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Vol. lxvii Summer 1994 No. 2

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The Holland Society of New York 122 EAST 58th STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10022

President Peter Van Dyke

Advisory Council of Past Presidents

Kenneth L. Demarest, Jr. Rev. Louis O. Springsteen Walter E. Hopper John H. Vander Veer James E. Quackenbush Thomas M. Van der Veer Arthur R. Smock, Jr. Carl A. Willsey

Vice-Presidents New York County Harry A. van Dyke Long Island Adrian T. Bogart, Jr. Dutchess County Kevin A. Denton Ulster County Kenneth W. DuBois Patroons Robert E. Van Vranken Central New York Craig H. Van Cott Old Bergen County, N.J Michael O. Springsteen Essex, Morris Counties, N.J Daniel S. Van Riper Central New Jersey Kenneth L. Demarest, Jr. Connecticut-Westchester Harrold W. deGroff New England Tweed Roosevelt Potomac David L. Smock Florida, East Coast Robert W. Banta Florida, West Coast Henry DeGrove Niagara Frontier Chase Viele Mid-West Peter H. Schenck Pacific Coast Paul H. Davis Virginia and the Carolinas Kendrick Van Pelt South River Walton Van Winkle, III Old South H. John Ouderkirk Texas Rev. Robert Terhune, Jr. Jersey Shore William Van Winkle Pacific Northwest John B. Van Derbeek United States Army Lt. Col. William H.Tymeson, USA. Ret. United States Air Force Lt. Col. Laurence C. Vliet, USAF United States Navy Lt. Cm dr. Richard W. De Mott, USNR United States Marines Lt. Col. Robert W. Banta, USMC

Treasurer Secretary Ferdinand L. Wyckoff, Jr. Rev. Louis O. Springsteen

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

Burgher Guard Captain William A. Snedeker

Trustees Roland H. Bogardus David M. Riker Adrian T. Bogart, Jr. John G. Storm Andrew W. Brink Frederick M. Tibbitts, Jr. Ralph L. DeGroff, Jr. James M. Van Buren, II John O. Delamater John S. Van der Veer Richard W. Demott Walton Van Winkle, III Kevin A. Denton Chase Vfele Richard C. Deyo David William Voorhees Robert G. Goelet John R. Voorhis, III Robert D. Nostrand Edward A. Vrooman

Trustees Emeritus John A. Pruyn

Stanley L. Van Rensselaer John H. Vanderveer James M. V reel and

Editor Dr. David William Voorhees

Editorial Committee James E. Quackenbush, Chairman

Dr. Andrew W. Brink James M. Van Buren, II Kevin A. Denton John S. Van der Veer David M. Riker Killiaen D. Van Rensselaer

Production Manager Annette van Rooy Copy Editor Joy Rich

Organized in 1885 to collect and preserve information respectingthe early 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 America priorto orduring the year 1675. Inquiries respecting the several criteria for membership are invited.

De Halve Maen, published by the Society, is entered at the post office at New York City, New York. Communications to the editor should be directed to the Society's address, 122 East 58th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022, (212) 758-1675. Subscriptions $28.50 per year; international, $35.00.

Copyright ©1994 The Holland Society of New York. All rights reserved ISSN 0017-6834

The Editor's Corner Colorful personalities populated New Netherland, and each

one of them, from Petrus Stuyvesant to Manuel the Company slave, has his or her own unique story to tell. This issue of de Halve Maen presents essays relating to two of New Netherland's more colorful inhabitants — Frederick Philipse and Lady Deborah Dunch Moody. Philipse's rapid rise from aDutch West India Company carpenter to New York's wealthiest citizen and first true "robber baron" is a remarkable tale in business and political acumen. Lady Moody, a strong-willed and determined English gentlewoman, established under the Dutch the only colony in America headed by a woman. Surprisingly, comprehensive biographies of these two figures remain sparse.

At the conclusion of the American Revolution, the nation's emergent elite discovered a tactic long used by European elites to legitimate their right to govern, that of the falsified genealogy. Since Julius Caesar claimed descent from Venus and Mars and Charlemagne from Moses, and as some still see necessary with Gary Boyd Roberts's genealogical tracing of the American presidents to the English royal family, a noble lineage has been a prerequisite for office. In his essay on the "Philipse Jewel," C. R. Schriek traces the origins of the myth of the aristocratic ancestry of Frederick Philipse. He finds that the story had its origins in the Revolutionary era and was largely circulated by Philipse's descendants during this period of political upheaval.

Lady Moody was indeed a unique personality in an age of intense religious bigotry. Refusing to concede her beliefs to English and New English authorities, she established at Gravesend, Long Island, a community broad-minded in its tolerance. Lucille Koppelman's essay on Lady Moody reveals that in Dutch New Netherland a woman was able to create and oversee her vision of an ideal community — a role denied women under the English, whose laws treated them as chattels.

Though these essays deal with very different personalities, they are connected. Movements in the early modern era swept across national boundaries, and the settlement of New Netherland was a part of this larger world. Mr. Schriek's tracing of the Philipse Jewel to Bohemia and its ownership to English King James I's daughter Elizabeth, wife of Frederick V, elector Palatine, is an example. James's refusal to support his son-in-law's ill-fated cause to obtain the Bohemian crown caused a breach between the king and his Puritan subjects that eventually resulted in the persecution of the Puritans. It was this persecution that led Lady Moody to emigrate to New England and New Netherland.

The untimely death of Mr. Schriek this past winter has been a great loss to New Netherland studies as well as a personal tragedy to the editor. Mr. Schriek's research into Frederick Philipse was yielding much new and fascinating material. It is hoped that others will follow the exemplary path that he established.

IN THIS ISSUE

The Philipse Jewel 30 Lady Deborah Moody and Gravesend 38 Book Reviews 44 Society Activities 46 In Mcmoriam 47

Cover: "Philipse Jewel." Photo courtesy of The New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

DC

HALVE MAEN VOL. LXVII • NO. 2 SUMMER 1994 NEW YORK CITY

The Philipse Jewel: A Legend Is Born

C.R. Schriek

One of the most persistent and exotic genealogical myths concerning the ancestry of an early American immigrant, which is still alive here and there and not yet fully understood, is that concerning Frederick Philipse (1627-1702). Coming from Bolsward in Friesland, Philipse signed on with the Dutch West India Company and arrived in New Netherland between 1647 and 1650. Working for the company as a carpenter in New Amsterdam, he soon caught the eye of Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant, who henceforth referred to him as "my carpenter Frederick Philipse." Being not only a carpenter but also a shrewd businessman and talented diplomat, Philipse succeeded by 1674 in becoming the richest merchant in New York and in remaining thereafter one of the most influential figures in the colony. When he died in 1702 he left to each of his heirs a fortune so substantial tliat it was impossible to describe it in detail.

After his death, and probably after the demise of the second generation around 1750, a hundred years after the arrival of Frederick, when knowledge of the Dutch forefathers of Philipse had faded away, a legend was bom. Over the years it developed into a myth about the ancient viscounts of Felyps, the noble ancestors of Philipse, whose history supposedly originated in the misty early fifteenth century in the then-faraway kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Holy Roman Empire. Essential to this story is apiece of Renaissance jewelry that belonged to the Philipse family and is known as the "Philipse Jewel." This essay attempts to uncover the origins of the myth and how the family came to acquire this object.

Historical records do not support a noble Bohemian ancestry for Philipse. Frederick Philipse, or Fredrick Flypse, as he called himself, was the scion of a reasonably respectable middle-class family. His grandparents, Douwe Philipsz and

Mr. Schriek attended the School for Economic Studies in Amsterdam, where he received a degree in 1942. Before his retirement he held a number of positions with IBM as an internal auditor and financial manager. At the time of his death he was working on a biography of Frederick Philipse.

Anna Syuerdt, owned a large house and annex shop on the Nieuwe Stad in Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland. Douwe also traded flax, yarn, and commodities throughout the northern parts of the province. Frederick's father, Philippus Douwesz, a roof slater/contractor, married Ibel Feddricks of Franeker and moved to the Vijverstraat in Bolsward. There, in 1614, he contracted to roof the beautiful new Renaissance town hall being built. Frederick had an older brother, Douwe, who became councilor of the town and inherited the business. It was in Bolsward that Frederick was born in 1627.'

The earliest mention of a Bohemian origin for Philipse is found in a manuscript in the hand of John Jay (1745-1829), president of the Continental Congress and Foreign Secretary (1778-1789). According to Jay, "Frederick Flypson . . . was a native of Bohemia, where his family, being Protestants, were persecuted. His mother, becoming a widow, was constrained to flee from Bohemia with him and her other children. She fled to Holland with what little property she could save from the wreck of their estate. The amount of that little not admitting her to provide better she bound him to a carpenter and he became an excellent workman who emigrated to New York, which was then under the Dutch government, in what year I am not informed."2

Jay and his wife, Sarah Livingston, were close relatives and friends of the Philipses. Jay was a grandson of Eva Philipse, and Sarah was great-granddaughter of Annnetje Philipse, the stepdaughter and daughter of Frederick respectively. Jay and his wife were frequent visitors to the Philipse Manor in Yonkers long before their marriage in 1774. His account was quoted by Robert Bolton in History of the County of Westchester, first printed in 1848. Bolton faithfully reproduced what he found in documents without questioning or giving his own interpretation, which has the advantage of providing us with some primary information. Bolton then mentions the existence of the jewel. "Besides their high rank as nobles, they appear also to have held the office of Grand

1 D. J. v.d. Meer and C. R. Schriek, "Frederick Philipse," Genealogisch Jaarboek

(Leeuwarden, 1992).

7 Robert Bolton, The History of the Several Towns, Manors, ami Patents of the County of Westchester from Its First Settlement to the Present Time, 2 vols. (New York, 1848: reprint 1881), I: 508.

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John Jay (1745-1829). Portrait begun by Gilbert Stuart and finished by John Trumbull. National Portrait Gallery.

Veneurs, or keepers of the deer forests in Bohemia; as there is still preserved in the family the collar and badge of office, consisting of a gold chain set with amethysts, diamonds, rubies and emeralds to which was suspended a deer beautifully chased in gold."3

The title Grand Veneur is French and means head game­keeper. Louis XIV had such a royal gamekeeper who employed a staff of 200 people. It is an honorary title reserved for the upper crust of aristocracy. The jewel survives and is in fact a precious late sixteenth-century Renaissance hanger of gold set wi th diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, made somewhere in southern Germany. It appeal's to be a woman's jewel, to be worn on a gold or silver collar. Moreover, it bears no mark or stamp of the ruler for whom the office is purported to have been performed, and therefore it is unlikely to be a badge of office. The chain, if it ever existed, has disappeared.4

Another source Bolton quoted was Burke's History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain:

Vreedryk or Vrederick Felypsen was a native of Bohemia, while others say of Bolswert or Bolsward in West or East Friesland, Holland, a small town near Wierwerd, where he was born in A.D. 1626. His father was the Honorable Viscount Felyps of Bohemia, who sprang from the ancient Viscounts of that name and country. The early members of this family took an active pail in favour of the Reformers, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague; and even after the burning of the former in 1415 they still adhered, like the rest of his followers, to their master's doctrines, and engaged with Jan Zioka, a Bohemian knight, in 1420 (who put himself at

the head of the Hussites) in throwing off the despotic yoke of Sigismund who had treated some of their brethren in the most barbarous manner. For their opinions the Felyps suffered severely both in person and property, being finally compelled to fly, for better security, to Bolsward in East Friesland.5

It is quite possible that the English branch of the Philipse family, being more au courant with aristocratic rules, realized that a title like Grand Veneur was incomplete and needed real nobility as a complement. The viscounts Felyps were probably added to the story for that purpose. Meanwhile, the suggestion that events in 1420 could have had such an effect at the end of the sixteenth century should have warned Bolton that there was something odd about the ancient viscounts.

