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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
When Godfridus Dellius, Dutch Reformed minister at Albany, surveyed the religious situation of the Middle Colonies in 1694, he found little to cheer him. In addition to the recent deaths of two colleagues and the political upheaval in New York, Dominie Dellius lamented the intrusion of William Bertholf into the Dutch churches in New Jersey. Bertholf, a cooper by trade, openly flaunted his independence from both the Netherlands ecclesiastical authorities and the orthodox New York clergy. With pietist leanings, Bertholf had ingratiated himself with Dutch communicants on the New Jersey frontier. “He will now not neglect anything to carry out his designs,” Dellius warned, and “soon some marvelous kind of theology will develop here.”
1. Corwin, Edward T., ed. Ecclesiastical Records: State of New York, 7 vols. (Albany, 1901–1916), 2:1105–1106.Google Scholar
2. Lovejoy, David S., The Glorious Revolution in America (New York, 1972), p. 98Google Scholar, writes, “For some time New Netherlands had been a thorn in the side of good mercantilists in England and hungry colonists in America. Both saw their trade threatened, furs siphoned off to Holland, and the expansion of New England blocked by foreigners at New Amsterdam and Fort Orange (Albany).” Brenner, Robert, “The Social Basis of English Commercial Expansion, 1550–1650,” Journal of Economic History 32 (1972): 361–384CrossRefGoogle Scholar, places the first Anglo-Dutch War within the broader context of English politics in the mid-seventeenth century.
3. O'Callaghan, E. B., ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 15 vols. (Albany, 1856–1887), 2:500.Google Scholar The Remonstrance addressed to Stuyvesant appears in ibid., pp. 248–250.
4. Ecclesiastical Records, 1:593, 687. Regarding Megapolensis's plight, see Jong, Gerald Francis De, “Dominie Johannes Megapolensis: Minister to New Netherland,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly 52 (1968): 39–45.Google Scholar
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7. Berthold, Fernow, ed., The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 Anno Domini, 7 vols. (New York, 1897), 7:104.Google ScholarDocuments Relative to Colonial History, 2:699–700, lists Van Ruyven's tax assessment. In 1714 another wealthy Dutchman, A. D. Philipse, intervened on behalf of Godfridus Dellius, Dutch minister at Albany from 1683 to 1699. See Joel, Munsell, ed., The Annals of Albany, 10 vols. (Albany, 1849–1859), 10:223–224.Google Scholar
8. Ecclesiastical Records, 1:583, 587.
9. Records of New Amsterdam, 6:58–59, 79; Ecclesiastical Records, 1:587–588. Schaats himself requested a recall to Holland (ibid.). For the Albany proceedings, see Van Laer, A. J. F., ed., Minutes of the Court of Albany, Rensselaerswyck, and Schenectady, 1668–1673 (Albany, 1926), pp. 162, 322.Google Scholar
10. Hall, Michael G., Leder, Lawrence H., and Kammen, Michael G., eds., The Glorious Revolution in America: Documents on the Colonial Crisis (Chapel Hill, 1964), p. 132.Google Scholar This characterization, from a poem by Robert Livingston, may have been a play on words: the Dutch term for farmer is boer; the Oxford English Dictionary, ([1971 eds.], s.v. “Butterbox”), defines butterbox as a “contemptuous designation for a Dutchman.”
11. O'Callaghan, E. B., ed., Documentary History of the State of New York, 4 vols, small paper ed., (New York, 1849), 2:376–377;Google ScholarDocuments Relative to Colonial History, 4:219, 533; Murphy, Henry C., Anthology of New Netherland; or, Translations of the Early Dutch Poets of New York with Memoirs of their Lives (New York, 1865), p. 114.Google Scholar
12. “Letter from Members of the Dutch Church in New York to the Classis of Amsterdam,” Collections of the New York Historical Society (New York, 1868): 409;Google ScholarEcclesiastical Records, 2:1051, 1065, 1089, 1108, 1043.
