Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 | Page 4

Journal of two members of the Labadist sect
who came over to this country in order to find a location for the
establishment of a community has served to throw a flood of light upon
what otherwise might have been a lost chapter in the history of
Maryland. For so meagre are the sources of ready availability for a
knowledge of the Labadist colony which was effected in Maryland that
without this account the story of the first communal sect in America
might have failed of adequate recording.
[Footnote 5: Volume I. Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour in
Several of the American Colonies in 1679-80, by Jasper Dankers and
Peter Sluyter of Wiewerd in Friesland (Brooklyn, 1867).]
But while the Journal of Jasper Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter, the two
envoys--or of Jasper Danckaerts, who did the actual writing--is of
especial interest in relation to an incident in the early settlement of
Maryland, the gauge of its value may be applied as well in other
directions. This extended narrative, often discursive and circumstantial,
contains much that is suggestive upon the beginnings of the middle
group of states, and, indeed, the narrative bears upon facts of
importance in connection with Massachusetts as well.
The original manuscript of the Labadist narrators is now in the
possession of the Long Island Historical Society. It was bought by the
Society at the Murphy sale in 1884. It is written in a fine, good hand on
paper of about 8-1/2 by 6-1/2 inches. The pages are numbered with
three successive numberings: (A) 1-72, (B) 1-16, 25-192, 217-231, (C)
1-47, the first section corresponding to the voyage to America; the
second, to the travels in the middle colonies; the third, to the
experiences of the journalist and his companion in New England and
on the voyage home. In the second division there is no gap between
pages 16 and 25, but after page 192 there is a considerable hiatus. In
narrative, this extends over a few days only, June 13-19, but the
omitted portion probably also contained a description of the city of
New York and the beginning of an account of the Indians. The
remaining pages of this section, pages 216-231, proceed with this
account, treating of the weapons of the Indians, their treaties with the

whites, their intelligence, their burial customs, their virtues and vices,
their knowledge of God and their worship, and finally of the beaver and
his habits. As the journalist could have had no original contributions to
make with regard to the American aborigines, his observations upon
this subject have no especial value, and have been omitted.
The manuscript when found was accompanied with six sheets of
pen-and-ink drawings. The text appears to be a carefully transcribed
copy, plainly written in a different handwriting from that of the
drawings. The latter, as the marks upon them show, are the original
sketches made upon the spot. All are reproduced in Mr. Murphy's
edition of the journal. The first shows the figure of an Indian woman
and four fishes, two of them rare and two common. The second
drawing shows the entrance to New York Bay at Sandy Hook as seen
from the house of Jacques Cortelyou at Nayack (Fort Hamilton). The
third is a detailed and exceedingly interesting view of New York as it
was in 1679, taken from Brooklyn Heights; it is reproduced in the
present volume. The fourth and fifth give views of New York from the
east and from the north, while the sixth plate presents a map of the
Delaware River from the Falls at the present site of Trenton down to
Burlington.
The manuscript of the narrative reproduced in this volume is
accompanied by a similar manuscript for a second voyage made in
1683, April 12-July 27, entered upon 16 pages of foolscap, and then
copied upon 48 pages of quarto size, the former in a different and much
more difficult hand than the journal of 1679-1680, the copy in a
handwriting similar to that of the latter. Twelve pages of the 48 are
verses, and the remainder do not carry the traveller beyond the
completion of his voyage. As this second narrative includes nothing
bearing directly upon the experiences of the chronicler after his arrival
upon the shores of the New World, it has not seemed worth while to
translate it and bring it into the present volume. It is much to be
regretted that the continuation was never written, or has not been
preserved, since it would record the actual settlement of the Labadist
community in northeastern Maryland. With the fragment was found an
interesting manuscript map of the Delaware River, which gives

Philadelphia as in existence, and therefore belongs to the period of the
second voyage.
Prior to the discovery of the