We Should Remember the First War on Christmas and the Knickerbockers who Fought It

By Bob Ferris

It is interesting to see the current rhetoric about the "War on Christmas" which is being promoted by the most self-righteous and intolerant among us.  These are those who shake, rattle and roll with religion and cannot seem to have any conversation that does not ultimately swing around to some mention of God, Jesus or being saved.   They also seem to be the ones who festoon themselves with all manner of symbols proclaiming their Christianity from cross-shaped earrings and necklaces to devotional t-shirts much as the Puritans wore black and the simple as overt signs of their devotion.

We live in a country with freedom of religion, so fine...great for you.  The operative word being "you." But problems arise when the "you" seeks to include and control "me" and others not "you."  It is instructive to remember that the first War on Christmas on this continent was waged by the Puritans who banned the celebration in 1659.  These folks, unbridled and in full control of government, followed up that enlightened action a generation and half later by hanging witches including one of my long-ago grandmothers, Mary Towne Estey, on my mother's side.

Now I will admit to having double-dipped Puritan roots in that both my mother and father descend from families on the Mayflower so I cannot escape genetic responsibility but I am likely more proud of those who resisted this prohibition and understood the social value of a time-honored and frequently-pagan celebration at this time of year to chase away the frozen cobwebs of our souls.   Perhaps the laughter and frivolity of it all was a type of early Vitamin D surrogate.

Enter ancestors Annetjie Loockermans Van Cortlandt and her daughter Maria.  The former is rumored to have celebrated Christmas openly in the New Netherlands colony and the latter certainly did as we have the above receipt from Walter the Baker (Wouter Albertsz) from 1675 which includes types of cookies that were essentially Saint Nicholas treats.  It is important to note here also that the wife of Clement Moore, Catherine Elizabeth Taylor, who wrote "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (now know as "Twas the Night Before Christmas") also descended from Annetjie and her husband Olaff Van Cortlandt.  Way to go knickerbockers!

For me there are number of lessons in all of this.  First, is that there is an almost universal need throughout cultures and belief systems to celebrate something when the skies are darkest and the days most short.  We should do so regardless of our beliefs.   It matters less what you celebrate and more that you do celebrate.  So kick up your heels and do something.

Moreover, these celebrations work best on a landscape of honesty and tolerance not one that waits anxiously to pounce on the newest Starbuck's cup design or a friendly, more inclusive seasonal greeting.   Sure you can emulate the Puritans and push for a "pure" Christmas but you should also remember that you probably do so while talking about some variant of Saint Nicholas which in its purest form includes mention of the walking-lump-of-stocking-coal known as the Krampus marching in the above video.

Your celebration also likely involves a decorated tree with complicated and convoluted roots both in Paganism and Christianity.  Sure Martin Luther is credited in some circles with this "tree" idea but golly the Vikings, Romans, Egyptians, and Chinese used it also in pre-Christian times.  (And don't even get me started on the Druids.)  Even the two Judeo-Christian holy days are named either for the sun or for the god Saturn.  My point being that no matter how pure we think ourselves, we are products of many cultures and beliefs (take a DNA test).  So why not celebrate the season with curiosity and wonder rather than hatred and spite?

Theodore Roosevelt, also a descendant of Annetje Loockermans (as are the acting Fondas and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton), was one of at least three presidents who was not holding a Bible while sworn into office.

And, finally, patriotism in this nation, which seems to be incorrectly connected with religion far too often, should start with knowing your county's history not rewriting it to conform to your beliefs.  The Founding Fathers and early settlers were from families that generally had suffered when a church or churches had too much power over them.  They were often Huguenots persecuted by Catholics.  They were also Catholics or Quakers chased out of Virginia and other colonies by Anglicans and Presbyterians.  Or even Jews and so-called Musselmen (Muslims) that took hits from all sides. Therefore, the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to provide for religious freedom regardless of religion.  We should honor that and fight efforts to pull that principle asunder.

"Oh blessed Season! Lov'd by Saints and Sinners/ for long Devotions, or for longer Dinners." Benjamin Franklin 1739

I am with old Ben: Celebrate the season for whatever reason, whoever you are, and in your own manner.  For me my inner knickerbocker seeks some ancient memory more than a century before the sleigh lithograph (at top) when Captain Petrus Douw and his wife Anna Van Rensselaer (granddaughter of Maria Van Cortland) lived at Wolven Hoeck (Wolf Corner) and drove sleighs on the frozen river where their son Volkert Petrus Douw later raced his famous horse "Sturgeon" to victory across the softened ice.  I wonder what it was like to spend Christmas in this manor house (see below) where Indian treaties were signed, a barrel of spiced wine sat, and the stone above the entry door was incised with the initials PD and AVR.  Happy Holidays all!

