Join the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries, as we welcome Marissa Paternoster (Screaming Females, Noun) and Joe Steinhardt (Don Giovanni Records) to read from and discuss their new graphic novel, Merriment, at Alexander Library in New Brunswick on Tuesday, October 1st at 4 p.m. This will also be an online event, link available upon registration. An exhibit of original artwork will also be on display, and copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
About Merriment: As many of us do, Mack is having a hard time coping with life in New Jersey. Watching her friends figure their lives out while she is stuck living at home, Mack is looking for any kind of lifeline out of her Mom’s house and into the City where she is convinced she will be happy. Then again, it’s hard for anyone to be happy these days, a fact her mother will not let her forget. And what’s worse: she thinks she might have committed a murder. And that maybe, just maybe, the FBI is spying on her? Merriment follows Mack on her quest for happiness and/or sanity through the horrors of life as she navigates existential dread, real-life dread, and all the dread in between.
Joe Steinhardt owns and operates Don Giovanni Records, a label that remains committed to furthering alternative culture and independent values, and providing resources for artists who prefer to work outside the mainstream music industry. He is a published author and an Assistant Professor at Drexel University in their Music Industry Program.
Marissa Paternoster is a visual artist, the lead singer and guitarist for Screaming Females, and was named the 77th best guitar player of all time by SPIN magazine and the 150th best of all time by Rolling Stone. Through her work with Screaming Females and her solo career, Marissa has released 11 studio albums and has been featured on MTV, Late Night TV, and NPR. She has toured extensively, supporting bands like Garbage, Dinosaur Jr., The Dead Weather, Arctic Monkeys, and The Breeders.
Date: Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Time: 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Location: Alexander Library Teleconference/Lecture Hall – TLH (4th floor)
If you’ve already read plenty of fiction this summer, how about some local New Jersey history? Here is a selection of books newly cataloged to the Sinclair New Jersey Collection in Special Collections and University Archives. All can be read by appointment in our lovely air conditioned reading room with views of the College Avenue Campus. Contact us at scua_ref@libraries.rutgers.edu if you need a break from the beach (or just want to read about it)!
Douglas G. Abbott. Just a Kid from Paterson
Yael Aravah. Pineys: The People of the New Jersey Pine Barrens
Peter Astras. Lake Hopatcong: A History of New Jersey’s Largest Lake
James M. Carter: Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower: Rock Music on Campus in the Sixties
Patricia Chappine. New Jersey Women During World War II
Danny DiMauro and Johan Kugelberg. I Heard There Were No Waves in New Jersey: Surfing on the Jersey Shore 1888-1984
Elizabeth Colmant Estes: Global Grace Cafe: A Love Story About Battles Lost and Won to Keep Families Together in America’s War on Immigrants
Peter Genovese. The Ultimate Guide to the Jersey Shore: Where to Eat, What to Do, and So Much More
Erik Kiviat and Kristi MacDonald. Urban Biodiversity: The Natural History of the New Jersey Meadowlands
Helen Lippman. Hidden History of Newark, New Jersey
Mafia Library. The Decavalcante Mafia Crime Family: The Complete History of a New Jersey Crime Organization
K.A. Nelson. Killing Shore: The True Story of Hitler’s U-Boats Off the New Jersey Coast
Michael Aaron Rockland. The George Washington Bridge: Poetry in Steel (Revised and Expanded)
Pickaninny Club Minstrel Show, at the Berkeley Lyceum, in Aid of the Daisy Fields Hospital for Crippled Children (1896)
Schrabisch, Max. Indian Vestiges in Garrett Mountain Reservation: A Series of Three Articles (Paterson, NJ: The Passaic County Park System, Lambert Castle, Garrett Mountain Reservation, 1939)
Join the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries, as we welcome Marissa Paternoster (Screaming Females, Noun) and Joe Steinhardt (Don Giovanni Records) to read from and discuss their new graphic novel, Merriment, at Alexander Library in New Brunswick on Thursday, May 23rd at 4pm. An exhibit of original artwork will also be on display, and copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
About Merriment: As many of us do, Mack is having a hard time coping with life in New Jersey. Watching her friends figure their lives out while she is stuck living at home, Mack is looking for any kind of lifeline out of her Mom’s house and into the City where she is convinced she will be happy. Then again, it’s hard for anyone to be happy these days, a fact her mother will not let her forget. And what’s worse: she thinks she might have committed a murder. And that maybe, just maybe, the FBI is spying on her? Merriment follows Mack on her quest for happiness and/or sanity, through the horrors of life, as she navigates existential dread, real life dread, and all the dread in between.
