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.

 

Tuinstraat, Amsterdam

Getting Married

Prior to setting sail in May of 1639 for America, Jan Van Husum and Volkje Juriaens lived on Tuinstraat in Amsterdam. This fact comes from the marriage certificate kept in the Nieuwe Kerk where they were married, dated April 30th, 1639.

Detail of marriage Certificate of Jan Franz Van Husum and Volkje Juriaens

[Note. One immediately notices that there are variations in spellings of names and places. Jan's name is spelled "Jan Franz Van Housum". Volkje's name is spelled "Volckje Juriaens dr van Noortstrandt". Tuinstraat is spelled "Tuijnstraat." Spelling conventions have changed over time. Moreover, spelling may depend on whether the language is Dutch, German, of English.]

Tuinstraat, Amsterdam

Tuinstraat (meaning "Garden Street") can still be found in Amsterdam, near the Dam Platz and the Niewe Kerk where Jan and Volkje were married. From the Dam Platz, head past Rembrandt's studio towards the Jordaan District.It is not too far from the Anne Frank House.

The marriage certificate's reference to "Corte" (Spanish for courtyard) likely refers to courtyard. Keep in mind that the Dutch provinces were once part of the Spanish empire, not achieving formal independence until 1649, ten years after the newly weds left.

Dam Platz and New Church, 1659, Jacob van der Ulft, Musee Condee, Chantily

The couple married in the relatively close Nieuwe Kirk located in the Domplatz.

The Marriage of Jan Franz Van Housum and Volckje Jurriaens van Nordstrandt

Jan Franz Van Husum (Housum) and Volkje Juriaens (Jurriaens) married in Amsterdam on April 30, 1639. At the time, they were living on Tuinstraat, near the Dam Platz, with its Royal Palace and the Nieue Kirk where the ceremony took place. The church they were married in was devastated by fire in 1645 and rebuilt in its present day Gothic style.

The couple was married in the Dutch Reformed Church.

The marriage ceremony was performed under the rites of the Dutch Reformed Church, which reflects the fact that Holland was in the midst of its own Protestant Reformation. The Dutch Reformed Church was a more tolerant version of Lutheranism which held sway in large sections of northern Europe. And Lutheranism was a more tolerant version of Christ's teaching than Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic faith was the official religion of Holland ruled by the Spanish, who were then fighting the Dutch people for political control.

The Translation

The marriage certificate is written in Old Dutch using Gothic script, also called Blackletter. As with any old document, spellings may vary. The first few words, "Compareerdey als woren, literally translates as "Appearing as before," but is used in the sense "Present for signing.".

The certificate translates as follows:

                                              On 30 April 1639

Present for signing Jan Franz Van Housum, sailor, age 30, living in Corte Tuijnstraat, having no parents but assisted by his cousin, Anna Jans, and Volckje Juriaens, from Noortstrant, age about 21, of the same address and having no parents, but assisted by her acquaintance Isaack Pietersen.

Requesting their three Sundays' proclamation, in order to have the before mentioned marriage solemnized and consummated, in so far as there are no lawful objections made, and if fully that they are free persons, and not related by blood, whereby a Christian marriage could be prevented, such grounds do not exist, their banns are allowed.

The translation with a few minor variations comes from the site Vanhoose History and Joyce Lindstrom's Book on the Van Huss Family in America. I would not include the word daughter after Volckje Jurianes name, preferring to think that "dr" or "dv"  is short hand for "de van" meaning, from the, or the French "de" which also means from. The word "bekende" or acquaintence probably better translates as witness. The word sailor probably comes from the Dutch word "varensgezel", but the spelling seems to have changed. It might also translate simply as sea man or boats man.

In research Jan is often referred to as a sailor, but I have not come across any references to his sails except on the Den Harinck, the ship the two of them sailed on in going to America. Once in America the couple settled in Beverwyck (today's Albany, New York) up the Hudson River, and Jan became a businessman and property owner.

Jan's home in Amsterdam, Corte Tuijnstraat, is a location that still exists. "Corte" is a Spanish word for court, a holdover from the fact that Holland was then part of the Spanish Netherlands.Google Map.

The Anne Frank House is just a minute away from Tuinstraat, and it is a ten minute walk to Nieuwe Kerk on Dam Square where the couple married. The church burned down six years after the marriage, and a new church was built at the same location in Gothic style. (See images of the New Church in Amsterdam).

Nortstrandt, Noortstrand, Nordstrand

Volckje's former address "von Noortstrand" refers to the island of Nordstrand. (Again, the spelling depends on the language. Variations also entered over time, just as with Van Husum to Van Huss.) The island is part of the chain of islands that made up North Friesland. Don't confuse these islands with Friesland which is a part of Holland.

On a modern map of the North Sea, these islands are located to the east of Amsterdam, north of Germany, and off the western coast of Denmark. I have included Von Blaeu's map of the area made after the flood. The smaller detail below shows the flooded areas of the island with small horizontal dashes.

The town of Husum, not on the map, is located by the sea to the east of the island of Nortstrandt. The island and the city both suffered greatly in the flood of 1634. this same flood killed Volckje's parents and probably was the calamity that brought the couple together, as Volckje was taken to Husum after the flood.

