Colonial days in old New York

								

and rather dull stream, varying little through either honor-bearing or
discreditable incident from day to day. Any turbulence of dissension
or divorce between husband and wife was apparently little known and
certainly little noted. Occasionally an entry which tells of temporary
division or infelicity can be unearthed from the dingy pages of some
old court-record, thereby disclosing a scene and actors so remote,
so shadowy, so dimmed with the dust of centuries, that the incident
often bears no semblance of having happened to real living folk, but
seems rather to pertain to a group of inanimate puppets. One of these
featureless, colorless, stiff Dutch marionettes is Anneke, the daughter
of boisterous old Domine Schaets, the first minister at Fort Orange.
A fleeting glimpse of her marital infelicity is disclosed through the
record of her presence in Albany under the shadow of some unexplained
and now forgotten scandal. To satisfy her father’s virtuous and severe
congregation, she refrained from contaminating attendance at Communion.
The domine resented this condition of affairs, and refused to appear
before the Consistory though summoned four times by the bode. He
persisted in irritatingly “ripping up new differences and offences;”
and he disregarded with equal scorn the summons of a magistrate to
appear before the Court; and he was therefore suspended from his
clerical office. All was at last “arranged in love and friendship,”
leaving out the dispute about “Universal Grace,” which I suppose
could not be settled; but daughter Anneke was ordered off to New York
to her husband, “with a letter of recommendation; and as she was so
headstrong, and would not depart without the Sheriff’s and Constable’s
interference, her disobedience was annexed to the letter.” It is
pleasing to know, from the record of an “Extraordinary Court holden in
Albany” a month later,--in July, 1681,--of a very satisfactory result
in the affairs of the young couple.


“Tho: Davidtse promisses to conduct himself well and honorably towards
his wife Anneke Schaets, to Love and never neglect her, but faithfully
and properly to maintain and support her with her children according
to his means, hereby making null and void all questions that have
occurred and transpired between them both, never to repeat them,
but are entirely reconciled: and for better assurance of his real
Intention and good Resolution to observe the same, he requests that
two good men be named to oversee his conduct at New York towards his
said wife, being entirely disposed and inclined to live honorably and
well with her as a Christian man ought, subjecting himself willingly
to the rule and censure of the said men. On the other hand his wife
Anneke Schaets, promisses also to conduct herself quietly and well and
to accompany him to New York with her children and property, not to
leave him any more, but to serve and help him and with him to share