Joe Steinhardt owns and operates Don Giovanni Records, a label which remains committed to furthering alternative culture, independent values, and providing resources for artists who prefer to work outside of the mainstream music industry. He is a published author and an Assistant Professor at Drexel University in their Music Industry Program.
Marissa Paternoster is a visual artist, the lead singer and guitarist for Screaming Females, and was named the 77th best guitar player of all time by SPIN magazine and the 150th best of all time by Rolling Stone. Through her work with Screaming Females and her solo career, Marissa has released 11 studio albums and has been featured on MTV, Late Night TV, and NPR. She has toured extensively, supporting bands like Garbage, Dinosaur Jr. The Dead Weather, Arctic Monkeys, and The Breeders.
Rutgers Distinguished Professor Gary A. Rendsburg will deliver the 35th annual Louis Faugères Bishop III Lecture, entitled “The Robison Hebrew Manuscript Collection: 50 Yemenite Treasures in Our Midst,” on Tuesday, April 2, at 4:00 p.m., at Alexander Library and online.
Gary Rendsburg holds the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair in Jewish History at Rutgers University, with appointments in both the Department of History and the Department of Jewish Studies. He is the author of seven books and over 200 articles; his most recent book is How the Bible Is Written (2019).
Rendsburg earned his B.A. in English at the University of North Carolina (1975) and his Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies at New York University (1980). Prior to coming to Rutgers in 2004, he taught for 18 years at Cornell University.
Rendsburg has conducted extensive research on medieval Hebrew manuscripts at leading libraries, including the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Cambridge University Library, the Vatican Library, and the Library of Congress.
During his career, Rendsburg has served as visiting professor or visiting research scholar at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of Sydney, the Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan University, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, the Getty Villa, and the Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome).
The Bishop Lectures feature diverse topics on book and manuscript collecting, printing history, and the use of rare books and manuscripts. The series is named in memory of Louis Faugères Bishop Jr.’s son, a prominent cardiologist and book lover who helped build one of the excellent New York private libraries at the New York Racquet Club.
To register visit https://libcal.rutgers.edu/event/12100082
Helene van Rossum is a Dutch-born researcher and writer, who worked at SCUA as public services and outreach archivist from 2016-2018
In our previous blog post we talked about the death of Johannes Frelinghuysen, Dutch minister in the Raritan Valley, and about his widow Dina van Bergh, who married Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh from Ulster County, NY. In this post we will follow up with Johannes’ three younger brothers, two of them called by Ulster parishes to be their minister. Their fate played a role in a schism in the Dutch Reformed Church in the American colonies between the “Coetus” and the “Conferentie” factions, and therefore ultimately in the establishment of Queen’s (later Rutgers) College.
Perished at sea: Jacobus and Ferdinandus
Hand colored engraving of the New York harbor, 1739 (source)
When Johannes Frelinghuysen died of a sudden illness in September 1754 on his way to an annual meeting of the Coetus, the ecclesiastical body was no more than an assembly of ministers and elders representing their congregations. But its position and function would soon be subject of a sixteen-year-long battle. As explained by former Rutgers University Archivist Tom Frusciano, the lack of authority within the churches to educate, examine, and ordain had become a pressing concern among ministers and congregations. While the numbers of churches had grown rapidly by the mid 18th century, there was a severe shortage of ministers to preach.
It was difficult to find Dutch ministers willing to move to the New World, like Johannes Frelinghuysen Sr. had done in 1720. For congregations it was a costly business to send a candidate to the Netherlands to be educated, licensed, and ordained. In addition, the journey was not only dangerous because of weather conditions, but also because of continuous warfare at sea. In 1745, on his way back after his ordination in Utrecht, Theodorus Frelinghuysen Jr. himself spent six additional months at sea because his ship had been captured by the French.
