view of the fort, more ac-curate than others, providing the readerwith a new view and understanding ofthe seventeenth-century settlement.

The Edge of New Netherland con-tains over fifty full-color and black-and-white wonderful illustrations byMr. Tantillo. His lively style draws theviewer into the past. A commentary byPeter A. Douglas on the process ofrevisualizing the fort enhances Mr.Tantillo’s illustrations, resulting in anenjoyable and educational read.

The Edge of New Netherland will nodoubt appeal to all ages and degrees ofknowledge about New Netherland, butit should provoke particular interest inyounger readers who are having theirfirst introduction to the world of NewNetherland and seventeenth-centuryAmerica. In all cases, Edge of NewNetherland will make a particularly at-tractive gift for the holiday season.

— Mary Collins

56 de Halve Maen

Here and Therein New Netherland Studies

Current contributors are:William BantaRobert T. BantaRobert W. BantaGeorge A. BlauveltJohn H. BloodgoodBarry B. BogartKenneth ChaseJim CozineGarret DeGraffRalph L. DeGroff Jr.Frederick FulkersonPhillip KeirsteadBarrie MabieRoland D. Neiss Jr.

Development Director Outwater urges Members and Friends to send personal checks to The Holland Society’s headquartersat 20 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036-6603, attention Annette van Rooy, pay by Visa or MasterCard, or use the PayPallink to donate at www.hollandsociety.com/popup/news_9.html.

Peter W. RapeljeJohn P. SchermerhornPatricia SnedekerWilliam T. SutphinAndrew Ten EyckEverit B. Terhune IIIW. Kent Van Allen Jr.Richard E. Van DeusenPeter Van DykeJan Van EttenAlex Van RensselaerAnthony G. Van SchaickRoger W. Van VoorheesDaniel H. Van Winkle

S. Thompson VieleGeorge G. Voorhees IIIJohn R. VoorhisKenneth G. WinansFerdinand L. Wyckoff Jr.Charles Zabriskie Jr.Christopher W. ZabriskieJohn Walker ZabriskiePhillip M. ZabriskieThe Rev. Marek Powell Zabriskie

* The list is as of press time. If your namedoes not appear here, it will appear in thenext issue of de Halve Maen.

Annual Giving Campaign

THE HOLLAND SOCIETY of New York recently embarked on an Annual Giving Campaign under the guidance ofTrustee Greg Outwater, Director of Development. The campaign kicked off to a strong start with a direct mailing to

Members and Friends asking for a generous contribution to support the Society’s Library, Archives, journal de Halve Maenand other Society publications, as well as scholarships to foster translation efforts and research in connection with our Dutchheritage. As a result, Holland Society President Charles Zabriskie Jr. has announced that the Trustees have contributedperhaps the largest amount of annual support ever to meet The Holland Society’s mission by contributing more than $55,000thus far in 2011. “I hope every member will strongly consider making a gift of at least $100 for the Annual Giving Cam-paign,” President Zabriskie said. He continued, “It is absolutely crucial and most important that every member stronglyconsider supporting the Society if we are to fulfill the mission which our forefathers established many years ago.”

New Amsterdam HistoryCenter

THE NEW AMSTERDAM HistoryCenter (NAHC), home of the Virtual

New Amsterdam Project, has created a newwebsite through which one can exploreseventeenth-century New Amsterdam andits diverse peoples, landscapes, institutions,and global legacy. NAHC is creating an ex-traordinarily detailed portrait of NewAmsterdam by amassing a digital collec-tion of historical materials, images, anddocuments, all supported by a virtual rec-reation of the Dutch city as it appearednearly four centuries ago. To disseminateinformation and encourage greater knowl-edge about this formative period of NewYork City, the NAHC is establishing a his-torical reference and research center andarchives, building a dynamic internet pres-

ence, assisting in creating school curricula,promoting research and scholarship, and or-ganizing historical and cultural activities,programs, and events to enrich the public’sunderstanding of the New Amsterdam era.

To access the New Amsterdam HistoryCenter’s website and take a 3-D virtualtour of the city as it appeared in 1660, goto <newamsterdamhistorycenter.org>.

