Tuinstraat 1639

 

The Arrival

Jan Franz Van Husum arrived in Amsterdam sometime between October of 1634 and May of 1639. These two dates separate the Grote Mandrenke, the Great Man Drowning flood and the departure the ship Den Harinck for America with Jan and Volkje aboard. 

During that time Jan and Franz lived on Tuinstraat.

It was the Dutch Golden Age, an era of political, economic, and cultural greatness when the little nation facing the North Sea ranked among the most powerful in the world, sending ships to explore and settle the New World and bring back silks from exotic Japan.

 

Tuinstraat, Amsterdam, Google Earth, 2021

 

Tuinstraat, Jordaan District

Tuinstraat, in Amsterdam's Jordaan district, lies between Lijnbaansgracht and Prinsengracht, running roughly northeast, 500 meters long. Nearby was the new Dutch Reformed Westerkirche (1620-1631) situated between the Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht. Today, Tuinstraat is noted for its proximity to the Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht. 

 

Now considered central Amsterdam, then, in the 17th century, the Jordaan District was new, reclaimed by windmills and canals from the soggy marshlands, a place for immigrants searching for low rents. Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1609), moved to a house on Rozengracht when he could no longer afford to live in the city center. Bloemgracht where Joan Blaeu (1596 –1673) and his father had their bookshop is a few streets south. And not far away were the great merchants’ new and opulent homes on the Herengracht Canal.

 

By the mid-1600s when Jan Franz Van Husum moved to Tuinstraat along with Volkje Van Nordstrand, Amsterdam was lit by a series of lanterns on every bridge and in front of every twelfth house. The Night Watchman, famously painted by Rembrandt, patrolled the streets and canals with his lantern, sword and rattle, with which to sound the alarm. Amsterdam had by now some 400 book shops and people were clamoring for books on travel, like those by Jacob Cats, which added a touch of morality.

In 1688, almost 50 years after Jan and Volkje departed for America, William of Orange and his wife Mary, sister of England’s King James, would embark on a ship headed for England and a Glorious Revolution.

 

James Brewer

The Brewer Family in America has a long history including that of Corporal John Brewer who lived in Sudbury, Massachusetts as early as 1642. The name is not an uncommon one, and suggests that at sometime in the past a distant ancestor brewed ale or some other intoxicating beverage. And whether our present James Brewer is a descendant of Corporal John Brewer or of some other Brewer is not known.

James Brewer (1818-1880)

James Brewer (1818-1880) 

High on the Flint Hills where waters to Hickory Creek and the Little Walnut River form lies the township of Hickory in Butler County.

It was there that our James Brewer brought his wife and four children to in the 1870s. He settled on a claim on the south forks of Hickory Creek on the southwest corner of plat 14-28-7 of Hickory Township. Other families who arrived included the Comstocks, the Armstrongs, Bartholemews, and MacGinnises. The beginnings of a town were started with a general store at Old Brownlow, but that town has since disappeared. Further east at the edge of the long slow slope into Greenwood County is the town of Beaumont which began as a stagecoach stop and became a railroad hub with the coming of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Our James Brewer would not see the coming of the railroad. He died in 1880, nor would he be around for the publication of the Walter McGinnis and I.C. Thomas Atlas of Butler County published the same year.

Hickory Township 1885

Our James Brewer lived two months shy of his allotted time of 70 years and five years before the Santa Fe laid its tracks through Beaumont. His wife Margaret lived on to the age of 79, dying in 1904 at the age of 83. The mail came weekly by horseback from El Dorado. Otherwise it was a quiet life. Homesteaders farmed for a living and took their produce to El Dorado or Augusta.

Wife
Margaret Faubion Brewer 1821–1904

Children
Mary Elizabeth Brewer Crecelius 1846–1928
Melissa Brewer Wilson 1855–1946
Henry Monroe Brewer 1861–1931
Josephine E. Brewer Van Huss 1865–1912

Was life easy?

No!

In 1871 a tornado blew through Butler County pausing to wreck havoc in Hickory Township. The Semishes who were newly arrived in their wagon were blown over but not hurt. Dr. MacGinnis' house, the only one then standing was blown away. In the fall of 1873, a prairie fire consumed all the dry grass and more in the township. Cattle and horse rustlers were afoot, but vigilantes soon put a stop to their bad ways.