One source which can be taken seriously is E. Hagaman Hall's Philipse Manor Hall. Hall does not cite references but states that he consulted about 300 printed works and numerous manuscripts, letters, deeds, wills, and charters in the United States and England. As a result, Hall's work appears to be an exact and detailed historic description of Philipse Manor and its inhabitants in Yonkers. For our purpose the most important description is that of the wedding of Mary Philipse in 1758. The manor, at the height of its splendor, was a gathering spot of New York society. The ceremony took place in the drawing room:

with a picturesque assemblage of gentlemen and ladies, dressed in the height of fashions of a century and a half ago. . . . Miss Barclay, Miss Van Cortlandt and Miss De Lancey were the bridesmaids . . . Acting governor De Lancey assisted. Standing under a crimson canopy emblazoned with the golden crest of the family — a crowned demi-lion issuing from a coronet — the ceremony was performed, the bride's hand bestowed by her brother. The latter, the Lord of the Manor [Frederick III] was superbly dressed and wore the gold chain and jewelled badge of the ancestral office of Keeper of the Deer Forests of Bohemia.6

Clearly the story of the viscounts Felyps cited by Bolton from Burke's Landed Gentry is out of place; note that the viscounts are still missing in 1758 and were added later. The viscounts Felyps probably originated in England. Burke admits in his introduction that he obtained most of his information from the families concerned. The origin of the coat of amis is not quite certain. The Philipse arms first appears on the earliest surviving silver teapot made in New York. The teapot, made by Jacobus Boelen (1645-1729), is not an English design but Dutch-American, inspired by Chinese porcelain teapots. Frederick I had always been content to have his initials VF mark his silver and other possessions. To come at least level with the English gentry in this respect, the next generations required arms on their silver, and since

3 Henry P. Johnston, ed., The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, 1763-1781, 4 vols. (New York, 1890-1893), volume 1; and Bolton, 1: 509.

4 Oral information from the Germanisches National Museum, NLirnberg, Germany.

5 Bolton, History of Westchester, 1: 508.

6 Edward Hagaman Hall, Philipse Manor Hall at Yonkers N.Y.: the Site the Building and Its Occupants (New York, 1912), 129-130.

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they most likely had no arms, one had to be adopted or designed.7

The legend of the Philipses holding the "ancestral office of Keeper of the Deer Forests of Bohemia" cannot have originated much earlier than 1750, but apparently already at this date, if Hall is to be believed, it was fully accepted, otherwise Frederick III would not have worn the badge with so many knowledgeable people around. Twenty-five years after Mary Philipse's wedding, the elegant company of ladies, gentlemen, and British officers was swept away by the Revolution. The Philipses, being loyalists, lost their estates and fled the country, some going to England, some to Canada. The manor house served for some time as headquarters for General George Washington where he planned the Yorktown campaign. The badge, however, survived and began another odyssey across the Atlantic, to which we will return later.

The most striking element in all these accounts about the Philipse ancestry is the constant recurrence of Bohemia as the country of origin without any indication of a place of residence. For a clue to the origin of this story we return to the faithful Bolton. In a manuscript that belonged to Frederick Philipse-Gouverneur of the Philipstown estate in Putnam County, New York, the only branch of the family not to flee the United States during the Revolution, Bolton found the following entry:

The Philipses on leaving [Bohemia] brought all their servants, furniture and all their property with the consent of their Prince from Germany, which, at that time all must do, unless their names had been disgraced. Some years ago the pass that was given, on parchment and sealed with the Royal arms, was in possession

of the family in this country. . . General Redhesel had seen the parchment that had been given by the Prince as his leave to quit the German dominions and he said he [Philipse] must have been a man in high favour with him [the prince] to have leave and to bring all his effects away likewise.8

Since from documentary evidence it is extremely unlikely that Frederick or any of his ancestors had ever set foot in Bohemia, the question is: Who was this person who could obtain such an awe inspiring document from a German prince? The parchment, in German, was in effect a letter of safe conduct and probably did not name the beneficiary. A person fleeing a country does not want to disclose his or her identity to the many municipal busybodies of the towns to be traversed. Instead of a name, the paper might have carried an incognito title like "Grand Veneur of Bohemia." Such a title was a perfect cover for traveling with a few carriages containing equipment and men with guns.9

Unless the document was a fake, which seems unlikely in view of the seal, we are left with the question of who could be this rather important person who owned the (woman's) jewel and the royal pass and had fled Bohemia as a result of religious war to travel through German countries, and who, not to forget, also fits in with a story where the jewel and the pass end up in the hands of Frederick Philipse in New York? There is indeed a historical figure to whom all this applies. It is Elizabeth Stuart, sister of Charles

7 Edward Wenham, The Practical Book of American Silver (New York, 1949).

8 Bolton, History, 1: 509.

9 Gerhard Taddey, ed., Lexicon tier deutschen Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1983).

'A view of Phillip's Manor and The Rocks on Hie Hudson or North River in N. America. June 18, 1784. D. R. Fecit.

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I of England. In 1613 Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662), the eldest daughter

of King James I of England, wed Frederick V, king of the Palatine Electorate, of which Heidelberg was the capital. James had arranged the marriage in an effort to forge a bond with the union of Protestant princes in the Holy Roman Empire. Frederick headed this union, formed to create an opposition to the Catholic League of states. Elizabeth created a sumptuous court life in Heidelberg, and Frederick seems to have admired his wife. Visitors to the castle are shown the "Elizabeth Tor," a gate in the defensive wall of the castle which he had built in one night in 1615 to surprise her.10 We might assume that this is the period when Elizabeth acquired the jewel.

The idyllic situation was not to last. In August 1619 the Bohemian regents broke with their Catholic king Ferdinand II and elected Frederick in his place. Frederick had already been interested in Bohemia because it bordered his country, and in case of trouble he reckoned that he could depend on help from his father-in-law, James I, and the Protestant Union. It turned out, however, that he could only count on the Bohemians and the Palatines. In the autumn of 1619 Frederick and Elizabeth left Heidelberg. On arrival in the Bohemian capital of Prague, they were enthroned with great pomp and circumstance and entered their residence in the historic castle, the Hrasdin, still used by the Czech president."

Ferdinand, meanwhile elected as emperor, plotted revenge. With a lot of dealing and promises of loot, including part of the Palatinate, he persuaded Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, and the Catholic League to form an army to conquer Bohemia. Maximilian's general Graf von Tilly, an experienced old ascetic who had mastered state of the art warfare, was placed in charge of operations, hi September 1620 Maximilian crossed into Bohemia. Frederick's army, not much smaller but containing many nationalities, was commanded by Prince Christian of Anhalt. After a few skirmishes Christian chose to halt Maximilian at a strong defensive position on the main road not far west of Prague. His left consisted of impenetrable marshy woodland and his right of the steep flanks of the White Mountain, the Bila Hora — the battlefield is now a Prague suburb. Maximilian hesitated to attack this stronghold but winter was approaching, and if he did not win this battle the campaign would be lost. Tilly advised attack, and Maximilian decided to lead his troops into action. During the ensuing fight most of Frederick's army was destroyed or dispersed. Prague fell without much further resistance, and Frederick and Elizabeth fled to the east, the only direction left open, as the kingdom of Saxony had joined Ferdinand and Maximilian.12

It was at this point that the royal pass came into being. The pair escaped with some of their belongings through Bohemia, first to Breslau in Silesia, then to Berlin where they were safe at the court of George William, elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, who was married to Frederick's sister, Elizabeth Charlotte. After a respite the journey continued through northern Germany via the towns of Brandenburg and Wolfenbuttel to end in The Hague in Holland. There are reasons to believe that George William was the prince whose royal seal was attached to the pass. It would have been valid throughout most of northern Germany. (The pass certainly was not given by the emperor Ferdinand, Frederick's greatest enemy.) Good relations between the two families

Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia. The J. B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky.

continued because in 1640 Elizabeth returned to Berlin to see Frederick William, the son of George William, this time with her daughter Elizabeth Stuart II, to obtain for her the right to be the princess-abbess of Herford in Germany. It was this Elizabeth who in 1670 gave asylum in Herford to the Labadists, a radical Protestant sect which later settled in Wieuwerd in Friesland.13

On arrival in The Hague the couple was warmly received by the Dutch government and their old friends Maurits of Orange and his younger brother Frederik Hendrik. Frederick and Maurits were cousins. Together they had gone to London in 1613 to escort Frederick's bride Elizabeth on her journey through Holland to Heidelberg. With financial help from James I, the Dutch government, and the prince of Orange, Frederick established a Bohemian court in exile on the Lange Voorhout in The Hague. In 1632 the Protestant Union succeeded in recapturing the Palatinate, but within a few days Frederick died of pneumonia.14

Elizabeth, called the Winter Queen because of her short reign, would to some extent dominate social life in The Hague until 1661 when she returned to London. In her later years, after her father and the princes Maurits and Frederik Hendrik had died, her financial situation deteriorated. She ran up debts with the local suppliers. It is therefore possible that she used her jewelry, including the Renaissance hanger, to pay off creditors as well as retainers in her own household. Among the latter was Edmund Andros, governor of New York in 1674.15

0 Guide Michelin, Allemagne (1984).

' Joachim Leuschner, ed., Deutsche Geschichte, 3 vols. (Gottingen, 1985).

2 Emil Franzel, Geschichte des deutsclxen Volke (Mannheim, 1985).

3 Ibid. Taddey, Lexicon der deutschen Geschichte.

4 Dr. C. de Wit, Den Haag vroeger en nu (Fibula, 1968).

5 Ibid.

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Amias Andros, seigneur of the island of Guernsey, and his son, Edmund (b. 1637), joined the Bohemian court in The Hague as fugitives in 1651. In 1637 Charles I had confirmed Amias Andros in his rights as seigneur. The Channel Islands were the last possession the king held as the Duke of Normandy. But in 1643, as a result of the civil war between Charles and Parliament, which also affected the island, Amias and his royalists took refuge in Castle Hornet, the castle that still guards the island. After an eight-year siege, when Cromwell defeated Charles II at the battle of Worcester in 1651, the castle had to be evacuated. Among the royalists who left the island along with Amias and Edmund Andros was Francis Lovelace, governor of New York in 1667.

