Thirty Years War - 1989 magazine article

Review - Article

Came across a story from the 

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - APRIL 1989 issue while studying the Thirty Years War

KRONAN: REMNANTS OF A WARSHIP'S PAST

August 8, 1980

Wreck of the Swedish battleship Kronan discovered by remote-control television camera at the bottom of the Baltic Sea four miles east of the Swedish island of Oland. After a 30-year search by the article's author Anders Franzén he was hoping for proof of the wreck's identity. His crew raised one of the six-pounder ship's cannon bearing the inscription "VIVE LE ROI -1628. They had found the vessel, that year's largest of Sweden - the KRONAN or CROWN. It had sunk on June 1, 1676. King Karl XI's vessel had been nearly 200 feet long, weighed 2,350 tons and bore 126 guns. She had taken seven years to build. And she was destroyed in less than a minute. Close to 800 men died.

Crewman Anders Spaarfelt was blown sky high by the explosion, flew over two enemy ships and landed safely in the sail of a Swedish vessel.

Back in the 1650s the Danes had vowed to win back the Baltic provinces seized by Sweden.

The Kronan had been launched in 1668 and commissioned in 1672. Four years later she and 600 other Swedish warships were sent into action in the Baltic. Commanding the vessel was Baron Lorentz Creutz, also commanding admiral of the Swedish navy.  

The article's author, a naval historian and engineer had originally begun  searching the waters where the wreckage lay submerged. In 1956 he discovered the wreckage of the Swedish ship Vassa, sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628 out of Stockholm. In 1979 he resumed his search for the Kronan, almost three times the weight of the Vassa. And in 1980 it turned up on his crew's "device" (a remote control television camera, not a cell phone). The Geographic's article recounts some of the vast number of artifacts retrieved from the wreck.

The article ends:

"The recovery of Kronan off Hulterstad . . . is a major event and one of great significance even far outside the realm of marine archaeology . . . . This work and those fateful human events will remind us–despite everything–of our close contact with things past."

There could be no finer epitaph for Kronan.

David Minor

BROOKLYN IN THE WARS

Tales from the Vault: War Correspondence
Thu, Nov 12, 6:30 pm
Free


Join us in our archives as we explore the life and times of American veterans in Brooklyn. BHS archivist John Zarrillo and BHS Director of Public History Julie Golia examine Brooklyn’s role in America’s wars, from the Revolutionary War to the present, and share stories from veterans and their families in their own words using correspondence and objects found in our collections.


Brooklyn Historical Society

128 Pierrepont Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

ALBANY "GREAT WAR" BOOK PRESENTATION/SIGNING

When: Friday April 25, 2014
Time: 5:30 PM
Where: Huxley Theater
Cultural Education Center (State Museum building)
222 Madison Avenue, Albany NY 12230
Cost: Free and Open to the Public

It is no accident that the new book, Harlems Rattlers and the Great War by Jeffrey T. Sammons and John H. Morrow, Jr., virtually begins and ends with its most famous combat hero Henry Johnson--a man most closely identified with Albany, New York.

Sammons and Morrow believe that their book sheds new and revealing light on Henry Johnson and his cautionary tale. Join us for this presentation by Dr. Jeffrey Sammons.

Signed copies of the Harlems Rattlers and the Great War: The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the African American Quest for Equality will be available for purchase after Dr. Sammons' presentation.

The presentation by Jeffrey Sammons, sponsored by the New York State Library and the Friends of the State Library, will feature a display of several items from the New York State Archives on New York's 369th Regiment and Albany's hero, Henry Johnson.

NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1798

1798

January

The New Theatre - designed by French architect Marc Isambard Brunel and brothers Joseph-François and Charles Mangin and later known as the Park Theatre - opens at 23 Park Row.

Jan 13

Lower Manhattan's 1767 John Street Theatre closes. Part-owner Lewis Hallam, Jr.  Hallam sells it for £115 to neighboring grain and hay store. The acting company moves to the New Theatre.

February

Isaac Mann, Jr., Stillwater, New York, supplier of logs to New York City for its water system pipes during the Colles project, petitions the city for payment of the balance due. Records cannot be found for the contract and the council suggests Mann sue for his money.

Mar 2

A correspondent for the New York Gazette & General Advertiser estimates that the average cost of Tea Water is $15 per family, suggests an annual tax to raise money for a public waterworks. Nothing will come of the suggestion.

May

John Beddoe, his wife Catherine, and his cousin David Morse arrive in New York City from England, set out for the Finger Lakes region.