The Brewers were neighbors to John Finley Van Huss who also had a farm in Hickory Township. James and Margaret's youngest daughter married John, and they had four children, one of whom was named Fred. He in turn was father to James and Robert, who is my wife's father.

The Brewer family including Josie is buried in beautiful Old Brownlow Cemetery. John Finley Van Huss is buried in the Latham Cemetery.

John Finley Van Huss

Thanks to Melynn for this photograph of John Finley Van Huss and family.

John Finley Van Huss

Latham, Kansas 1909

Big changes were afoot in Butler County Kansas in 1909.

The Ford Model T automobile was making headway in Kansas, but it still shared the dirt roads with the horse and buggy. Telephone wires were strung from town to town, but party lines were still common and a telephone operator connected the call. Test wells were drilled for oil, but the big find was not to be had for a few years. One and two teacher schools dotted the county like wildflowers. Teddy Roosevelt was in his last year as president. Walter R. Stubbs was the Republican governor and he made Kansas dry.

John Finley Van Huss had a farm near Latham, a wife name Josie, and five children, ages five to twenty.

John Finley Van Huss was my wife's great grandfather, grandfather to Robert (Bob) Van Huss. He lived to be 80 years old. He was the youngest son of Valentine Worley Van Huss and Elizabeth Campbell.

Born in 1859 in Carter County, Tennessee, John Finley came to Kansas in the 1870s with his parents in a wagon. He lost his mother in Johnson County, Kansas, before his father and older brothers took up homesteading in Butler County Kansas. Eventually, John took a farm near Latham, Kansas and married the neighbor's daughter, Josie Brewer.

They had five children. The second, Fred Brewer VanHuss (1893-1972) was Bob's father.

Family

John Finley Vanhuss 1859-1939, Marriage: 24 April 1888, Mo.?
Josie or Josephine E Brewer 1865-1912

Children (5)

Beulah Van Huss 1889-1975
Fred Brewer Van Huss 1893-1972
Luva G. Van Huss 1898-1980
Elmer (Van) E. Van Huss 1901-1970
Lois (Jerry) O. Van Huss 1904-1963

What Volkje Jurrianse Nordstrand looked like

Volkje Jurrianse Nordstrand (1618 - 1703)

If Jan Franz Van Husum is the first direct American ancestor of all who bear the name Van Huss, Van Hoesen, Van Hooser, et al, then one should know the name of his wife, Volkje Jurrianse Nordstrand. Volkje meaning "little falcon", Jurrianse meaning daughter of Jurri (English, George), Nordstrand, the place from which she came.

*[Volkje, pronounced like folkie, my interpretation of this name is little falcon, like the Latin "falco". Others might disagree. "Volk" means people, but "little people" seems stupid to me a a girl's name. One other possiblility is "wolf" from the "Proto-Slavic *vьlkъ, from Proto-Indo-European *wĺ̥kʷos," and that points us back to falcon, Frisisan "wikel" where the "w" is pronounced like a "v".]

Of course no one knows what Volkje Jurrianse Nordstrand looked like. There are no photographs for she lived  from 1618 until 1703. Nor are there portrait miniatures in gouache, watercolor, or enamel as a copper locket for Volkje was a simple farm girl from Nordstrand. There are no paintings that hung on the wall of she and her husband Jan Franz Van Husum.

Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl earring

But we can still guess.

She was Dutch or Frisian, not likely Danish, though that might not matter. Families formed tribes, tribes became nations, people migrated, inter-married much like they do today. The island of Nordstrand where she lived with her parents and sister was in the Duchy of Schleswig, politically part of Denmark, but only loosely so. It was settled by many who were Dutch, but in the small villages lived the Frisians who had lived in these islands since the time before Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus who would accommodate them and bring its young men in Roman armies. It is also quite likely that the Frisians were indistinguishable from the Angles and Saxons who invaded England from the fall of the Roman empire until the seventh century. That we know from the linguistic similarity of the Frisian language and Old English.

Blonde hair or brown, blue eyes or brown, probably both types existed within the general population. Tall, medium, or short, thin or stout, anything is possible, so let us look to the old masters for help.

The Milkmaid by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, painted around 1658 when Volkje would have been 40 years old. By this time, Volkje and Jan had left Amsterdam where they lived after the flood of 1634 and sailed to New Holland and settled along the Hudson River in an estate belonging to Van Rensselaer family.