Map by Von Blaeu and detail, showing the island of Nortstandt (Nordstrand), shortly after the flood of 1634.


*
The fact that Jan was called Van Housum at all was principally to distinguish him from other Jans and the inclusion of the name Fransse or Franz designated his father. When looking at Dutch records in America, one will again come across the tendency to use a place name to distinguish individuals. Thus, I came across one "Jan Pieterson Van Husum" in looking at the records of New Netherlands, but it was clearly a different individual.

Volckje or Volkje's father was called Juriens, and she hailed from the island of Noortstaat (Nordstrand). There were other Juriens in the same colony where Jan and Volckje lived. One Captain Juriens later came under their care.

Dutch or Deutsch

This article should be revised over time.

In her history of  the VAN HOOSE VAN HOOSER VAN HUSS FAMILY IN AMERICA, Joyce Lindstrom states:

Jan Frantz Van Husum wasn't Dutch as many people have supposed. Neither was he German. He was a Schleswigan subjected to Danish rule. He spoke low German, probably with a Frisian or Danish dialect. However, after three generations of living among the Dutch settlers in New Netherlands, his descendants gradually became Dutch by association. There were also more emigrants in New Netherlands who were Danish, Frisian and Schleswigan than Dutch.

At a gut level, I have doubted this thought primarily because the strong Dutch characteristics prominent in any of the paintings by Rembrandt, Hals, or Vermeer, are also visible in the facial features of my wife's father and the other ancient images of Van Husses, Vanhoosers, and Van Hoesens that have been saved over the years.These features include the angular nose, the sharp chin, the brown eyes and hair, and, over time, the silver hair that comes with age. To walk among the paintings of the great Dutch masters in the Rijksmuseum, one sees the merry and sometimes somber faces of the Van Huss men and women. Rijksmuseum.

Then as now, populations were constantly on the move and the peninsula now called Jutland, where the province of Schleswig and the town of Husum are located, was no exception to the forces of history and events. As pointed out in Cor Snabel's story of the Nordstrand flood of 1634, the area was ravaged by the bubonic plague in 1603, then thrown into the turmoil of the Thirty Years War in 1613, and, worst of all, subjected to a catastrophic flood in 1634 that forever altered the landscape and the lives of the Jan Van Husum and his bride to be Volkje Juriens.

Frisia from Wikipedia

A broad historical overview of the area give us the impression that the people who lived in the area were like the tides of the ocean subject to the forces of nature. The Romans called the tribes who inhabited the area Jutes, hence the name Jutland. The area's geographical significance was in the fact that the peninsula was a conduit for the transfer of goods between the Baltic and Russia to the east with the Rhine River valley and the Atlantic to the west. During the Middle Ages, the Danes established Viking control of the area. And even today, the northern part of Jutland remains Danish territory.

But, as Joyce Lindstrom observes there was one other group that figured predominantly in the region, the Frisians. Roman history records that the Frisii began settling the area along the northern coast of present day Netherlands and northwestern Germany around 400 B.C.. Ethnically, they were a Germanic people who spoke Frisian, a language related to the English. Like those who live in the area today, the Frisians struggled with the North Sea, constructing their homes on terps, man-made hills. They gained their living both from the sea, but also from the small farms they built where they kept their cattle and sheep.

There is a good discussion of  the Frisian language, still spoken by a few people on North Frisian Language,Wikipedia.

The Netherlands and the people we call the Dutch includes a much larger area than that indicated on the map. Instead, today's Netherlands are what was known as the United Provinces who rose in revolt against their Spanish overlords during the Eighty Years War.

Joyce Lindstrom is likely correct that Jan and his wife Volkje spoke a form of German. But, the distinction between German and Dutch is more one of dialect than distinct linguistic differences. In any event, the people who lived and worked along the North Frisian islands that included Nordstrand and the town of Husum, likely thought of themselves more as Dutch than German.

We know this for many reasons. First, name spellings of Jan and Volkje are common Dutch spellings and not German. The German spelling is typically Johann, but sometimes Jan or even Hans. Moreover, Jan Fransse Van Husum is the Dutch spelling. Even more telling is the name Volkje, which in Dutch means folk or common people. The German spelling is "volk" as in Volkswagen. Volkje family name Juriens, sometimes spelled "Juriaens", is often found in Holland, less so among Germans.

Other evidence of the Dutch association comes from the excellent historical article of the Flood of 1634 by
Cor Snabel, mentioned above. The flood of which Cor Snabel speaks must rank as one of the most catastrophic of that century. More than 15,000 people lost their lives, and on the island of Norstrand, where Volkje lived with her parents and sister, more than 6,000 died. Whole cities were washed away, the island of Norstrand was inundated and broken up into three smaller islands. Farm lands, which were covered by sea water, were ruined, with the result that many farmers packed up and left.

map of Nordstrand by Johannes Blaeu 1652

What Cor Snabel tells us is that four years prior to the flood, the German prince then ruling (he replaced a Danish ruler in 1627 during the Thirty Years War), hired a Dutch overseer, Jan Adriaansz Leegwater, who lived in the town of  Dagebull, a few miles north of Husum. His recounting of the terrible details of the flood and the names of the victims indicates that most if not all of the victims were Dutch in ancestry.