13. Ecclesiastical Records, 2:1242; Documents Relative to Colonial History, 4:620, 401.
14. “Garrett Abeel's Records,” Year Book of the Holland Society of New York (New York, 1916), p. 70;Google ScholarDocuments Relative to Colonial History, 4:401, 620.
15. Still, Bayard, Mirror for Gotham: New York as Seen by Contemporaries from Dutch Days to the Present (New York, 1956), p. 21;Google ScholarMiller, John, New York Considered and Improved, 1695, ed. Victor, Hugo Paltsits (Cleveland, 1903), p. 40;Google Scholar and Hansen, Marcus L., “The Minor Stocks in the American Population of 1790,” Proceedings of the American Historical Association (Washington, D.C., 1932), pp. 363–379, especially 363–365.Google Scholar
16. Hansen writes, “The Dutch migration to New Jersey did not begin in full force until after1700” (ibid., p. 366). Craven, Wesley Frank, The English Colonization of North America (Princeton, 1964), p. 14Google Scholar, places the beginning of Dutch migration to New Jersey at 1664.
17. Whitehead, William A., ed., New Jersey Archives: Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey, 1st ser., 37 vols. (Newark, 1880–1942), 3:333.Google Scholar
18. O'Callaghan, E. B., ed., Documentary History of the State of New York, 4 vols., large paper ed. (Albany, 1850), 3:77;Google Scholar William Andrews to SPG, 9 March 1712/13, Records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (London: microfilm), letterbook ser. A, vol. 8, New York letters, no. 24; Cecil, Headlam, ed. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: American and West Indes, 1700 (London, 1910), p. 678.Google Scholar See also Documents Relative to Colonial History, 4:334–335. Lord Cornbury's observations in 1708 confirm this trend (ibid., 5:56). Hensen writes, “When these original Dutch farming communities could no longer provide for their natural increase a distinct migration was necessary and their descendants are in 1790 found to be found in northern New Jersey and in remoter settlements of the West” (“Minor Stocks,” p. 367). On Dutch migration, see Maar, Charles, “Causes of the Dutch Migration into and out of New Jersey,” Somerset County Historical Quarterly 7 (1918): 168–171.Google Scholar
19. New Jersey Archives, 2:179, 132; see also 218–221.
20. In 1694, Governor Fletcher wrote, “I have latlie seen with a heavie hart, fourscore fine farms all deserted about Albany, after the great expence of the owners in building and Improving” (quoted in Hansen, “Minor Stocks,” 37 In).
21. George Keith to SPG, 29 November 1702, SPG microfilm, letterbook ser. A, vol. 1, no. L; John Bartow to SPG, 1 December 1707, ibid., vol. 3, no. 184.
22. Miller, , New York Considered and Improved, p. 69;Google ScholarDocuments Relative to Colonial History, 4:861.
23. Ecclesiastical Records, 2:1428; Miller, , New York Considered and Improved, p. 55.Google Scholar
24. Hawks, Francis L., ed., “The Memorial of Col. Morris Concerning the State of Religion in the Jerseys, 1700,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 4 (1849–1850): 118.Google ScholarSchenck, Garret C., “Early Settlements and Settlers of Pompton, Pequannoc, and Pompton Plains,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, n.s. 4 (1919): 68Google Scholar, observes that “nearly all the first settlers in [northern New Jersey] came from the city of New York, and the larger part of them were members of the Reformed Church there.”