Amias and Edmund, belonging to a family of traditional courtiers of the Stuarts, were well received in The Hague. Edmund's uncle, Sir Robert Stone, was already cupbearer at the Bohemian court. As a fifteen-year-old, Edmund quickly adapted to the Palatinate menage and the Dutch environment; he soon mastered the Dutch language and received a thorough military education in the Dutch army under Hendrik van Nassau. After a campaign in Nassau's army to defend Denmark against Sweden in 1655-1658, Elizabeth appointed Edmund a gentleman of her household. He thus became an intimate servant of the Stuarts in The Hague and became acquainted with Charles II and William III, prince of Orange, who thirty years later became king of England.'6

In 1661, after Charles II had regained the English throne, Edmund escorted Elizabeth back to London where she took up residence in the Earl of Craven's mansion at the end of Drury Lane. Andros continued to live on the premises after Elizabeth's death, and in this way he may have inherited part of her archives including the "parchment with the Royal

Sir Edmund Andros (1637-1714), Governor of New York 1674-1681.

seal." It is quite possible that he was also one of the executors of Elizabeth's will. In 1671 the recently widowed brother of Charles II, James, duke of York, sent Andros on a delicate mission to Sweden to look for a suitable princess. Edmund advised him to wed the princess of Holstein, but James decided otherwise. From that moment on, however, he had a place in the duke's household. When in 1674 the Treaty of Westminster returned New York to English rule as the result of a reshuffling of colonial spheres with the Dutch, the duke appointed Andros as governor general "of all my territories in America."17

The story of the royal pass and the jewel now shifts to America. Bolsward, Frederick's birthplace, once a seaport, had become an inland town, but far from being a sleepy backwater, it remained a busy shipping and hading center connected to the sea by canals. Philipse was not the only inhabitant to travel to New Netherland. The first was Lolle Reyners who, in 1613 on a desolate Manhattan, built with a colleague-carpenter the yacht Onrust, the first seagoing vessel built in North America. Two others, Reindert Pieterse and Pieter Jelle, both skippers, were Philipse's personal friends. Reindert came to New Netherland before 1647 and between 1655 and 1670 operated with his ship, or kaeg, a regular service between New York, Kingston, and Albany. On Sundays the three met in the inn of Andries Jochemse on the edge of the East River, now Pearl Street near Hanover Square. These skippers and carpenters, unlike the nineteenth-century immigrants who settled far into the interior, traveled easily between New York and Amsterdam and sometimes returned to Europe for good. Indeed, Philipse may not have originally planned to stay.18

The instructions Andros received from the duke included the institution of a council of not more than ten, who were to be consulted on extraordinary occasions. Andros began with a council of four — three officeholders and one merchant, all English.19 That the council was unrepresentative would not have surprised anyone living in the seventeenth century. Not long after his arrival in the colony Andros must have realized that his most immediate problem was not military, for which he was trained, or ethnic (more than seventy-five percent of the population being Dutch-speaking) but financial. The main purpose of the colony was to provide the duke with income. Andros would be hounded for years by Sir John Werden, the duke's secretary, to make a profit or at least balance the books, a task made difficult not only by the high cost of the garrison, forts, and administration but also because of slow trade which had been hard hit by the English Navigation Acts. Still, the most important source of revenue was the customs on imports and exports. For this reason the duke sent William Dyre over as customs collector to "help" Andros. Trade problems may have been among the reasons why Andros gradually appointed more merchants to his council. The first to be chosen was Philipse

16 Stephen Saunders Webb, 7676 The End of American Independence (New York.,

1984), 302-312.

17 Ibid., 321-328.

18 Meer and Schriek, Genealogisch Jaarboek.; Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company (Amsterdam, 1959).

" Berthold Femow, ed., The Records of New Amsterdam 1653-1674, 7 vols. (New York, 1897; reprint Baltimore, Md., 1976), 7: 132-133; E. B. O'Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the Stale of New-York, 15 vols. (Albany, 1854-1885), 3: 218.

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\

New Amsterdam as it appeared at the time of Frederick Philipse's arrival (The Montanus View, c. 1650).

in 1675, followed by Steven van Cortlandt in 1676 and William Darval in 1680. All were Dutch.20

Darval was a relative newcomer but in 1678 he had managed to close a profitable food supply contract for the colony. For this purpose he traveled to his brother Comelis who lived in the house Saxenburg on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. There a contract was signed with the Dutch governor of Surinam, Johannes Heinsius, for the supply of large quantities of food against sugar from Surinam. Another brother, Jan Darval, was the first husband of Catharina van Cortlandt, who married Frederick Philipse in 1692 after the death of Jan.21

There can be no doubt that Andros tried to expand the New York trade in order to make more money for the duke and the colony. He also traded for his own account. There was nothing new about this. Petrus Stuyvesant had done it, Governor Thomas Lovelace did it, and the duke himself traded. In 1678, however, several English merchants accused Andros not only of private trading but also of granting special privileges to Philipse and van Cortlandt as partners in trade.22 When the Labadist missionary from Wieuwerd, Jasper Danckaerts, a keen and accurate observer, visited the colony in 1679 he noted that Andros had a shop and was in partnership with Philipse and that "Frederick Philipse receives privileges above other merchants."23 Finally the duke sent an investigator, John Lewin. Lewin's report attacked both Andros and Dyre for favoritism toward Philipse and van Cortlandt and for not charging full duties on imports. Philipse and van Cortlandt were also blamed for these practices. The duke, upset by the continuing deficits, recalled Andros. Philipse and van Cortlandt somehow got away without a scratch, which is a credit to their diplomatic skills.24 What all this reveals is that there was indeed a special business relation between Andros and Philipse.

This brings us back to the jewel and the parchment with the royal seal. It is quite possible that in one of the transactions, Andros was obliged to pay Philipse for an investment or a loss. Trading could be profitable but was also very risky, what with pirates, privateers, wars, and the like. A constant shortage of currency made payment in kind common. Philipse is known to have accepted almost anything, even a petticoat, for payment. Instead of a written obligation from Andros, he may have preferred the jewel. It was perfect for this purpose. The parchment may have functioned as an additional proof of the jewel's identity and origin. After being deposited in "the great chest" in the Philipse warehouse, it remained there.25 The chest would be inventoried on various occasions, and the jewel would be used and put back until somebody of the third generation observed the curious relation between it and the document. Did not the parchment speak of "a Grand Veneur," and was not the jeweled stag a symbol of this office?

In addition, although knowledge of the Dutch ancestry of Philipse had faded, the family was certain that the jewel and the document had always been in Frederick's possession. Where else could such a precious European jewel have come from? If the document indicated that it was a pass to leave Bohemia and travel through Germany, it was clear

20 Robert Ritchie, The Duke's Province 1664-1691 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1978), 98-99.

21 Agreement between Darval and Johannes Heinsius, 1678, Notarial Archives, Gemeente Archief, Amsterdam.

22 Ritchie, The Duke's Province, 117-125.

23 Journal of Jasper Dankaerts 1679-1680, eds. Bartlett B. James and J. Franklin Jameson (New York, 1913; reprint 1952), 353.

24 O'Callaghan, Documents Relative to Colonial New York, 3: 302-307.

23 David T. Valentine, Manual of the Common Council of New York (New York, 1858), 519.

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that the family had its origin in Bohemia. That the document did not mention the name of the bearer but only a title was a disadvantage, but it was considered proof enough of an interesting noble ancestry.

During the Revolution the jewel and the document were separated and began individual existences. The document remained in America where it was last sighted, as mentioned by Bolton in 1848, with "the late Frederick Philipse in Philipstown." It has since disappeared.26 The jewel was not lost but started another trans-Atlantic adventure. According to Bolton, "it was last seen in possession of Miss Susan Philipse." This was probably the Susan Maria Robinson, daughter of Susanna Philipse and Beverly Robinson, who emigrated to England where she died in 1833. The jewel remained in the Robinson family, although it crossed the ocean once more when Elizabeth Robinson (1789-1876) married her cousin William Henry Robinson of New Brunswick, Canada. There it remained in relative obscurity until 1992 when Captain John Morris Robinson, IV, donated it to the New Brunswick Museum.27

When the legend of the noble Bohemian origin of Philipse is reduced to the two objects, jewel and parchment, and the two stories, office of Grand Veneur and escape from Bohemia, we see that they are paired, the jewel with the

office and the parchment with the escape from Bohemia. Of course the parchment could be a fake, and the jewel could have been bought and the two brought together to deliberately create the legend. But somehow this scenario seems implausible. If Frederick HI had wanted to create a noble ancestry, he could have found more convincing material than the parchment without a name and the nondescript jewel; a golden hunting horn would have been more appropriate. It looks as if the coming together of these objects was more accidental than deliberate.

Our history assumes that the objects indeed came together accidentally and describes how this could have happened. Naturally it is conjectural. It is no more than an attempt to bring what we know from the manuscripts and the existence of the jewel into line with actual historical people and events. Only if the "parchment with the Royal seal" is found (preferably with the seal still attached) can we hope to come to a more definite conclusion. This does not diminish the importance of the jewel but rather enhances its significance as a witness to remarkable events in the Old and New Worlds in an entirely different age. 26 Bolton, History, I: 509. 27 Robinson Genealogical Table, New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

Genealogy Philipse-Robinson (abridged)

Philippus N. mentioned 1556 (d. before 1578 Friesl.) * 1 . Feyck, *2.

Douwe Philipsz (d. 1609 Friesl.) * Anna Syuerdt

Philippus Douwesz (d. 1639 Friesl.) * Ibel Feddricks

Douwe Philipsz (Fit)

Fredrick (Feddrick) Philipsz Ronike Philipsz (1627-1702) (Frl.)

Philip Philipse (1663-1701)

* Maria Sparks

* 1 . Margaret Hardenbroeck, widow P. R. de Vries *2. Catharina van Cortlandt

Adolph Philipse (1665-1749)

Annetje Philipse Rombout Philipse (1667-1694) (1670-1700)

Eva Philipse (b.1660)

Frederick Philipse II (1698-1752)

* Joanna Brockliolls

Frederick Philipse III (1720-1785)

* Elizabeth Williams

Philip Philipse (1724-1768)

Susannah Philipse (1727-1822)

* Beverly Robinson

Mary Philipse (1730-1825)

John Robinson (1762-1828 Nw. Br.) * Elizabeth Ludlow

I William H. Robinson

(1792-1879 Nw. Br.) * Elizabeth Robinson v

Susan Maria (Phil.) Robinson (1761-1833 Eng.)

unmarried

Capt. John Morris Robinson III (b.1907)

William H. Robinson (1765-1836 Eng.)

* Cath. Skinner

Elizabeth Robinson

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Call for Papers

Interdisciplinary Symposium 17tH-Ccntury (Dutch 9\rt and Life

Hofstra University announces an all-day interdisciplinary symposium for art historians and cultural historians on October 19, 1995, to explore connections between 17th-century Dutch art and the social worlds experienced by men, women, and children living in The Netherlands during the "Golden Age" and the Dutch colonists living in cities and towns in New Netherland.

Papers are invited from art historians and scholars with interests in northern European art, the history of labor and occupations, women's history, the history of childhood and the family, the history of education, economic history, culinary history, the history of medicine and science, music history, maritime history, agricultural history, and Dutch-American colonial history.

This one-day symposium will coincide with Hofstra's exhibition of 17th-century Dutch drawings by the Amsterdam artist/illustrator, Jan Luyken. "The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick-maker: Jan Luyken's Mirror of Dutch Daily Life," curated by Donna R. Barnes, will be mounted by the Hofstra Museum at the Emily Lowe Gallery, mid-September through October 1995. The drawings will be on loan from the Amsterdam Historical Museum.