Dutch New YorkAwarded Prize

THE NEW YORK State HistoricalAssociation announced that the ex-

hibition catalog, Dutch New York Be-tween East and West: The World ofMargrieta van Varick, was selected as therecipient of the 2011 Henry Allen MoePrize for Catalogs of Distinction in the

Arts. The catalog, edited by Deborah L.Krohn and Peter N. Miller with MarybethDe Filippis, was published by Yale Uni-versity Press in conjunction with a New-York Historical Society and Bard Gradu-ate Center exhibition of the same title heldat the Bard Graduate Center in 2009-2010.

The catalog includes article contribu-tions by de Halve Maen editor Dr. DavidWilliam Voorhees and Holland SocietyFellows Dr. Joyce D. Goodfriend, Dr.Jaap Jacobs, and Ruth Piwonka, all ofwhom also served as consultants to boththe exhibition and the catalog, and waspartially funded by grants from HollandSociety Trustees Robert G. Goelet andBromme H. Cole’s New Netherland 2009Committee. The coveted Henry AllenMoe Prize is given to publications forexcellence in exhibition and collections-based publishing.

Fall 2011 57

Society Activities

Midwest Branch Meeting

THE MIDWEST BRANCH of TheHolland Society of New York met on

October 8, 2011, for a “Dutch Brunch” atthe Home Bistro Restaurant in Chicago.Fifteen Society Members, their families,and guests enjoyed an authentic Dutchmeal prepared by Joncarl Lachman, a na-tive Dutchman. The menu, entitled inDutch Vandag . . . Ontbijtmenukaart,listed five entrées to choose from includ-ing Golden Snert, Uitsmijter, and“Amsterdam Style” mussels. Followingthe luncheon, Marcia Whitney-Schenckgave a lecture entitled “Food and Oys-ters—Feasting in Seventeenth-CenturyDutch Paintings.”

Attending the Midwest Branch Meet-ing were Branch President Robert R.Schenck, MD, Jon Veeder, Katrina VeederChandler, James Barr, Sally Veeder, JohnSchellinger, Michael Sprong, GarySprong, John Schermerhorn, ClaireSchermerhorn, Jack Schermerhorn, AnnSchenck, Marcia Whitney-Schenck, andJohn Lansing.

Niagara Branch Meeting

THE BRANCH MEETING of theNiagara Branch of The Holland So-

ciety of New York was held at the SaturnClub in Buffalo, New York, on Wednes-day, October 26, 2011. Holland SocietyMembers, Friends, and their guests ex-changed tales, new and old. Holland So-

Left to right around thetable, Jon Veeder, KatrinaVeeder Chandler, JamesBarr, Sally Veeder, JohnSchellinger, MichaelSprong, Gary Sprong,John Schermerhorn,Claire Schermerhorn,Jack Schermerhorn, AnnSchenck, Marcia Whitney-Schenck, and JohnLansing.

ciety President Charles Zabriskie Jr.brought the gathering up-to-date on theSociety’s national activities as well as plansfor the future. Dr. Robert R. Schenck, presi-dent of the Midwest Branch and affection-ately known as “Dr. Genghis Bob,” gave afascinating summary of his recent experi-ence driving an ambulance to Mongolia.Dr. Schenck’s trip from London, England,to Mongolia covered 10,000 miles and tooknearly seven weeks. A lively question andanswer session followed his talk.

Holland Society Members attending theNiagara Branch Meeting were Society past-President Colin Lazier and his wife, Barbara,Thomas Lazier, Judge Colin S. Lazier andhis wife, Jocelyn, David Quackenbush andhis wife, Molly, Douglass Mabee, TylerVanschoonhoven, Ted Van Deusen, VandyVan Deusen, Tony Fryer, Charles ZabriskieJr., and Dr. Robert Schenck. Friends andguests in attendance were Skip Herrick,Hubert Jockin and his wife, Henrietta,Adrian Quackenbush, Lansing VanSchoonhoven, Scott Van Buskirk, Glen VanBuskirk, Wayne Maybee and his wife,

Katie, Larry Van Deusen, and JohnMontague.