25. Morris to Lord Bishop of London, June 1704, Fulham Papers, SPG microfilm, vol. 6, fols. 125–128.
26. Hansen, , “Minor Stocks,” p. 372;Google Scholar see also Burr, Nelson R., “The Religious History of New Jersey before 1702,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 56 (1938):176–177.Google Scholar On the rapid rise of population in New Jersey, see Tucker, William L., “New Jersey—Her People,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 57 (1939): 172–177.Google Scholar
27. By 1790, Hansen, argues, “the northeastern part of the State [New Jersey] was as completely Dutch as any region in New York” (“Minor Stocks,” p. 370).Google Scholar This area—particularly its northern reaches—was later memoralized in Washington Irving's writings. On the persistence of Dutch culture in northern New Jersey, see Prince, John D., “Netherland Settlers in New Jersey,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, 3d ser., 9 (1914): 1–7;Google ScholarSchenck, , “Early Settlements,” pp. 58–71;Google ScholarAllbee, Burton H., “Ancient Dutch Architecture,” Papers and Proceedings of the Bergen County Historical Society 5-6 (1908–1910): 19–22;Google ScholarLeiby, Adrian C., The Early Dutch and Swedish Settlers of New Jersey (Princeton 1964)Google Scholar, chap. 9; Scott, W. W., “Dutch Buildings, Customs, Habits, etc.,” Americana 16 (1922): 368–379.Google Scholar
28. Wacker, Peter O., Land and People: A Cultural Geography of Preindustrial New Jersey: Origins and Settlement Patterns (New Brunswick, N.J, 1975), pp. 162–164;Google ScholarHansen, , “Minor Stocks,” pp. 371–372.Google Scholar Hansen writes, “There is no indication of any [Dutch] increase from outside sources during the eighteenth century” (ibid., p. 363). Burials in New York following the 1731 smallpox epidemic provide another indication of population trends. Interments in the Anglican cementery totaled 229, while those in the Dutch cemetery came to 212 (Cassedy, James H., Demography in Early America: Beginnings of the Statistical Mind, 1600–1800 [Cambridge, Mass., 1969], p. 122).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29. Morris to SPG, 30 May 1709, SPG microfilm, letterbook ser. A, vol. 4, no. 149; Documents Relative to Colonial History, 4:1044, New Jersey Archives; 3:9, 4:305.
30. Brooke to SPG, 11 October 1706, SPG microfilm, letterbook ser. A, vol. 3, no. 6.
31. Tucker, , “New Jersey—Her People,” pp. 173–174.Google Scholar Like other frontier settlers, the Palatines were poor. See Elias Neau to SPG, 5 July 1710, SPG microfilm, letterbook ser. A, vol. 5, no. 134.
32. New Jersey Archives 5:22.
33. For a biographical sketch of Bertholf, see Hagemen, Howard G., “William Bertholf: Pioneer Dominie of New Jersey,” Reformed Review 29 (1976): 73–80.Google Scholar
34. For Bertholf's charges against the classis, see Ecclesiastical Records, 2:1107. This is one of the earliest instances of itinerancy anywhere in the colonies.
35. Quoted in Wertenbacker, Thomas Jefferson, The Founding of American Civilization: The Middle Colonies (New York, 1938), pp. 92–93;Google ScholarEcclesiastical Records, 2:1107.
36. On the appeal of pietism to other ethnic groups, see Burr, , “Religious History of New Jersey,” 56:189;Google ScholarDocumentary History, large paper ed., 3:329. Frelinghuysen's pietism also greatly influenced the ministry of Gilbert Tennent; see Coalter, Milton J. Jr, “The Life of Gilbert Tennent: A Case Study of Continental Pietism's Influence on the First Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1982)Google Scholar, chap. 1.
37. The best biography of Frelinghuysen is Tanis, James, Dutch Calvinistic Pietism in the Middle Colonies: A Study in the Life and Theology of Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (The Hague, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38. A translation of this sermon appears as chap. 1 in Frelinghuysen, Theodorus Jacobus, Sermons by Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, trans. Demarest, William (New York, 1856).Google ScholarTanis, James, Dutch Calvinistic Pietism, p. 183Google Scholar, says that this sermon was preached “before15 June 1721.”
39. Frelinghuysen, , Sermons, pp. 30–31.Google Scholar
40. Loux, Joseph Anthony Jr, ed., Boel's Complaint against Frelinghuysen (Rensselaer, N.Y., 1979), pp. 65, 83, 117.Google Scholar Frelinghuysen himself conceded that they “had not the necessary intelligence” to defend him (ibid., p. 83).