Volkje and her husband Jan learned the bakery trade, so here is a modern interpretation of a young girl and her pancakes.

To add a contemporary image to the mix, I will show you the photograph of the author, poet and linguist Albertina Soepboer.

Albertina Soepboer, copyright hers

Perhaps you will want to check Albertina Soepboer out. Image and poem are hers.


Now let us Visit a Farmhouse, courtesy of Peter Brueghal the younger, circa 1610. A peasant woman is halfway through breast feeding her young before a caldron of boiling beets, in the background the milk is churned into butter.

Lastly, I will leave you with my favorite, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (Dutch, Meisje met de parel) circa 1665.

Dutch, Danish, or Friesii

[Previously discussed in May of this year.]

Joyce Lindstom in her history of the family, VAN HOOSE VAN HOOSER VAN HUSS FAMILY IN AMERICA has identified Jan Fransse Van Husum as the first ancestor of all the Van Hoosers, Van Husses, Van Hoesens, Van Hooesrs, Hoosers in America as well as some thirty variations of the surname.

She explains that Jan was born in 1608 in the city of Husum on the Jutland Peninsula, in the Duchy of Schleswig, then part of Denmark. She goes on saying that Jan was not Dutch as most of us think. Neither was he German, for Husum and the once Duchy of Schleswig and Schleswig-Holstein now finds itself in Germany, even though not by much. He was a Schleswigan, under Danish rule.

 Joyce surmises that, "He spoke low German, probably with a Frisian or Danish dialect."

We shall never rightly know if Joyce was correct. A DNA test of family members might give us some statistical evidence, but Joyce points out that living in Amsterdam, then New Holland and marriage certainly clouds the question. Then too, his wife, Volkje Jurrianse Van Nordstrand was most likely Dutch. Her parents were farmers who settled on the island of Nordstrand. It was an island under the supervision of Dutch hydraulic engineer Jan Adriaanszoon Leeghwater.

What about Danish?

In 1252, King Abel of Denmark took an  army to Husum on account of the fact that the local population refused to pay taxes and recognize Danish authority. A battle took place on the bridge at Husum (Husembro) and King Abel was killed. Old history yes, but it was a long way to Copenhagen from Husum then and now.

[There is no historically old image of King Abel's death, but we have an old sketch of Count Willem II In Hoogwoud, Falls Through The Ice, and killed by West Frisians in 1256.]

Who are these Frisians Joyce talks about?

The Frisians are an ancient people whose existence goes back to Roman times. They inhabited the low lands and marshes along the North Sea coast from the Sheldt River in present day Belgium, along the coast of The Netherlands, and up the western coast of the Jutland Peninsula. These ‘barbarians’ chose to live on the border between land and sea, probably as a means of protection against the Romans and other tribes. To protected themselves against floods they built hills (Dutch and Frisian, halligen) buttressed by logs. Besides farming, they raised cattle and sheep, and no doubt engaged in trade and fishing on the sea. By the time of Caser Augustus, the Frisii seemed to have gathered around the Zuider Zee and east, just outside the reach of Roman authority which ended at the Rhine.

The Frisii reach some form of accommodations with the Romans. Don't bother us, we won't bother you. Then seeing an opportunity for plunder, Frisians joined up as legionnaires to fight in the Roman army. Traces of the Frisian legionnaires have been found at the English towns of Bicester, Burgh-by-Sands, Carrawburgh, Cirencester, Glossop, Hexham, Manchester and Papcastle. note 1

The Roman Empire finally fell in the Fifth Century. The Frisians still lived along the coast. From the fifth century on, it seems the Frisians took part in a general migration to Britain along with the Saxons and Angles. This fact is born out linguistically, as English and the Frisian language are similar. By the seventh and eighth century the Kingdom of Frisia existed along the coast, succumbing for a time to Charlemagne, then battling Vikings, then regaining their independence.

Frisia would fade in time as Holland blossomed. Today the Frisian dialect is spoken in a few areas near the island of Nordstrand and that is all.

I suppose this leaves us with the adage, that history is written by the victors. Jan might have been Frisian or not. He was certainly Dutch (his descendants look Dutch, like those in this painting by Jan Van Husum's contemporary, Rembrandt), he migrated to Amsterdam after the Great Flood of 1634, married, and sailed to New Holland in 1639 where he began a new life as an American.

