Some of the earliest documents crucial to understanding the colonial history of North America have been translated by the New York State Library’s New Netherland Project and are now accessible to researchers, scholars, and students. Translated and edited by Charles T. Gehring, Director of the New Netherland Project, and Assistant Director Janny Venema, “FORT ORANGE RECORDS, 1654 – 1679,” has been published as part of the New Netherland Document Series by Syracuse University Press.
Information and an order form can be found on the New Netherland Project web site .
This is the second volume of records of the Fort Orange Court translated from the Dutch. It is the New Netherland Project’s 19th volume of translations of 17th century Dutch documents from colonial North America. The Fort Orange Court served as a judicial, legislative, and executive body for the West India Company’s region on the upper Hudson. The Court tried civil and minor criminal cases, with jurisdiction over Fort Orange, the village of Beverwijck, Schenectady, Kinderhook, Claverack, Coxsackie, and Catskill until 1661.
These records consist of land transactions, inventories of estates, contents of auctions, and the possessions of carpenters, brewers, and others. It is a valuable source of information for those interested in material culture and land acquisition in early Dutch colonial New York. Genealogists will find hundreds of names of individuals involved in various transactions.
The New Netherland Project was created under the sponsorship of the New York State Library and the Holland Society of New York. The New Netherland Project has been supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) along with in-kind and financial support from the Office of Cultural Education, New York State Education Department.
New Netherland Project Releases Translation of Early Dutch Records on North American Colonial History
