Voyages to New Amsterdam and Curacao

Here are voyages (and related events) to and from New Amsterdam and Curacao from Sept 1646 to Dec 1648. Note that Kath is also spelled de Kath, Kat, Kadt, Cath, or Cat in the various accounts:
14 Sep 1646, Curaçao: Ship Wapen van Nieu Nederlandt arrives in Curaçao and will depart for New Amsterdam.

1647, Amsterdam: Ship Witte Doffer sails to New Amsterdam.
11 May 1647, New Amsterdam: With a fleet of 4 ships, new Director-General Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam by way of the Caribbean island Curaçao (also a part of New Netherland and which he formerly commanded). The Princess Amelia (also called Princess) sailed from Texel (near Amsterdam) on 25 Dec 1646. The Groote Gerrit [Great Crow] under command of Paulus Leendertzen van der Grift likely accompanied the Princess Amelia. Kath [Cat] and Swol [Swallow] probably sailed later and rendezvoused at Curaçao.
1647 May 31. Bill of sale of the ship Amandare, by Peter Stuyvesant, director of
New Netherland, to Thomas Broughton, and charter of the same,
to go to Boston, Isaac Allerton of New Amsterdam and Thomas
Willett of New Plymouth, being securities

5 Jun 1647, New Amsterdam: Ship Wapen van Nieu Nederlandt is in port and will sail for Amsterdam. June 6. Power of attorney. William de Key, merchant, and Jan Claesen
Snial, skipper of the Arms of New Netherland, to Isaac Allerton,
to sell horses on their account in Virginia.

6 Jun 1647, New Amsterdam: The council orders the  West India Company ships Groote Gerrit, De Kath and De Liefde [Love] to be made ready to go to sea as privateers against the Spanish.
Unknown dates, New Amsterdam. Groote Gerrit sails to “…Boston in the English Virginia with a load of salt…”. A frigate from Medenblick arrives. Hercules, with skipper Cornelis Claessen Snoo, arrives. Ship Tamarande is sold.

24 Jun 1647, New Amsterdam: ship de Princes is in port. [probably Pincess Amelia]

5 Jul 1647, New Amsterdam: Thomas Broughton buys ship ‘T Amandaree (“arrived here from Brazil”) from the West India Company and will sail to Boston. He borrows some crew and will return them to Groote Gerrit in Boston.

26 Jul 1647, New Amsterdam: Liefde is in port.

2 Aug 1647, New Amsterdam: Prins Willem is in port.

10 Aug, 1647, New Amsterdam: The ship St. Beninjo, under master Cornelis Claessen Snoo, is charged with smuggling.

14 Aug 1647, New Amsterdam: Valckenier is in port.

16 Aug 1647, New Amsterdam:  Princess Amelia departs New Amsterdam and sinks in the Bristol Channel on 27 Sep 1647.

21 Sept 1647: Stuyvesant sells Swol to the vice-governor of New Haven. 

Before 6 Oct 1647: Valckenier [Falconer] leaves for Amsterdam.

1647: The yacht Siruen when seized by the Swedes on the South River in 1647 was carrying six guns and 60 lbs. of powder.

Oct 1648: When the Dutch crew delivers Swol to New Haven on a Sunday, they execute a plan to seize the disputed Dutch ship St. Beninjo and sail it back to New Amsterdam to answer the charge of smuggling.

19 Feb 1648, Curaçao: Vice_Director Roodenborch writes Stuyvesant that Groote Gerrit was damaged by a storm and sickness has rendered the crews of Cath and Liefde unfit for duty. The letter goes by way of Boston [presumably on an English ship].

7 Apr 1648, Amsterdam: The company officials in Amsterdam write a letter to Stuyvesant . Included are these passages: “The bearer hereof, Wm. Thomassen, skipper of the ‘Valckenier’ [Falconer] and Peter Cornelissen, master of the ‘Pynappel’ [or Pijnappel, Pineapple], who takes out the duplicate of this letter… We send you a list of all the free men, whom we have given permission to go over on each ship…”

14 Apr 1648, New Amsterdam: The council receives Rodenborch’s  letter of 19 Feb.
15 Apr 1648: Kath captures a Spanish ship in the Caribbean.

17 Apr 1648, New Amsterdam: Nieu Swol [New Swallow] arrives from Amsterdam.

20 Apr 1648, New Amsterdam: The council dispatches Nieu Swol to Curaçao.
23 Apr 1648, New Amsterdam: Kath arrives in New Amsterdam with captured Spanish ship.