Detail from a 1779 map between Kingston and New Paltz in Ulster County, NY, with the location of the churches of Marbletown, Rochester, and Wawarsing added in red (source)
Despite these experiences, the Frelinghuysen brothers still favored the traditional way to get ministers licensed and ordained in the Netherlands.
According to historian Dirk Mouw, “As late as 1751, when he assisted the congregations of Marbletown, Rochester, and Wawarsing, New York, in making out a call to his brother Jacobus, it was Theodorus Jr. who urged, and finally convinced those consistories, not to ask for examination and ordination in the colonies, but rather to permit Jacobus to go to Amsterdam for promotion.”1
After Theodorus had convinced the three Ulster consistories to send Jacobus the young man and his brother Ferdinandus–who had been called to Kinderhook, 22 miles south of Albany, NY–left for the Netherlands. Sadly, when they sailed back two years later they both contracted smallpox and died in June, 1753, eight days apart. Though Theodorus notified the Classis in September 1753, it took him another month to be able to write the three Ulster consistories. The letter is kept at Rutgers Special Collections and University Archives along with other documents about the three Ulster congregations (view document list).
“It is not without emotion that I take up my pen to write to you presently, after the Lord prescribed us bitter things, cutting off our hopes, hurting our expectations, turning our happiness into coldness and our imagined joy into sadness, as he took away our dearly beloved brothers Jacobus and Ferdinandus, lovable and beloved in life, and unseparated even in death.
But he is the Lord: he has given, he has taken, praised be his name. They were his, he has taken them to himself, a glorious change for them, but a heavy blow for us.”
Letter from Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen Jr. informing the congregants of Marbletown, Rochester, and Wawarsing about the death of his brothers Jacobus and Ferdinand, October 22, 1753
The death of the two Frelinghuysen brothers put new fuel on the smoldering fire. Soon after the news that their new minister had died, the congregations of Rochester, Marbletown, and Wawarsing decided to call the youngest brother, Henricus. Johannes Frelinghuysen in Raritan wrote to the Classis in August to ask for Henricus to be licensed and ordained by the Coetus.
“Not only has the loss of those two fine young men inflicted upon us a wound so severe, that we have the less courage now to let Henricus run the risk of the sea as well as other dangers; but he is the Benjamin in our family, and he has never had the smallpox. Churches have also already expressed their desire to have him as their minister. My humble request, therefore, of your Revs. is, that our Coetus may be authorized, upon evidence of his ability, to ordain him in the name of the Classis. Our case is an extraordinary one, and so there are extraordinary arguments for this request.”
On November 3, 1753, the three Ulster consistories wrote the Classis of Amsterdam themselves. One month later, they sent Henricus a call, listing responsibilities and obligations on both sides. The Dutch letter with sixteen wax seals, which is translated in English, is also kept at Rutger Special Collections and University Archives.
Last page of the call by the churches of Marbletown, Rochester, and Wawarsing to Henricus Frelinghuysen, December 3, 1753
The Coetus – Conferentie schism
In reply to his letter of August 1753 the Classis of Amsterdam wrote Johannes on May 6, 1754 that he should send Henricus over anyway. No doubt Johannes wanted to discuss the matter during the following Coetus meeting in September, but he died of a sudden illness on his way to Long Island. Nevertheless, during the three-day-long meeting it was decided to change the Coetus into a Classis, which, according to the minutes, would free congregations from the heavy expenses of sending their candidates overseas as well as the young men’s exposure to danger and the loss of time. An important additional reason was also provided: “Thus too we can prevent persons from seeking ordination from other communions differing from ourselves.”
Members of the Coetus soon found out that their president had organized an alternative, conservative, assembly, called the “Conferentie.” In addition, he negotiated behind their backs that the newly founded King’s College in New York (the future Columbia University) would have a professor in theology to teach prospective Dutch ministers. Though educated here, they would still have to be ordained by the Classis of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
In response Theodorus Jr. in Albany wrote the congregations a circular letter, calling for a meeting on May 23, 1755 to establish an American Classis and found their own American College. Thus started the schism in the church between the Coetus and the Conferentie Party, which would tear communities and families apart for the next sixteen years.