Long-Range PlanningCommittee

PRESIDENT CHARLES ZABRISKIEJr. has recently created an ad hoc

Long-Range Planning Committee in aneffort to “review all the moving parts ofour Society, to maximize efficiencieswherever possible, and to assure that theSociety fulfills its mission.” The newcommittee consists of Trustee Robert“Bertie” Goelet, Chairman of the LawCommittee John G. Nevius, and pastSociety President William Van Winkle.President Zabriskie, who chairs theCommittee, commented that “Our cur-rent efforts in planning for the future arelong overdue.”

Richard G. PostHonored

RICHARD G. POST, an esteemedMember of The Holland Society of

New York for more than fifty years, waspresented with The Holland Society’sFifty-Year Award, having served the So-ciety in many ways for the past half cen-tury. A resident of Vero Beach, Florida,Mr. Post has long supported the Society’stranscription, translation, and publica-tion of the Society’s collection of DutchChurch Records through the Post Schol-arship Fund as well as the Society’s li-brary and archives. Speaking for all theTrustees, President Charles Zabriskie Jr.extended the Board’s deep appreciationto Mr. Post and his family.

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In MemoriamHarold Evans Lazier

Holland Society of New York MemberHarold Evans Lazier of Hamilton,Ontario, died on July 2, 2010, at St.Peter’s Hospital in Hamilton at the ageof seventy-four. Mr. Lazier was born inHamilton, Ontario, on September 12,1934, the son of Harold Lister Lazier andLetitia Adeline Evans. Mr. Lazier claimeddescent from Francois Le Sueur, who mi-grated from Normandy, France, to NewNetherland in 1657. Mr. Lazier joined TheHolland Society in 2008.

Mr. Lazier worked for thirty years forGorlack Canada (France CompressorProducts/Colt Industries) as a mechani-cal engineer. He rose from salesman tovice-president general manager to presi-dent of the Canadian division and interimpresident of British operations. His hob-bies included photography, sailing, auto-mobile, motorcycles, and yacht racing. Heloved jazz and classical music. His cen-tral passion was railroads, especiallysteam locomotives.

Mr. Lazier married Angela Muir. Thecouple had three children: StephenMichael, born in 1967, Andrew Lister,born in 1970, and Elizabeth Sarah, bornin 1972, all in Burlington, Ontario. Afterdivorcing, he married Barbara McCoy onDecember 30, 1988, at Dundee, Ontario.

Survivors include his wife, Barbara, hischildren Stephen Michael Lazier, AndrewLister Lazier, and Elizabeth Sarah LazierLintz all residing in Nelson, British Co-lumbia, and five grandchildren. A memo-rial service was held on July 5, 2010, atthe Scottish Note Club of Hamilton,Ontario.

Gerrit LivingstonLansing

Lifelong patron and collector of the artsGerrit Livingston Lansing, Ph.D., ofGreenwich, Connecticut, died on July 27,2010, at Presbyterian Hospital in Manhat-tan at the age of sixty-eight. Dr. Lansingwas born on May 12, 1942, in Manhat-tan, son of Crawford Livingston Lansingand Joan C. Brander. He claimed descentfrom Gerrit Frederickszen Lansingh, whocame from Hasselt, Overijssel, to New

Netherland in 1655. Dr. Lansing joinedThe Holland Society in 1971.

Dr. Lansing was raised in Manhattan.He attended the Allen-Stevenson Schoolin Manhattan and the LawrencevilleSchool, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, be-fore matriculating at Columbia Universityand New York University’s Institute ofFine Arts. He received a doctorate in ArtHistory from the latter in 1999.

Dr. Lansing was an expert in AmericanSurrealism. He taught art history, authorednumerous papers, and curated numerousexhibitions including “Surrealism USA,Betweeen 1930-1950” at the NationalAcademy of Design. He was a co-founderand trustee emeritus of the IndependentCurators International (ICI) and currentchairman of the board. He was also presi-dent of the Alumni Association of the In-stitute of Fine Arts in Manhattan, and wasinvolved for over forty years on variouscommittees of the Museum of ModernArt, including its International Council.

Dr. Lansing married Miriam SuydamRosengarten in Southampton, New York,on May 17, 1970. The couple had twosons: Gerrit Livingston Jr., born on Feb-ruary 22, 1972, and Sims Suydam, bornon February 9, 1988, both in Manhattan.