 

The Confusing Cousins of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton

By Bob Ferris

My wife was playing Hamilton songs this morning and dancing around the kitchen.  She asked me about Philip Schuyler and his daughters as one of them married Alexander Hamilton (see above).  My response was something about the historic figure and the claim that we were somehow related.   And her response was: How?

Whew.  I guess the easy answer would be to say that we are distant cousins of a sort.  But that is inadequate, because it implies a single set of common ancestors, which is not what we have.  My family’s links come from both what I would call the Ferris (F) and Ramsay (R) side and there a many.  Those highlighted in the links below are direct ancestors we share with Elizabeth through five generation of Colonial America.  

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (1757-1854)

Parents 

Philip Schuyler (1733-1804)

Catherine Van Rensselaer (1734-1803)

Grandparents 

Col. Johannes Van Rensselaer (1708–1783) 

Engeltie "Angelica" Livingston (1698–1747)

Johannes ("John") Schuyler Jr. (1697–1741) 

Cornelia Van Cortlandt (1698–1762)

Great Grandparents 

Hendrick Van Rensselaer (1667-1740)

Catherine Annetje Van Brugh (1665-1730)

Robert Livingston "The Younger" (1663-1725)

Margarita Schuyler (1682-Unk.)

Johannes Schuyler (1668–1747) 

Elizabeth (née Staats) Wendell (1647–1737)

Stephanus van Cortlandt (1643-1700)

Geertruyd (Gertruj) Schuyler (1654-1719) 

Great-Great Grandparents 

Jeremias Kiliaen van Rensselaer (1632-1674)

Maria van Cortlandt (1645-1689)

Johannes Pieterszen Van Brugh, I (1624-1699)

Trijntgen Roeloffs (1629-1684) 

James Livingston (1646–1673)

UNK

Pieter Schuyler (1657-1724)

Engeltie Van Schaick (1659-1689)

Philip Pieterse Schuyler (1628-1683)

Margarita Van Slichtenhorst (1628–1711)

Abraham Staats (1620-1694)

Trijntje "Catharina" Jochems (1621–1703)

Olof Stevense van Cortlandt (1617-1684)

Annetje Loockermans (1618-1684)

I guess the winners in the gene pool contest—if there was one—would be Philip and Margarita Schuyler who are the parents of Pieter, Johannes and Geertuyd Schuyler.  This makes them both great-great grandparents and great-great-great grandparents of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton.  But what does this sharing of descent from seventy-five percent of Elizabeth's great-great grandparents make the relationship? Distant cousins?  Sure, but also part of the genetic confusion that was Early America, particularly in the former Dutch colony.

(Note: First cousins would normally expect to share 8 out of 16 great-great grandparents.)

American Dreaming

By Bob Ferris

Three feet from where I write sits a nondescript, rectangular cardboard box.  It was shipped to me by my late father a few years before he passed.  It was done with little fanfare and was not insured or bubble-wrapped.  But in it rests nearly two dozen volumes many of which are from James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales—a collection of first or second editions owned by my ancestor Col. John De Peyster Douw (1812-1901) and in our family for five generations.  I do not display them as they have fire-blackened spines and resemble more crinkly, late-fall leaves than fully functioning books.   But they are there still for me to occasionally contemplate if not actually read and hold.  They are a heart of sorts, unseen but functioning.

These books come to mind now for two reasons.  The first is that I recently had a conversation with my wife Carlene about Jane Austen.  Which caused me to think about Cooper because the one catalyzed the other in that Cooper’s writing career is rumored to have come out of a spousal challenge when James’ wife Susan was critical of Jane Austen.   The end result of my conversation was that my wife and I agreed that both Austen and Cooper were first and foremost trying to shape culture.  Austen was attempting to point those of a certain social standing in England towards an enlightened view of themselves and Cooper was trying to tell a young country how it should be.

It is important in this to understand that Cooper was wholly American having been born the same year the US Constitution was ratified in his eventual home of New York State. And Baby James was just ten days old when the Bill of Rights was adopted.  Cooper’s early breaths were essentially drawn from the same air that dried the ink on these documents.  He was truly and purely “Born in the USA” nearly two centuries before Bruce Springsteen wrote his iconic song.  Interestingly, Cooper and Springsteen were both born in New Jersey150 years to the month apart.  And “The Boss” was delivered to us in Monmouth County an area named for my Morris ancestors' Welsh homelands which brings me to reason two for my thinking of these books (see also Penelope Van Princis Stout).  

The second reason has to do with my ancestor Lewis Morris III and his half-brother Gouverneur Morris.  Lewis signed the Declaration of Independence and Gouverneur word-smithed much of the US Constitution including the Preamble.  Gouverneur reportedly coined the words "We, the People" in response to states not playing well in the developing political sandbox first sketched in pencil by the Articles of Confederation.  My position in that particular realm is that the younger Morris was not so much describing America in the Preamble but offering up a vision statement of what America should be.  Its preferred state not the current one.

