Scandinavian immigrants in New York, 1630-1674; with appendices on Scandinavians in Mexico and South America, 1532-1640, Scandinavians in Canada, 1619-1620, Some Scandinavians in New York in the eighteenth century, German immigrants in New York, 1630-1674

Front matter

SCANDINAVIAN IMMIGRANTS

M i n «•-•• i n rV of «c ♦J^»»y/ JtnJ < iLmuA rfiaiiTiew •f KewAeutenUa.Cnow New York) A D. !•*«.

Reduced from a copy in the Lenox Library, Xew York City.

Preface

This volume is a collection of biographic articles on Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish immigrants who settled in New Netherland, or the present state of New York, between the years 1630 and 1674. It is the result of research work begun seven years ago while I was teaching in Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The most elementary, but also the most difficult, task connected with this work was to establish by documentary evidence • which persons in the materials examined were Dutch or German, and which persons were Scandinavian. The English and French names were easily recognized. But the more strictly Teutonic names appeared to be fully as much Scandinavian as Dutch. In most instances the Dutch and Scandinavian nomenclature — especially the ending "szen" or "sen" in surnames — necessitated my making excursions into the personal history of the candidates for septentrional glory until their nationality was established.

Hundreds of possible Scandinavian names were traced in the documents until they proved to be the property of other Teutons than the Scandinavians. Some of them turned out to be the property of members belonging to the Celtic, to the Mongolian, and to the Ethiopian stock. Thus, a Jan Andersen and a Hendrick Hendricksen were two promising Scandinavian candidates until I discovered that they were. Irish. Jan Swaen was one of my Swedish candidates until I had traced him to his original home, Africa. Promising candidates for my volume were also Emanuel Pieterszen, Lucas Pieterszen, and the latter's wife, Anna Jans. But these, too, proved to be of negro stock. Less promising were the candidates Hans and Hendrick, both without a surname, but Hans proved to be a Mohawk Indian, and Hendrick a plain Indian.

My field would have been more inviting, if it had been better viii PEEFACE.

cultivated. Judging by a statement made by Professor George T. Flom, it had hardly seen a plow as late as 1909, when he published his valuable "A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States," which says:

"In the early days of New Netherlands colony, Norwegians sometimes came across in Dutch ships and settled among the Dutch. The names of at least two such have been preserved in the Dutch colonial records." Professor Flom then gives the names of Claes Carstensen and Hans Hansen. In addition he refers to Anneke Hendricks and Helletje Hendricks as Norwegiar> immigrant women. However, Helletje had the surname Noorman, not because she was a Norwegian, but because she was married to Claes Carstensen. But Anneke, the first wife of the ancestor of the Vanderbilts, was from Norway.

Professor Flom's phrase "at least two," coming, as it does, from a careful scholar of recognized ability, a graduate of Columbia University (which has derived some of its wealth from a parcel of the farm of two of the earliest Norwegian immigrants Roelof Jansen and his wife Anneke Jans), may be taken as an index of the knowledge which the average public, six years age, had of the first Norwegian immigrants in New York, of whom I have registered in the present volume no less than fifty-seven.

Mr. Hjalmar Rued Holand, M. A. (Wisconsin) unknowingly corroborates my statement regarding the knowledge the public has of Scandinavian immigration in the seventeenth century. In "De norske Settlementers Historie" (1909) he gives the names of twenty persons in early New York, who, in his opinion, were Scandinavians. Only eight of these, however, prove to be that, while the total number of Scandinavians treated in the present work is 187.

"Danske i Amerika" (1908f), published by C. Rasmussen Publishing Company, Minneapolis, has devoted considerable space (e. g. pp. 39 — 43, 358 — 384) to Danish immigrants. However, the sources used are not primary, but secondary at the best. And the treatment is uncritical. A number of immigrants are mentioned as Danes, though they belonged to other nationalities. And a great number of real Danish immigrants have escaped the notice of "Danske i Amerika," otherwise in many respects a work of which the Americans of Danish ancestry can be proud.

