Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 | Page 3

excluding any useful
information.
Of the three illustrations, the frontispiece is a photographic
reproduction of one of Danckaerts's pen-and-ink sketches
accompanying the diary. It has never before been photographically
reproduced, though lithographed in Mr. Murphy's book. It represents
New York from the southeast, as seen in 1680 from Brooklyn Heights,
and is obviously of great interest, being topographically accurate, and
drawn with no slight degree of skill. Thanks are due to the Long Island
Historical Society for permission to reproduce it, and to the society's
secretary, Miss Emma J. Toedteberg.
That portion of the journal which relates to the Delaware River and
northeastern Maryland is illustrated by a photographic reproduction of
the northeast corner of the celebrated map of Maryland which
Augustine Herrman made for Lord Baltimore, and which was published
in 1673 (see infra, p. 114 and p. 297, note 2). The portion reproduced

extends from the falls of the Delaware as far down the eastern shore of
Chesapeake Bay as our travellers went. It is photographed from the
photolithographic copy made from the unique original in the British
Museum by Mr. P. Lee Phillips, and published by him in 1912, but is
reduced to dimensions about two-thirds of those of the original.
To illustrate the North River journey of the diarist, and the other parts
of his narrative centring around New York, a section is presented of the
map of 1671 entitled "Novi Belgii, quod nunc Novi Jorck vocatur,
Novaeque Angliae et Partis Virginiae Accuratissima et Novissima
Delineatio" (Most Accurate and Newest Delineation of New Belgium,
now called New York, of New England, and of Part of Virginia). This
map appeared both in Montanus's Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld
(Amsterdam, 1671) and in Ogilby's America (London, 1671). It is N.J.
Visscher's map of 1655 or 1656 (for which see the volume in this series
entitled Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, etc., introductory note, and
map opposite p. 170), with slight alterations made in order to adapt it
more closely to the date 1671.
For the names of the two Labadist agents, Mr. Murphy adopted the
forms Dankers and Sluyter. These he apparently took from references
to them by others, for the journal, except once in the case of Sluyter,
gives only the assumed names, Schilders and Vorstman, by which
alone they were at first known in America. Domine Selyns of New
York, in his letter to Willem à Brakel,[1] gives their true names. For the
proper spelling of the diarist's name, it should seem that we should rely
on his own signature to his note prefixed to his copy of Eliot's Indian
Old Testament.[2] There the spelling is Danckaerts, and such is the
form used by the family, still or till lately extant in Zeeland. But the
form Dankers occurs often in contemporary references.
[Footnote 1: Murphy, Anthology of New Netherland, p. 95.]
[Footnote 2: See infra, p. 264, note 2.]
The case of his companion presents no difficulty. The register of
students at the University of Leyden, Album Studiosorum Academiae
Lugduno-Batavae (Hague, 1875), gives, under date of 1666, "Petrus

Sluyter Vesaliensis, 21, T," i.e., Peter Sluyter of Wesel, 21 years old,
student of theology, which no doubt is our traveller, known to have
studied theology and, from Labadist sources relating to Herford, to
have come originally from Wesel. Our traveller's will, dated January 20,
1722, the original of which is preserved in the court house of Cecil
County at Elkton, Maryland, is signed in autograph, "Petrus Sluyter
alias Vorsman," and it seems that this must be regarded as authoritative.
The Maryland family descended from the Labadist leader's brother
used the same spelling. Schluter is found in some contemporary
sources, Schluyter and Sluter in others,[3] while on the title-page of a
book translated by our traveller from French into Dutch, and printed at
Herford in 1672,[4] presumably under his eye, the spelling is Sluiter.
But his signature should be conclusive.
[Footnote 3: a. Paul Hackenberg's letter, see p. 291, note 2, post;
Willem à Brakel, Trouwhertige Waerschouwinge (Leeuwarden, 1683),
p. 63; Album Acad. Lugd.-Bat., 1650, "Henricus Schluterus," the
brother. b. Brakel in Murphy's Anthology, p. 95. c. Letter from Herford
in Schotel, Anna Maria van Schurman (Hertogenbosch, 1853), app., p.
40.]
[Footnote 4: Verklaringe van de Suiverheid des Geloofs en der Leere
van Jean de Labadie.]
The annotations in this volume are by the general editor of the series.
J.F.J.

INTRODUCTION
In the year 1864 Mr. Henry C. Murphy, then corresponding secretary of
the Long Island Historical Society, had the good fortune to find in an
old book-store in Amsterdam a manuscript whose bearings upon the
history of the middle group of American colonies made it, when
translated and made accessible as a publication in the Memoirs of the
Long Island Historical Society,[5] an historical document of much

interest and value. The