Although the US Constitution has been criticized because it initially allowed abuses inconsistent with its verbiage and Cooper’s writings discounted as they are somewhat mythical rather than truly reflective or accurate, I think those critics might miss the point.  My sense is that Morris and Cooper were both trying to give hints about how American should be.  In this I get mentally whipsawed by attempting to differentiate between myth and dream.  I tend to gravitate more toward these being dreams pulling us along a path to a bright future as opposed to myths which seem more like anchors.

Much is made in these literary critiques about the myth of American Exceptionalism (1,2,3).  How Cooper somehow wanted to create this myth in these books.  A bit of literary manipulation.  I wonder where the sin is in this?  Who doesn't want to encourage the young and just-forming on to greatness. The fault, if there is fault, might be more with us for not living up to the promise of our young selves, particularly now.  But these are analyses for those more keen on this topic and better trained in this arena.   

"The Wolvenhoeck house was surrounded by a circular stockade. It stood twelve feet high, and was made of oak posts which had been pointed and bolted to transverse timbers, having a gate, pointed on both the upper and lower sides, which was raised by weights in a gallows frame. Many Indian treaties were executed inside this little stockade, and at such times the chiefs and their squaws slept on their buffalo robes inside the limits, while their band found shelter under the trees along the river bank."  See here for more complete description.  

Back to this collection of books and who owned and read them.  Col. John De Peyster Douw was an interesting fellow who descended from several prominent Dutch families that came early to the New World.  His father of the same name served in the Revolutionary War participating in the Clinton-Sullivan Campaign of 1779 after graduating from Yale in 1776.  John Sr. was a friend of General Lafayette’s and as a result his near-teen-aged son was for a time part of the Lafayette’s body guard during the Frenchman’s last visit to the United States (1824-1825). John Sr. was the son of Volkert Douw who also served during the Revolution in various capacities and grew up on an estate known as Wolvenhoeck (Wolf Point) often visited by wolves and Indians. 

DeWitt Clinton Locomotive circa 1831. 

After attending Albany Academy, Flushing Military Academy on Long Island and the Chittenago Polytechnic  Institute, young John worked for a year as an engineer on the Albany-Schenectady Railroad before traveling to Europe.  Upon his return he studied law like his father and became a Judge Advocate with the New State Militia eventually serving in the administration of Governor William H. Seward who went on to be Lincoln's Secretary of State.  He seemed to retire from these activities in the mid-1840s.

Fort Crailo the home of Hendrick and Catherina Van Rensselaer named for the Van Rensselaer ancestral estate in Holland and purportedly the site where the ditty "Yankee Doddle" was written. 

Col. John was a man of means who had real no need of a profession. His grandmother was a Van Rensselaer, the original founders of the Dutch colony in the New World, and at the time of his birth his family had been in North America nearly two centuries.   I will note that it is not easy dealing with Van Rensselaer genealogy as they tended to marry within the family often choosing first cousins once removed for mates.  In this case, Col. John descended from two children of Hendrick and Catherina Van Rensselaer: Anna and Killiaen. But he also descends from two children of Petrus and Anna Douw (Maria and Volkert) who also descend from Hendrick and Catherina making Maria Douw both his grandmother and great-aunt.  It must work on some level because Petrus and Anna are also the great-great grandparents of Herman Melville of Moby Dick fame.   

From biography of Herman Melville.  Maria in this case was Herman's mother and Gansevoort is Herman's elder brother. 

In light of the above it is not surprising that Col. John married first his cousin Margaret Schuyler Van Rensselaer in 1837.  They had two children before divorcing or separating in 1851 (Melville biographer Hershel Parker mentioned that a relative called De Peyster's second marriage "dubious" pp. 204).  

Marianna Chandler Lanman Douw

Given his family's innate predilection for grabbing what was close and related it is hard to imagine how he and his second wife Marianna Chandler Lanman who was living in Connecticut came together to have five children, but they did.   Marianna who was born in Monroe, Michigan in 1826 was the daughter of a woman who survived the infamous Frenchtown Massacre during the War of 1812.  Whew.

Inside the cover of Col. John's copy of the Spy we find these clippings which indicate that this book passed through the hands of his daughter Mary Lanman Douw Ferris who was notorious for pasting clippings on everything (see here for more on Cornelius Van Wyck).   

The Douws before Col. John and beyond seemed to spread rather than migrate and nearly all that time they sat near the center of commerce and in places of power.  All this presupposes that his library was the result of accumulation and likely extensive. John and his relatives were astute people familiar with war, wildlife, Indians, America’s history and things of a pioneer nature. But they bought, read and collected these books including some of Cooper's non-fiction works talking about the nature of America.  Then they passed them on. Why?  These were not people who needed to be told about the American experience.  They lived it.  Yet they were clearly Cooper fans of a type.  Part of this could be that Cooper told thinly-veiled histories of their own stories, but I think too that they were interested in thinking about the dream and their part in it.