The Lansings spent their summers inNortheast Harbor, Maine. Dr. Lansing wasan avid tennis and golf player, loved theoutdoors, and was president of the Pot andKettle Club of Mount Desert Island,Maine.

Beside his wife, Miriam, survivors in-clude his sons Gerrit Livingston LansingJr. and Sims Suydam Lansing, both ofManhattan and both Members of The Hol-land Society, and three grandchildren. Amemorial service was held on July 30,2010, at the Knickerbocker Club, in Man-hattan. Burial was at Northeast Harbor,Maine.

James Dayton Voorhees Jr.Retired attorney James Dayton

Voorhees Jr. died in Denver, Colorado, onDecember 4, 2010, at the age of ninety-three. Mr. Voorhees was born on Novem-ber 14, 1917, in Haverford, Pennsylva-nia, son of James Dayton Voorhees andElsa Denison. A Holland Society of New

York Member since 1995, Mr. Voorheesclaimed descent from Steven Coerte vanVoorhees, who came to New Netherlandfrom the province of Drenthe, Nether-lands, aboard the Bonte Koe in 1660.

Mr. Voorhees graduated from Yale Uni-versity with an A.B. degree in 1940 andfrom Harvard University Law School withan L.L.B. in 1943. From 1941 to 1946,he served as Lt. Commander in the U.S.Navy and U.S.Naval Reserves. Follow-ing the war, he received a J.D. fromHarvard University in 1947.

Mr. Voorhees cofounded the legal firmof Moran, Reidys and Voorhees in Den-ver, Colorado, in 1956, where he special-ized in oil and gas litigation. Followingtwo years as counsel to Kotak Rock andHure from 1978 to 1980, he worked untilretirement as counsel to Davis Grahamand Stubbs. He was a member of the Barfor Colorado (1948), through the U.S.District Court and the Court of Appealsto the U.S. Supreme Court (1960).

As a community leader Mr. Voorheesmade an important impact on Denver’spublic schools. As a member of the schoolboard, in the 1960s he spearheaded a votefor desegregation with its consequencesof controversial busing. The U.S. Su-preme Court upheld the decision. “Hereally believed in the Denver PublicSchools and thought he was doing a veryimportant job,” said his daughter Jane.

Mr. Voorhees married Mary MargaretFuller in Shelbyville, Indiana, on Septem-ber 5, 1942. The couple had three chil-dren: James Dayton III, born on October11, 1945, Susan Fuller, born on Septem-ber 16, 1947, and Jane, born on June 30,1952. After his wife died in 1991, Mr.Voorhees married Rosemary MorrisStewart in 2004.

Beside his wife, Rosemary, survivorsinclude his son James Dayton Voorhees,III, of Corrales, New Mexico, a HollandSociety Life Member, Susan FullerVoorhees Maxfield, Psyh. D., of Topeka,Kansas, and Jane Voorhees Kiss of GrandJunction, Colorado, two stepsons, HenryMichael Perry of Houston, Texas, andMark Steven Perry of Phoenix, Arizona,a stepdaughter, Ann Perry Strazza of Den-ver, Colorado, four grandchildren, twogreat-grandchildren, five step-grandchil-

60 de Halve Maen

Spastic Hospital and of the Mercy Hos-pital Foundation and served as directorof the Mercy Health Services. Mr. VanAllen also served as a trustee for the Uni-versity of North Carolina’s Foundationand president for the University’s Friendsand Board of Visitors, and on the Boardof Visitors for Johnson Smith University.He was a past trustee of the Mint Museumof Art, past president of the CharlotteSymphony League, and past trustee of theCharlotte Symphony Orchestra.

Survivors include his wife, Sally, sonsWilliam Kent Van Allen Jr., of Lynchburg,Virginia, a Life Member of The HollandSociety, George Humphrey Van Allen ofCharlotte, North Carolina, and PeterCushing Van Allen of Washington, D.C.,and eight grandchildren. A funeral serviceand interment were held at the ChristEpiscopal Church, Charlotte, North Caro-lina, where Mr. Van Allen had been amember since 1950, serving two terms asvestryman.