May 13

Manhattan's  original Rutgers Presbyterian Church, built on ground donated by Colonel Henry Rutgers, at what would become Henry Street at the intersection of Rutgers Street, is dedicated.

July

Surveyor Melancton Smith dies of yellow fever in New York City, the first death in a summer-long epidemic in the city that will claim 2,086 lives. As the summer passes coffins will be sold on street corners.

Jul 2

Westchester County, New York, doctor Joseph Browne, Aaron Burr's brother-in-law, writes that the health of a city depends more on the quality of its water than any other comestibles. He proposes supplying New York City from the Bronx River.

August

Yellow fever has claimed close to 100 New York City lives by the early part of the month. A carpenter sends around a wagon loaded with coffins to be sold in the streets.    **    New York's City Council appoint a temporary health committee to aid the indigent though the epidemic. They will spend $5,000 over the next three months.

September

1,000 New Yorkers die of yellow fever, including the family of doctor Alexander Anderson. He will later turn to engraving.

Sep 1

U.S. Military Academy superintendent Richard Delafield is born in Manhattan.

Sep 2

New York doctor Elihu Smith writes that new cases of yellow fever are dwindling, due to the small number of people remaining in the city.

Sep 13

63 New Yorkers die of yellow fever, including the father of a future mayor, 17-year-old Philip Hone.

Sep 17

Doctor Elihu Smith contracts yellow fever.

Sep 18

Hone's mother dies of yellow fever.

Sep 19

Elihu Smith dies of the fever.

October

New York's yellow fever death toll tops 400.    **    New York City museum owner Gardiner Baker dies in Boston in his mid-thirties. His Tammany Museum collection is sold.

November

Over 2000 New Yorkers are now dead from yellow fever. Colder weather ends the epidemic.

Nov 15

John Jacob Astor advertises in the New York Gazette and General Advertiser that he has 24 cannons and other military supplies for sale.

December

Nicholas Roosevelt revives his proposals for supplying water to New York City. Judge William Cooper proposes a plan to lay water pipes there.

Dec 17

A New York City committee chosen to evaluate water supply proposals - John Bogert, John B. Coles, Jacob de la Montagnie, and Gabriel Furman - reports that the Bronx River is the best source, but that a few alterations need to made to Joseph Browne's plans.

City

Population: 4,000 households.    **    A residence is built at 207 Front Street.    **    John Stevens conducts steamboat experiments on Collect Pond for the third year in a row.    **    Three health commissioners requested by the city and appointed under the state "Act to provide against infectious and pestilential Diseases" are empowered to enforce the city's health regulations. Dr. Richard Bayley is named head of the Health Office.    **    Coles' bridge across the Harlem River is completed but his mill works at the site is still unfinished.   **    The Tammany Society moves from its usual Barden's Tavern meeting spot at Broadway near Bowling Green to new quarters at Brom Martling's Tavern at Nassau and Spruce. The new place is nicknamed the Wigwam.    **    The state legislature recognizes The Corporation for the Relief of Widows and Children of Clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New York as a separate entity from a three-state umbrella organization.   **    The United Insurance Company and the New-York Insurance Company for Maritime Insurance are chartered.    **    Upstate land speculator James Wadsworth arrives, back from a stay in England.    **    The city orders a survey of the area along the Bronx River, with an eye to eventually obtaining a drinking water supply from its waters.    **    The Bank of New York establishes a branch on eight lots in Greenwich Village. The street where the lots are located will become Bank Street.    **    The city begins grading and paving South Street. Structures along it are built back from the wharves to accommodate the bowsprits of ships moored along the docks.    **    This year - after the fort in lower Manhattan was torn down in 1790 - the need for new fortifications leads to guns being placed in temporary fortifications close to Government House. 

Brooklyn

Shipbuilder John Jackson and his yard on East River’s Wallabout Bay - the future U. S. Navy Yard - build the 28-gun frigate John Adams for the Navy.

Technology

John Stevens conducts steamboat experiments on New York City’s Collect Pond for the third year in a row.

Ireland 

Irish insurgents are defeated by the British at the Battle of Vinegar Hill, in County Wexford. Many of the former will emigrate to the U. S. , and settle in a Brooklyn neighborhood that will become known as Vinegar Hill.

© 2013    David Minor / Eagles Byte

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE - 1794

1794

January                 

New York governor George Clinton addresses the

state legislature, urges strengthening defenses

against the British. They vote £30,000 for fortifying

New York City and £12,000 for the frontiers to the

west and north.    