On the day before All Saint’s in the year 1634, when I was working as an engineer and a surveyor in the Bottschloter project, a big southwesterly storm came from the sea. At seven or eight in the evening, I visited the house of master carpenter Pieter Jansz, who was from Friesland, and who worked on a big new sluice in the project I was supervising.

Leeghwater continues, describing the aftermath of the flood.

Next morning, we saw and heard that all 37 houses of the workers were washed away, including all the people therein. Dikes, which had held up for more than 100 years, were destroyed. That day I took a boat and sailed to the village Dagebüll. The priest told me that the water had reached the level of almost five feet within the church, where people had found shelter. The house of master carpenter Pieter Jansz and the house of Pauwels Harmensz, where I had been before the storm, were vanished. Pieter Jansz and his wife and children had drowned, as had Pauwels Harmensz and his servant, who had accompanied me to my house. And there is more: early in the morning, my house was washed from the dike. The mansion was severely damaged, the cellar was like a ruin, and all the wine and beer had washed away. Big sea ships were stranded on high dikes, as I have seen myself. Several ships were stranded in the higher streets of Husum. I’ve been on the beaches, where I have seen horrible things. Countless dead bodies of people and animals, along with beams of houses, smashed wagons and lots of wood, straw and rubbish.

Aside from these few facts, we know that after the flood Volke was taken to the city of Husum. She met Jan, they moved to Tuinstraat in the city of Amsterdam.  The word "corte" is Spanish for court or section - not unusual since the Spanish had ruled the area for years. Tuijnstraat or Tuinstraat, as it is now spelled, is still to be found in Amsterdam, close to Anne Frank's House.

In 1639 Jan and Volkje embarked on a voyage to the New World. Whether Jan Fransse Van Husum was Dutch or Deutsch by birth, he certainly became Dutch by association, and to anyone who knows Bob Van Huss, it is the Dutch in him that we see.

Disaster - the Flood of 1634

If you are looking for the event that brought Jan Fransse Van Husum and Volkje Juriens together than it is surely the flood of October 11, 1634. This flood was one for the history books. It struck the island of Nordstrand and the neighboring coastal town of Husum on the night. Thousands of lives were lost.

Hardest hit were the North Frisian Islands off the western coast of Schleswig. Among these was the island of Nordstrand where Volkje lived with her parents and sister Annetje. Jan live in the neighboring port city of Husum.

Much has been written by Joyce Lindstrom and others as to whether Jan and Volkje were Frisians, Dutch, German, or even Danish. I doubt there is a simple answer. Originally, the area was settled by the ancient Frisians who were know as far back as Roman times. Then again, by 1634, the area had been settled by numerous Dutch immigrants who were in the process of reclaiming land from the sea with the use of dykes and windmills. After the flood of 1634, hundreds, if not thousands, of survivors made their way to Amsterdam. A number of these emigrated to America.

The storm was intense. Dikes, which had held up for more than 100 years, were destroyed. Over 6,000 people died, dozens of towns were washed away. The island of Nordstand, where 16 year old Volkje lived with her parents and sister, was inundated and broken up into several smaller islands.The town of Husum, just to the east of Nordstrand, was likewise devastated. Farms were rendered useless by the salt water that covered the fields and saturated the ground.

Volkje parents did not survive the storm. Afterwards, she was taken to the neighboring town of Husum. There she met Jan Fransse Van Husum.

The map, dated 1652, to the left is by Johannes Blaeu. The large island of Nordstrand was submerged and broken up into several smaller islands. Blaeu's map shows the majority of the island still underwater in 1652. Those who survived went back to the ancient custom of building houses on a hillock as a defense against the floods.

A chilling eye-witness account of the storm exists. Cor Snabel's story of the Nordstrand flood of 1634.

There was nothing left in Husum and Nordstrand for Jan and Volkje. Later records would reveal that land reclaimed by the sea not recovered by owners reverted to the state. Other settlers were brought in in order to reclaim former lands.

At some point, Jan and Volkje would move to Corte Tuijnstraat in Amsterdam. The word "corte" is Spanish for court or section, and the street (straat) Tuijnstraat still can be found in Amsterdam. The street is just around the corner from the Anne Frank House. It is a little further to the house of  Rembrandt van Rijn, who was then an up and coming painter. Rembrandt married his bride Saskia in the same year as the flood.And in 1639, bride and groom purchased a house on the Jodenbreestraat. Unhappily, Saskia would die two years later.

Jan and Volkje's marriage fared better. In 1639, they would marry in the Nieuwe Kirk of the Dutch Reformed Church. Within months, Jan and Volkje were on their way to New Amsterdam, then to Upstate New York.

There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people living in the United States who owe their lives to the flood of 1634. My father in law and wife are among the group. Interestingly, Gary Boyd Roberts in Ancestors of American Presidents, p. 13, 269, lists Jan Fransse Van Husum as the sixth great-grandfather of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., 26th President of the United States of America.