Less ambitious but far more scholarly than the endeavors in

PEEFACE. ix

"Danske i Amerika" are two articles by Mr. Torstein Jahr, in "Symra" (V., 2, 1909; IX, 1, 1913), a magazine in Norwegian, published at Decorah, Iowa. They are chiefly based upon the "Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts" published in Albany, 190B. Mr. Jahr's articles in "Symra" tell in some forty pages abouc the Norwegian immigrants who came to Rensselaerswyck. He dwells especially on the family of Bratt and of Anneke Jans, devoting some twenty-five pages to the latter. He makes good use of the well-known Anneke Jans literature, but offers nothing new to scholars beyond the claim — and this is important — that Anneke Jans and her husband Roelof Jansen were Norwegians. Mr. A. J. F. van Laer, the editor of the "Bowier Manuscripts," had called attention to the fact that Anneke and her husband did not come from Holland, as it had been supposed, but from Marstrand, "an island of the coast of Sweden." It would then appear that they were Swedes. Mr. Jahr, however, called attention to the fact that Marstrand was a Norwegian town, founded by the Norwegian king Haakon Haakonsson about the year 1230, and that it became a Swedish possession in 1658. And hence Anneke and her husband were, in all probability, Norwegians.

As for the Swedish immigrants in New York, but little appears to have been written concerning them, the Swedish settlement on the Delaware having engaged the attention of the more capable writers on Scandinavian immigration to our country, whose efforts have been crowned in the elaborate work of Dr. Amandus Johnson.

Sporadic statements concerning Scandinavian immigrants have not been wanting in general works on New York (state and city), but the attention bestowed upon these early pioneers from Northern Europe is almost insignificant. J. Riker's "Harlem, Its Origin and Early Annals" (revised edition, 1904) and J. H. Innes' "New Amsterdam and Its People" (1902), particularly the latter, belong to the exceptions. They avoid the common error of making every resident of New Amsterdam or New Netherland Dutch or English. However, the number of Scandinavians they mention is very limited, and the treatment accorded them meagre.

The present volume is in the main based on primary sources. The most important of these sources, at least for genealogical data

X PREFACE.

and personal history, are the Hsts of passengers which the immigrant ships of the seventeenth century kept; parish records, or church registers, kept in New York, Brooklyn, Albany, etc., record? stating whence the several immigrants came, whom they married, the date of their marriage, the names of the children, the date of the baptism of the children, the names of the sponsors ; court records, legislative records, municipal protocols, municipal orders; deeds; marriage contracts, and general contracts; petitions and proclamations ; wills ; private account books, inventories ; lists of soldiers ; war dispatches ; letters ; rent rolls and tax rolls, general business papers and accounts, etc

Some of the material is published in Dutch, but most of the other published material is available, to the general public, only in English translations. Some of these translations are excellent, e. g,, that of the "Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts." But many of them are admittedly poor, a fact that the New York State Library is trying to remedy. It planned some five years ago (see: Educational Department Bulletin, No. 462, Albany) to translate and publish the manuscript Dutch records of the government of New Netherland 1638 — 74. According to the plan adopted, three or four volumes of this projected publication should have appeared by this time. But the Albany Capitol fire of March 29, 1911, did havoc, destroying not only the first volume of the records but also a copy of the Dutch text and the translations which Mr. van Laer had prepared.

My aim in writing "Scandinavian Immigrants in New York, 1630 — 1674" has been to present facts, in detail and chronological order. Wherever I have found it feasible, I have used the words of published sources. I have given verbatim many excerpts from the court records. I have quoted at length public and private documents, in order to illustrate or illumine certain facts, in the selection of which I have been guided by various considerations, which it would be useless to enumerate.

My biographies are concerned with the immigrants. The information they give in regard to the descendants of these immigrants is secondary. To trace the descendants beyond the seventeenth century would require many volumes of genealogy and personal history. I have, however, endeavored as much as possible to give important data bearing on the history of the children bom

PREFACE. xi

of Scandinavian parents in New Netherland prior to 1674. But these children, not being immigrants, of course receive no treatment in special articles, as do the 188 immigrants. They are mentioned in connection with their parents.