Jan 5                 

Erie Canal engineer and surveyor Holmes 

Hutchinson is born in Port Dickinson to

highways commissioner and former army

paymaster Amaziah/Amassa Hutchinson

and Elizabeth A. Mack Hutchinson.

February        

New York Indian agent General Israel Chapin,

noticing desertions from local reservations and

fearing trouble from his charges, meets with

them at Buffalo Creek and stay close to them

on through this year and into the next.    

Mar 5                 

Onondaga County is carved out of Herkimer

County. The town of Manlius is formed, with

Comfort Tyler as Justice of the Peace.   

Mar 22

The state legislature votes to extend the

Mohawk Valley Road west from Fort Schuyler

(Utica) to the Genesee River. The extension

will be named the Main Genesee River Road.

Apr 16                 

The 28,245-acre second Chenango Township

is granted to William Smith, who is also

granted the third (24,624 acres), fourth

(24,400) and fifth (26,200) townships.   **

The 25,780-acre eighth Chenango Township

is granted to William S. Smith. The 

24,200-acre ninth Chenango Township is

also granted to William S. Smith. The

24,186-acre twelfth Chenango Township,

is granted to William Matlack, Sr.

Albany

Simeon DeWitt publishes a map of the

Albany area.    **   The Bayard Land

Company is formed.

State

County boundaries are surveyed in the

Military Tract.    **    Judge William Cooper

is elected to Congress.    **   Connewango

pioneer Sarah Ash (Metcalf) is born in

Rennsselaer County.    **     A group of settlers

on the banks of Esopus Creek petition the

governor for pasture and firewood land in

the Catskill region. Traders Jacob Rutsen

and Johannis Hardenbergh take notice.    **

The legislature authorizes the surveying of a

road between Utica and the Genesee River.

**     Joseph Lothrop and A. Mead are the first

to settle at the future site of Chenango County's

North Norwich.    **    The first church services

in the Oneida County town of Augusta are held

in the Fairbanks home.    **    The population of

Herkimer County is 1500; Otsego County 12000.

**    The Fabius area is settled.    **    Jason Parker

of Utica and several partners establish a stage

line to Albany.    **    After a subscription of 200

shares is taken up by the state, work on the stalled

Western Inland Navigation Company canal at 

Little Falls is resumed.    **    Medina horse trader

Richard Gordineer is born to Jacob Gordineer,

a Dutch settler in the Mohawk Valley, and a

slave woman. He and his mother will be sold

to Joseph Grant when he is two months old.

**    The approximate date Utica merchant

Peter Smith acquires proprietary rights for close

to 50,000 acres from the Oneida Indians, the

land stretching from Syracuse to the Oneida

County town of Augusta.

©  2013            David Minor                        Eagles Byte

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE - 1695-1699

1695

Nov 1

The Caterskill (Katerskill) Patent, in New York’s Greene County – total acreage unknown - is granted by governor Fletcher, to Jacob Lockerman.

Dec 2

Kingsfield Manor, 24 miles to the north of Schenectady, is created.

State

All remaining Renssalaerwyck grants revert to Killian van Renssalaer, son of Jeremiah. ** The colony’s exports near 200,000 pounds sterling, just about equaling imports. ** British army chaplain John Miller draws a map of Albany.

1696

Jun 25

The Kakiate Patent, part of the future Rockland County, is issued to Daniel Honan and Michael Hawdon.

Aug 20

The English government reports on the importance of a Five Nations (Iroquois) alliance.

State

Canadian governor Louis de Buande Frontenac conducts a foray out of Montréal against New York’s Onondaga Indians, camps at Isle aux Chevreuils (Carleton Island) in the St. Lawrence River. His force of 2,000 kills many Onondaga and Oneida.

Albany

Dutch Reformed Church minister the Reverend Dellius obtains a patent for 537,600 acres of land from Governor Fletcher, including the site of today’s Fort Edward.

1697

May 9

Colonel Lewis Morris is granted Morrisania Manor, in the southern part of the town of Westchester.

May 21

Captain Thomas Chambers registers New York's Fox Hall Manor. It will be annexed to Kingston, New York, in 1787.

May 27

The Great (or Upper) Nine Partners Patent, in Dutchess County, is granted to John/Jan Aarston, William Creed, James Emott/Emmot, Hendrick ten Eyck, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Filkin, Major Augustin Graham, Colonel Caleb Heathcoate, David Johnstone, and Jarvis Marshall. It includes a small piece of property on the Hudson (just north of the future Poughkeepsie), granted last year.