Papers (limited to 20 minutes presentation) must be written and delivered in English. Papers will be refereed. Selected papers may be published as part of the symposium proceedings. An abstract of the proposed paper must be submitted by December 1, 1994. Typewritten copies of papers, accompanied by a one-page final abstract, must be submitted for consideration no later than March 1, 1995. Presenters will be selected and notified regarding acceptance by May 30, 1995. All papers and abstracts must be typed (double-spaced) and submitted in duplicate to:

Professor Donna R. Barnes Dutch Symposium Coordinator

124 Hofstra University, Mason Hall Hempstead, N.Y. 11550-1090

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Lady Deborah Moody and Gravesend, 1643-1659

Lucille L. Koppelman

Deborah Dunch Moody was an extraordinary and unique woman, being the only female to head a list of patentees to found a new colony in America. She was an eai'ly critic of religious persecution, having an independent and determined spirit. A wealthy Englishwoman of genteel birth, it nonetheless would be in New Netherland where under Dutch rule she pioneered in founding a free colony on Long Island and was able to implement her progressive civic and religious ideas. Her biographer, James Gerard, called her a "voluntary exile for conscience," feeling that in spite of her comfortable life and privileges in England, she could no longer stand the "narrow and oppressive spirit of the time."1

Lady Moody was an educated woman of forceful character. She held a prominent position, respected by colonists and Dutch authorities alike. Though her religious beliefs differed from the Dutch Reformed church, she was diplomatic in her arrangements. An advocate of religious toleration, and while apparently not a Quaker herself, she held the first Quaker meetings in Brooklyn in her home but in such a way as to not give offense to the authorities. Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, who declared she was in error in denying infant baptism, called her "a wise and anciently religious woman."2 New York State Historian Alexander Flick called her a woman of charm, character, and culture, admired by Dutch West India Company director-generals Willem Kieft and Petrus Stuyvesant, who cooperated with her. Flick also called her colony one of the earliest democracies in America.3

hi spite of her historic importance, little has been written about Lady Moody. Bom as Deborah Dunch in Avedon, Wiltshire, England, between 1582 and 1584, her father was Walter Dunch, Esq., a lawyer and a member of Parliament. Her mother, Deborah Pilkington, was a daughter of James Pilkington, the radical Protestant bishop of Durham under Queen Elizabeth I. Lady Moody grew up at Avebury Manor, a fine Elizabethan manor house, where she was educated by tutors and learned Latin, as did her contemporary, Queen Elizabeth. It is mentioned that she later had a large library in her Gravesend, Long Island, home.4

In 1606 Deborah Dunch wed wealtliy landowner Henry Moody of Gardson Manor, Wiltshire. With marriage she went to live at Gardson Manor near Malmesbury, Unity miles from Avebury in Wiltshire. Moody was created a baronet by King James I in 1622, and between 1625 and 1629 he served as a member of parliament for Malmesbury. He and Lady Moody would have two children: a son, Henry, and a daughter. Her son followed her to America, but nothing is known of her daughter.5

Ms. Koppelman received an A.B. from Hunter College and an MA. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and taught in the New York City public schools. She writes poetry.

Gardson Manor is a beautiful old house. The estate is lovely, with old stone walls, gardens, green fields, and sheep pastures. What then could have made Lady Moody leave this genteel way of life to face the difficult conditions in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of 1640 and later on Long Island near New Amsterdam? In these early settlements, people had to clear the land and build homes, experiencing hardship and dangers before they could think of such luxuries as those Lady Moody enjoyed in England. Perhaps, as a wealtliy widow, she was detennined to create a community as she believed it should ideally exist, not as her father or husband or the government decreed it.

After Sir Henry's death in 1629, Lady Moody became restless and decided to return to London, where she had resided when her husband was in Parliament. Her son, Henry, who had inherited his father's title and being now at the court of King Charles I, probably influenced her. hi London she attended Puritan services and became involved in the religious upheavals of the time. The king's extravagances at court spurred the growth of Puritanism and Lady Moody, like many in the gentry, opposed the king's financial exploitation through taxes, fees, estate confiscations, and monopolies. Compulsion with punishments and fines regarding church attendance were being handed out to nonconformist dissenters by Anglican archbishop William Laud, and many of Lady Moody's cousins were among those being persecuted. She saw the loss of religious liberty all around her.6

Lady Moody had been raised in a family of Protestant dissent, and as a result she had many friends and relatives among the Puritans. Oliver Cromwell, a leading Puritan gentleman, was distantly related to the Dunches. She may also have known Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island. She was a relative of the Barrington family in whose household Williams had been the chaplain before his departure for the New World. However, his relations with that family had ended badly. Lady Moody was also related to Sir Henry Vane, another religious dissenter who served as governor of Massachusetts in 1636-1637. It was possibly Vane who urged Lady Moody to move to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.7

1 James W. Gerard, Lady Deborah Moody (New York State Historical Society

pamphlet, 1880).

7 Linda Briggs Biemer, Women and Properly in Colonial New York: The Transition

from Dutch to English Law. 1643-1727, (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1983), 17.

3 Alexander C. Flick, "Lady Deborah Moody, Grand Dame of Gravesend," Long

Island Historical Society Quarterly, 1 (July 1939), 3: 69-75.

4 Gerald D. McDonald, "Lady Deborah Moody," in T. James, ed., Notable American Woman, A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 569-570.

5 McDonald, "Lady Deborah Moody," 569; Tennis G. Bergen, ed., Register of Early Settlers of Kings County, Long Island to 1700 (New York, 1881), 207-208.

6 Biemer, Women and Property, 15-16.

7 R. B. Mackay, G. L. Rossane and C. A. Traynor, Between Ocean ami Empire: Illustrated History of Long Island, (New York, 1985), 34-35.

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Gardson Manor House, Wiltshire, England. Photo courtesy the author.

In 1635 the Court of the Star- Chamber ordered Lady Moody, along with 200 other nobles and gentry, to return from London to her estates "in the good example necessary to the poorer classes," her offense being that she had left her country residence to live in London for a period longer than the law allowed. "It is not strange that she chafed under the unlawful restraints of such a civil and ecclesiastical despotism," historian Henry Stiles wrote, "and that she longed for a home in a land and among people where the most sacred rights of humanity were properly respected."8

In 1639 Lady Moody, by now in her mid-fifties, followed John Winthrop to New England. Winthrop was a nonconformist like herself, whom she probably had met in London through her husband. She would maintain a close relationship with the Winthrop family even after her exodus to New Netherland. Lady Moody settled first in Salem, Massachusetts, where she joined the church in 1640. She shortly thereafter removed to Lynn. In 1641 she purchased a large farm called Swampscott on the Essex County coast.'' Religious belief, however, again forced her to act. At the Essex County Quarterly Court in December 1642, Lady Moody, along with Mrs. William King, James Hubbard, and Mrs. John Tillton "were presented for holding that the baptism of infants is no ordinance of God." The court found her guilty and proceeded to have her admonished, suspended, and excommunicated from the church.10

Though the Salem church excommunicated Lady Moody, she was neither tried nor banished. She did not fight her accusers but, to avoid further trouble in Massachusetts, left the Bay Colony in June 1643 of her own accord. John Winthrop wrote, "The lady Moodye, a wise and anciently religious woman, being taken with the error of denying baptism to infants, was dealt withal by many of the elders and others and admonished by the Church of Salem . . . persisting still, and to avoid further trouble etc., she removed to the Dutch, against the advice of all her friends.""

In New Amsterdam in the summer of 1643, Lady Moody asked for and received a patent from Director-General Willem Kieft to establish a settlement in New Netherland. KieIVs

land patent gave her a large area encompassing the present-day Brooklyn neighborhoods of Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Unionville, South Greenfield, Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, Sheepshead Bay, and to Midwood and Flatbush through to near Prospect Park. The colony was allowed freedom of worship and self-government, under Dutch rule, because the Dutch needed settlers and certainly were glad to have an English lady of wealth. Kieft granted Lady Moody the same economic privileges as the Dutch; she could trade in furs and could own land and cultivate it.12

James Hubbard and Mr. and Mrs. John Tillton, who also left Lynn because of their opposition to infant baptism, were among those who joined Lady Moody in her move to New Netherland. The Dutch West India Company directors did not approve of Anabaptists but allowed Lady Moody and her followers to settle, probably because of her wealth and also because they felt that she would not be disruptive. Moreover, Lady Moody arrived in the midst of a disastrous Indian uprising. She and her group were joined at Gravesend by Nicholas Stillwell and a group of English settlers who had been driven off their land at Turtle Bay on Manhattan Island by the Indians. Kieft appointed Stillwell, George Baxter, and James Hubbard to form a military company to put down the rebellious tribes on western Long Island.13

Shortly after Lady Moody settled at Gravesend, warring Indians assaulted her house. But she was defended by forty men, and the Indians retreated. Other houses in the settlement, however, were destroyed, and Lady Moody and her settlers lied to Amersfooit (Flatlands). It was at this time that she questioned whether she should remain on Long Island and thought of returning to Massachusetts. Her confidence was shaken, and she had not yet sold her New England property. In 1644 Governor John Endecott of Massachusetts wrote to Winthrop, "I shall desire that she may not have advice to returne to this Jurisdiction vnless shee will acknowledge her ewill in opposing the churches and leave her opinions behindc her, ffor she is a dangerous woeman."14

Lady Moody had received her first patent for Gravesend undoubtedly because of her wealth. She also benefitted from Dutch Roman law which gave women broader rights in land ownership and business management. As a result, she was able to assume a dominant role in her community — a right denied her under English law. Moreover, she must have known of the religious toleration given to dissenters in Holland and felt the same held true for New Netherland. Though her Anabaptist religious beliefs were at variance

8 Henry R. Stiles, ed., The Civil, Political and Ecclesiastical History and Commerical and Industrial Record of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N.Y. from 1683 to 1884 (New York, 1884), 157.

Bicmcr, Women and Property, 16. In the Essex Institute Collections there is an account by Mrs. Henry W. Edwards of how Lady Moody came to Massachusetts in 1639, joined the Salem Church in 1640, and bought land: then in 1641 bought a farm from Gov. John Humphrey at Swampscott for the high price of £1,100. Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. 31, (Salem, Mass., 1894-1896), 96-102.

10 Ibid., 97-98.

" Quote in Biemer, Women ami Property, 17.

'•' Henry I. Hazelton, The Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, Counties of Nassau and Suffolk, Long Island, N.Y. 1609-1924. 5 vols. (New York 1925), 1: 69-97; Eric J. Ierardi, Gravesend: The Home of Coney Island (New York, 1975), 10-49.

13 Stiles, History of Kings County, 157.

''' The Indian attack appears to have taken place in early September 1643. Quote in Biemer, Women and Property, 19-20.

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with the official Dutch Calvinist state religion, Kieft had graciously accepted her diplomatic arrangements — there was to be no public worship, and services were to be conducted at home. She decided to remain in New Netherland.