10 May 1648, Boston: John Winthrop’s Journal records that three ships arrived from London in a single day.

22 May 1648, Boston: John Winthrop’s Journal: “This year corn was very scarce, and so it was in all Europe. Our scarcity came by occasion of our transporting much to the West Indies, and the Portugal and Spanish islands.” Implies frequent trade with the Caribbean.
4 Jun 1648, Boston: John Winthrop’s Journal: “At this court one Margaret Jones of Charlestown was indicted and found guilty of witchcraft, and hanged for it....The same day and hour she was executed, there was a very great tempest at Connecticut, which blew down many tress, etc....A vessel [under command of Master Bull] of Connecticut being the last winter at Quorasoe [Curacao]...”
23 Jun 1648, New Amsterdam: “…they detained Verbrugge’s ship ‘den Valckenier’ (The Falconer) as it arrived from the Netherlands and searched it for contraband or smuggled goods.”
2 Jul 1648, New Amsterdam: The council gives 30-day public notice of the auction of the Spanish bark Nostra Singnora (Sic) Rosario, “…laden with hides, captured in the Caribbean by Hans Wyer, the honorable company’s captain on the yacht de Cat…”

2 Jul 1648, New Amsterdam: Fiscaal  [sheriff] Hendrick van Dyck charges the “…crew of Kat who captured the prize below Margarita…” with finding some pieces of eight and pearls and dividing them among themselves instead of reporting the discovery to the company. Because of the scarcity of crew and the immediate need for salt, the company pardoned the crew yet confiscated their share of the prize money if they would sail to the West Indies.
Before 18 Jul 1648, New Amsterdam: Pijnappel [Pynappel, Pineapple] arrives from Amsterdam.

20 Jul 1648, New Amsterdam: Council orders the captured ship to be made ready to sail to Curaçao for a load of salt.

Before 5 Aug 1648, New Amsterdam: Prins Willem arrives from Amsterdam. [Editor’s Note: A plausible scenario is that Penelope sailed from Amsterdam to Curaçao on either Valckenier, Pijnappel or Prins Willem and then changed ships at Curaçao. Perhaps her husband was sick.]

After 31 Aug 1648, New Amsterdam: Valckenier departs for Amsterdam.
12 Sep 1648, Gravesend, Long Island: Penelloppey Prince testifies in a slander trial.
After 23 Sep 1648, New Amsterdam: Pijnappel departs for Amsterdam.

9 Nov 1648, New Amsterdam: Council receives a report, “Whereas the yacht De Cath, of which Jeuryaen Andries was master, arrived here from Curaçao with a cargo inside Sandy Hook, otherwise called Godyn Point, in a safe port and, the wind being contrary, tried to tack to before Fort Amsterdam, said yacht, in tacking, stranded on a sand bank with such force that notwithstanding all effort it could not be brought off, except the effects which were in and on her, inclusive of the masts; only, by the splitting of the ship, a quantity of salt was dissolved.” The council notes that the value of the salvage was sufficient to pay the crew. [Editor’s note: How long does it take to salvage the wreck and account for the money? The council minutes often report on things that happened much earlier.]
in 1648 the ship de Liefde of something just over 100 tons burden carried [a crew of ]16 on a
voyage to Barbados. 

The point I'm trying to make is that there was a lot of shipping other than just direct routes between Amsterdam and New Amsterdam. Not to mention ships to and from Virginia and New England.

Conjecture #4: Penelope sailed on de Kath, which wrecked in the summer of 1648

Margaret Thomas Buchholz’s book New Jersey Shipwrecks: 350 Years in the Graveyard of the Atlantic opens with a vignette of Penelope’s shipwreck and claims it’s the first one known along the New Jersey coast. However, she doesn’t list ships by name until 1731 and even our favorite nameless shipwreck is lifted from H. F. Stout’s book Stout and Allied Families.