Husembro

Husum (North Frisian: Hüsem), capital of the Kreis (district) Nordfriesland in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. [Birthplace of Jan Franz Van Husem and Home to families named Van Huss, Van Hoesen, and others].

The town was the birthplace of the novelist Theodor Storm, who coined the epithet "the grey city by the sea". It is also the home of the annual international piano festival Raritäten der Klaviermusik (Rarities of Piano Music) founded in 1986. - variously used on multiple sites

Husum was first mentioned as Husembro in 1252

Abel, son of Valdemar (1218 – 29 June 1252), Duke of Schleswig, 1232 to 1252, and King of Denmark, 1250 until 1252. Died on the bridge at Husem (Husembro).

In 1250, Abel killed his brother Eric and was made king. In 1252, Abel was told that the Frisians who lived along the North Sea coastline refused to pay taxes. Raising an army, King Abel marched to the sea where he met an opposing force of Frisians organized by Sicko Sjaerdema, who gave allegiance to William of Holland.  King Abel's army was defeated at the bridge to Husem (Husembro) and it is reported that he was killed by a wheelwright named Henner.

In 1539, Husem again enters recorded history when it is mapped (inaccurately, as it is placed next to a large lake at the bottom of the Jutland Peninsula and towards the center) for the first time on the Carta Marina in the Frisian (Latin) form of Husem. Swedish map maker Olaus Magnus, initially published in 1539.

 

In 1634 a Great Flood struck the western coast of the Jutland Peninsula causing tens of thousands of deaths and making Husem a port city. This fact is revealed by mapmaker Georg Braun (1541 – 1622) who included a birds-eye view of Husem in his Civitates orbis terrarum (cities of the world).

Husem 1593, mapmaker Braun

Today the river that divides Husum is more of a tidal estuary. The port is removed a mile to the west. The city center is a tourist destination with restaurants lining the river bank watching the tide come and go.

The old bridge around which Husem grew is still there. One can sit and have a glass of wine or beer and think about the battle that took place on this old bridge more than 800 years ago.

From Husum to Helsinore

Jacob Knijff - National Maritime Museum, London (c.1670), image Wikipedia

 

 

Husum to Helsinore

Today, the trip from Husum Germany to Helsinore Denmark takes 4 hours by car, longer if one goes by boat since one must travel north along the Jutland peninsula, past Fredrikshaven and on to the northern point of the island of Zealand. Here is Hamlet's imposing castle overlooking the sea where Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia are separated by a channel of water called Öresund (the Sound) which is no more than two and a half miles.

Hamlet

The closeness sets the political stage for Shakespeare’s play Hamlet in which the underlying fear of a Norwegian invasion is the backdrop for Hamlet’s conflict with his uncle, the new King of Denmark and the king’s wife, Hamlet’s mother.

I mention this purely because Shakespeare’s play may give us insight into the life and times of the Danish people, and, our progenitor, Jan Franz Van Husum (Husum then Danish and the people a mixture of Danes, Dutch, and Frisians). Too disturbing you say, too psychological, too royal for a common sailor like our Jan and his father Franz. Perhaps.

Still, it demonstrates that our ancestors were like us, subject to human passions, to anger, to love, to jealousy and revenge. And life does not always turn out well.

Varengezel 

The marriage certificate of Jan and Volkje
in which he describes himself as a "varengezel"

 

A “varensgezel,” as Jan would later describe himself, is a sailor, a shipmate, a wayfaring journeyman. Such a sailor makes a brier appearance addressing Hamlet’s best friend Horatio:

“Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy; but they knew what they did: I am to do a good turn for them.”

Scholars of Shakespeare have determined that Hamlet was written sometime between 1599 and 1602. This would be a few years before Jan’s birth in 1608 and at time when Jan’s father Franz was of a similar age to Hamlet himself.

Shakespeare speaks

We are all familiar with Hamlet’s soliloquy, “To be or not to be…” It dominates our understanding of the play, but there is much, much more that reveals the everyday thinking of the late 16th century and early 17th century Dane. I will give you two and suggest that you read the play.

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” And, “Listen to many, speak to a few.”

And close with, “Good-night, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”