Henry dies too
Marbletown Reformed Dutch Church burial ground, the possible grave site of Henricus Frelinghuysen (Photo: Wendy Harris)
Henricus was licensed by the Coetus in 1754, but he would not hold his position at Rochester, Marbletown, and Wawarsing for long. Only two weeks after his ordination by the Coetus in 1757, after the Amsterdam Classis had finally relented, he died of smallpox, like his brothers Jacobus and Ferdinandus before him. According to the Conferentie party in a letter to the Classis of Amsterdam Theodore Jr. defended his brother’s ordination during his funeral sermon and “sought to open the eyes of the people, saying that it was time to look away from the Classis.” One year later Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh from nearby “Rosendale” in Hurley would similarly be ordained by the Coetus to succeed their brother Johannes Frelinghuysen in the Raritan Valley in New Jersey.
You will find out about the sad fate of Theodore, the last remaining Frelinghuysen brother, in a following post by University Archivist Erika Gorder.
1Mouw, Dirk Edward. “Moederkerk and Vaderland: Religion and Ethnic Identity in the Middle Colonies, 1690–1772.” Ph.D., The University of Iowa, 2009.
Part of the contents of this blog post were shared in the presentation “’That class of people called Low Dutch,’ African Enslavement Among the Dutch Reformed Churches of Ulster County and New Jersey’s Raritan Valley,” by Helene van Rossum and Wendy Harris at Historic Huguenot Street, New Paltz, NY (April 7, 2018).
Helene van Rossum is a Dutch-born researcher and writer, who worked at SC/UA as public services and outreach archivist in 2016-2018
In our previous posts we talked about Dutch Reformed minister Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (1691–c. 1747) as well as his enslaved servant Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, whom he purchased from his parishioner Cornelius Van Horne and converted to the Calvinist faith. This post and the next will be about the fate of Frelinghuysen’s five sons, who all became ministers themselves, but died within a short time.
The Frelinghuysen family
Detail of a 1762 map showing the Dutch parsonage along the King’s Road between the two creeks Six Mile Run and Three Mile Run (source)
Not too long after Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen became the new minister of the Dutch congregations of Raritan, Three Mile Run (including New Brunswick), Six Mile Run, and North Branch he married Eva Terhune from Flatland, Long Island.1 They were given a farm near the Three Mile Run church to live in, and the first child, Theodorus Jacobus Jr, was born in 1723. His four brothers Johannes (John), Jacobus, Ferdinandus, and Henricus were born between 1727–1735 and two more girls, Margaret and Anna followed in 1737 and 1738.
Quote from A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1772) (source)
We do not know exactly when Frelinghuysen purchased Gronniosaw in the 1720s, but the young African must have known all the children since they were very little. He was there when Theodore Jacobus Jr. left for the Netherlands in 1743 to study, be licensed, and ordained, and then answered a call to Albany, NY. He saw Johannes leaving for the Dutch Republic too in 1747, the year when Theodore Sr, fell ill. He helped care for the minister, who told him on his deathbed that he had freed Gronniosaw in his will.
Though a free man, Gronniosaw decided to stay to serve the widow. According to his Narrative he was heartbroken when Eva Terhune died, either shortly before or after her son Johannes’ return. The three younger brothers were between 15 and 20 years old at the time, their sisters 11 and 12.
Johannes Frelinghuysen and Dina van den Bergh
Banns of marriage register entry for Johannes Frelinghuysen and Dina van den Bergh, Amsterdam, 20 February, 1750 (source), which mentions that Johannes was living with Rev. Gerard van Schuylenburgh in Tienhoven.
After Eva’s death, according to his Narrative, Gronniosaw subsequently served her five sons, until they all died too. He may have started with Johannes. The young man had received a call from the parishes of Raritan (Somerville), North Branch (Readington), and Millstone (later Sourland, then Harlingen), written on May 18, 1749.
When Johannes received the letter he was living in the parsonage of the Dutch pietist minister Gerardus van Schuylenburg in Tienhoven. Van Schuylenburg must have introduced him to the pious merchant’s daughter Dina van den Bergh in Amsterdam, with whom he had been corresponding. When John asked her in September to marry him and come with him to serve the parishes in the Raritan Valley the young woman was stunned.