In 1645 Lady Moody returned to Gravesend with a new patent from Kieft, guaranteeing the settlers liberty of conscience, tlie English town system of self-government under Dutch provincial rule, the right to their own civil ordinances regarding maintenance of property and local taxes, and tlie establishment of their own court.15 Though it was an English colony, Dutch was the common language. Lady Moody was able to guide early Gravesend through problems due to differing English and Dutch customs.

Gravesend was designed from a unique town plan, laid out as a seventeen (16.928)-acre square. It is unclear what role Lady Moody played in the design of tlie town, but there are no known prototypes for it in either Europe or America. The square was bisected by two main roads which in turn divided tlie larger square into four equal squares. Each of tlie four squares was in turn subdivided into ten equal plots, one for each of the first forty patentees. The center of each of the four squares contained a large common. Space was also provided for a meeting hall, school, and cemetery. The village was surrounded by a palisade fence against Indian attacks and wild animals.16

Lady Moody believed that Gravesend might become an important commercial center, as Gravesend Bay looked favorable for shipping. The anchorage of tlie bay, however, proved

insufficient for seagoing vessels, so she turned to agriculture to prosper. Farms were over 100 acres each and surrounded tlie village.17 Lady Moody was the only settler assigned two house lots within the village and the only woman to receive a bowery, or farm. The Gravesend town plan shows that her bowery, of large size, was northeast of tlie town square, and her land extended west of tlie v illage, probably by subsequent purchases. Her sturdy house survives at 27 Gravesend Neck Road, much changed from its original lines.18

Lady Moody was an essential part of town life. Under her influence, town meetings were conducted and titles to land were secured from tlie Indians. A town court was set up in 1646 and held in Gravesend for more than forty years until it was moved to Flatbush. The meetings were held on the first Monday of each month at a different settler's home, and at each meeting they chose a new speaker in

13 Director Kieft's Patent to Gravesend, Dec. 19, 1645, in Edmund B. O'Callaghan, ed., The Documentary History of the State of New York, 4 vols. (Albany, N.Y., 1848-1854), 1: 411-412 [hereafter cited as Doc. Hist. NY].

16 Gravesend Town Records, 1646-1705, 6 vols., trans. Frank L. van Cleef, 1: 1, 33-35, Municipal Archives, New York City (photocopies in the Holland Society Library): Biemer, Women and Property, 21-26; R. B. Mackay, G. L. Rossane and C. A. Traynor, Between Ocean and Empire: Illustrated History of Long Island (New York, 1985), 34-35.

17 Stiles, History of Kings County, 160.

18 Biemer, Women and Property, 26. There is controversy over whether or not the present Gravesend Neck Road house is Lady Moody's home. See Maud Esther Dilliard, Old Dutch Houses of Brooklyn (New York, 1945), 17. This author, however, believes that it is the original house.

"Lady Moody and Governor Kieft looking over the land at Gravesend." Mural (now lost) formerly in the Greater New York Savings Bank. Photo from Eric J. Ierardi, Gravesend: Tlie Home of Coney Island (1975).

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charge of the proceedings. All inhabitants of the community were expected to participate and there were fines for not attending the meetings. The quorum was six men to transact town business.19

In 1646 regulations were established that included those regarding the maintenance of fences on each lot; each man was responsible to maintain twenty poles. A public pound for animals was set up, and each man had to have a twenty-foot ladder, a gun, and powder. Space was also set aside on each lot for the care of sick animals or for the horse of a visitor. A bureau of vital statistics was set up to record births and burials, marriages performed by magistrates or ministers, and the publishing of banns. Temperance laws regulated the sale of liquor to settlers and prohibited its sale to Indians. Only one pint at a time was sold to whites to discourage drunkenness. No business was transacted on Sundays. The town court consisted of three justices who heard cases of slander, trespass, theft, and debt.20

Lady Moody's control of the community becomes most evident during the administration of Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant. Kieft's generous religious and political grants to Gravcsend eventually caused problems for Stuyvesant. George Baxter, one of the original Gravesend patentees, served as secretary for English law and language matters for both Kieft and Stuyvesant. Under Baxter's influence, Gravesend expressed confidence in Stuyvesant between 1649 and 1651 to counteract a remonstrance against him in 1649. Gravesend had been granted freedoms by Stuyvesant and did not wish to lose tliem — which they might if he were recalled. But in 1653 Baxter, along with James Hubbard, turned against Stuyvesant and met with representatives from three other English towns on Long Island, from three Dutch towns, and from New Amsterdam to protest Stuyvesant's actions. This meeting resulted in tlie Remonstrance of December 1653.2'

Baxter and Hubbard were two of the elected magistrates of Gravesend, and Stuyvesant, believing that they had drafted the remonstrance and referring to them as traitors, denied them the right to hold their offices. In retaliation, Baxter and Hubbard went to New England to consult with leaders there about overthrowing Stuyvesant and placing Gravesend under English control. To soothe the rebellion in Gravesend, Stuyvesant and his wife crossed the East River and made the three-hour trip to the home of Lady Moody. Then, after consulting with Lady Moody, Stuyvesant proposed in the presence of the whole community that the people should continue to be governed by the three remaining town officials and add a fourth official to replace Baxter and Hubbard, or hold a new election. The people voted to retain the three remaining officials.22

According to historian Linda Biemer, "it is obvious" why Stuyvesant conferred with Lady Moody about his removal of Baxter and Hubbard, who were her "loyal followers." As Biemer states, "Lady Moody was in control of the town. Her control, however, was being challenged by Baxter and Hubbard." Lady Moody no doubt resented Baxter's and Hubbard's growing influence over the community, and she needed to maintain her friendship with Stuyvesant, who had given her tlie freedom of running the town along the religious democratic lines she believed in. Suppose Stuyvesant moved against her, if Baxter aid Hubbard with the aid of New England towns tried to oust him? Of course Lady Moody also did not wait to be once more under the control of

Ye ^CIE|MT PLOT OF ye IOV/NE OF S'QR/^V'ESF^DE

1645

Mop from Stiles, History of Kings County, page 161.

the Massachusetts religious and political leaders who had caused her to leave. And Stuyvesant, recognizing her influence, sought to keep her loyal to the Dutch "by acknowledging her leadership" of the community.23

In June 1655 Stuyvesant and the Council notified Gravesend to send in nominations for new magistrates. Lady Moody supervised the election, but the results were contested by eight Dutch residents of Gravesend who claimed that the order for the election had not been shown to them. Four additional residents later protested that Baxter and Hubbard, now returned from New England, had attempted to control the election by passing an ordinance whereby new magistrates were not to be openly elected but selected by only twelve people chosen by the former magistrates, specifically Baxter aid Hubbard. Despite these protests, Lady Moody reported the names of the schout and the three newly elected officials to Stuyvesant. He notarized her candidates over the objections of tire Gravesend Dutch and the schout.24

Lady Moody's Utopian vision of a pure democracy was being challenged by a closed corporate municipal system by bo tli English settlers and Dutch authorities. Stuyvesant nonetheless recognized those nominees — William Bonus, William Willkens, Edwa'd Bous, and John Mourits as schout — submitted by Lady Moody. These nominees were all

" Mackay, et al., Between Ocean and Empire, 35.

20 Gravesend Town Records, Book 1.

21 Henri and Barbara van der Zee, A Sweet and Alien Land: The Story of Dutch New York (New York, 1978), 241-244.

22 Biemer, Women and Property, 28.

22 Ib id .

24 Ib id . , 29 .

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original settlers of the town. The Englishmen Wilkens and Bonus (Browse) had been two of the first four officeholders of the town, together with Baxter and Hubbard.25 Stuyvesant's and the Gravesenders' acceptance of these candidates attests to Lady Moody's influence and diplomatic skills. She was trying to hold Gravesend together from 1653 to 1655 as conflicting English and Dutch interests vied for control and threatened the community's independence.

When Baxter and Hubbard returned from New England in 1655, they proclaimed that the laws of England applied in Gravesend and hoisted the English flag. Baxter said that Oliver Cromwell, now chief of state in England, had ordered the governors in New England to take all Long Island from the Dutch. Baxter and Hubbard were arrested and jailed in New Amsterdam.26 Stuyvesant did not want to lose part of New Netherland, and Lady Moody did not want the Massachusetts Bay Colony to control Long Island and curtail her freedoms.

Lady Moody thus achieved political and religious freedom for Gravesend. The town remained the only haven for New Netherlanders not members of the Dutch Reformed church whom Stuyvesant, a strict Calvinist, did not persecute when in the 1650s he began to oppress minority sects, including Quakers and Jews. The 1645 patent stated that the town was to "have and injoy the free libertie of conscience according to the custome and manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any magistrate... or any other Ecclesiastical minister that may p[re]tend jurisdiction over them."27 The Dutch authorities in New Amsterdam continued to respect the Gravesenders' beliefs as long as their expression did not go beyond the family domain; therefore no public worship was practiced.

Kieft believed that the English dissenters from Mas­sachusetts would not proselytize to the point of being disruptive, but by 1653 Stuyvesant became concerned that the Gravesenders were libertines and Anabaptists, which was against the law of New Netherland. In 1657 the Dutch dominies Megapolensis and Drisius wrote to the Amsterdam Classis, "Those at Gravesend are reported Mennonists . . . reject Infant Baptism, the Sabbath, the office of Preacher and the Teachers of God's word . . . whenever they meet together that one or the other reads something to them."28 Stiles later wrote, "We know that Lady Moody, while perhaps not denying the ordinance of infant baptism, was yet accused of denying that it was an ordinance of God. It was this that brought her in conflict with the Puritan religious sentiment of Massachusetts and . . . somewhat disturbed her amicable relations with the Dutch authorities of New Netherland."2g

DuetoLady Moody'spersonal religious tolerance, Gravesend became the site of the first organized Quaker meeting in America. In 1657 Richard Hodgson and two companions came to Gravesend, followed about a year later by two other Friends from Virginia. It was then that "meetings were held in the house of Lady Moody, who managed all tilings with such prudence and observance of time and place as to give no offence to any person of another religion."30

There is no evidence that Lady Moody ever became a Quaker, but she must have admired the equality of women among its members. Friends remained free in Gravesend, though the law said ships carrying them should be confiscated. In July 1672, long after Lady Moody had died and the English had taken over, George Fox, the English founder

of the Society of Friends, came to preach in Gravesend. "We are well convinced," Stiles writes, that "there was a strong freethinking or atheistic element among them which doubtless prepared the way for Gravesend to become early one of the strongholds of Quakerism on Long Island . . . their previous religious experience fitted them to take kindly to the peculiar principles of that society." There would remain no organized church in the community until regular Dutch Reformed services finally were held in Gravesend in 1706.31

I wonder if, after 1654, Lady Moody knew that a few Jews had also come to New Amsterdam to seek refuge and economic opportunity? How would she have felt about them? Would she have welcomed Jews if some had come to live beside her nonconformist friends? There is a legend that Jews did go to Gravesend, but there is no confirmation of this story. Anthony Jansen Van Salee, who appears to have been a practicing Muslim, was granted in 1643 a patent for a tract of land along Gravesend Bay, which lay partly in Gravesend and partly in the Town of New Utrecht.32

That a Muslim would be able to comfortably settle in the vicinity of Lady Moody's colony suggests that her religious tolerance extended beyond Christians. It is fascinating to consider — if Lady Moody welcomed Quakers and other religious sects as she did, why not Jews who were also persecuted? Jews settled where mere was mercantile activity,

25 Ierardi, Gravesend; Bienier, Women and Property, 29.

26 Van der Zee, Sweet ami Alien Land, 256.

27 Kieft's Patent, 1645, Doc. Hist. NY, 411; Stiles, History of Kings County, 160.

28 Revs. J. Megapolensis and S. Drisius to the Amsterdam Classis, Aug. 5, 1657, Hugh Hastings, et a t , eds., Ecclesiastical Records of the Slate of New York, 6 vols. (Albany, N.Y., 1901-1906), 1: 396.

