New York's First Domine

HOW ARD G. HAGEMAN

From the very beginning the difference between New England and New Nether­ land which manifested itself in so many different ways was also evident in patterns of reli gious life . From the outset New England settlements were communities; e ntire congregations arrived bringing with them their pastors and teachers so that the or­ gani zation of their religious life on thi s side of the Atlantic was a relatively simple matter. When the Dutch began to arrive in in the early part of the seve nteenth century, however, permanent settlement was not the scheme which the y had in mind. In the Europe of that day their homeland was one of the most prosper­ ous countries and of all nations the one that was most free from religious persecution and harassment. It was not perma nent settl eme nts, but trading posts that the Dutch had in mind when the y establi shed Fort Orange at the northern end of the North Rive r a nd later at its southern gate way. Probably the expectation was that in stead of permanent settlers New Netherl and would be the temporary residence of adventurers who would be here only until their future had been made and they could return home . For that reason, the entire life of the settlement was under the control of a Dutch commercial company .

The Field is White

In spite of that background, it soon became apparent that some traders at least would be here with their families long enough to require some form of religious ministry. In 1624 the sent the colony its first minister, a krankenbezoeker, or visitor of th e sick. Some time prior to the settlement of New Netherl and the Dutch church had developed this office to assist domines in large pari shes, but by the early seventeenth century its duties had been exte nded to include conducting reli gious services in widely scattered parts of the growing coloni al em­ pire. These lay readers, as they would be call ed toda y, were permitted to read morning and evening prayer from the church's liturgy and to read sermons from approved collections. The y were not permitted to pray their own prayers or preach their own sermons, nor could they celebrate the sacrame nts. Thus the first Dutc h Reformed mini stry in the New World was that of a layman . On October 28, 1623, a twenty-eight year old weaver, Sebasti a n Jansen Krol , ap­ peared before the Amsterdam Consistory to volunteer for such service in either the East or West Indies. We have no way of knowing hi s motives, especiall y sin ce the little we know about hi s previous life indicates nothing of such an interest. Because of the growing need for some mini stry in New Netherl and, he was assigned to that fi eld and set sail for the ne w world on January 24, 1624. His assignment was to be the 119 settlement at Fort Orange (Albany) since the settlement at New Amsterdam (New York) had not yet been begun. His first stay was a brief one, for in November of the same year we find him back in the pleading for the right to baptize infants, since the women in the colony were so fruitful. Having been granted this permission for the new world only, Krol returned to New Netherland in May or June, 1625 . About this same time he was joined by a colleague, Jan Huyck, who was a brother-in-law of the new director of the colony, . For a long time it was believed that this arrangement lasted for nine years and that the first domine in New Amsterdam was Everardus Bogardus, who arrived in 1633 with the new Director, Wouter van Twiller. Had the Reformed Church in America been celebrating an anniversary before 1858, it would have taken 1633 as the date of its founding. But in 1858 J. J. Bidel Nijenhuis , a Dutch scholar, discovered a hitherto unknown letter which he at once shared with the American ambassador to the Netherlands, Henry Cruse Murphy, later to be of Bridge fame and himself a gifted amateur scholar of the Dutch colonial period. That letter, dated from New Amsterdam on August 11 , 1628, (and two others which have since been discovered) established beyond any possible doubt that there was a Dutch Reformed domine in New Amsterdam with a fully organized congrega­ tion in 1628. The letter discovered by Nijenhuis was from Ds. Jonas Michaelius to Ds. Adrian Smoutius, one of the leading clergymen ofold Amsterdam. It clearly indicates that Michaelius was in New Amsterdam by the spring of 1628 and that to him belongs the honor of being New York's first domine. The discovery of this letter, one of the three pieces of evidence we have of Michaeliu s' ministry in the new world, at once started extensive research into hi s background and ministry, the most thorough example of which is Dr. A. Eekhofs volume on Jonas Michaelius published in Leyden in 1926. But even after Eekhofs thorough research, there are still many unanswered ques.tions .