There are many stories about Dina, who signed her letters as Dina Van Bergh. She was so pious that she had refused the dancing lessons her parents wanted her to take. As a teenager she was said to have stopped her father and his friends playing cards for money by starting to pray when she walked into the room. She kept a religious journal in 1746-1747 and in 1749, which has been translated into English. In the last part she documented her struggles to accept John’s proposal under the heading “Some few notes on how my heart, through hidden instructions, was prepared and afterwards bent by the Lord towards marital relations with the Rev. Mr. Johannes Frielinghuysen, minister at Raritan in New Netherland.”
Life with John in the parsonage
The Dutch Parsonage, built for Johannes Frelinghuysen and his bride in 1751
Dina hoped to send Johannes to New Jersey and fetch her one or more years later, but when a storm prevented him from leaving, she felt it was a sign from God to join him. According to local lore, the ship in which the couple finally sailed almost did not make it to the New World because of a terrible storm that caused a leak. In one story Dina had her chair tied to the mast of the ship and prayed throughout the ordeal, until the winds stilled. A swordfish was later found to be wedged in the crack, stopping the leak.
Another story tells us the ship carried bricks for the new parsonage in Raritan to be built in by the three congregations. Constructed in 1751, the sturdy brick house is presently known as the “Old Dutch Parsonage” in Somerville. Before it was moved to its present location, according to a description of the building the parsonage had slave quarters and two wide fire-places and an oven in the basement. Though a free man, Gronniosaw would have slept in the basement, along with the enslaved servants Dina would refer to in a letter to Henricus in November 1754, published along with her diary.
The couple had two children; Eva (born 1751) and Frederick (born 1753), the ancestor of the Frelinghuysen family of Somerset County. They were only toddlers when their father unexpectedly became sick and died in September 1754 during a trip to Long Island to attend a meeting of the Coetus (an assembly of Dutch ministers and elders). Dina went to fetch the body herself. The story goes that when the boat carrying the coffin pulled into the dock it could not come close enough to debark. Dina then ordered the coffin to be used as a bridge across the gap, telling the passengers “‘Tis only a shell, his spirit is gone. Cast it across.”
Marriage to Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh
“Rosendale,” home of Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh’s parents. It is often mistakenly described as the house where Sojourner Truth lived until she was two (read why).
The parsonage had also been used for teaching young aspiring Dutch ministers at the parsonage, who boarded there. One of Johannes’ students was future president of Queen’s (Rutgers) College Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh from Ulster County, NY, son of Johannes Hardenbergh (1706-1786), who lived in a large house called “Rosendale” in what was still Hurley at the time. Jacob was eighteen when Johannes died and, as a boarder, must have known Dina well. Although he was probably aware that she wanted to go back home he proposed to the eleven years older widow to marry him instead. ”My child, what are you thinking about?” she reportedly exclaimed.
Unwilling, Dina continued to make preparations for her trip home. But when a storm prevented her from leaving, she felt it was another sign from God. They moved in with Jacob’s parents in Ulster County, where he finished his studies. Formally called to be Johannes’ successor, Jacob married Dina two years later in Raritan and the family moved back into the Dutch parsonage. A dress that was passed down though the family as her wedding dress is kept at Rutgers Special Collections and University Archives.
Wedding dress of Dinah Van Bergh at Rutgers Special Collections and University Archives
Why Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh did not go to the Netherlands to be licensed and ordained, like Theodore Jr., and John Frelinghuysen before him, we will hear in the following blog post: The Terrible Fate of the Frelinghuysen Brothers, Part 2: Ulster County.
1I am following genealogical findings published in Barbara Terhune, “The True Parents of Eva (Terhune) Frelinghuysen and her sister, Annetje (Terhune) Schuurman,” New Netherlands Connections, vol. 12, no. 3 (2007). An early version can be found online here
Contents of this blog post were shared in a presentation “’That class of people called Low Dutch,’ African Enslavement Among the Dutch Reformed Churches of Ulster County and New Jersey’s Raritan Valley,” by Helene van Rossum and Wendy Harris at Historic Huguenot Street, New Paltz, NY (April 7, 2018)
