Death of a Notary: Conquest and Change in Colonial New York [Paperback]

Donna Merwick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

"He was the only one. He was the only man to have committed suicide in the town's seventeenth-century history." So begins Donna Merwick's fascinating tale of a Dutch notary who ended his life in his adopted community of Albany. In a major feat of historical reconstruction, she introduces us to Adriaen Janse van Ilpendam and the long-forgotten world he inhabited in Holland's North American colony. Her powerful narrative will make readers care for this quiet and studious man, an "ordinary" settler for whom the clash of empires brought tragedy. Like so many of his fellow countrymen, Janse left his Dutch homeland as a young adult to try his luck in New Netherland. After spending a few years on Manhattan Island, he moved on to the fur trading settlement today known as Albany. Merwick traces his journey to a new continent and re-creates the satisfying existence this respected burgher enjoyed with his wife in the bustling town. As a notary Janse was, in the author's words, "surrounded by stories, those he listened to and recorded, the hundreds he archived in a chest or trunk." His familiar life was turned upside down by the British conquest of the colony. Merwick recounts the changes brought about by the new rulers and imagines the despair Janse must have felt when English, a language he had never learned, replaced his native tongue in official transactions. In any military adventure, truth is alleged to be the first casualty. Merwick offers a poignant reminder that the first casualties are in fact people. As much a musing on what history obscures as what it reveals, her book is a superior work by a master practitioner of her craft.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801487889
• ISBN-13: 978-0801487880
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,558,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unorganized, Uninteresting, and Generally Incoherent, February 22, 2008

By 

Cassie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death of a Notary: Conquest and Change in Colonial New York (Paperback)

As a history major, I've read and loved a lot of historical works, including "microhistories" like this one--and quite honestly, this is one of the most worst I've ever read. Its most glaring fault is its complete lack of organization; the reader is plunged into a story without any exposition and never really gains his footing. Characters were abruptly introduced and vanished just as suddenly, leaivng readers lost and confused. Her thesis remained vauge and elusive until the last page, making reading the entire book a chore: what was the meaning of all this, I couldn't help but wonder as I read.

While the history of Dutch America is no doubt interesting, I couldn't even finish this book, and neither did any of my classmates: truly, the worst on our syllabus.

4.0 out of 5 stars Tradegy of Conquest, August 30, 2007

By 

Nash Black "Troubadour" (Jamestown, KY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Death of a Notary: Conquest and Change in Colonial New York (Paperback)

Donna Merwick's "Death of a Notary" is history/biography of the one person who committed suicide in Albany, NY during the 1600's. Adriaen Janse van Ilpendam was a man who lost his identity as a respected officer of the court when the English conquered the Dutch colony of New York. He was without a country and a language of communications. It was the ending of a writing career, hence an ending of life. New rules prevailed in the courts. "The humiliation of Janse and others as they experienced the loss of language competence and cultural fluency under English rule was real." p. 185. The first fatalities of any military conquest are the private citizens whose lives are destroyed.

My early American ancestors were settlers of the original New York colony under their fedudal land development system. We have always been grateful for the exact records kept by the notaries that were so important to the members of the new colony; a part of the culture of their homeland which they brought the the new world. Yet one must admire the new government, which allowed those records to survive. The English couldn't read them, but they respected the evidence of the rule of law and the stability it engenders.

Ms. Merwick's work is scholarly, yet readable. It opens a window to the everyday lives of our ancestors. The bibliography is extensive and detailed. She steers clear of revisionist history with her careful historical searches among the fodder for the nuisances of truth that paint a clearer picture of our past for our descendants.
Nash Black, author of "Qualifying Laps" and "Sins of the Fathers."