Carl Roger FondaHolland Society of New York Member

Carl Roger Fonda of Durham, NorthCarolina, died on February 24, 2011, atthe Pavilion of Croasdaile Village,Durham, at the age of eighty-two. Mr.Fonda was born on May 21, 1928, in NewRochelle, New York, son of Burton ColeFonda and Charlotte Cecilia Valentine.Mr. Fonda claimed descent from JellisDouwese Fonda from Eagum, Friesland,who came to New Netherland viaAmsterdam prior to 1651. Mr. Fondajoined the Holland Society in 1978.

Mr. Fonda attended public schools inNew Rochelle, graduating from Isaac E.Young High School in 1946. After serv-ing in the U. S. Marine Corps in 1946-1947, he attended the Philadelphia Tex-tile Institute, graduating in 1951. Forthirty-five years he worked in the textileindustry, retired after twenty-nine yearswith Collins and Aikman of Roxboro,North Carolina, as director of product de-velopment. He belonged to the DurhamExchange Club and served on the boardof the Durham Exchange Club Industries,which honored him in 2003. He also wasa member of Masonic Lodge 352, becom-ing a Master in 1976.

Mr. Fonda married Rosalie WilkesRankin on September 11, 1954, in New-port, Rhode Island. They had four chil-dren: Bettie Linden, born on July 13 1955,in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, FrederickCole, born on October 14, 1957, inLowell, Massachusetts, John Rankin,born on October 30, 1961, and MargaretValentine, born September 2, 1963, thelatter both in Durham, North Carolina.

Mr. Fonda’s leisure activities includedgolf and watercolor painting. A memberof the Willowhaven and Croasdaile coun-try clubs, he won several gold tourna-ments. He was a member of the DurhamOrganization of Golfing Seniors and ofthe Triangle Senior Golf Association. Healso volunteered with the Carolina GolfAssociation. He was a member of theNorth Carolina Watercolor Society and ofthe Southern Watercolor Society. Beside hismembership in the Holland Society, he alsobelonged to the St. Nicholas Society.

Mr. Fonda is survived by his wife,Rosalie, children Bettie Linden FondaTullis, Frederick Cole Fonda of York,Pennsylvania, John Rankin Fonda of Win-ston-Salem, North Carolina, and Marga-ret Valentine Fonda Throneburg of Char-lotte, North Carolina, and eight grandchil-dren. A memorial service was held onMarch 5, 2011, at St. Lukes EpiscopalChurch, Durham, North Carolina, whereMr. Fonda had been an active member foralmost fifty years, serving as usher,vestryman and Senior Warden.

William Audley SnedekerHolland Society of New York Life

Member, former Captain of the BurgherGuard, and Trustee William AudleySnedeker, died on April 15, 2011, at NorthShore University Hospital, Manhasset,New York, at the age of fifty-four. Mr.Snedeker was born on December 17,1956, in Long Branch, New Jersey, sonof Robert Audley Snedeker and PatriciaAnne Haneker. He claimed descent fromJan Snedeger of Olsdenburg, LowerSaxony, Germany, who arrived in NewNetherland as a Dutch West India Com-pany soldier in 1639. Mr. Snedeker wasat the time of his death chairman of theSociety’s Law Committee and a memberof the Meetings Committee.

After schooling at Phillips Academy,Andover, Massachusetts, Mr. Snedeker re-ceived his A.B. in American History cumlaude from Amherst College, Amherst,Massachusetts, in 1979. In 1983, he re-ceived a J. D degree in International Stud-ies and Law from Georgetown Law Cen-ter, Washington, D.C. In college, Mr.Snedeker served as vice-president ofDelta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

From 1983 until his death Mr.Snedecker had extensive experience in alllegal aspects of corporate finance, merg-ers, acquisitions, security offerings andreal estate financing. At the time of hisdeath he was of Counsel to Tully Rinckey,focusing on corporate and real estate fi-nance. Previously he was employed byShea and Gould (1983-1986), MorganLewis and Bockius (1986-1988), Kaye,Scholer, Fierman, Hays and Handler(1988-1989), Carro, Spanbock, Kasterand Cuiffo (1989-1991), and Tashlik,Kreutzer and Goldwyn. He was counselto Goodkind, Labaton, Rudoff andSucharow, Herzfeld and Rubin, AndrewsKurth, and Schiff Hardin.