?,) Stiles, History of Kings County, 178. See also Victor Cooper, 'The World of Lady Deborah Moody," in Liberty Magazine, Seventh Day Adventist Church (March 1990-June 1991).

50 Flick, "Lady Deborah Moody." Quote from Hazelton, The Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, 25.

" Ibid.; Stiles, History of Kings County, 178.

12 Ierardi, Gravesend, 23; Morris U. Schappes, Jews in the United States (New York, 1958), 9-15; Eva D. Costabel, The Jews of New Amsterdam (New York, 1988), 8-28. For Van Salee's religion see Hazel Van Dyke, "Anthony Jansen Van Salee," New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 103 (1972), 24.

Lady Moody's house, now greatly altered, at 27 Gravesend Neck Road, Brooklyn.

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and they could have sailed to New Amsterdam from Gravesend. In fact, some Gravesenders attended Quaker meeting in Flushing, so Jews also must have traveled far by water or on horseback along rough paths. These questions remain a riddle of history.

Lady Moody was obviously merciful and liberal in thought. In his history of Kings County, Stiles wrote:

Thus began a settlement of the town, under the leadership of a woman of education and refinement, whose force of character, combined with her uprightness of life, made her a power for good with those among whom she moved. Both by nature and grace she was fitted to be such a pioneer in such an enteiprise. For sixteen years she went in and out among the people, prominent in their councils, and often entrusted with important public responsibilities, which prove the respect and confidence of her associates.33

Stiles also notes that Kieft's December 1645 town patent is the only patent on which a woman heads the list of patentees, sufficient evidence of the prominent position that Lady Moody held among the settlers and of the respect shown to her by the Dutch authorities. All accounts indicate that "she was a woman of great strength of character and uprightness of life . . . She was a leader in all good works and movements for public improvement."34 It is believed that Lady Moody died in early 1659.35

New York State Historian Alexander Flick summed up Lady Moody's career in 1939:

Thus Lady Moody had established an English colony on western Long Island under the Dutch rulers . . . she was a woman of very exceptional administrative ability, a woman who knew how to manage her own subjects, a woman of such charm, character and culture that able men like Kieft and Stuyvesant were won to admiration and co-operation with her. She lived there for sixteen years, managing her town ably and keeping her people happy in a democracy three hundred years ago. Her experiment was one of the earliest self-governing de­mocracies in the New World. . . . She was a modern woman who did not hesitate for a moment to flee from the things in England mat were displeasing to her and locate in the New World. Following this same independence, when she was not entirely happy in New England, she proceeded to move on to New Netherland. This English woman founded a refuge for herself in a foreign province, where she had a chance to live her own life and an opportunity to serve others in distress.36

After Lady Moody's death, her son briefly continued the leadership of the community. Mrs. Edwards writes that in 1659 Sir Henry raised a foot company to assist the Dutch in defending a fort under Indian attack, when com was burned and many died. Hening's Statutes at Large states that by an act of the General Assembly on October 12, 1660, "it

was ordered that Sir Henry Moody be employed in an embassy by the right honorable Governor to the Manados [Manhattan] about affairs of the country shall have eleven thousand pounds of tobacco out of the levie this year as a gratuity for his pains therein. Sir Henry was obliged to offer as security the verification of his father's knighthood when he became deep in debt. He also owed a board bill at an inn in New Amsterdam." After this Henry Moody appears to have left Gravesend and settled in Virginia, where it is said that he died at the house of Colonel Mowritson in 1661.37

With Lady Moody's death, Gravesend stagnated. In 1665 a number of the original settlers purchased a large tract of land and removed to Monmouth County in New Jersey. When the first census was taken in September 1675, only thirty persons were counted in Gravesend, along with their cattle, horses, sheep, and the acres of land. By 1698 the census found no more than thirty-one freeholders in Gravesend, of whom only nineteen were English.38 The Dutch were increasingly displacing the English in the settlement's core, and the idealism of Lady Moody's original colony rapidly became a curious historical artifact.

Lady Deborah Dunch Moody continues to fascinate. As I wrote in a poem:

Deborah Moody haunts me, a figure veiled by time. A lone widow who sailed the rough Atlantic.

She joined a Puritan church. Her rebel ideas labeled dangerous, she feared for her soul.

Excommunicated but free in conscience, she sailed with friends to New Amsterdam. Persuaded the careful Dutch to grant her land. Soon, Indians attacked Gravesend. She fled, feared, despaired.

Later she could rebuild, guided friends to try; dared to light a lamp against tyranny in her free colony.

" Stiles, History of Kings County, 157.

34 Mrs. Edwards, "Lady Deborah Moody," 99.

33 Stiles, History of Kings County, 158.

36 Flick, "Lady Deborah Moody."

37 Hening's Statutes at Large, quoted by Ierardi in Gravesend, 27-28; Bergen, Register of Early Settlers in Kings County, 207-208.

38 Stiles, History of Kings County, 158, 169; Rate Lists of Long Island, Sept. 14, 1675, Doc. Hist. NY, 2: 265.

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Book Reviews

Frank J. Doherty, Settlers of the Beekman Patent, Dutchess County, New York, Volumes I and II (Pleasant Valley, N.Y.: Published by Frank J. Doherty, 1990, 1993).

Five years ago it was difficult to locate any historical or genealogical materials relating to the people who settled prior to 1800 in the southeastern part of Dutchess County, New York. This area, known as the Beekman Patent, is bordered on the east by Connecticut and is southeast of Poughkeepsie, New York, and includes the towns of Unionvale, Dover, Beekman, Pawling, and half of LaGange. Previous county histories devoted less than a page to the colonial history of the patent area.

This lack of accessible information has changed since the inception of a series of volumes entitled Settlers of the Beekman Patent. Volume I, published in 1990, includes narrative histories, historical documents, and maps. Thenarrative essays concern the history of the patent, the leasing system, towns, roads, churches, life in the eighteenth century, and the military history. Historical documents include early land transfers, rent notices, town records, and correspondence. In addition there is an extensive genealogy of the descendants of Hendrick Beeckman, the patentee.

The Beekman Patent was granted to Hendrick Beeckman in 1697. Hendrick was baptized at New Amsterdam on March 3, 1652, the son of Willem Beeckman, who came to New Netherland in 1647. Hendrick had four children, and after his death the patent was divided among his three surviving heirs. This brought additional persons with surnames such as Livingston, Rutsen, and Pawling into ownership of the land which was leased to settlers and had rents collected similar to the manor system.

One of the major groups of settlers were the Dutch from New York City, Kingston, and Albany. Other groups were the German Palatines, New Englanders, and Quakers. Volume II starts the author's genealogies of families who once lived in the Beekman Patent. Originally the author intended Volume II to cover families with surnames starting with initials A through D, with a total of five volumes for the series. However, the actual Volume II, published in 1993, covers surnames Abbot to Burtch. The number of volumes will increase considerably because the author decided to include additional records. This may make the series a little cumbersome for small libraries with limited shelf space (volume II is 2 3/4 inches thick and has 1200 pages). Volume II includes genealogies on the following colonial Dutch families: Adriance, Bancker, Bloodgood, Bogardus, Bogart, Bookout, Brevoort, Brouwer, and Burhans. Future volumes will include approximately seventy additional colonial Dutch families.

In a project covering the genealogies of so many families, it is natural to heavily rely on secondary source materials, some of which were published many years ago. Some of mis material contains errors and out of date information. The author has unfortunately perpetuated some errors concerning the early years of several colonial Dutch families. Nonetheless,

the presentation and overall quality of the genealogy appears good.

The author has amassed an amazing amount of data for this relatively small area. He was considerably helped by the use of several computers, a microfilm library, and a microfilm reader. Each volume has an adequate index and list of frequently used references.

This series of volumes should serve as an example of what can still be accomplished in recovering the history and genealogy of an isolated area. These two volumes are available for study at the Holland Society library.

—David M. Riker

Peter R. Christoph, Editor, The Dongan Papers, 1683-1688, Part 1. (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1993).

Part 1 of The Dongan Papers, 1683-1688, Volume XXXIV in the New York Historical Manuscripts Series, consists mainly of Admiralty Court records from the administration of New York Governor Thomas Dongan. Peter Christoph, their editor, explains in the introduction that this is the first of the two volumes of Dongan Papers that survived the 1911 fire in Albany. Contents of the three lost Dongan volumes are nonetheless partially reconstructible and will be published in the second volume.

As Christoph comments, Part 1 of The Dongan Papers is the first in the New York Historical Manuscripts Series to contain "no Dutch material, although residents of Dutch heritage appear often enough in the records" [p.xv]. The editor is perhaps too modest about the value of this volume to scholars of New Netherland, especially those of its maritime history. Apart from some land grants in Maine and a few court records from Albany and Long Island, the volume is given entirely to litigation concerning shipping, trade, and commerce. It provides important insights into the relative strengths of Dutch and British trade on the high seas and into the power balance of those rivalrous nations. Historians of colonial trade will find these materials invaluable.

For those interested in the waning of New Netherland twenty or so years after its capitulation to the English in 1664, there is much to ponder. Not only was England ruling Atlantic shipping, her very laws and legal procedures had been transplanted to New York's Court of Admiralty, a branch of the High Court of Admiralty in London. With jurisdiction over New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, this court regulated trade formerly conducted under the Dutch West India Company. Yet there is evidence in these papers that England's monopoly was not absolute and that allowances were still being made in the 1680s for long established Dutch trading interests.

The powerful New York entrepreneur Frederick Philipse and his son Adolphus make several appearances in litigation over shipping and the slave trade in the early 1680s. Rev.

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Henricus Selyns and his wife, Margareta, appeal" in a suit with the owners of the ship Beaver, of which Philipse was one. It is noteworthy that a mainly Dutch consortium — Frederick Philipse, Stephanus van Courtlandt, Francis Rambouts, Nicholas De Meyer, John Darvall, Andrew Teller, and Margaretie Schuyler, together with the Selynses — should own this ship as late as 1687. The Selynses were charged by their co-owners with having The Beaver detained in the port of Amsterdam, thus impeding its preparation for sailing with cargo to New York. Rather man leaving the decision entirely to an English court official such as Matthias Nicolls, the matter was referred to a four-person committee, including Jacob Leisler, to consider damages payable to the plaintiffs. Leisler's appointment to this committee in 1688 is one indication that his political presence was taken seriously by the English regime.

