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| Page from De Bever Journal |
Wonderful news for those of us with early Dutch ancestors in New Netherland (present day New York)!
Thanks to Terry Vanderhoof, a translation and transcript of
De Bever Journal of May-July 1661 is now on line at
The Vanderhoof Project.
You may also view the "passenger list" (the list of names of those who owed passage money) for
De Bever at
Olive Tree Genealogy Ships Passenger Lists to New Netherland (New York) 1624-1664
I asked Terry to tell us how this project to transcribe the ship's journal began. Here is his answer. Please note that I have taken the liberty of adding links to online passenger lists for any ships Terry mentions, as well as other relevant links.
The Voyage of De Beverby Terry Vanderhoof
I guess that finding the key to the story of the voyage at 35,000 feet
over mid-Atlantic is pretty appropriate, as I've often looked down at the
ocean and wondered if De Bever ever sailed in the waters we could see
below us. I'd been reading
Jaap Jacob's 2005 book
"New Netherland:
A Dutch Colony In Seventeenth-Century America" during the flight to New
York and noticed an intriguing reference to the
"Ship's Logs Gulden
Bever, Gulden Otter, Hoop and Roseboom 1660-1663" This was
puzzling for, in the years I'd been researching the Vanderhoof family, no
mention of a log for the Bever voyage had ever been mentioned. The
bibliography of Jaap Jacob's subsequent book
"The Colony of New
Netherland : A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-century America" (2009)
gave more detail, giving as a source an article in
De Halve Maen
of January 1968 by Dr Kenneth Scott .
Scott's article was based on a partial translation of an original
document held by the New York Historical Society
"Journael Behouden
opt'schip den Gulden Bever en t'schip den Gulden Otter" but, for
reasons of space, Dr Scott only included a summary of each voyage in the
article and omitted much of the routine positional and weather
details.
The NYHS were very helpful but were in the midst of a major refurbishment
project and unable to provide any copies for several months. So, we
had to make do with an image of the first page of the Journal from their
online catalogue and make a start decoding the handwriting and making
sense of some of the abbreviations and nautical terms. Scott's article
revealed that the original 37-page journal contained descriptions of four
voyages based on notes kept by an unknown author, probably an employee of
the
Dutch West India Company
* First Voyage : The Vergulde Otter 10 Oct 4 Dec 1660 New Amsterdam
to Texel.
* Second Voyage :
The Vergulde Bever 9 May 29 Jul 1661 Texel to New
Amsterdam (on which the party from Beesd travelled)
* Third Voyage : The Hoop 8 Sept - 26 Oct 1662 New Amsterdam to Texel.
* Fourth Voyage :
The Rooseboom 30 Mar 3 June 1663 Texel to New
Amsterdam
In early 2012, the scans of the part of the Journael describing the 1661
voyage of De Bever arrived and we were able to continue the
project. Helped by a number of Nederlands speakers from
the Historische Kring West Betuwe, the archivists at the Regional Archief
Rivierenland at Geldermalsen/Tiel and the staff of the Sheepvaartmuseum
in Amsterdam, a transcription and translation of the account of the 1661
voyage of De Bever emerged. The handwriting was pretty readable for
the period - most likely copied at a later date from rough notes kept at
sea - and we managed to decode most of the technical seafaring terms with
a good deal of help. As always, direct translations from Dutch to
English aren't always possible and we hope we have reached a reasonable
balance between readability and faithfulness to the original text.
One major revelation was that De Bever hadn't taken the 'traditional'
route via the Caribbean but had first headed for the north of Scotland,
attempting to reach the Atlantic via the straits north of the Orkney
Islands. This decision was probably made because of the uneasy state of
relations between Portugal and the Netherlands at the time but almost
ended in disaster as
De Bever and her companion the
St Jan Baptist were caught in a storm in the Moray Firth.
As always, opening one door reveals a whole row of new doors to be opened
and now that some details of the voyage are clearer, many further
questions need to be asked. How was the voyage planned? How did the
37 folks from Beesd get to Amsterdam? How long did they stay there?
What was the induction and boarding process? What was life on ship like?
Hopefully, some of these questions will be answered in the near
future.
.JPG)