June

Richard Coote, the Earl of Bellomont is named to succeed Fletcher as Royal Governor of New York. He will not arrive in American until the following April.

Jun 17

Stephanus van Cortlandt is awarded Cortlandt Manor, in northern Westchester County – land he bought from the local Indians in 1683 - by a grant from England’s King William III.

State

Albany's population reaches 714.

Connecticut

A settlement is formed at Bedford, which will eventually becomes a New York State town in Westchester County.

1698

Dec 15

Governor Bellomont, writes to the Board of Trade in London, complaining of the ethics of the legal profession in the colony.

State

Approximately 1230 Senecas remain in the colony, down from nearly twice the number nine year ago, due to war and disease. ** Lord Bellemont is named Royal governor.

1699

State

Kingston settler Johannis Hardenbergh marries Catherine Rutsen, of Ulster County.

©2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE - 1690-1694

1690

January

King William of England appoints Henry Sloughter governor of New York.

Feb 8

French troops set an Indian settlement in Schenectady, New York, on fire. All but two of the 80 houses are destroyed.

Feb 9

French troops and their Indian allies massacre Schenectady settlers. 69 inhabitants are killed and 27 captured. Some escape and are saved from a violent snowstorm by sleighs from Albany. Captain John A. Glen claims many survivors are his relatives to obtain their release. Inhabitant Willem Tietsoort, a blacksmith who had lived among the local Indians for the past 22 years, escapes with his daughter, who will become permanently paralyzed by the cold, to Esopus (Kingston).

Apr 11

Massachusetts calls a special meeting of the United Colonies of New England. Two companies of troops are dispatched to Albany.

May 1

An intercolonial congress meets in New York City to plan attacks on Montréal and Québec. They also discuss the establishment of provincial laws.

August

Fitz-John Winthrop leads a colonial force of 150 to Montréal by way of Lake Champlain but is forced to turn back at Lake George by disease.

State

Acting governor Jacob Leisler appoints Johannis Hardenbergh sheriff of Ulster County. He will lose the position next year with Leisler's arrest. ** Albany’s Dominie Godfridus Dellius complains of the abuse the Dutch clergy undergo under Leisler’s rule. ** Prior to the February, attack Schenectady consists of 60 houses and 300 inhabitants. ** Albany mayor Peter Schuyler builds a blockhouse out in the forest to the north for his military stores and calls the post Saratoga.

Ireland

Charles Clinton, ancestor of New York politicians Gerorge and De Witt Clinton, is born to James and Elizabeth Clinton in County Longford.

1691

May 13

New York's first assembly as a royal colony reenacts 1683's Charter of Liberties. It passes Acts 6 through 10, establishing means for dealing with the poor and vagabonds, enabling the election of representatives, levying monies for the maintenance of a force of fusiliers, enabling the city and county of Albany to repay expenses of the late disturbances by levying local Indian trade groups, and declaring the rights and privileges of colonists.

Oct 1

New York colony’s Albany County is confirmed and its borders delineated.

Oct 7

Massachusetts is given a new charter by William and Mary, restoring the charter of 1629 and making it a royal colony, including Plymouth, Nova Scotia and all territory up through the Maine area. Cornwall County (parts of the Maine coast) and Dukes County (some of the islands off Massachusetts) are taken off New York colony. The charter also makes property the basis of suffrage instead of religion, provides for a governor appointed by the crown, and a Council elected by the General Court, subject to the governor's veto.

State

Dutch immigrant and New Amsterdam settler Jacob Leendertsen Van Der Grift dies in his early sixties at his Newton, Long Island home.

Albany

Mayor Peter Schuyler leads an expedition against Canada, camps at the Great Carrying Place, the portage between the Hudson River and Lake Champlain.

1692

State

Cornwall County is surrendered to Massachusetts. ** Interpreter Arnout Viele leads a party of eleven Europeans and a number of Indians out of Albany, across Pennsylvania, and down the Ohio River to a point near its mouth.

Massachusetts

Dutch settlers from the Hudson Valley begin moving into the Berkshires.

1693

Oct 5

Colonel William Smith is granted St. George Manor, on Long Island.

1694

Aug 15

Colonial delegates meeting in Albany sign a treaty with the Iroquois, to keep the Indians from siding with the French.

© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte