NOTE: The Hertel article on this page is not 100% current.
Jacques Hertel in Legend and History*
Note: Weebly changed some of the formatting below so that footnotes appear in normal font size.
Editor’s Note: For the purposes of this article, “legend” is defined as oral tradition that might be either substantially correct or substantially incorrect. Most of the genealogy about Jacques Hertel on the internet presents him as the unquestioned father of Mohawk daughters, but the researchers who have studied the question agree that conclusive proof does not exist. In order to bring more balance to the question, this article assesses the evidence, and it provides a scenario for how the legend might have developed. It deals in probability and hopefully generates some ideas for additional consideration.
____________
Anyone who has done extensive research on the Van Slyke (Van Slyck) and Bradt families has come across the legend that a French-Canadian trader named Jacques Hertel came to the Mohawk valley in the 1620s and fathered two daughters with a Mohawk woman. In my research on the Bradt family conducted over 20 years, I (Cynthia Biasca**) found many variations on this theme.
Different versions of the legend have different names for the daughters.[1] In order to avoid favoring one name over another, this article identifies them as “Legendary Daughters One and Two,” or LD1 and LD2. The older daughter, LD1, was said to be "like her mother, savage and wild.” The younger daughter, LD2, was said to be “small and handsome, like her father” and “very white." LD1 was said to have married Cornelis Van Slyck and LD2 was said to have “married a Bratt."[2] Later additions to the story ill-advisedly made her the mother of Arent Andriessen Bradt.
Reliable historical records are clear that Cornelis Van Slyck had several children by an Indian woman at the Canajoharie Castle (Fort), as her Mohawk village was called by the Dutch. But was she the daughter of Jacques Hertel, an early settler in French Canada? At first, I accepted this as fact because I came across it so frequently, but it was based on questionable sources.[3] Over time, I realized that dates and circumstances in the legend raised many difficult questions.
JACQUES HERTEL IN ORAL TRADITION
Peter Christoph (1938-2019), an authority on colonial New York history, encouraged me to search out the earliest occurrences of the Hertel legend. Three appeared between 1836 and 1860. The most important are the first two; they set the stage for all that follow, even down to the latest versions that we see today.
1836 – The Shononsise Legend. In 1836, “The Reflector,” a Schenectady newspaper, published the first known version of the Hertel legend as part of a series entitled "Antiquarian Articles" by Giles F. Yates. In 1857, the same paper re-published some of them under the title "Olden Time Reminiscence.” It reported that
____________
Anyone who has done extensive research on the Van Slyke (Van Slyck) and Bradt families has come across the legend that a French-Canadian trader named Jacques Hertel came to the Mohawk valley in the 1620s and fathered two daughters with a Mohawk woman. In my research on the Bradt family conducted over 20 years, I (Cynthia Biasca**) found many variations on this theme.
Different versions of the legend have different names for the daughters.[1] In order to avoid favoring one name over another, this article identifies them as “Legendary Daughters One and Two,” or LD1 and LD2. The older daughter, LD1, was said to be "like her mother, savage and wild.” The younger daughter, LD2, was said to be “small and handsome, like her father” and “very white." LD1 was said to have married Cornelis Van Slyck and LD2 was said to have “married a Bratt."[2] Later additions to the story ill-advisedly made her the mother of Arent Andriessen Bradt.
Reliable historical records are clear that Cornelis Van Slyck had several children by an Indian woman at the Canajoharie Castle (Fort), as her Mohawk village was called by the Dutch. But was she the daughter of Jacques Hertel, an early settler in French Canada? At first, I accepted this as fact because I came across it so frequently, but it was based on questionable sources.[3] Over time, I realized that dates and circumstances in the legend raised many difficult questions.
JACQUES HERTEL IN ORAL TRADITION
Peter Christoph (1938-2019), an authority on colonial New York history, encouraged me to search out the earliest occurrences of the Hertel legend. Three appeared between 1836 and 1860. The most important are the first two; they set the stage for all that follow, even down to the latest versions that we see today.
1836 – The Shononsise Legend. In 1836, “The Reflector,” a Schenectady newspaper, published the first known version of the Hertel legend as part of a series entitled "Antiquarian Articles" by Giles F. Yates. In 1857, the same paper re-published some of them under the title "Olden Time Reminiscence.” It reported that
SHONONSISE, an Oron chief had taken to wife the daughter of a French trader by the name of Jacques Hertel. This Hertel had taken up his abode in Schenectada (sic) as early as 1623, or '4. Shononsise had by his French wife two beautiful daughters. The oldest [LD1] was of an imperious temper, the last [LD2] of a mild and sweet temper; yet both were worthy women."[4]
This version of the legend does not involve VanSlycks or Bratts; they do not appear in it. (Note also that Hertel was said to be in Mohawk country, Schenectady, as early as 1623/4. For one reason or another, later versions make the date as early as 1619.)
For a number of reasons, the Shononsise Legend appears to be an example of fictional story-telling. Some of the reasons are that:
The Orons (Hurons) lived near Lake Huron, 200 miles away from the Mohawk Valley, and the Mohawks were their dreaded enemies.
There is no evidence of a Chief Shononsise in the colonial records of New Netherland or of Canada.
The name “Shononsise” sounds very much like the name of a well-known Indian tribe in Idaho and Nevada, the Shoshone. The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) encountered the tribe in July of 1805 and recorded them as “Sosonees.” The journal of their expedition was published in book form several years later. The similarity between Shononsise and Sosonees may or may not be coincidental, but legends do not come about in a vacuum. They pick up terminology that is current at the time of their origin.
The respected educator and historian of early Schenectady, Professor Jonathan Pearson, wrote that the Antiquarian Articles “are to be received with caution as they are full of errors.” Including this one, by all appearances. Yates himself introduced the articles by telling his readers that they consist of “broken facts... in an undigested form.” (There is more detail in all versions of the Hertel legend than is shown in this article. Some of it is very interesting.)
Giles Yates was an “antiquarian,” a sometime lawyer and, in 1836, an editor at “The Schenectady Reflector.” A read-through of the entire news column containing the Shononsise legend shows that Yates padded this article with several lines of poetry that have nothing to do with the legend itself. He may have done this to create a certain mood, or simply as filler. The column is a collection of loosely related topics that includes a brief mention of two early settlers, Jacques (Cornelessen) Van Slyck and a “wealthy Norwegian,” presumably Arent Andries(sen) Bradt, who was not the least bit wealthy. (Footnote 4 has a link to the Yates article.)
The source of the Shononsise Legend is not given, but a couple of paragraphs below it in the same column is a description of a country estate originally owned by Adam Vrooman, an early Schenectady resident and one of Yates’ ancestors. It might be that both reminiscences came from the Vrooman family. If so, that’s a possible clue to the origin of the next version of the legend, the Vrooman tradition.
1856 and 1883 – The Vrooman Tradition. By about 1856,[5] the Hertel story had come to the attention of Professor Pearson, but with new connections. Among the changes, Chief Shononsise was gone, Hertel was now the father of LD1 and LD2, and Cornelis Van Slyck was now Hertel’s son-in-law. The revised legend did not appear in print until 1883 when “A History of the Schenectady Patent” was published by Professor Pearson. It included the Vrooman tradition in a footnote about the Van Slycks:
For a number of reasons, the Shononsise Legend appears to be an example of fictional story-telling. Some of the reasons are that:
The Orons (Hurons) lived near Lake Huron, 200 miles away from the Mohawk Valley, and the Mohawks were their dreaded enemies.
There is no evidence of a Chief Shononsise in the colonial records of New Netherland or of Canada.
The name “Shononsise” sounds very much like the name of a well-known Indian tribe in Idaho and Nevada, the Shoshone. The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) encountered the tribe in July of 1805 and recorded them as “Sosonees.” The journal of their expedition was published in book form several years later. The similarity between Shononsise and Sosonees may or may not be coincidental, but legends do not come about in a vacuum. They pick up terminology that is current at the time of their origin.
The respected educator and historian of early Schenectady, Professor Jonathan Pearson, wrote that the Antiquarian Articles “are to be received with caution as they are full of errors.” Including this one, by all appearances. Yates himself introduced the articles by telling his readers that they consist of “broken facts... in an undigested form.” (There is more detail in all versions of the Hertel legend than is shown in this article. Some of it is very interesting.)
Giles Yates was an “antiquarian,” a sometime lawyer and, in 1836, an editor at “The Schenectady Reflector.” A read-through of the entire news column containing the Shononsise legend shows that Yates padded this article with several lines of poetry that have nothing to do with the legend itself. He may have done this to create a certain mood, or simply as filler. The column is a collection of loosely related topics that includes a brief mention of two early settlers, Jacques (Cornelessen) Van Slyck and a “wealthy Norwegian,” presumably Arent Andries(sen) Bradt, who was not the least bit wealthy. (Footnote 4 has a link to the Yates article.)
The source of the Shononsise Legend is not given, but a couple of paragraphs below it in the same column is a description of a country estate originally owned by Adam Vrooman, an early Schenectady resident and one of Yates’ ancestors. It might be that both reminiscences came from the Vrooman family. If so, that’s a possible clue to the origin of the next version of the legend, the Vrooman tradition.
1856 and 1883 – The Vrooman Tradition. By about 1856,[5] the Hertel story had come to the attention of Professor Pearson, but with new connections. Among the changes, Chief Shononsise was gone, Hertel was now the father of LD1 and LD2, and Cornelis Van Slyck was now Hertel’s son-in-law. The revised legend did not appear in print until 1883 when “A History of the Schenectady Patent” was published by Professor Pearson. It included the Vrooman tradition in a footnote about the Van Slycks:
She [a Mohawk woman] had two children by a Frenchman–Mr. Harttell. [The older child] was like her mother, savage and wild. She married Cornelius Van Slyck. ...the second child, was small and handsome, like her father Mr. Harttell; she was very white. She married a Bratt.”
–Statement of tradition in his family, by Laurence R. Vrooman[2]
Cornelis (Cornelius) Van Slyck was a memorable character who emigrated from the Netherlands in 1634 to Rensselaerswyck in New Netherland. Sometimes called Brother (Broer) Cornelis, he was apparently well-liked by both the Dutch and the Mohawks, although his charisma may have worn thin with his Mohawk wife in later years. (That may explain why she was originally “beautiful” and then became “savage and wild.”) Still, his children thought enough of him to prefer living among the Dutch, a sentiment that many mixed-race children did not share.
The Vrooman family had emigrated from the Netherlands by the 1660s. Those that located in Schenectady were prominent and prolific. Adam Vrooman was living there in April of 1680 when a traveling Dutch clergyman spent a few days in that village. Ten years later Adam’s wife died, and he married the widow of Jacques Van Slyck, a son of Cornelis! Adam died in 1730, survived by 11 children, nine sons and two daughters. One of his great-grandsons was Giles Yates, the newspaper editor.
The word “tradition” in the statement above reveals that Laurence heard the Hertel legend from a family member rather than finding it in old documents. If anyone had any documentary evidence that Jacques Hertel had been in the Mohawk Valley, it would have been Professor Pearson, a reliable translator of many New Netherland records. However, his book makes no mention of Hertel except in the footnote, which was included by his editor, J. W. MacMurray. (The 1949 genealogy “The Vrooman Family in America” tells of the Mohawk wife of Cornelis Van Slyck, but makes no mention of Jacques Hertel.)
Historians make good use of oral history from eye witnesses, but they find that oral traditions based on uncertain sources are unreliable at best. The placement of the Hertel legend in a footnote, rather than in the body of the book, suggests that Pearson and MacMurray are also leery of oral tradition. Not so, their readers. MacMurray’s footnote marks the beginning of the Hertel legend in the form that comes down to us, frequently through one or more of the following restatements.
The Vrooman family had emigrated from the Netherlands by the 1660s. Those that located in Schenectady were prominent and prolific. Adam Vrooman was living there in April of 1680 when a traveling Dutch clergyman spent a few days in that village. Ten years later Adam’s wife died, and he married the widow of Jacques Van Slyck, a son of Cornelis! Adam died in 1730, survived by 11 children, nine sons and two daughters. One of his great-grandsons was Giles Yates, the newspaper editor.
The word “tradition” in the statement above reveals that Laurence heard the Hertel legend from a family member rather than finding it in old documents. If anyone had any documentary evidence that Jacques Hertel had been in the Mohawk Valley, it would have been Professor Pearson, a reliable translator of many New Netherland records. However, his book makes no mention of Hertel except in the footnote, which was included by his editor, J. W. MacMurray. (The 1949 genealogy “The Vrooman Family in America” tells of the Mohawk wife of Cornelis Van Slyck, but makes no mention of Jacques Hertel.)
Historians make good use of oral history from eye witnesses, but they find that oral traditions based on uncertain sources are unreliable at best. The placement of the Hertel legend in a footnote, rather than in the body of the book, suggests that Pearson and MacMurray are also leery of oral tradition. Not so, their readers. MacMurray’s footnote marks the beginning of the Hertel legend in the form that comes down to us, frequently through one or more of the following restatements.
1860 – Vrooman Restated. About 1860, the Vrooman tradition was included in “The Paige Diaries,” a collection of notes and short essays about the families of “old Schenectady”[6] compiled by Schenectady resident Harriet Paige. She recorded that a Mohawk woman
had two children by a Frenchman named Hertell –[the one, born in 1620,] a large coarse looking squaw like mother –Savage and wild she married Corn. Ant. Van S.” [Cornelis Antonissen Van Slyck], and [the other] Small & handsome like her father; who married a Bradt.”
–Tradition –G.F.Y. [Giles F. Yates]
Again, support for the legend is oral tradition rather than a written document. Mrs. Paige doesn’t say where Yates came by this tradition, but the wording suggests Laurence Vrooman.
The Paige collection has never been published so its influence on the Hertel legend may be slight, but it shows how oral history evolves a little at a time. The older daughter, LD1, started out as beautiful, imperious, and worthy, then became savage and wild, and now is coarse, savage, and wild. (What did Cornelis see in her?) And Hertel’s legendary presence in Mohawk country has been changed from 1623 to about 1619 when he would have been 16 years of age. This was just four years after the French had attacked the Onondaga tribe of Iroquois. Was 1620 a more accurate birth year for LD1, or was it an expedient adjustment to allow for a more feasible timeline of later events?
The Paige collection has never been published so its influence on the Hertel legend may be slight, but it shows how oral history evolves a little at a time. The older daughter, LD1, started out as beautiful, imperious, and worthy, then became savage and wild, and now is coarse, savage, and wild. (What did Cornelis see in her?) And Hertel’s legendary presence in Mohawk country has been changed from 1623 to about 1619 when he would have been 16 years of age. This was just four years after the French had attacked the Onondaga tribe of Iroquois. Was 1620 a more accurate birth year for LD1, or was it an expedient adjustment to allow for a more feasible timeline of later events?
1925 – Vrooman Once Again. In 1925, artist and historian Nelson Greene published his “History of the Mohawk Valley, Gateway to the West, 1614-1925” where he relates an almost identical version of the original Vrooman tradition.
Hartell had two children by this [Mohawk] woman –[The older] who married Cornelis Antonissen Van Slyck and [the younger] who married a Bradt. [The older] was wild and savage like her mother while [the younger] was small and handsome and very white like her father, Hartell.”[7]
Greene has often been criticized for the number of mistakes in this book. It contains volumes of useful history, but he sometimes relied on local “experts” who were later shown to be unreliable sources.[8] In addition, Greene frequently failed to identify his sources, but Pearson/MacMurray seems to be where he found the Vrooman tradition. The story of Jacques Hertel in the 1996 book below is based largely on Greene’s restatement of it.
1996 – The Vrooman Tradition Writ Large. In 1996, the Hertel legend was popularized by a new book about the Van Slyke family.[9] The author described Hertel as the father of LD1, the older, wild daughter, but she dismissed LD2 as controversial and, to her knowledge, mentioned in only one source. Except for that and for a number of speculative details, her narrative follows the Vrooman tradition quite closely.
The author proposes that Hertel could have been the father of LD1 because there was peace between the Mohawks and New France from about 1622 (1624 according to the source on page 36 of her book) to 1627, a period in which the girl could have been born. Without either primary or second-party evidence, the author writes that “about the year 1622” Hertel accompanied “a party of Frenchmen” to the Mohawk Valley and fathered a daughter there. In support of her case, she cites only 19th and 20th century sources.
This “party of Frenchmen” is one of her speculative details, and it is not supported by the historical record. Her book itself goes on to say that in actuality the French deputized a delegation of allied Indians to visit the Iroquois in 1622 and to negotiate a peace agreement on their behalf. The negotiations were productive and the peace was formalized in 1624. The five tribes of the Iroquois confederacy didn’t always agree on “foreign policy,” but apparently the Mohawks agreed to this peace.
Perhaps the most unlikely aspect of the book is the timing for key events: Hertel comes to Canajoharie “about 1622,” immediately fathers a daughter, and 13 years later (“about 1635”), at the age of 12, this daughter gives birth to a son, Marten Van Slyck,[10] the firstborn of Cornelis’ children. In earlier centuries when children often matured at a later age than they do in our time, this was not just extremely unlikely, it was absolutely impossible. The author is not at fault for this problematic timeline; the viability of the Hertel legend requires very precise timing. A couple of years one way or the other and it becomes completely impossible. If the visit to Canajoharie did not occur by the year1622, this unlikely timeline becomes almost infinitely unfeasible.
It should be noted that the author introduced her narrative by writing that her intention was “to support that Jacques Hertel was the father” of LD1. Being a serious genealogist, she does not claim it to be an absolute certainty. Her choice of the word support was very appropriate; the burden of evidence to prove a point is much greater than to support one.
The author proposes that Hertel could have been the father of LD1 because there was peace between the Mohawks and New France from about 1622 (1624 according to the source on page 36 of her book) to 1627, a period in which the girl could have been born. Without either primary or second-party evidence, the author writes that “about the year 1622” Hertel accompanied “a party of Frenchmen” to the Mohawk Valley and fathered a daughter there. In support of her case, she cites only 19th and 20th century sources.
This “party of Frenchmen” is one of her speculative details, and it is not supported by the historical record. Her book itself goes on to say that in actuality the French deputized a delegation of allied Indians to visit the Iroquois in 1622 and to negotiate a peace agreement on their behalf. The negotiations were productive and the peace was formalized in 1624. The five tribes of the Iroquois confederacy didn’t always agree on “foreign policy,” but apparently the Mohawks agreed to this peace.
Perhaps the most unlikely aspect of the book is the timing for key events: Hertel comes to Canajoharie “about 1622,” immediately fathers a daughter, and 13 years later (“about 1635”), at the age of 12, this daughter gives birth to a son, Marten Van Slyck,[10] the firstborn of Cornelis’ children. In earlier centuries when children often matured at a later age than they do in our time, this was not just extremely unlikely, it was absolutely impossible. The author is not at fault for this problematic timeline; the viability of the Hertel legend requires very precise timing. A couple of years one way or the other and it becomes completely impossible. If the visit to Canajoharie did not occur by the year1622, this unlikely timeline becomes almost infinitely unfeasible.
It should be noted that the author introduced her narrative by writing that her intention was “to support that Jacques Hertel was the father” of LD1. Being a serious genealogist, she does not claim it to be an absolute certainty. Her choice of the word support was very appropriate; the burden of evidence to prove a point is much greater than to support one.
In 1997, New Netherland authority Harry Macy reviewed the book for “The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record” and made this assessment.
This tradition [the Hertel/Mohawk/VanSlyck legend] is supported only by 19th century sources; 17th century records suggest that the mother of the Van Slyck children was a full-blooded Mohawk... Interested descendants will have to examine the sources and draw their own conclusions.”[11]
The most informative of the 17th century sources follows.
THE JOURNAL OF JASPER DANCKAERTS (1679-1680)
The most detailed description of the early Van Slycks was recorded in the “Journal of Jasper Danckaerts.”[12] Danckaerts was a Dutch clergyman from the province of Friesland who was looking for a favorable place to plant a religious colony in America. His travel journal provides descriptive accounts of the people and places that he visited. In the spring of 1680, he and a traveling companion visited Albany and Schenectady, where they met two of Cornelis Van Slyck’s children, Hilletie (about 1644 to 1707) and Jacques (about 1639 or ‘40 to 1690), and their full-blooded Mohawk nephew, Wouter. Danckaerts interviewed Hilletie and Wouter in great detail and recorded several pages about them.
The interview with Hilletie took place in the home of a Schenectady resident by the name of “Adam,” probably the previously mentioned Adam Vrooman as he was the only homeowner in town with that first name. Danckaerts was familiar with the physical characteristics of Native Americans from earlier encounters, but when Hilletie first came into the house, he identified her as “Indian” rather than as mixed race. It’s not clear whether she struck him as full-blooded, or if he just used an inexact word.
Danckaerts went on to describe Hilletie, and later her brother Jacques, as “half-breed” (his term), whom he further described as having a Dutch father and an Indian mother. He added that she (the mother) was violently anti-Christian, and that Hilletie was hounded out of Canajoharie by the taunts and curses of her mother, brothers, and sisters, apparently because of her interest in Christianity. Hilletie provided a number of interesting details about her life, but no indication that her mother was half French. (About a half dozen colonial records also describe the mother as Mohawk. With that many records, it might be significant that none of them suggests a French heritage.)
Wouter’s 100 per cent Mohawk ethnicity is further evidence that Hilletie’s mother was completely Mohawk herself. (It is also evidence that she had at least one child with an Indian man. In an earlier marriage?) These interviews, as written, leave no room for Hertel in the Van Slyck and Bradt family trees.
Supporters of the Hertel tradition maintain that Danckaerts misjudged the ethnic admixture of Hilletie, Jacques, and Wouter; that is, that they were actually more European than he thought. However, it should be noted that neither the “Journal” itself nor the official records of New Netherland ever give any impression that Cornelis Van Slyck’s children looked particularly European even though the Hertel legend would make them only one-fourth Indian (and Wouter three-fourths Indian). On the contrary, Wouter’s uncle Jacques needled him for being an “Indian,” and one particularly rude Dutch neighbor called Hilletie a “sow.” All in all, the Journal and other primary source documents give the impression that Danckaerts knew what he was talking about.
The most detailed description of the early Van Slycks was recorded in the “Journal of Jasper Danckaerts.”[12] Danckaerts was a Dutch clergyman from the province of Friesland who was looking for a favorable place to plant a religious colony in America. His travel journal provides descriptive accounts of the people and places that he visited. In the spring of 1680, he and a traveling companion visited Albany and Schenectady, where they met two of Cornelis Van Slyck’s children, Hilletie (about 1644 to 1707) and Jacques (about 1639 or ‘40 to 1690), and their full-blooded Mohawk nephew, Wouter. Danckaerts interviewed Hilletie and Wouter in great detail and recorded several pages about them.
The interview with Hilletie took place in the home of a Schenectady resident by the name of “Adam,” probably the previously mentioned Adam Vrooman as he was the only homeowner in town with that first name. Danckaerts was familiar with the physical characteristics of Native Americans from earlier encounters, but when Hilletie first came into the house, he identified her as “Indian” rather than as mixed race. It’s not clear whether she struck him as full-blooded, or if he just used an inexact word.
Danckaerts went on to describe Hilletie, and later her brother Jacques, as “half-breed” (his term), whom he further described as having a Dutch father and an Indian mother. He added that she (the mother) was violently anti-Christian, and that Hilletie was hounded out of Canajoharie by the taunts and curses of her mother, brothers, and sisters, apparently because of her interest in Christianity. Hilletie provided a number of interesting details about her life, but no indication that her mother was half French. (About a half dozen colonial records also describe the mother as Mohawk. With that many records, it might be significant that none of them suggests a French heritage.)
Wouter’s 100 per cent Mohawk ethnicity is further evidence that Hilletie’s mother was completely Mohawk herself. (It is also evidence that she had at least one child with an Indian man. In an earlier marriage?) These interviews, as written, leave no room for Hertel in the Van Slyck and Bradt family trees.
Supporters of the Hertel tradition maintain that Danckaerts misjudged the ethnic admixture of Hilletie, Jacques, and Wouter; that is, that they were actually more European than he thought. However, it should be noted that neither the “Journal” itself nor the official records of New Netherland ever give any impression that Cornelis Van Slyck’s children looked particularly European even though the Hertel legend would make them only one-fourth Indian (and Wouter three-fourths Indian). On the contrary, Wouter’s uncle Jacques needled him for being an “Indian,” and one particularly rude Dutch neighbor called Hilletie a “sow.” All in all, the Journal and other primary source documents give the impression that Danckaerts knew what he was talking about.
JACQUES, FRANÇOIS AND OTHER HERTELS IN HISTORY
Jacques Hertel (about 1603-1651). In the records of colonial Canada, Jacques Hertel was an interpreter, guide, trapper, and trader who settled in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. In 1641, he married a young French girl, Marie (surname Marguerie), and the next year, their son, François, was born, followed by two daughters.
To learn more of Jacques’ personal history, a Canadian cousin helped me locate a researcher, Mr. Jean Prince, Director of the Institut de Recherches les Sources du Passe Enr. in Trois-Rivieres. He searched many sources for me, such as biographical dictionaries of Canada and genealogies of Quebec families.[13] Prince quoted an account of Hertel by French-Canadian historian Father Paul LeJeune (Superior of the Jesuits in Canada from 1632 to 1639) as follows:
Jacques Hertel (about 1603-1651). In the records of colonial Canada, Jacques Hertel was an interpreter, guide, trapper, and trader who settled in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. In 1641, he married a young French girl, Marie (surname Marguerie), and the next year, their son, François, was born, followed by two daughters.
To learn more of Jacques’ personal history, a Canadian cousin helped me locate a researcher, Mr. Jean Prince, Director of the Institut de Recherches les Sources du Passe Enr. in Trois-Rivieres. He searched many sources for me, such as biographical dictionaries of Canada and genealogies of Quebec families.[13] Prince quoted an account of Hertel by French-Canadian historian Father Paul LeJeune (Superior of the Jesuits in Canada from 1632 to 1639) as follows:
He came to Canada circa 1615, learned the idioms [language] of the Indians and became an eminent interpreter. In 1627, he took refuge with the Indians and lived their way of life until [Samuel de] Champlain came back [to Canada in 1633]. [Champlain] then granted a lot to him in Trois-Rivieres...”[14]
Trois-Rivieres was a trading post for Algonquin speaking people, an indication that Jacques may have spoken an Algonquin language rather than Mohawk. The English had occupied New France from 1629 to 1632, and residents such as Hertel, Champlain, and some others vacated the colony. There is no documentary evidence that Hertel had any mixed-race children during this time or at any other time.
Historical records do not identify the Indian tribe that Hertel lived with, and they give no indication that he ever traveled as far south as the Mohawk Valley. That was not likely, according to an archivist at the Ontario (Canada) Archives; the French battled against the Iroquois all through the 1600s, with noteworthy clashes in 1609, 1610, 1615, and 1627. Consequently, they were seldom welcome in Mohawk territory, as evidenced by the capture of French missionary Father Isaac Jogues by the Mohawks in 1642 and his execution four years later. Such executions were not uncommon at the time. Even during times of “truce” or peace, an aggrieved family might take its revenge.
François Hertel. While Jacques’ visit to the Mohawk Valley is in question, his son François was definitely there, but not voluntarily. In 1661 at the age of 19, he was kidnapped from his home in Trois-Rivieres by the Mohawks and taken as a prisoner to one of their villages along the Mohawk River. The Dutch were in and out of the Mohawk villages continually, so François may have become known to them during his captivity. In the 1600s, the Mohawks were cruel to their prisoners, and François was given no preferential treatment for being a Hertel. However, prisoners did have a certain amount of freedom if they survived the cruelty, so François was able to write three letters during his captivity. None of them mentioned any half-sisters among the Mohawks.
By the fall of 1663, François had escaped and was back home in Canada. He later waged savage and successful military campaigns against the New England colonies.[15] Several of his sons were also successful military leaders. It is not surprising that the name Hertel would become legendary.
Other Hertels. François is not the only Hertel whose name might have been borrowed for the Shononsise legend and then retained for the Vrooman tradition. According to local newspapers, in 1836 a Robert Hertel was living or visiting in Schenectady, and a Thomas Hertel was running for lieutenant governor of New York State. (These Hertels presumably originated in Germany.) If the "Sosonees” tribe lent its name to Chief Shononsise, any of these Hertels may also have lent their name to the legend.