Into the Villages

Jonas Joannis Michaelius was born in 1584 in the North Holland village of Grootebroeck between the port cities of Enkhuizen and Hoorn. Eekhof is inclined to believe that his father was Jan de Michie(, one of the Flemish refugee preachers in the days of Spanish persecution, who in 1583 became minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Grootebroeck. If that identification be correct, then the Dutch scholar's description of our first domine's father indicates the background from which he came .. .

a man of importance in these days, friend of Sonoy, acquainted with Prince William of Orange, Leicester, Maurits and Marnix of St. Al­ degonde, also a true and trustworthy minister of the Gospel, who visited England several times, a pioneer of liberty, a true comrade in the battlefield of freedom with William the Si lent. 120 Jan de Michie I died in 1595 when hi s son Jonas was only eleven. Shortly thereaf­ ter his widowed mother left the Grootebroeck parsonage and moved to the port city of Hoorn which today is a sleepy pi cturesque town on the new Zuider Zee polder, but which in Michaelius' day was, with its sister city of Enkhuizen, one of the busiest Dutch seaport s. There he was e nrolled in the Latin School. In 1598, however , at the urging of hi s teachers, he was enrolled at the Staten Collegie in Leyden, a n institu­ ti on which had been founded onl y six years earli er to provide lodgings and guidance fo r those who would be preparing for the mini stry at the university. As one of the founding towns, Hoorn had two scholarships at the S taten Collegie, one of which Michaelius held until hi s graduation in 1604. It is interesting to note that on the theological faculty with which he studied were both Franciscus Gomarus and Jacobus Arminius, whose bitter di sput e wou ld soon rend the Dutch Church asunder. After Mi chaeliu s had completed hi s work at Leyden in October, 1604 , he applied fo r a nd was granted a scho larship for post-graduate work in Germany , but there is no record indicating that he ever carried out this pl an . In fact, hi s whereabouts for the next few years are uncertain except for a notation that he spent some time with one of the underground congregations in Brabant. The first solid piece of evidence comes in 16 12 when Jonas Joannis Michaelius became pastor of the Dutch Reformed congrega­ tion in the tiny ha mlet of N iewbokswoude. Thi s chapter of hi s career lasted only two years, for in 16 14 he became pastor of the congregati on in Hem, a vill age of about 600 inhabitants in hi s native North Holland. Here for the next ten years Os. Michaeliu s served as mini ster. T here is li ttle we can say about that ministry since the congregati on at Hem no longer exists a nd all the records of the c lassis to which it belonged were destroyed by fire in 1838. We can onl y make some surmises from some of the later chapters of our domine's career. Did he remember hi s boyhood in Hoorn when it had been exciting to walk down to the docks to watch the shi ps come in from all kinds of exotic ports of the world? Had he in those days talked with sail ors who told him entrancing stori es about distant places in the growing ? Remembering these experiences, did he find the parish in Hem dull and hi s people's conversations about cows and crops boring? Was he, at the end of hi s stay in Hem , making more frequent trips to Hoorn to look at the ships and talk with the sail ors?

To the Ends of the Earth

T he re is, of course, no answer possible. But when in 1624 the Amsterdam Consistory was looking for ministers to accompany a group of settlers to a new colony in Brazil , our man Mi chaeliu s was the first to volunteer. It was the Amster­ dam Consistory whi ch at that time was in charge of reli gio us affairs for the West India Company. On October 22, 1624, that Consistory requested the C lassis of Enkuizen to expedite the resignation of Mi c haeli us from the congregation at He m so that he mi ght go to Brazil. Unless there were some boyhood fa ncies in hi s brain, what would have prompted a forty year old village pastor, married a nd with a famil y, to leave the comfort and security ofa little Dutch paris h for a ll the un certainty ofa new venture in . , 12 1 Brazil which already had the threat of S pa ni sh and Portuguese ruin hanging over it ? Actu ally , Michaeliu s never saw Brazil. He had sail ed in March, 1625, on a ship commanded by Jan Dirckszen Lam. But when the ship put in at Sierra Leone because of contrary winds, it was learned that Brazil had been reconquered by the Spani sh and Po11uguese who at that time formed a single kingdom. After some dela y, Lam we nt to More, a settle ment on the Guinea coast of Africa where the Dutch had Fort Nassau. In the ship's journal for November 23, 1625, we read Ge neral Lam we nt on shore with all the skippers and me rchants to the church service in the fo rt which domine Jonas conducted there fo r the first time. Exactly how long Mi chaeliu s remained in More we do not know. One interesting pi ece of correspondence remain s from hi s mini stry there. He wrote to the Classis of Enkhuizen (to whi ch he was still ecclesiasti cally responsible) for advice about the baptism of two little mulatto girls. Both their mothers were black and heathen, while one fa ther was a Portuguese Catholic " full of superstition" a nd the other a Dutch Protesta nt who was " irreligious and led a di ssolute life." Both children were illegiti­ mate. The domine wanted to ba pti ze them and send them to Holland for a Christi an upbringing so that the y could return as Christi an witnesses among their own people. The classis assented , but we know nothing more about the fa te of these two children. The incid ent is of interest because a few years later wh en he was in New Amsterdam, Mi chaeliu s had a very simil ar proposal fo r the Christi a ni zation of the India n popul a­ ti on there.

Here Am I, Send Me

Sometime during 1627 the domine left Afri ca and returned to the Netherl ands. As he sail ed home he mu st have wondered what could be left for a man who had tasted the exciteme nt of mini stry in Guinea, to say nothing of a fru strated assignment in Brazil. How could he return to the quiet of another rural pari sh in the Netherl ands? We need not be surprised , therefore, to di scover that when, on hi s return , he found that the Amsterdam Consistory was now looking fo r a domine for New Netherland , now that it was increasingly a pparent that the service of lay-readers was un sati sfac­ tory. Michaeli us again declared himself ready for ministry overseas. Actually we do not know whether the Amsterdam Consistory sought him or he them, but it seems likely that a man of hi s temperame nt would seek every opportunity to gain another post outsid e the homeland. At thi s point, some definit e dates become avail able. On Ja nuary 24, 1628 , Ds. Michaeliu s with hi s wife and three children set sail from Texel, arriving at Ma nhattan on April 7. The voyage had been a long and rough one. Although the captain was a personal fri end from the previ ous voyage to the Afri can coast, this time the domine found him much addicted to wine. He never attended divine service, but " na vi gated the ship daily with a set sail and a n e mpty head ." Mrs . Michaeliu s stood the trip very badly. Accurately or not , she be li eved that she was " in a deli cate condition. " Seven weeks after her arri val in Ne w Nethe rland , 122 her condition worsened and she di ed. In addition to a ll the complications of organiz­ ing a congregati on in a rowdy frontier village, Michaelius was now a widower with three young children in a situation where, as he complained, reli able household help was not easy to obtai n. T he exact date in unknown, but sometime between hi s April arrival and hi s August letter to Smoutiu s the domine organi zed a congregation and held hi s first service. The locale was the upper floor of a horsemill which Director Minuit had for some time made avail able for the services of the lay-reader. The domine's own words may be used to describe this first Dutch Reformed servi ce in North America. At the first administration of the Lord 's Supper which was observed not without great joy and comfort to many , we had fully fifty communicants-Walloons and Dutch; of whom a portion made their first confession of faith before us and others exhibited their church certifi­ cates. The reference to the Walloons indicates that from the beginning the New Amsterdam congregation was bilingual with at least some of it s services held in French as well as the usual ones in Dutch. In any event, Michaelius complained that when he had to conduct a service in French, he always used the book and had to have a full manuscript sermon since he did not trust himself to improvise in that language. Shortly before this first Lord's Supper, a consistory had been selected with Peter Minuit, the director, and hi s brother-in-law, Jan Huyck, the lay-reader, as E lders. Sebasti an Krol, the lay-reader from Fort Orange, was chosen as Deacon. The fac t that one member of consistory came from a settl ement that was 150 mile to the north would seem to indicate that in the thinking of Michaelius Fort Orange was part of his pari sh. We have no proof that he ever visited it , but it seems likely that he did for at least occasional sacramental occasions. Thus in miniature form the church order of the Netherl ands was reproduced in Amsterdam and the Dutch Reformed Church can fai rly claim 350 years of unbroken history in the city and state of New York. Unfortunately for us, two of Michaelius' surviving three letters both date from the August of the year of his arrival in New Amsterdam. One of these, as already mentioned, was to Ds. Smoutius in Amsterdam; the other, from almost the same date, was written to Joannes van Foreest of Hoorn, secretary of the Executive Council of the States of North Holl and and West Friesland . From these two letters we learn of Michaelius' deli ght in the climate and abundance of hi s new home, of hi s concern about ways of reaching the native Indian population with the gospel and of his rather condescending attitude toward hi s parishi oners, people fo r the most part rather rough and unrestrained, but I fi nd in most all of them both love and res pect toward me.

Down to 1926 all that we knew of Michaelius' ministry in New Amsterdam was contained in these two letters written fo ur months after hi s arriva l. In that year Professor Eekhof discovered a third letter written by Michaelius to hi s friend van Foreest on September 13 , 1630. The letter is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the domine's feeling for 123 the unhappy lot of the Reformed Churches in France, who after they have been struggling long and desperately, at the end succumbing, are· urged to give themselves over to such a merciless king, and to s·urrender all the fortresses whi ch they had as refugees in hi s hands. What therefore remains to them but to hasten to our true and faithful God who alone ever remains unmoved and is the most sure refuge for his people, and this also just at such a time, when not overlooking their sins, hi s judgment begins with hi s own house. By far the largest part of the letter, however, deals with a situation which was to occur several times in the hi story of New Netherland, a fierce quarrel between the domine and the director. At first, according to Michaelius, things had gone very successfull y and the congregation had grown in numbers and piety. But then the quarrel between him and Peter Minuit had broken out. We have too little evidence to know the precise reason for the dispute, but it seems to have centered in the person of Johan van Remunde, Secretary of the New Netherland Council, with whom the domine apparently sided in the differences with the director. That would seem to be the point mentioned in a letter written on September 16 , 1630, to Kiliaen by Symon Direckszen Pos, a member of the council. Now the Director and Jan Romonde are very much embittered against one another .. .. The domine, Jonas Michielszen is very energetic here stirring up the fire against them; he ought to be a mediator in God's church and community, but he seems to me to be the contrary. Michaelius's letter to van Foreest is filled with personal abuse of Minuit accusing him of all kinds of personal immorality and placing the blame for the decline of the congregation sq uarely on hi s shoulders. How much of this is rhetoric occasioned by the quarrel and how much is fact is of course impossible to tell. AU that can be said for certain is that even though he had remained beyond his original three year con­ tract, by March 4, 1632, he was back in the Netherlands, reporting the story of his difficu lti es to the Amsterdam Consistory. Minuit had also returned to the homeland at about the same time and presumably gave his side of the story to the officers of the West India Company. Although his four year stay in New Amsterdam ended uphappily, there were many positive things accomplished in hi s ministry. A congregation had been or­ ganized and services were held regularly. Religious services for the large French speaking part of the population had also been provided, at least on an occasional basis. While the whole problem of a real mi ssion to the Indians remained unsolved, Michaelius had clearly indicated this as a direction in which hi s successors must move.