As to the length of the articles, those treating of the well-known personages like Hans Hansen from Bergen, Laurens Andriessen van Buskirk are briefer than those dealing with less known characters like Dirck Holgersen and Pieter Jansen Noorman. I am conscious of gaps in these articles, but this is due to the nature of the source material. The historian is concerned with facts, and it is not his, nor in fact anybody's, business to fill gaps with fiction.

The articles also vary in the quahty of matter. But this, too, is due to the nature of the sources. Unfortunately such sources as court records — and I have drawn heavily upon them — are quite silent about many of the nobler deeds of men, in regard to which we should like to be fully as well informed as we are concerning the role these men played in litigations. I have endeavored to leave no stone unturned in order to obtain all the facts possible relative to the history of the immigrants, and I have made esthetical considerations entirely secondary to the "micrology" of facts. For in a pioneer volume like "Scandinavian Immigrants in New York," which in some degree shifts the emphasis in treating immigration to our country in the seventeenth century, it is necessary to register even what appears to be pure trivialities. Only those who are acquainted with the nature of the sources of the early history of New York can appreciate what it means to trace a deed to the author of the deed, especially when the author has a number of namesakes or is known by several different names.

Such a work, packed with details and bristling with names and dates, does, of course, not claim to be a contribution to belleslettres. In some places it resembles the court docket or an abstract of title. Nevertheless it claims to make a distinct contribution to a hitherto almost entirely neglected field in colonial history. As a reference work it may modestly pave the way for further research in this field and be of some use to the general historian.

Of special use it should be to such Americans of Scandinavian ancestry as in their school-days were taught a little about xii PEEFACE.

the Swedes on the Delaware, more about the Dutch in New York, most about the sons and daughters of New England, but nothing about the Scandinavians, particularly the Danes and Norwegians, along the Hudson. There are many Scandinavian descendants in the eastern section of the United States who are mistaken as to the original home of their forebears. It suffices to mention some of the descendants of the famous Anneke Jans. There are many in New York who do not know that the Episcopal Trinity Church, famed in the courts for its great wealth, owes some of it to an old Norwegian farm. There are many who do not knov/ that the Bronx of New York was the property of Jonas Bronck. a Dane, and that the ancestor of the Vanderbilts married a Norwegian woman. No doubt, there is much abuse of the study of genealogy in our country, and there is much false pride connected with it. But this should not prevent us from trying to find out to what extent countries like Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, had a share in populating the Empire State in early days.

Why the Empire State and not any other states? All the known Norwegian and Danish immigrants up to 1674 settled in New York and adjacent territory. They did not go to the New England states nor to those in the South. And the Swedish immigrants settled either in New York or at the Delaware. The only Scandinavians in "New Sweden" were Swedes, whose history is already more or less known.

My work is divided into three parts. The first part treats of the Norwegians. They were numerically inferior (fifty-seven biographies) to the Danish immigrants. But many of them immigrated earlier than the Danes and, on the whole, receive more attention in the early records. They came from such places as Fredrikstad, Holme, Langesund, Sande, Flekkero, Hellesund, Stavanger, Bergen, Tonsberg, Selbu, Marstrand, and many other places in Norway.

The second part of this work treats of the Danes (ninety-seven biographies), who were numerically as strong as the Swedes and Norwegians together. They emigrated from places like Copenhagen, Roskilde, Ribe, Svendborg, Aalborg, Christianstad, Nordstrand, Frederikstad (Friedrichstadt), Gliickstadt, Husum, Varberg. Dithmarschen, Oldenburg. Hassing, Helsingor, and several

PEEFACE. xiii

Other towns or districts of Denmark, which in earlier days included Schleswig and Holstein.