Mr. Snedeker married Linda AnneBenvin at Our Lady of Mount CarmelRoman Catholic Church in Long IslandCity, Queens, on May 18, 1986. They hada son Garrett Joseph, born on January 27,1987, in Manhattan and adopted a daugh-ter Tatiana Audley, born in 2000, inKrasnoyarsk, Siberia.

Mr. Snedeker was an active member ofthe Structured Finance Committee of theNew York City Bar Association, the NewYork State Bar Association, and the Eco-nomic Club of New York. In addition toThe Holland Society, he was also a mem-ber of the Union League Club, the St.Nicholas Society, the Society of ColonialWars, the Pilgrims of the United States,and the National Committee on Ameri-can Foreign Policy. He enjoyed tennis,golf, and reading, and was a RomanCatholic in religion.

Mr. Snedeker is survived by his wife,Linda, son Garrett, who became a LifeMember of the Society in 2002, anddaughter Tatiana. A funeral mass was heldat Manhasset’s St. Mary’s Roman Catho-lic Church; after cremation the ashes werescattered on the campus of Mr. Snedeker’salma mater, Amherst College.

Records of The Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Flatbush,

Kings County, New York

$60.00

Deacons’ accounts of the Dutch Reformed congregations located in the present-day New York City borough of Brooklyn. Includes transliterated Dutch text and English line-for-line translation.

— Hard cover — $60.00 per volume

The Holland Society of New York

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Volume IIMidwood Deacon’s Accounts 1654-1709

Translated byDavid William Voorhees

Fall 2011 59

dren, and two step-great-grandchildren.A memorial tribute was held on May 27,2011, at the Denver Botanical Gardens.

John Hardwick VanSchaick

John Hardwick Van Schaick, a HollandSociety of New York Life Member since1988, died on January 4, 2011, at his homein Schenectady, New York, at the age ofninety. Mr. Van Schaick was the son ofFrancis Edward Van Schaick andKatherine Malette Hardwick. Immenselyproud of his Albany-founding Dutch an-cestors, Mr. Van Schaick claimed descentfrom Cornelis Aertsen, who emigratedfrom Woerden, Holland, to NewNetherland in 1640.

Mr. Van Schaick graduated fromCobleskill, New York, High School in1938, after which he matriculated a yeareach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute(1938-1939), Cornell University (1939-1940), and SUNY Albany (1940). Dur-ing World War II he served in the U.S.Army Air Corps as a B-26/B-25/A-26 pi-lot and crew commander, rising to Cap-tain of the 13th Air Force, 42nd BombGroup, 69th Squadron (New Caledonia),and the 70th Bomb Squadron (Fiji). Heserved with the Air Force Reserve from1945 to 1954. He received the OFC/AirMedal (silver cluster). His wartime expe-riences were published in 2003 in a mem-oir, Surviving Against the Odds. Follow-ing military service he received an A.B.in 1961 and M.A. Ed. in 1964 from UnionCollege, Schenectady, New York, whichled to his teaching English at Mt. Pleas-ant High School in Schenectady from1962 to 1979.

Mr. Van Schaick married Sally LoganBrown in Ft. Myers, Florida, on October12, 1942. The couple had six children:Peter, born on December l7, 1945, Holly,born on October 4, 1947, and John Koert,born on November 16, 1949, all in Ft.Myers, and Nancy, born on February 13,1952, Mary Kate, born on June 14, 1954,and Derry Sontag, born on December 7,1972, all in Schenectady.

Mr. Van Schaick was a visionary whovigorously promoted education, culture,and his Dutch heritage. From the start ofhis teaching career until his death he wasa staunch unionist and active officer ofthe AFL-CIO Central Labor Council. Hewas a member the Schenectady Demo-cratic Committee, president of the

Schenectady Eleventh Ward, and Demo-cratic committee person for the Union-Nott neighborhood. In 1999, he receivedwith his wife the Harry Truman Award.