Kath is the First Documented Wreck in New Jersey

But Ms. Buchholz has a point. The first documented shipwreck is the Dutch West India Company’s ship de Kath (whose name is spelled many different ways), whose salvage report is recorded in the New Amsterdam Council Minutes on 9 Nov 1648 as follows:

        “Whereas the yacht De Cath, of which Jeuryaen Andries was master, arrived here from Curaçao with a cargo inside Sandy Hook, otherwise called Godyn Point, in a safe port and, the wind being contrary, tried to tack to before Fort Amsterdam, said yacht, in tacking, stranded on a sand bank with such force that notwithstanding all effort it could not be brought off, except the effects which were in and on her, inclusive of the masts; only, by the splitting of the ship, a quantity of salt was dissolved. The effects and merchandise being calculated against the monthly wages earned by the crew of the said ship, the proceeds according to the inventory were found to amount to more than the accrued wages; and whereas the ship’s crew appearing in a body before the council request a final settlement according to maritime law, it is therefore resolved and concluded in council to furnish a proper account to all members of the crew of the yacht De Cath, who shall be paid and satisfied by the honorable directors at Amsterdam, on condition that they shall continue in the Company’s service until their bounden time shall have expired. This day, the 9th of November 1648. Present: The honorable general, Mr. Dincklagen, Briant Nuton [Brian Newton] and Paulus Leedersz.”

The Slowness of Bureaucracy

Aha, you say, de Kath wrecked in November and Penelope was already in Gravesend in September. No, the November date pertains to the salvage report being entered into the Council Minutes. There is no mention of when the wreck occurred but surely the bureaucracy of investigating shipwrecks took months, even in the 17th century.

The Stopover

Aha, you say, de Kath sailed from Curaçao, an island in the Caribbean, whereas Penelope sailed from Amsterdam. I ask, why can’t both statements be true? If you flew from Los Angeles to New York with a change of planes in Chicago, then you traveled from Los Angeles but both you and your second plane flew from Chicago. How much importance do you attach to the stopover? So, is it plausible that Penelope sailed on one ship from Amsterdam to Curaçao and took another ship from Curaçao to New Amsterdam?

Kath was a Busy Ship

Follow the career path of de Kath, as recorded in the contemporary records. Source details can be found on my website. Note: the Dutch had already converted to the Gregorian calendar; thus all these dates are in modern format.

6 Jun 1647: The New Amsterdam Council ordered the ships Groote Gerrit, de Kath, and de Leifde to voyage to the West Indies as privateers. No info on when they actually departed.

19 Feb 1648: Vice Director Lucas Roodenborch of Curaçao wrote a letter to Stuyvesant that the Groote Gerrit was severely damaged by a storm and that de Cath and de Liefde were ravished by sickness. Stuyvesant received the letter by way of Boston on April 14.

15 Apr 1648: In the Caribbean de Kath captured a Spanish ship with a cargo of hides and tobacco. Note the delay between capture (15 Apr) and official announcement (2 Jul).

2 Jul 1648: The New Amsterdam Council announced that Hans Wyer, captain of the yacht De Cath, arrived in New Amsterdam with a captured Spanish bark Nostra Signora Rosario, laden with hides, captured below Margarita in the Caribbean Islands. Note: The West India Company protocol required three public announcements for an auction of seized goods but Stuyvesant was reprimanded for issuing only one announcement.

20 Jul 1648: The New Amsterdam Council ordered a ship to Curaçao to deliver supplies and bring back salt. Author’s Note: The sale of salt to New England fishermen was a big business. Name of ship was not recorded. The Council records often documented events that had already happened. In the Council minutes for July 2, they were already planning this voyage.

9 Nov 1648: The salvage report for de Kath’s salt was entered into Council Minutes.

How Long to Sail from New Amsterdam to Curaçao and Back?

If de Kath sailed from New Amsterdam in early July, took 5 weeks for a trip to the Caribbean and back, picked up passengers in Curaçao, and wrecked in mid-August, that schedule allows four weeks for Penelope to be attacked, rescued, and delivered to Gravesend before 12 Sep 1648. This scenario assumes that she is recuperating from her injuries at the Applegate home in Gravesend when she witnessed the cow incident. This timeframe also allows a plausible 3 months for creation of the salvage report.

 Don’t buy it? Then counter with a better idea. But first look at the previous blog entry Conjecture #3: Penelope and Richard Stout married in late 1648/early 1649.

 The Chain of Circumstances

Too unlikely? Every unusual event has a long chain of circumstances leading to it. Why was a particular passenger on the Titanic? If a child is hit by a stray bullet on the streets of Chicago, why was that particular child in that particular location at that particular time and why was the shooter there at that time? If my daughter hadn’t moved away from Brooklyn in Feb 2001, then my wife might have been waiting for discount Broadway tickets in the World Trade Center lobby eight mornings after Labor Day in 2001.

Comments , Please

Please use the comments section to express your opinions about my conjecture and the logic behind it or to ask questions that might spur further research.

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