The third part is devoted to the Swedes (thirty-four biographies). At first sight this may seem strange, as there were fully as many Swedes in America in the seventeenth century as Danes and Norwegians. But the Swedes had, as has already been stated, their own settlement. New Sweden, or the present Delaware. They were very little concerned about New York proper, both before and after the conquest of their settlement by Governor Stuyvesant, in 1655. The Swedes that are noticed in this volume are, therefore, with the possible exception of one or two, only such as came to New Netherland direct from Sweden. The Swedish immigrants came from Stockholm, Goteborg, Helsingborg, Vesteras, Vexio, Vintjern, Abo (Finland), etc.

The biographical part is followed by a Retrospect.

I have added four Appendices, one of which, "German Immigrants in New York, 1630-1674," may not seem pertinent to the theme of my book. My reasons for including this Appendix is given elsewhere. Suffice it here to state, the German New Netherlanders were the religious allies of the Scandinavian, they were on par with these in numbers, and they have, like these, been a terra incognita to historians. A famous work, published as late as 1909, registers only four Germans who settled in New York before 1674 ; the present volume gives information concerning 186 of them.

As to the occupation of the early immigrants from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, the biographies will show that they were engaged in various walks of life, representing the farmer, the miller, the wood-sawyer, the tobacco-planter, the carpenter, the smith, the mason, the trader, the merchant, the soldier (captain, sergeant), the mariner (captain, skipper, etc.), the boatbuilder, the shoemaker, the gauger, the tapster, the brewer, the surgeon, the fisher, the firewarden, the drayman, the land owner, the council member, the capitalist, the policeman, the judge, etc. The nobleman as well as the peasant is represented.

The orthography of proper names has caused some difficulty. There was much "phonetic" spelling in polyglot New Netherland.

xiv PREFACE.

This highly variable species of spelling makes it difiicult, in many instances, to adhere to iron-rule uniformity. I have retained the more or less Dutch way (for Dutch was the official language) of spelling foreign names, sometimes even at the expense of consistency. When we know that one of New York's former archivists, Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, in his "Documents Relative to the History of New York" "invariably substituted English equivalents for Dutch given names" ; and when we notice that reputable writers on the history of New York spell the Indian word "seawan" in a half dozen different ways, it is, for the present, nigh hopeless either to attain or to observe uniformity in the orthography of foreign proper names. I shall specify one instance of "phonetic" orthography. Jochem Kalder, treated in this volume, has his surname spelled in the records as follows : Kalder, Calder, Calser, Caljer, Calker, Kayker, Kier, Callaer. The various forms may be due to the misreading of documents in transcribing them, but also to the niceties of pronunciation, which a scribe, unfamiliar with a foreign language, would not be able to record on paper. The so-called "tykke 1" (thick 1) in certain parts of Norway no doubt puzzled the scribes of New Amsterdam.

The Dutch distinction in terminating patronymics with "sz" or "sen" for men, and "s" or "se" for women has not been much observed in this volume, where the termination "sen" has been used indiscriminately, more in accord with Scandinavian usage.

For my material I am indebted to the Congressional Library, in Washington ; the Pennsylvania State Library, in Harrisburg ; the State Historical Library, St. Paul, Minnesota; University of Minnesota Library, Minneapolis Public Library; the libraries of Pennsylvania College and Gettysburg Theological Seminary, Gettysburg Pennsylvania. I wish to express my sincere thanks to the administrators of these libraries ; to Messrs. A. J. F. van Laer and Mr. Peter Nelson, Archivists of the Manuscripts Section of the New York State Library; and to Mr. J. H. Innes, author of "New Amsterdam and Its People."

For permission to use illustrations from specified works on the history of New York I am grateful to Charles Scribner's Sons; G. P. Putnam's Sons; Mr. J. A. Holden, N. Y. State Historian ; the Hon. John H. Finley, President of the University of the State of New York. The New York Public Library has

PEEFACE. xy

supplied me with reproductions of certain views of early New York. Also to this institution my thanks are due.

In oflfering this volume to the public, it is my hope that those who peruse its pages may feel a little of the Entdeckerfreude which I experienced in collecting the data, which have made "Scandinavian Immigrants in New York, 1630-1674" possible.

JOHN O. EV.JEN.

Minneapolis, 1915.

Contents

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