Mr. Van Schaick helped found theMohawk Valley Physicians Health Fund,serving as a trustee and its finance chair-man from 1981 to 2003. He helped es-tablish the Schenectady Legal Aid Soci-ety, for which he was awarded the Lib-erty Bell Award by the Bar Association in1998. And he brought the SchenectadyCounty Historical Society to financial in-dependence, serving as its president from1992-1994. Moreover, he created the his-toric Mabie Farm, the oldest building inthe Mohawk Valley, as year-round mu-seum and educational center after per-suading the farm’s owner to donate theproperty to the Society and after a $2.5million renovation and constructionproject. He was also the founder andpresident of Friends of Education TV(WHMT-ETV17).

From 1988 to 2009, Mr. Van Schaickactively supported the Friends of NewNetherland (the New Netherland Institute)as a trustee, treasurer, and president from2000 to 2006. He articulated the role theInstitute would play in the support of itstranslation project and was gratified to seeresults in 2009, when the New NetherlandResearch Center was opened at the StateLibrary.

In 2007, Mayor Brian Stratton ofSchenectady presented Mr. and Mrs. VanSchaick with the Order of the Patroons,the city’s highest honor, for their outstand-ing contributions to the city. In 2009, theNew Netherland Institute presented to Mr.and Mrs. Van Schaick the Howard G.Hageman Citation for their exceptionalservice and promotion of the Institute’swork.

Survivors include his wife, Sally, hischildren Peter Van Schaick of Burlington,Vermont, John Koert Van Schaick ofManchester, Vermont, Nancy Van SchaickFisher of Duansburg, New York, MaryKate Van Schaick Dalby of Catharpin,Virginia, Derry Sontag Van SchaickTamara of Moss Beach, California, ninegrandchildren, fourteen great-grandchil-dren, and several foster children and theirchildren. A memorial service was held onJanuary 8, 2011, at the First UnitarianSociety of Schenectady, of which Mr. VanSchaick had been an active member since1951. Surely in his life Mr. Van Schaickacted on his belief that “there is a supreme

intelligence and love which rules andoverrules, but which depends on us tocarry out its will.”

William Kent Van AllenHolland Society of New York Life

Member William Kent Van Allen died onFebruary 3, 2011, in Charlotte, NorthCarolina, at age ninety-six. Mr. Van Allenwas born in Albion, New York, on July30, 1914, son of Everett Kent Van Allenand Georgia Roberts. Mr. Van Allenclaimed descent from Laurens van Alenwho came to New Netherland fromOlderzaal, province of Overijssel, about1659.

Mr. Van Allen attended Monroe HighSchool, Rochester, New York. He gradu-ated from Hamilton College, Clinton,New York, with an A.B. and Phi BetaKappa honors in 1935. He received anL.L.B. degree from Harvard Law Schoolin 1938. From 1938 to 1950, with an in-terruption for military service, Mr. VanAllen was an attorney with Hansen,Lovett and Dale in Washington, D.C. Dur-ing World War II, he served in the U.S.Navy as Lieutenant Commander and ChiefOfficer of the USS Eldridge in the Atlan-tic, Pacific, and Mediterranean theaters.

Mr. Van Allen was admitted to legalpractice in New York in 1938, the Dis-trict of Columbia in 1939, U.S. SupremeCourt in 1946, and North Carolina in1951. Until 1987 he was a partner withLassiter, Moore and Van Allen in Char-lotte, North Carolina, where he remainedcounsel to the firm until his retirement.

Mr. Van Allen married Sally CatherineSchall on November 11, 1944, at St.Michael’s Episcopal Church in Charles-ton, South Carolina. They had three chil-dren: William Kent Jr., born on October17, 1946, George Humphrey, born onFebruary 10, 1950, both in Washington,D.C., and Peter Cushing, born on May30, 1953, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Among his career activities, Mr. VanAllen was a past director of FinancialGeneral Bankshares and of the Cato Cor-poration. He was also a permanent mem-ber of the Judicial Conference for theFourth Judicial Circuit, past chairman ofthe Charlotte Area Advisory Council andof the American Arbitration Association,a director of the North Carolina Founda-tion for Commerce and Industry, and adirector of United Community Services.In addition, he was a former trustee of the