Historical records do not identify the Indian tribe that Hertel lived with, and they give no indication that he ever traveled as far south as the Mohawk Valley. That was not likely, according to an archivist at the Ontario (Canada) Archives; the French battled against the Iroquois all through the 1600s, with noteworthy clashes in 1609, 1610, 1615, and 1627. Consequently, they were seldom welcome in Mohawk territory, as evidenced by the capture of French missionary Father Isaac Jogues by the Mohawks in 1642 and his execution four years later. Such executions were not uncommon at the time. Even during times of “truce” or peace, an aggrieved family might take its revenge.
François Hertel. While Jacques’ visit to the Mohawk Valley is in question, his son François was definitely there, but not voluntarily. In 1661 at the age of 19, he was kidnapped from his home in Trois-Rivieres by the Mohawks and taken as a prisoner to one of their villages along the Mohawk River. The Dutch were in and out of the Mohawk villages continually, so François may have become known to them during his captivity. In the 1600s, the Mohawks were cruel to their prisoners, and François was given no preferential treatment for being a Hertel. However, prisoners did have a certain amount of freedom if they survived the cruelty, so François was able to write three letters during his captivity. None of them mentioned any half-sisters among the Mohawks.
By the fall of 1663, François had escaped and was back home in Canada. He later waged savage and successful military campaigns against the New England colonies.[15] Several of his sons were also successful military leaders. It is not surprising that the name Hertel would become legendary.
Other Hertels. François is not the only Hertel whose name might have been borrowed for the Shononsise legend and then retained for the Vrooman tradition. According to local newspapers, in 1836 a Robert Hertel was living or visiting in Schenectady, and a Thomas Hertel was running for lieutenant governor of New York State. (These Hertels presumably originated in Germany.) If the "Sosonees” tribe lent its name to Chief Shononsise, any of these Hertels may also have lent their name to the legend.
GRANDSON OR COINCIDENTAL NAMESAKE?
A couple of researchers have proposed that Jacques Van Slyck's first name is evidence in favor of the Jacques Hertel legend. However, this is a clue that supports and undermines at the same time. Certainly, people with the same name might be related, and if the name is somewhat unusual it should be evaluated as potential evidence." Jacques" was not a common name in northern New Netherland where Jacques Van Slyck made his home after leaving the Mohawk Tribe.
The historical record shows that Jacques' sister, Hilletie, did not have a Christian name until she went to live among the Dutch. Her “foster parents” in the community, not her parents, decided that Hilletie would be a good name for her. It seems pretty likely that Jacques also acquired his European name only after going to live among the Dutch. But why would they have given him a French name?
Proposal #1: His Mohawk name, It-Sy-Cho-Sa-Quach-Ka, or his nicknames, may have sounded something like Jacques. The Dutch sometimes called him Gautsch, which looks a little similar to “Quach” in his Mohawk name. Gautsch was pronounced “Hotch”[2] with the same vowel sound as in Jacques. In this step-wise manner, Quach may have developed into “Jacques.” His other nicknames were Aques and Ackes, which may also have suggested “Jacques” (or vice versa).
Proposal #2: French speakers were very common in the Netherlands and in New Netherland at the time. Cornelis could well have known a friendly Frenchman by the name of Jacques that he wanted to honor by giving his son the same name. The unconventionality of that choice would be no particular barrier; the circumstances of his life were unconventional.
Whatever the reason for settling on “Jacques,” the name was almost certain to generate curiosity over time. When the Shononsise legend became widely known in the 1830s, a serious “antiquarian” or an imaginative story-teller could easily propose that Jacques Hertel was the namesake and ancestor of Jacques Van Slyck. Under that scenario, instead of Hertel actually being the namesake for Van Slyck, the name “Jacques” had planted the idea that Hertel was the grandfather, undermining the legend that it first seemed to support.
LEGENDARY DAUGHTERS
The legendary daughters of Jacques Hertel obviously depend upon his legendary relationship with a Mohawk woman; no relationship, no daughters. But details about the women are also problematical.
In light of Father LeJeune’s account of Hertel, the younger daughter, LD2, would not have been born before 1628 (about the mid-1620s according to the legend) but her purported son, Arent Andriessen, was born no later than 1618. A son older than his mother! –Some recent versions of the legend also have LD2 as the mother of Albert Andriessen Bradt (b. 1607). Another son older than his mother!
One recent analyst theorized that LD2 might have been “married” to Arent Andriessen Bratt himself, sometime between 1637 when he arrived in America and 1648 when he married Catalyntje de Vos. In the female-scarce colony of New Netherland, such relationships happened, but they were seldom anything that would be called a marriage. A marriage usually produces children, but if Arent had any Mohawk children, they didn’t make it into the historical record, and presumably the de Vos family didn’t know about them, even though the Dutch knew a lot about their Mohawk neighbors.
Catalyntje was from a “proper” family, one that would have encouraged their daughter to steer clear of a man with “a history,” and Arent had been a de Vos family friend for many years before the wedding took place. If he had been involved with a Mohawk girl, it would have been a secret that he kept to himself, thereby giving his family no opportunity to pass the story down through the generations to us. LD2 appears only in the legend and not convincingly, so historically speaking she did not exist. And since the two sisters always appeared together in the story, if one of them did not exist, the authority of the entire legend is diminished.
The circumstances of the older daughter, LD1, involve an extra consideration: Cornelis Van Slyck’s Mohawk wife, who certainly did exist. However, there is no indication in writing that Jacques Hertel might have been her father until the Vrooman Tradition, more than 200 years after her birth! Historians find that oral tradition is almost never reliable so long after the fact.
The observation above that LD1 was only 12 years old when son Marten Van Slyck was born is serious, to say the least. But if LD1 was born in 1625, the year after peace with the French had been formalized, she was only ten, and if she was born in 1628, she was only seven. (Marten’s age is calculated from the legal age required to witness and make contracts, 25 in New Netherland. He witnessed a real estate deed as early as 1661, making his birth year no later than 1636. This potentially adds a year to all of the ages calculated above.)
A couple of researchers have proposed that Jacques Van Slyck's first name is evidence in favor of the Jacques Hertel legend. However, this is a clue that supports and undermines at the same time. Certainly, people with the same name might be related, and if the name is somewhat unusual it should be evaluated as potential evidence." Jacques" was not a common name in northern New Netherland where Jacques Van Slyck made his home after leaving the Mohawk Tribe.
The historical record shows that Jacques' sister, Hilletie, did not have a Christian name until she went to live among the Dutch. Her “foster parents” in the community, not her parents, decided that Hilletie would be a good name for her. It seems pretty likely that Jacques also acquired his European name only after going to live among the Dutch. But why would they have given him a French name?
Proposal #1: His Mohawk name, It-Sy-Cho-Sa-Quach-Ka, or his nicknames, may have sounded something like Jacques. The Dutch sometimes called him Gautsch, which looks a little similar to “Quach” in his Mohawk name. Gautsch was pronounced “Hotch”[2] with the same vowel sound as in Jacques. In this step-wise manner, Quach may have developed into “Jacques.” His other nicknames were Aques and Ackes, which may also have suggested “Jacques” (or vice versa).
Proposal #2: French speakers were very common in the Netherlands and in New Netherland at the time. Cornelis could well have known a friendly Frenchman by the name of Jacques that he wanted to honor by giving his son the same name. The unconventionality of that choice would be no particular barrier; the circumstances of his life were unconventional.
Whatever the reason for settling on “Jacques,” the name was almost certain to generate curiosity over time. When the Shononsise legend became widely known in the 1830s, a serious “antiquarian” or an imaginative story-teller could easily propose that Jacques Hertel was the namesake and ancestor of Jacques Van Slyck. Under that scenario, instead of Hertel actually being the namesake for Van Slyck, the name “Jacques” had planted the idea that Hertel was the grandfather, undermining the legend that it first seemed to support.
LEGENDARY DAUGHTERS
The legendary daughters of Jacques Hertel obviously depend upon his legendary relationship with a Mohawk woman; no relationship, no daughters. But details about the women are also problematical.
In light of Father LeJeune’s account of Hertel, the younger daughter, LD2, would not have been born before 1628 (about the mid-1620s according to the legend) but her purported son, Arent Andriessen, was born no later than 1618. A son older than his mother! –Some recent versions of the legend also have LD2 as the mother of Albert Andriessen Bradt (b. 1607). Another son older than his mother!
One recent analyst theorized that LD2 might have been “married” to Arent Andriessen Bratt himself, sometime between 1637 when he arrived in America and 1648 when he married Catalyntje de Vos. In the female-scarce colony of New Netherland, such relationships happened, but they were seldom anything that would be called a marriage. A marriage usually produces children, but if Arent had any Mohawk children, they didn’t make it into the historical record, and presumably the de Vos family didn’t know about them, even though the Dutch knew a lot about their Mohawk neighbors.
Catalyntje was from a “proper” family, one that would have encouraged their daughter to steer clear of a man with “a history,” and Arent had been a de Vos family friend for many years before the wedding took place. If he had been involved with a Mohawk girl, it would have been a secret that he kept to himself, thereby giving his family no opportunity to pass the story down through the generations to us. LD2 appears only in the legend and not convincingly, so historically speaking she did not exist. And since the two sisters always appeared together in the story, if one of them did not exist, the authority of the entire legend is diminished.
The circumstances of the older daughter, LD1, involve an extra consideration: Cornelis Van Slyck’s Mohawk wife, who certainly did exist. However, there is no indication in writing that Jacques Hertel might have been her father until the Vrooman Tradition, more than 200 years after her birth! Historians find that oral tradition is almost never reliable so long after the fact.
The observation above that LD1 was only 12 years old when son Marten Van Slyck was born is serious, to say the least. But if LD1 was born in 1625, the year after peace with the French had been formalized, she was only ten, and if she was born in 1628, she was only seven. (Marten’s age is calculated from the legal age required to witness and make contracts, 25 in New Netherland. He witnessed a real estate deed as early as 1661, making his birth year no later than 1636. This potentially adds a year to all of the ages calculated above.)
SUMMARY
Can any of the Hertel legend be authoritatively substantiated? The only unchallenged facts are that Cornelis Van Slyck married an Indian woman from the Mohawk village of Canajoharie, and together they had four or five children. Danckaerts’s very detailed Journal does not give us her name, but it does tell us indirectly that she was a full-blooded Indian. We also know that she had at least one fully Indian child. And we know that Cornelis’ son Jacques had three children who married Bradts, two of his daughters marrying sons of Arent Andriessen and one of his sons marrying a granddaughter of Albert Andriessen. As to Hertel himself, the documents of New Netherland make no mention of him.
The Native American ancestry of the Van Slyck children is not in doubt; it is actually twice as “concentrated” if Hertel is no relation. In the Bradt lines, most of Arent Andriessen’s descendants with the Bradt surname can trace their ancestry back to Cornelis Van Slyck’s Mohawk wife. In Albert’s line, she is the ancestor only of the descendants of his Van Slyck grandson-in-law. (Their descendants are now less than1% Native American, and that slight ancestry usually does not show up on a DNA admixture test. DNA testing companies word their advertising in such a way that you might think just the opposite.)
Can any of the Hertel legend be authoritatively substantiated? The only unchallenged facts are that Cornelis Van Slyck married an Indian woman from the Mohawk village of Canajoharie, and together they had four or five children. Danckaerts’s very detailed Journal does not give us her name, but it does tell us indirectly that she was a full-blooded Indian. We also know that she had at least one fully Indian child. And we know that Cornelis’ son Jacques had three children who married Bradts, two of his daughters marrying sons of Arent Andriessen and one of his sons marrying a granddaughter of Albert Andriessen. As to Hertel himself, the documents of New Netherland make no mention of him.
The Native American ancestry of the Van Slyck children is not in doubt; it is actually twice as “concentrated” if Hertel is no relation. In the Bradt lines, most of Arent Andriessen’s descendants with the Bradt surname can trace their ancestry back to Cornelis Van Slyck’s Mohawk wife. In Albert’s line, she is the ancestor only of the descendants of his Van Slyck grandson-in-law. (Their descendants are now less than1% Native American, and that slight ancestry usually does not show up on a DNA admixture test. DNA testing companies word their advertising in such a way that you might think just the opposite.)
Additional Considerations
The Hertel legend has the hallmarks of misattribution. Misattributions crop up frequently in the genealogy of the distant past: a mix-up between generations, where people or events from one time period are attributed to another time or to another generation. In this case, Jacques Van Slyck did have mixed-race children, including two daughters who married Europeans. Were they the basis for Jacques Hertel’s legendary mixed-race daughters who married Europeans? That would explain how the Shononsise legend transformed into the Vrooman tradition.
All the components for “building” the Hertel legend are now in place:
The Shononsise legend as a general inspiration, along with unrelated references to Jacques Cornelessen Van Slyck and to a “wealthy Norwegian” in the same newspaper article,
The name “Jacques” to suggest a family relationship between Jacques Hertel and Jacques Van Slyck, and
The mixed-race daughters of Jacques Van Slyck as the inspiration (or the misattribution) for the legendary mixed-race daughters of Jacques Hertel.
The points above suggest a reasonable scenario as to how the legend originated. In the days before electricity and radio, storytelling was a widespread custom, often a fine art, and a good way to pass long winter evenings. Young children would sit and listen to the stories of their parents and grandparents, and sometimes couldn’t distinguish between family history and fictional stories. Decades later, they might pass the stories along to their own grandchildren, forgetting or adding details according to the dependability of their memories. This kind of step-wise development is the norm for both historical and non-historical legends.
The Hertel legend faces some other high hurdles, including the Danckaerts Journal where the wife of Cornelis Van Slyck is portrayed as a full-blooded Mohawk woman. The case for Jacques Hertel requires that we put more faith in 19th century legends than we put in 17th century documents, not a practice that historians or experienced genealogists typically recommend.
Sometimes math is revealing. How probable is the Hertel legend? One calculation utilizing Bayesian statistics puts the overall odds against Hertel at 1,000 to one,[17] possibly a little better, possibly even worse. And unlike the Bratts and Van Slycks who have hundreds of 17th century documents showing them in New Netherland with their families, the Hertel legend has not even one from those early days. And there are at least 20 or so surviving records about François Hertel, Cornelis Van Slyck, Hilletie, and her various family members that could have included incidental comments in support of the Hertel legend. None of them do.
The best of genealogy deals not just with names, dates, and relationships but also with uncertainties. Those Bradt and Van Slyck genealogies that include Jacques Hertel often represent him as absolutely certain. Future generations of researchers will be helped if some of the uncertainties are mentioned and described.
If you own a copy of "Descendants of Albert and Arent Andriessen Bradt," consider making a note on page 23 that Jacques Hertel's presence in the family tree has been shown to be speculative or unlikely by none other than the author herself. You never know who will benefit from that information years in the future.
---------------
The research for this article has been full of surprises and startling discoveries, from the Lewis and Clark Expedition and their encounter out West with the “Sosonees,” to a Huron Chief Shononsise who was said to marry the French-Mohawk daughter of Jacques Hertel, to the documented kidnapping of Jacques’s Canadian son François, to the disappearance from the legend of the chief and the appearance of Cornelis Van Slyck, to Van Slyck’s part Mohawk daughter Hilletie who encountered a note-taking clergyman from the Netherlands at the home of Adam Vrooman, to the oral tradition of later Vroomans, to a footnote in Pearson’s 1883 book, to the body of Nelson Greene’s 1925 book, and on down through the decades to us.
Whether the Hertel legend came into being exactly this way can never be known, but it makes for quite a story in itself. For the nearly 140 years since the publication of Pearson’s book, the Hertel legend has been a growing presence in Vrooman, VanSlyck, and Bradt family lore, with some descendants believing it wholeheartedly and others very skeptical; some seeing it as oral history from the 1600s, and others seeing it as a misunderstanding that came about in the 1800s.
AFTERNOTE
After examining the evidence, the editor's conclusion is that the odds against the Hertel legend are astronomical and that it most likely grew out of a tradition of story-telling, quite likely in the Vrooman family. But in words reminiscent of Harry Macy, interested descendants will need to delve into primary source evidence and arrive at their own conclusions after extensive research. When all is said and done, we have a long and interesting history whether or not Jacques Hertel is a part of the picture!
---------------
The Hertel legend has the hallmarks of misattribution. Misattributions crop up frequently in the genealogy of the distant past: a mix-up between generations, where people or events from one time period are attributed to another time or to another generation. In this case, Jacques Van Slyck did have mixed-race children, including two daughters who married Europeans. Were they the basis for Jacques Hertel’s legendary mixed-race daughters who married Europeans? That would explain how the Shononsise legend transformed into the Vrooman tradition.
All the components for “building” the Hertel legend are now in place:
The Shononsise legend as a general inspiration, along with unrelated references to Jacques Cornelessen Van Slyck and to a “wealthy Norwegian” in the same newspaper article,
The name “Jacques” to suggest a family relationship between Jacques Hertel and Jacques Van Slyck, and
The mixed-race daughters of Jacques Van Slyck as the inspiration (or the misattribution) for the legendary mixed-race daughters of Jacques Hertel.
The points above suggest a reasonable scenario as to how the legend originated. In the days before electricity and radio, storytelling was a widespread custom, often a fine art, and a good way to pass long winter evenings. Young children would sit and listen to the stories of their parents and grandparents, and sometimes couldn’t distinguish between family history and fictional stories. Decades later, they might pass the stories along to their own grandchildren, forgetting or adding details according to the dependability of their memories. This kind of step-wise development is the norm for both historical and non-historical legends.
The Hertel legend faces some other high hurdles, including the Danckaerts Journal where the wife of Cornelis Van Slyck is portrayed as a full-blooded Mohawk woman. The case for Jacques Hertel requires that we put more faith in 19th century legends than we put in 17th century documents, not a practice that historians or experienced genealogists typically recommend.
Sometimes math is revealing. How probable is the Hertel legend? One calculation utilizing Bayesian statistics puts the overall odds against Hertel at 1,000 to one,[17] possibly a little better, possibly even worse. And unlike the Bratts and Van Slycks who have hundreds of 17th century documents showing them in New Netherland with their families, the Hertel legend has not even one from those early days. And there are at least 20 or so surviving records about François Hertel, Cornelis Van Slyck, Hilletie, and her various family members that could have included incidental comments in support of the Hertel legend. None of them do.
The best of genealogy deals not just with names, dates, and relationships but also with uncertainties. Those Bradt and Van Slyck genealogies that include Jacques Hertel often represent him as absolutely certain. Future generations of researchers will be helped if some of the uncertainties are mentioned and described.
If you own a copy of "Descendants of Albert and Arent Andriessen Bradt," consider making a note on page 23 that Jacques Hertel's presence in the family tree has been shown to be speculative or unlikely by none other than the author herself. You never know who will benefit from that information years in the future.
---------------
The research for this article has been full of surprises and startling discoveries, from the Lewis and Clark Expedition and their encounter out West with the “Sosonees,” to a Huron Chief Shononsise who was said to marry the French-Mohawk daughter of Jacques Hertel, to the documented kidnapping of Jacques’s Canadian son François, to the disappearance from the legend of the chief and the appearance of Cornelis Van Slyck, to Van Slyck’s part Mohawk daughter Hilletie who encountered a note-taking clergyman from the Netherlands at the home of Adam Vrooman, to the oral tradition of later Vroomans, to a footnote in Pearson’s 1883 book, to the body of Nelson Greene’s 1925 book, and on down through the decades to us.
Whether the Hertel legend came into being exactly this way can never be known, but it makes for quite a story in itself. For the nearly 140 years since the publication of Pearson’s book, the Hertel legend has been a growing presence in Vrooman, VanSlyck, and Bradt family lore, with some descendants believing it wholeheartedly and others very skeptical; some seeing it as oral history from the 1600s, and others seeing it as a misunderstanding that came about in the 1800s.
AFTERNOTE
After examining the evidence, the editor's conclusion is that the odds against the Hertel legend are astronomical and that it most likely grew out of a tradition of story-telling, quite likely in the Vrooman family. But in words reminiscent of Harry Macy, interested descendants will need to delve into primary source evidence and arrive at their own conclusions after extensive research. When all is said and done, we have a long and interesting history whether or not Jacques Hertel is a part of the picture!
---------------
Footnotes:
Note: The feedback on this article has been mostly positive, but not entirely. Understandable, because legends are complicated to analyze, whether they are true, false, or a little of both. Some of the challenges involved in writing this article follow. There is complete agreement among researchers that the Hertel legend will probably never be categorically proved or disproved. It’s all a matter of probability, and the more questions we ask, the more considerations and eventualities we evaluate, the better our understanding.
Many considerations have not been addressed in this article. One example among many is that no one has yet assessed Jacques Hertel as a father. That question is pertinent because a daughter is more likely to name her son after a caring father than after a deadbeat. Another and much more important question is the unreliability of oral traditions in general. (The Library of Congress on-line catalog is a good place to look for book titles about how to assess oral traditions.) But no assessment of the legend can go into every eventuality, unless the author is willing to write a book. There were many contingencies, evidences, and eventualities that had to be omitted in order to keep this article a manageable length. The Hertel legend would make an interesting thesis for a PHD student in history.
* “JACQUES HERTEL AND THE INDIAN PRINCESSES,” the original unedited version of this article, appeared in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, April1997, vol. 128, Number 2, pages 91-97. My thanks for permission to edit it.
Link: JACQUES HERTEL AND THE INDIAN PRINCESSES, Original Article
**In the body of this analysis, “I” and “me” always refer to Cynthia Biasca, but most of the material here is new or rewritten with a somewhat different emphasis. Some of the observations are completely new to the appraisal of the Hertel story.
- Names of the older daughter: Ots-Toch, Owasto'k, Alstock, Otsock, etc. and of the younger daughter: Kinetis, Kanudesha, Kenutje, Kinutis, Keuntze, etc. These varied spellings may have stemmed from oral interpretations of the name.
- Jonathan Pearson et al., "A History of the Schenectady Patent," ed. J. W. MacMurray (Albany, 1883), Vrooman quote on p. 189. Pearson, a professor at Union College in Schenectady and an early translator of New Netherland records into English, had been collecting material for this book at least as early as 1856. Link: A History of the Schenectady Patent in Google Books –This Laurence Vrooman (of Cortland County) was probably the grandson of Lourens Vrooman who married Maria Bradt, according to published Bradt and Vrooman genealogies. (Cynthia Brott Biasca, Descendants of Albert and Arent Andriessen Bradt (1990), p. 127; Grace Elizabeth Vrooman Wickersham, The Vrooman Family in America (1949), p. 794).
- See, for example, Madeline H. Carey, Scot Vandelinder, Arlene Coppernoll Cuba, Jacques Hertel (de La Fresnaye). They cite mainly French sources, and their only citation that refers to an Indian wife is Nelson Greene's work noted below.
- A summary of The Antiquarian Articles is in the office of the Schenectady City Historian. The Schenectady County Historical Society has the original papers on file. Website addresses for historic newspapers: The Schenectady reflector. volume(Schenectady, N.Y.) 1867-1903, August 21, 1857, Page 2, Image 2 -NYS Historic Newspapers and https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/. In the middle of Yates’ article about Shononsise/Hertel, is included twelve lines of unrelated poetry about the demise of the Mohawks around Schenectady. The Hertel legend has been attracting embellishments ever since.
- Cynthia Brott Biasca, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, April 1977, vol. 128, Number 2, Jacques Hertel and the Indian Princesses, page 95, “footnote 2: At what date... 1856.
- The Paige Diaries” are archived at the Schenectady County Historical Society, where they are catalogued as "eight handwritten journals. Entries and observations on the Schenectady community. c.1860." The original, hand written diaries are hard to make out, but they have been typed for easier reading.
- Nelson Greene (1869-1955), History of the Mohawk Valley, Gateway to the West1614-1925 (1925), Vol. 1:334-36.
- "The Much Maligned Mr. Greene" by Paul Keesler. This article describes both Greene's shortcomings as the author of "The Mohawk Valley-Gateway to the West 1614-1925," and also the scope and value of the book notwithstanding.
- Lorine McGinnis Schulze, The Van Slyke Family in America: A Genealogy of Cornelis Antonissen Van Slyke, 1604-1676 and his Mohawk wife Ots-Toch, including the story of Jacques Hertel, 1603-1651, Father of Ots-Toch and Interpreter to Samuel de Champlain (Midland, Ont., Canada: Olive Tree Enterprises, 1996), Part One: pages 21, 22, 36, Part Two: page 1, and others. Link: The Van Slyke family in America by LMS
- Ibid., Part One: page 21 and Part Two: Page 1.
- The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, July 1997, Vol. 128, Issue3, Book Reviews.
- Journal of Jasper Danckaerts 1679-1680, ed. Burleigh Jones and J. Franklin Jameson (New York: Charles Scribner, 1913), pp. 201-11. Link: Danckaerts Journal, Hilletie Van Slyck Pages
- Father L. LeJeune, Dictionnaire General du Canada (Ottawa: University of Ottawa, 1931); Dictionnaire Biographique du Canada (Quebec: PUL, 1967), vol.1; Rene Jette, Dictionnaire Genealogique des Familles du Quebec des Origines a1730 (Montreal: PUM, 1983); Adrien Bergeron, Le Grand Arrangement des Acadiens au Quebec (Montreal: Editions Elysee, 1981), 8 vols.;ArchivesNationales du Quebec a Trois Rivieres, dossier de recherche numero DR-96:Famille Hertel; Rene Jette and Hubert Charbonneau, Repertoire des Actes de Bapteme, Mariage, Sepulture et des Recensements du Quebec Ancien, XVIIesiecle, vol. 1 (Montreal:PUM, 1980); Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1(Quebec: PUL, 1967).
- 14.LeJeune, Dictionnaire General du Canada, p. 750.
- Greene, pp. 275-6. Greene wrote in part, “One of the most interesting of the Frenchmen who were so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of the Iroquois during this hellish period was François Hertel, a youth of eighteen, who was captured at Three Rivers(Trois-Rivieres) and taken to the Mohawk in the summer of 1661. Hertel wrote two letters at this time which are appealing in their showing of the brave despair of this boyish prisoner, surrounded by the ferocity and endless horrors of the Mohawk town in which he was held captive—without hope...This boyish captive survived, to the great cost of New England in blood and suffering... and was ennobled [i.e., granted a title of nobility]for his savage deeds... The young French boy, who at one time sat lonely and disconsolate in a Mohawk cabin while writing to his mother on a scrap of birch bark, became the founder of one of the most distinguished families of Canada and died at the ripe old age of eighty years.” –François actually wrote three letters from captivity, but if Nelson Greene wasn’t the most careful of historians, we’re still indebted for this brief “bio.”
- Jonathan Pearson et al., page190. Marten’s will describes Jacques Van Slyck as his brother. At Marten’s death in 1662, Jacques inherited half of Marten’s Island, later Van Slyck’s Island, in the Mohawk River from him.
- If the odds that Hertel visited Mohawk country were 1/5, the odds that he visited the specific village of Canajoharie were 1/5, that he was welcome enough to have a Mohawk consort were 1/5, that she became pregnant (1/2), that she delivered a baby girl (1/2), that the child survived to adulthood (1/2), then the probability equation is 1/5 x 1/5 x 1/5 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/1000, one in a thousand. Different inputs change the probability, but it's never very high. This is called Bayesian analysis and it’s used in forensics very effectively. Taking into account all circumstances and eventualities, the odds are probably less than a million to one.
Note: The feedback on this article has been mostly positive, but not entirely. Understandable, because legends are complicated to analyze, whether they are true, false, or a little of both. Some of the challenges involved in writing this article follow. There is complete agreement among researchers that the Hertel legend will probably never be categorically proved or disproved. It’s all a matter of probability, and the more questions we ask, the more considerations and eventualities we evaluate, the better our understanding.
Many considerations have not been addressed in this article. One example among many is that no one has yet assessed Jacques Hertel as a father. That question is pertinent because a daughter is more likely to name her son after a caring father than after a deadbeat. Another and much more important question is the unreliability of oral traditions in general. (The Library of Congress on-line catalog is a good place to look for book titles about how to assess oral traditions.) But no assessment of the legend can go into every eventuality, unless the author is willing to write a book. There were many contingencies, evidences, and eventualities that had to be omitted in order to keep this article a manageable length. The Hertel legend would make an interesting thesis for a PHD student in history.
* “JACQUES HERTEL AND THE INDIAN PRINCESSES,” the original unedited version of this article, appeared in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, April1997, vol. 128, Number 2, pages 91-97. My thanks for permission to edit it.
Link: JACQUES HERTEL AND THE INDIAN PRINCESSES, Original Article
**In the body of this analysis, “I” and “me” always refer to Cynthia Biasca, but most of the material here is new or rewritten with a somewhat different emphasis. Some of the observations are completely new to the appraisal of the Hertel story.