Source: John Romeyn Brodhead, 1814 - 1873 by Dr. Adriaan J. Barnouw, Queen Wilhelmina Professor Emeritus at Columbia University

"Details related of distinguished career of lawyer-historian whose investigations documented record of New Netherland era."

In a letter I recently received from the editor he referred to "the regrettable omission for reasons of space of a biographical sketch-commentary of John Romeyn Brodhead's arduous and painstaking labors of over a century ago," and he asked me for "a narrative portrayal" of that great historian, whose Albany speech of 1840 appeared in the July issue. I find it difficult to refuse anything to Mr. Amerman, even when his request for a contribution to de Halve Maen over-estimates my capacity. He amiability makes me a willing horse, and I admit the subject he suggests is one that interests me just as much as him. For John Romeyn Brodhead was a very remarkable personage who deserves a fuller biography than can be contained in a periodical whose editor is hampered by lack of space.
Brodhead was descended from a Yorkshireman, Daniel Brodhead, who in 1644 came over to New Netherland among the British soldiers who had to wrest the colony from the Dutch West India Company. After its capitulation he was placed in command of the English garrison at Esopus, and there he remained until his death in 1667.

John Romeyn had not inherited Captain Daniel's martial spirit. He was a religious man and a faithful believer in the tenets of the Dutch Reformed Church of which his father was a prominent minister, first in Philadelphia and from 1826 on in New York. The son graduated with honors from Rutgers College at the youthful age of seventeen. He did not follow in his father's footsteps but was admitted to the New York Bar in 1835. However, a lawyer's career was as little to his liking as the pastoral care of a church community. The study of early New York history was his all-absorbing passion, and from 1839 on he devoted laborious hours to rescuing from oblivion the records of the old Dutch colony that his Yorkshire ancestor had helped to annihilate.

He was fortunate in being offered a position at The Hague where he could indulge his hobby. On May 15, 1839, the State Department in Washington, D. D., announced the appointment as Charge d'Affaires in the Netherlands of Mr. Harmanus Bleecker, a resident of Albany, N. Y. Mr. Bleecker was traveling in England at the time, and as soon as the news of his appointment reached him he abandoned his plan to spend the summer in Scotland and went to The Hague. Holland was not known territory to him. He had spent the early months of 1839 on a sightseeing tour through his ancestral country and had made many friends among the Dutch thanks to his ability to speak their language fluently, which was still in use among the old families in Albany. They were glad to see him return as the representative of his country and gave him a cordial welcome.

The United States did not maintain an official residence for the Charge d'Affaires at The Hague. Mr. Bleecker had to find one himself and pay the rent out of his own pocket. Neither did the State Department provide him with a secretary who could aid him with his correspondence and his various social duties. Finding himself greatly handicapped Mr. Bleecker wrote to his Albany friend J. V. F. Pruyn: "Do you know a very fine young man in Albany who would like to come to this place and serve as a clerk to me, which would 'occupy hardly any of his time, with the opportunity of learning German, Dutch, and French very cheaply and general law and jurisprudence? I am not allowed anything for a Secretary or Clerk's hire; and what such a young man as I speak of could earn of me would, of course, not amount to much. I would instruct him in jurisprudence, and by being an attaché of the legation he would be in society, in which he would hear English, French, German, and Dutch….Of course, I wish a person who has a right ambition to improve himself."

Romeyn Brodhead was the very "fine young man" who fully answered Mr. Bleecker's requirements. He sailed immediately to offer his services as Clerk to the Charge d'Affairs at The Hague. He did "improve" himself in the one year that he stayed with Mr. Bleecker. He used the free time that was granted him liberally to investigate what records were hidden in the Dutch archives, and he found to his delight that they were rich in material on the early history of New York. When he heard that the Legislature of New York State, by action of May 2, 1839, had authorized the appointment of an agent to procure from the archives of Europe materials to fill the gaps in the State's archives, he applied for the post and was appointed by Governor William H. Seward.

He spent the next four years in Holland, France, and England collecting many valuable date in transcription. The official custodians of these historical treasures were not always very helpful. Some of them were inclined to treat this investigator from the young Republic across the Atlantic as an impertinent intruder and liked to impress him with their importance as keepers of diplomatic secrets that were not destined for his inquisitive eyes, but in such cases he could always count on the baking of the United States representative, Mr. Bleecker at The Hague, General Lewis Cass in Paris, and Edward Everett in London.

In Amsterdam he met with a rebuff that neither the man who administered it nor Mr. Bleecker's intervention could help. He wrote to the latter from there: "Upon calling on Mr. Demunnick I found to my deep sorrow that in 1818 all the old documents of the West India Company previous to 1700 had been sold under an order from The Hague for some 3 or 4000 guildres to paper mills." So little did the Dutch authorities care for the historical records of a since long defunct commercial company. Their thoughtless action was in glaring contrast to Brodhead's zealous endeavor to preserve such material.
Although supported by the State of New York with meagre appropriations Brodhead was able, after four years research in European archives, to return with eighty volumes of manuscript copies of documents. It was a valuable cargo with which he sailed for his homland. George Bancroft said of it: "The ship in which he came back was more richly freighted with new materials for American history than any that ever crossed the Atlantic." I do not know whether it was a sailing vessel or a steamboat. It probably was a sailing ship, for he had little confidence in the seaworthiness of the new invention. In a letter he wrote from London to Mr. Bleecker on April 26, 1842, he said: "The experience of the last winter is rather against ocean steamers in stormy weaterh. It is not common to hear of accidents to good and staunch vessels when at sea. In every position I think sailing vessels are far safer, if they are not as rapid as steamers."

Conservative men are apt to be critical of a new invention, and Mr. Brodhead who lived with his thoughts in the past was by temperament and training a conservative. And he could always quote from his own experience a stiking instance of the peril of steamship travel. When he decided in 1839 to go to The Hague he booked a passage on the steamer President but was prevented by unforseen circumstances from boarding the ship in time. She sailed without him and was never heard of again. So you see, he would say, a sailing ship is safer.

The eighty volumes reached New York without damage or loss. Broadhead did not undertake to edit the copied documents himself. That became the task of two other men. Edmund O'Callaghan was the editor of the first elevem quatro volumes, and these were followed by four others which were edited by Berthold Fernow. The entire series of fifteen tomes was issued under the title "Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York". Their publication covered a period of thirty years fron 1853 to 1883.

Brodhead himself intended to use the material he had collected for the writing of a history of the State of New York. But other work postponed the execution of that plan. For three yeard (1846-49) he served as secretary of legation under George Bancroft in London, a man of kindred spirit who brought together at great pains and expense copies of public documents, family papers, and private journals kept by historic personages, a valuable collection now deposited in the New York Public Library. The two men returned to America in 1849, and Brodhead settled down at last to write his "History of the State of New York." The first volume dealing with the period of New Netherland, (1609-1664) appeared in 1853. The writer's appointment as naval officer of the port of New York was accountable for the slow progress of his work on the second volume. This did not see the light until 1871. It covered the period from Stuyvesant's capitulation to the execution of Leisler (1664-1691). He was at work on the third when death took the pen from his hand. He died not yet sixty yeard old and was buried in Trinity cemetery.

(REPRINTED from the October, 1964, issue of de Halve Maen, quarterly magazine of The Holland Society of New York, 122 East 58th Street, New York, N. Y. 10022

This page was last updated on:
September 26, 2002