Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680

E-text prepared by Chuck Greif, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent spellings of proper names and non-English words have been retained as they appear in the original. Obvious printer errors have been corrected.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

NEW YORK FROM BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, 1679
From the original drawing by Jasper Danckaerts in the possession of the Long Island Historical Society


Danckaerts's descriptions of his Atlantic voyages to America and back, especially the former, are excessively long, and at times tedious. It has been found possible to omit some portions of these without impairing the interest or value of the narrative or excluding any useful information.
Of the three illustrations, the frontispiece is a photographic reproduction of one of Danckaerts's pen-and-ink sketches accompanying the diary. It has never before been photographically reproduced, though lithographed in Mr. Murphy's book. It represents New York from the southeast, as seen in 1680 from Brooklyn Heights, and is obviously of great interest, being topographically accurate, and drawn with no slight degree of skill. Thanks are due to the Long Island Historical Society for permission to reproduce it, and to the society's secretary, Miss Emma J. Toedteberg.
To illustrate the North River journey of the diarist, and the other parts of his narrative centring around New York, a section is presented of the map of 1671 entitled Novi Belgii, quod nunc Novi Jorck vocatur, Novaeque Angliae et Partis Virginiae Accuratissima et Novissima Delineatio (Most Accurate and Newest Delineation of New Belgium, now called New York, of New England, and of Part of Virginia). This map appeared both in Montanus's Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (Amsterdam, 1671) and in Ogilby's America (London, 1671). It is N.J. Visscher's map of 1655 or 1656 (for which see the volume in this series entitled Narratives of Early Pennsylvania , etc., introductory note, and map opposite p. 170), with slight alterations made in order to adapt it more closely to the date 1671.