The uneasy socio-political amalgam in New York is signified in such phrases as "John Beakman Whoe prosecutes As well for our Sovereign Lord the King that nowe is of England," as well as for his own interests, in the matter of the ship Bachelor's Fortune [p. 78]. Early Dutch names keep appearing as when Isaac and Jacob Melyn, sons of Comelis Melyn, who had challenged West India Company Director-General Willem Kieft's administration, appeal' in an action over salvage of a Spanish wreck. There is a welcome identification of Abraham Moll, son of New Amsterdam shipbuilder Lambert Huybertse Moll, who appraised the brigantine Amaranthe, as his father before him had for other ships in an earlier period [p. 222]. Had there been more such annotations, continuing Dutch enterprise would have stood out more clearly than it does. By taking as precedent the editorial policy of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, "with respect to annotation [by providing only] a certain minimum basis of information essential to the understanding of each document," the reader's task is lightened.1 This throws responsibility on the user of the present volume to identify from other sources most persons named in the text. Had Peter Christoph been faced with writing a biographical note for every major and minor figure named in this volume, his task would have been next to impossible. Nonetheless, a few key introductions would have helped to put the Dutch material in perspective.

Where obscurity occurs, the annotation provided at the foot of the page explains minor textual problems and makes intelligible many terms and allusions. Occasionally the reader may not agree with the editor's guess as to what a word means, as in the case of "stoke" on page 8. The note

"gunstock" seems less likely than a stock of guns for defensive purposes, as the context supports. Footnotes and terms defined in "Abbreviations, Terms etc.," which heads up the volume, sometimes overlap, as with the proportion of English measure to the Dutch schepe [p. 45], already explained on page xxiii. Similarly, the meaning of "road" as an unsheltered anchorage, which is repeated on pages 87 and 95, has already been explained on page xxiii. Apart from identification of the key players in their historical context, little more could be asked of clarifying annotation throughout this volume.

The table of documents [p. xv] is a highly useful device which assists the reader in using the volume as a source for historical studies. With contents as difficult to peruse as these — legal jargon of the period compounded by often congested syntax — a detailed inventory of manuscript contents is as essential as a detailed index. The index is indeed very serviceable, but the inventory of documents would have been still more useful had it been fuller. Dongan's commission, printed on page 18ff with manuscript reference 34: 6 should have been included in the inventory, and it could have been taken out of sequence to lead this entire volume. Rationale for the placing of documents in later footnotes [e.g., p. 42] might have been included in the inventory, where it would also have been an improvement to calendar all sub-documents identified by lower case letters. Organization of the inventory is sometimes puzzling as when 34: 9 (a commission of officers of the Court of Admiralty) is placed with miscellaneous documents rather than with documents relating to the Admiralty proper. Item 34: 21 concerning John Beekman's information against the ship Bachelor's Fortune [p. 78ff] is not recorded on page xvi. Item 34: 57, which appeal's on page 211 with explanatory footnote, is missing from the lineup on page xvi. Admittedly, this is very difficult material to handle in an ordered way, and the user of this volume appreciates all tlie expert help he can get.

This is a highly useful and informative volume full of interest for tlie nautically inclined historian. Genealogists will be less rewarded, yet larger scale New Netherland historical interests are so well served that this volume is a welcome addition to tlie series. It is dedicated to the memory of Howard G. Hag email, who worked unstintingly to make this series possible and to insure its high standard of textual accuracy.

—Andrew Brink

1 Julian P. Bond, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 1, 1760-1766 (Princeton, N.J., 1950), xxxiv.

Adopt-A-Book Program

Tlie Library Committee's program for republishing volumes in the library that are in need of restoration and duplication continues to seek interested members. The puipose of the plan is two-fold: to maintain volumes in the library's collection in good condition; and to provide members with a copy of the restored volume for their own personal library.

Called the ADOPT-A-BOOK program, it relies solely on member participation. Members may "adopt" volumes from a selected list. In addition, they may "adopt" non-listed volumes that are of particular interest. The volumes will be sent to a book restoration service, and two bound copies will be made. Members can either pay for or donate tlie cost of the restoration estimated at approximately $200 for a 100-page volume. A donor page will be included in each volume acknowledging tlie benefactor. One of tlie restored volumes will be retained by tlie library and tlie other delivered to tlie donor.

We hope that the ADOPT-A-BOOK program will interest you and that you will want to participate. Contact our librarian Linda Rolufs for further information.

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Society Activities

Annual Meeting

The 109th Annual Meeting of the Holland Society of New York was quite an affair. A record turnout of 103 members met at the Union Club in New York City on April 13, 1994, to conduct the Society's business and renew old acquaintances. Members came from as far away as Sioux City, South Dakota, and Aberdeen, Washington. The business meeting was rather tame but ended with a vote of those in attendance on an amendment changing the constitution to allow membership for members' daughters. Arguments were heard on both sides of the issue, with a close vote ending the discussion.

The formal business meeting was followed by a most entertaining presentation by the Society's Distinguished Achievement Medalist recipient, Tweed Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt spoke on his Brazilian adventure recreating his great-grandfather Theodore Roosevelt's exploratory trip down the River of Doubt. The vivid visual presentation of the slides, accompanied by Tweed's humorous, understated, but gripping descriptions of the jungle environment defining the dangers of such a trip, captivated the entire gathering.

After the traditional Heineken and cheese eolation, which was generously donated by Van Munching & Co. and preceded dinner on this occasion, we enjoyed the traditional parading of the Beaver, Toasts to The Queen of the Netherlands, the President of the United States, and our host in abstentia, Mr. Frank H. Vedder, and our host, Mr. James E. Quackenbush. The delicious meal was followed by the presentation of scrolls to three of the Society's new Fellows, Dr. David Steven Cohen, Dr. Joyce D. Goodfriend, and Dr. Firth Haring Fabend (a fourth new Fellow, Dr. Donna Merwick, was unfortunately unable to attend the meeting) and by inspired comments from both our Medalist, Tweed Roosevelt, and the new Consul General of the Netherlands, the Honorable Mr. Tjaco van den Hout. President Peter Van Dyke then announced the outcome of the vote on changing the constitution: the proposal failed by six votes to carry the two-thirds vote needed for the change, with 244 of the 376 votes represented in person or by proxy voting in favor of the constitutional change.

After the meeting adjourned, many members retired to the Club's bar to continue the evening's good fellowship.

Memorial Church Service

On Sunday, May 1, a beautiful spring day in the Hudson Valley, two dozen Holland Society members, their families, and friends gathered for the Society's annual Memorial Church Service. The group met at the French Huguenot church in New Paltz, New York. The simple stone structure is an exact replica of the original French church built in 1702. The members were called to worship by the blowing of the conch shell, a traditional New Paltz custom. Music was provided by harpsichord.

At the 1994 Annual Meeting, from left to right, Society Domine the Reverend Louis 0. Springsteen, President Peter Van Dyke, Distinguished Achievement Medalist Tweed Roosevelt, and Consul General of the Netherlands in New York the Hon. Tjaco van den Hout.

The Reverend Everett L. Zabriskie, III, the Associate Domine of the Society, led the service. In what is always a high and solemn moment, Domine Zabriskie read the list of those who had departed from our midst during the past year, followed by leading the gathering in the memorial prayer.

As is the Society's custom, each year the widows and families of those who have departed are invited to be present. Since our Society now stretches the full length of the land few are able to make it, but all sent thanks for being remembered and greetings to those present.

Following the Service the group gathered at Deyo Hall for a time of fellowship and a delicious sit-down dinner. All the arrangements for the day were made by and through the courtesy of Mr. Kenneth E. Hasbrouck, Society member and former Trustee, and the Huguenot Historical Society of New Paltz. Our deepest thanks to them.

Potomac Branch Meeting

Queen's Day, April 30th, was the occasion for the Spring Meeting of the Potomac Branch at a luncheon in Bethesda, Maryland, at which Branch President David Smock, accompanied by his wife, Helene, extended an official welcome to Frank Sloat, our newest member. Also in attendance were George and Ginny Bogardus, Elmer Staats, John Van Wagoner, and Dave and Marilyn Voorhees. In honor of the occasion, the Prince's flag (a handmade orange, white, and blue tricolor) and the American flag were displayed and orange was the color of the day. The roundtable discussion

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was jovial but also intellectual, ranging from the unlikely Dutch origin of certain words to a review of the history of the House of Orange-Nassau which dates from the time of Charlemagne. Not neglected in the discussion was the history of the early Dutch settlements along the South River intheform of arecommended reference work: Dutch Explorers,

John Milton Van Horn

John Milton Van Horn, a member of The Holland Society of New York since 1966, died on May 31, 1993, according to his wife, Elizabeth, who just recently so informed the Society. He was fifty-eight years old.

Mr. Van Horn claimed descent from Jan Van Horn, who came to this country prior to 1645. Mr. Van Horn was born on February 27, 1935, in Rochester, New York, and was the son of Dallas McHenry Van Horn and Ruth Newman.

Mr. Van Horn graduated from West High School, Rochester, New York, in 1953. He then attended Cornell University, from which he received a B.E.E. with a major in electrical engineering in 1958. He thereafter attended the Turch Graduate School of Business of Dartmouth College, Hanover, Mas­sachusetts, graduating from there in 1963.

From 1958 to 1960 Mr. Van Horn was an electronics engineer with Link Aviation, Inc. of Binghamton, New York, hi 1963 he became controller for Shopping International, Inc., an importing and sales firm through retail catalogs of unusual handicrafts in Norwich, Vermont. Mr. Van Horn also was elected auditor of the Town of Norwich and auditor of the Dresden School District, the first interstate school district in the country.

At Cornell University Mr. Van Horn was a member of Kappa Delta Rho Fraternity, hi addition to his membership in our Society, he was a member of the National Wildlife Federation, a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, a member of the board of directors of the Norwich Lions Club, and a member of the Troop Committee of the Norwich Boy Scouts. His hobbies included biking and camping. He was a Congregationalist in his religion, and his politics were Republican.

Mr. Van Horn married Elizabeth Anne Achleben at Hempstead, New York, on August 15, 1959. They had two children: Ruth Elizabeth, born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on October 17, 1964; and David John, bom in Hanover, New Hampshire, on October 14, 1965.

Mr. Van Horn lived at Willey Hill, Norwich, Vermont. He is survived by his widow, Elizabeth, and his two children.

August Kenneth Van Sicklen

August Kenneth Van Sicklen, a member of The Holland

Traders and Settlers in the Delaware Valley, 1609-1664 by C.A. Weslager. Of special interest was Dave Voorhees' report on the recent Annual Meeting of the Society in New York, which he and his son John attended, and comments on Dave's latest acquisitions of Dutch military paraphernalia, a hobby of his.

Society of New York since 1987 and a resident of Brightwater, New York, died on January 16, 1994, at Southside Hospital, Bay Shore, New York. He was eighty-three years old.

Mr. Van Sicklen claimed descent from Fernando Van Sycklen, who came to this country from Haarlem, Holland, in 1652. He was born in Islip, New York, on March 14, 1910, the son of Edgar Freemont Van Sicklen and Margaret Louise Brandt.

Mi-. Van Sicklen, a teacher and educator throughout his professional life, attended Islip High School and graduated from Alfred University, Alfred, New York, with a B.S. in 1932. He later, after World War II, went on to Columbia University, New York City, where he earned an M.A. in 1945. At Alfred he was a member of Kappa Psi Upsilon Fraternity.

Mi-. Van Sicklen began his professional career in 1934 as a mathematics teacher at Mattituck, New York, High School, where he also coached track. In 1937 he became vice principal at Athens High School, Athens, New York, where he also coached basketball and soccer. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1942 and, after completing basic training, he became a member of the 5th Army Air Force as a Link Trainer instructor at Memphis, Tennessee, before going on to the Far East Force Air Combat Replacement and Training Center in New Guinea. After eighteen months in New Guinea, Mr. Van Sicklen was transferred to the Philippines, where he did personnel classification work, earning two battle stars for his Asiatic Pacific Campaign Ribbon. He also earned the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Philippines Liberation Ribbon, and die American Defense Ribbon, before being discharged in 1945 with the rank of corporal.

hi 1945 Mr. Van Sicklen became a mathematics instructor in Amityville, New York. The following year he began a twenty-six year career at Bay Shore High School, where he also coached basketball, soccer, tennis, and baseball. In 1969 he became the chairman of the mathematics department, before retiring in 1972.

Mr. Van Sicklen married Mildred Berka of Bay Shore at the Methodist Church in Islip, New York, on October 11, 1946. They had three daughters: Geraldine born on April 30, 1948; Diane, bom on July 10, 1950; and Bonnie, born on July 3, 1956.

Mr. Van Sicklen was past president and treasurer of Sagtikos Manor Historical Society, a member of the Bohemia Historical Society, a member of the Islip Hamlet Historical Society, a member of F. and A.M. Lodge #1043, and a

In Memonam

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longtime and active member of the Alfred University Alumni Association. He enjoyed gardening, woodworking, fishing, stamp and coin collecting, traveling, camping, and bridge and was a member of the Administrative Board of the United Methodist Church of Bay Shore. In 1987 Islip Town awarded Mr. Van Sicklen the "In Praise of Age Award" for his volunteer work with the older citizen of the town, mainly as a tax counselor for seventeen years.

He is survived by his wife, Mildred; his three daughters: Geraldine Browne, of Islip Terrace, New York; Diane Whitcomb, of Penfield, New York; and Bonne Miller, of Rush, New York; his sister, Mildred Toombs; and six grandchildren. Memorial services were held at the Masonic Temple and later at the Bay Shore Methodist Church. Interment was in the Calverton National Cemetery.

Joseph Van Vleck III

Joseph Van Vleck III, a member of The Holland Society of New York since 1945, died on December 10, 1993, while hiking in the West Hartford, Connecticut, Reservoir. He was sixty-six years old.

Mr. Van Vleck claimed descent from Tielman Van Vleck, who came to this country from Amsterdam, Holland, in the year 1658. He was born on October 27, 1927, in Montclair, New Jersey, and was the son of Joseph Van Vleck, Jr., and Mary Burton McLain.

A graduate of the Loomis-Chaffee School in 1945, Mr. Van Vleck went on to Yale University, from which he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1950. In 1958 he received an M.B.A. degree from the University of Connecticut. During World War II and the Korean War, Mr. Van Vleck served as a pilot in the United States Navy.

Mi'. Van Vleck had recently retired from a nearly forty-year career with the Travelers Insurance Company. Mainly working in the finance area, he was Travelers' vice-president in charge of their private placements. Mr. Van Vleck was a founder and former director of Uie Killington Ski Area in Vermont and was a member of the Hartford Golf Club. According to his widow, "Throughout his life he held a deep respect for wilderness and was a member of the Sportsman Club in Connecticut as well as a former president and long­standing member of the Forest Lake Club in Pennsylvania. The solitude of nature, and fishing, in particular, were his lifelong companions."

Mr. Van Vleck married Elfrida Doyle on June 12, 1953. Other survivors include his daughter, Kathleen Haskell, of Boston, Massachusetts; his son, Joseph Van Vleck IV, of Providence, Rhode Island; his son, A. Michael Van Vleck, of Washington D.C.; and three grandchildren.

A funeral service was held at the First Church of Christ, Congregational, in West Hartford, and interment followed at the Fairview Cemetery.

Lloyd Van Vliet

Lloyd Van Vliet, a Life Member of The Holland Society of New York since 1966, died on December 1, 1993, in Somerville, New Jersey. He was fifty-one years of age.

Mr. Van Vliet claimed descent from Dirck Jans Van der Vliet, who came to this country from Rylevelt, Holland, in the year 1660. The son of Lloyd Kenneth Van Vliet and Marion Elizabeth Pickell, Mr. Van Vliet was born in Oldwick, New Jersey, on June 12, 1942.

After graduating from Hunterdon Regional High School in 1960, Mr. Van Vliet fanned on the family farm until 1968. In that year he became a banker at the Somerset Trust Company and later at the Flemington National Bank until 1985. He was also president of American Micrographics, Inc., from 1983 until his death.

Besides his membership in our Society, Mr. Van Vliet was a member of the Elks Lodge, BPOE 1928, of Flemington, New Jersey, and the Flemington Lion's Club and was the treasurer of the Briteside Adult Day Care Center, in Flemington. Earlier, he had attended Raritan Valley College and the American Institute of Banking.

Mr. Van Vliet married Dian Marie Amunsden on October 5, 1963, in Somerville. She survives him, along with their three children: Dean C , of Three Bridges, New Jersey; Janet M. Lubaszka, and Marie of Flemington; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service was held at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Flemington, and interment followed at Clover Hill Cemetery, Clover Hill, New Jersey.

Theodore Wyckoff

Theodore Wyckoff, a retired political science professor and a retired Lt. Colonel in the United States Army, died on April 7, 1994, at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He had been a member of The Holland Society of New York since 1987 aid was seventy-one years old.

Mr. Wyckoff claimed descentfromPieterClaesen Wyckoff, who came to this country from Holland in 1637. He was bom on February 24, 1922, in New York City, and was the son of Wallace Hook Wyckoff and Helena Schmid.

A Northern Arizona University political science professor for fifteen yea's, Mr. Wyckoff was known for his expertise in military science, his extensive world travels, and his multilingual abilities (he spoke six languages fluently). He retired from Northern Arizona University in 1983 but continued to hold the position of Professor Emeritus until his death. His colleague, Don Mansfield, who also taught political science at Northern Arizona University, commented that "Ted's world experiences added to the class, and he had a broad background to bring into the classroom, aid he was highly respected."

After growing up in New York City, Mr. Wyckoff went out west to ea'n his bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1942. Later, after his military career, he returned east to earn his master's degree in public administration and politics at Princeton University in 1957. He received a doctorate in political science from Bonn University in Germany in 1964. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Mr. Wyckoff was a commanding officer in the artillery during the Korean War aid later worked for the Pentagon, serving in Brazil, Germany, aid Korea before beginning his teaching at Northern Arizona University in 1968.

Mr. Wyckoff twice ran unsuccessfully for the United States Congress, in 1972 aid 1974. He invented an engine, aid for

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more than fifty years he sang in the Episcopal choir. Besides his membership in our Society, Mi". Wyckoff was

the second vice-president of The Wyckoff Family Association and a member of the Flagstaff Rotary Club, the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, and the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Flagstaff.

Mr. Wyckoff married in Los Angeles, California, on April 22, 1945, Ludmilla ("Lucy") Dmitrieff, who was bom in China of Russian parents. They had three daughters: Ann Helen, bom on April 20, 1947; Barbara Lucille, bom on December 10, 1948; and Cathryn Elizabeth, bom on January 9, 1951.

Survivors include his wife, Ludmilla; two daughters: Ann Lancero, of Tucson, Arizona, and Barbara Siris, of New York City; a sister, Melanie Placek, of Hawaii; and three grandchildren.

Services were held at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, and burial was held with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

Harold Benedict Zabriskie

Harold Benedict Zabriskie, a Life Member of The Holland Society of New York for more than forty years, died after a long illness on June 14, 1994, at his home in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was eighty-three years old and died of cancer.

Mr. Zabriskie, known as "Shorty" from childhood, despite the fact that when he graduated from high school he was six feet tall, claimed descent from AlbertZabriskie(Saborowski) who came to this country from Amsterdam, Holland, in the year 1662. Mr. Zabriskie was born January 31, 1911, in North Hackensack, New Jersey, the son of John Pell Zabriskie and Rosamond Benedict. His father was a former mayor of the borough of River Edge, New Jersey.

After attending grammar school in River Edge and high school in Hackensack, New Jersey, Mr. Zabriskie went on to Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, receiving

a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering in 1933. At Lehigh he was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity. Shortly after graduating from Lehigh, he went to work for the Inmont Corporation (now BASF), a manufacturer of ro­togravure printing inks, where he eventually became the plant manager and sales manager and a vice-president before retiring in 1976. Later, in 1982, he moved to Flagstaff.

During World War II, Mr. Zabriskie served, from 1941 until 1946, in the United States Army in the Engineer's Corps with the rank of Captain, serving mainly in New Guinea as a Company Commander; and again, from 1951 until 1953, during the Korean War, by helping to reopen Fort Huachuca, Sierra Vista, in Arizona, and then in France.

Mr. Zabriskie married Elaine Jeanette Cox at Hale, Missouri on Fabruary 5, 1946. Elaine had been an United States Army nurse. They had one child; Mary Alice was born January 21, 1951, in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Mr. Zabriskie's principal recreation was gardening; his religion was Dutch Reformed; and his politics were Republican. In addition to our Society, Mr. Zabriskie was a member of the Gravure Association of America, a charter member of the Gravure Cylinder Society, and the recipient of the Elmer G. Voigth Award from Gravure Technical Association

Mr. Zabriskie's wife, Elaine, predeceased him in 1977. He is survived by his daughter, Mary Gruters, and her husband, Barry, both of Flagstaff, and their four children. In addition he is survived by his sister, Jane Zabriskie Bogert, of Washington Township, New Jersey, the widow of Frederick W. Bogert, the recipient of the Holland Society's 1984 Distinguished Achievement Medal to a Member for "Service To The Society."

Private memorial services were held at the Flagstaff Mortuary on June 19, 1994, after cremation. Later, on July 17, 1994, a memorial service was held at The Old Paramus Church at Ridgewood, New Jersey, with burial following in The Hackensack Cemetery.

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The New Netherland Project Presents

Rensselaerswijck Seminar 17 Family History

Two Branches into New Netherland Research Saturday, September 17, 1994

The New Netherland Project announces its 17th Rensselaerswijck Seminar, a one-day conference to be held Saturday, September 17, 1994, in the Museum Theater of the Cultural Education Center at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York. Five speakers will present papers detailing how historical and genealogical research can be mutually beneficial, especially in the area of social history. The seminar should be of special interest to colonial American historians and genealogists.

Speakers

K e n n e t h H. Bradt , founder of the Bradt Family Association

Peter R. Chr i s toph , Editor of New York Historical Manuscripts

F l o r e n c e Chr i s toph , certified genealogist, historical editor, Schuyler & Voorhees families historian

C h a r l e s T. Gehr ing , Director of the New Netherland Project

H a r r y M a c y , Jr . , Associate Editor of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record

NlCO P l o m p , Deputy Director of the Centraa! Bureau voor Genealogie in The Hague

To register: The New Netherland Project,

New York State Library, CEC 8th Floor

Albany, N.Y. 12230 Phone: (518) 474-6067 or Fax: (518) 474-57862