A Prophet Without Honor The rest of the domine's story is shrouded in mystery which can be pierced only occasionally. What happened to him directly after hi s return to the Netherlands in 1632 cannot be stated. His name surfaces again only in 1637. On September 7 of that year the Classis of Amsterdam (which by this time was officially in charge of 124 ecclesiastical affairs in New Netherland) took note of the fact that .. . since Ds . Jonas Michaelius is now present here without a charge, the Brethren resolve that the Deputies on Indian affairs must put forth every effort to persuade him to the acceptance of (their) service. The implications of thi s resolution are that ever since hi s return from New Amsterdam in 1632, Michaelius had been without a parish. Was this because he hesitated to settle down in a conventional Dutch congregation after his exciting years in Guinea and New Netherland? Or was it because after such exotic experiences no congregation in Holland could feel comfortable with him? And in either case, what was Michaelius using for money in the meantime? However these questions may be answered, the Classis of Amsterdam was as good as its word in referring Mi chaelius' desire for a second term of service to the West India Company. On October 5, 1637 , the classis reported with some displeasure that the West India Company had replied that when it wanted Ds. Michaeliu s it would send for him . The question became more urgent in 1638 when the States-General of the Netherlands urged the West India Company to abandon its policy of trading posts in the new world in favor of genuine colonization. Apparently Peter Minuit had been able to blacken his former minister's reputation with the West India Company, for on Jul y 5. 1638, Michaelius' repeated request to return to New Netherland was finall y rejected. The rest of his story is completely unknown . There is, however , one tantalizing hint. Ever since the sixteenth century Dutch struggle agai nst Spanish tyranny there had been a number ofrefugee Dutch Reformed congregations in England (the oldest of which, Austin Friars in London, survives to this day). In fact, Jan de Mi chi e!, the father of our domine, had for a time served the refu gee congregation in Norwich . In 1641 the Yarmouth congregation reported to the mother church in London that for ten weeks it had enjoyed the services of a Ds. Joa nnes Mi c helzen whom it wished to reimburse for hi s very profitable stay and wondered what would be an appropriate amount. That report is dated May 20, I 641. Later that same year, on September 14, the Dutch Church in Maidstone, Eng­ land reported that it was about to call the same Ds. Mi chel zen unl ess in the meantime he was able to secure a church in the Netherlands. This little chapter closes on November 6, 1641, with a letter from Ds. Michelzen to the Maidstone congregation stating that since he had found employment in the Dutch province of Zeela nd , he would not be able to fulfill his engagement with them . The unanswered (and unanswerable) question is whether this Joannes Michelzen in England and the Jonas Michaelius who served in New Amsterdam are indeed the same person. Dr. Eekhof, always the careful historian, warns us against any such identification, pointing out that it could be Michaelius' son who had entered Leyden in 1633 aged 19, or one of several other persons with similar names. This warning is certainly well taken and. the need for more research beginning with the archives of the Dutch in London is clearly indicated. At the same time, if there can be such a thing as intuitive history, there is a 125 strong case for the identity of the New Amsterdam domine with the unknown Dutchman who had a brief ministry in England in 1641. What is more logical than to suppose that after his final rejection by the West India Company in 1638, when the chance came to the old adventurer to visit England, he gladly took it? Guinea and New Netherland were closed to him, but even though it was just across the North Sea, a ministry in England still offered a little of the old excitement. Perhaps it was the realization after he had been in England for a while that a fifty-seven year old Dutchman really belonged at home that led Michaelius back to the Netherlands in the fall of 1641. Whoever it may have been who returned to Zeeland that year and what he did after he got there, it is impossible to say. Even the date of his death is unknown. One authority gives it as 1646, but it seems likely that he has confused the domine with a poet with the same name whose death in that year is a matter of record. Perhaps one of the results of this three hundred fiftieth anniver­ sary celebration should be sound scholarly research in filling all the blanks in Jonas Michaeli us' story.

A Worthy Leader

But in the meantime we know enough to give him his rightful honor as New York's first domine. While he lacked the theological learning and gravity of John Cotton of Boston, as Eekhof points out, his three surviving letters clearly indicate that he was a person of learning and culture, able to minister in French as well as Dutch, freely quoting from John Chyrsostom as well as Horace, and showing great proficiency in Latin. Considering the fact that he had studied with both Gomarus and Arminius at Leyden and had ministered in the Netherlands all during the years of the dispute which was ended by the Synod of Dort in 1691 , it is surprising that so little of that theological controversy is indicated in hi s correspondence. Perhaps there is too little left; perhaps the controversy meant less to the village domine than it did to the learned theologians in the university. But the theological style of New York was never the same as the theological style of Boston. The tiny town at the mouth of the Hudson which even in 1628 counted several ethnic groups in its population had an appropriate spiritual leader in a foot-loose Dutchman whose ministerial experience involved three continents and might have involved a fourth had the Spanish and Portuguese been successful in Brazi I. For a little settlement that was to become one of the greatest and most pluriform cities in the world, Jonas Michaelius, New York's first domine, was a worthy leader.

NOTE: Al l quotations are from Jonas Michaelius, Founder of the Church in New Netherland, by A. Eekhof, Leiden: A. W. Sijthoffs Publishing Co., 1926. 126