![Charles Loring Elliott - Anthony Van Corlear - Walters 37101](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Charles_Loring_Elliott_-_Anthony_Van_Corlear_-_Walters_37101.jpg)
Anthony Van Corlaer is a fictional trumpeter of
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...
, appearing in
Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...
's 1809 ''
A History of New York __NOTOC__
''A History of New York'', subtitled ''From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty'', is an 1809 literary parody on the history of New York City by Washington Irving. Originally published under the pseudonym Diedrich ...
'' and subsequent lore, most famously for supposedly heroically drowning in (and giving its name to)
Spuyten Duyvil Creek
Spuyten Duyvil Creek () is a short tidal estuary in New York City connecting the Hudson River to the Harlem River Ship Canal and then on to the Harlem River. The confluence of the three water bodies separate the island of Manhattan from th ...
in 1664. He is portrayed as a loyal follower to the real historical
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant (; in Dutch also ''Pieter'' and ''Petrus'' Stuyvesant, ; 1610 – August 1672)Mooney, James E. "Stuyvesant, Peter" in p.1256 was a Dutch colonial officer who served as the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Net ...
, with a contrasting boisterous temperament to the stern colonial governor.
The character and incident were sometimes later described as fact or "legend", but Washington seems to have only drawn from an account by
David Pietersz. de Vries of an unnamed boisterous and pugilistic trumpeter in the colony.
Factual basis
Although the Spuyten Duyvil Creek episode is sometimes repeated as fact or "legend", the character of Anthony Van Corlaer is a fictional one, and there is no historical record of such an occurrence preceding the novel's publication.
The factual basis of the character was an account by
David Pietersz. de Vries of an unnamed boisterous and pugilistic trumpeter who interrupted the banquet dinner celebrating his August 1636 departure from
Fort Amsterdam
Fort Amsterdam was a fort on the southern tip of Manhattan at the confluence of the Hudson and East rivers. It was the administrative headquarters for the Dutch and then English/British rule of the colony of New Netherland and subsequently th ...
, physically fighting with both
Andries Hudde
Andries Hudde (1608–1663) was a landowner and colonial official of New Netherland.
Early life and New Amsterdam
Andries Hudde was born in Kampen, Overijssel in the Netherlands in 1608 to Hendrick Hudde (himself son of the local burgomaster ...
and
Jacobus van Corlaer when they protested his playing. The story may also have been inspired by the drowning of
Arent van Corlaer
Arent van Curler, later van Corlaer, (1619, Nijkerk, Gelderland - 1667) was the grandnephew of Kiliaen van Rensselaer. In 1637 Rensselaer commissioned him as his secretary and accountant at Rensselaer's patroonship Rensselaerswyck in the Dutch col ...
.
The character's first name was taken from
Anthony's Nose Mountain.
In Washington Irving
In Irving's story,
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant (; in Dutch also ''Pieter'' and ''Petrus'' Stuyvesant, ; 1610 – August 1672)Mooney, James E. "Stuyvesant, Peter" in p.1256 was a Dutch colonial officer who served as the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Net ...
, having learned of an
English expedition on its way to seize the colony, ordered Van Corlaer to rouse the villages along the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
with a trumpet call to war. "
It was a dark and stormy night
"It was a dark and stormy night" is an often-mocked and parodied phrase considered to represent "the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing", also known as purple prose.
Origin
The status of the sentence as an a ...
" when Van Corlaer arrived at the upper end of the island, and as no ferryman was available Van Corlaer vowed to swim across the
Harlem River
The Harlem River is an tidal strait in New York, United States, flowing between the Hudson River and the East River and separating the island of Manhattan from the Bronx on the New York mainland.
The northern stretch, also called the Spuyte ...
"in spite of the devil", but drowned in the attempt. Some sources state that
Spuyten Duyvil, an inlet between
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
and
the Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
, is named after this incident.
Van Corlaer was famous for his enormous, shiny red nose. One story tells of a
sturgeon
Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...
killed by a ray of sunlight reflected off its surface.
Anthony's Nose Mountain along the Hudson is said by Irving to be named for this event.
Van Corlaer's prior endeavors on behalf of Stuyvesant are mentioned several times in
Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...
's book ''
A History of New York __NOTOC__
''A History of New York'', subtitled ''From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty'', is an 1809 literary parody on the history of New York City by Washington Irving. Originally published under the pseudonym Diedrich ...
''. Irving also wrote the most popular account of the trumpeter's last deed, including the witness statement (which he claims to disbelieve) of Van Corlaer being seized by "the duyvel, in the shape of a huge
mossbonker". This has led some modern readers, unaware that Irving's work was a parody of history, to suggest that Van Corlaer was killed by a
bull shark
The bull shark (''Carcharhinus leucas''), also known as the Zambezi shark (informally zambi) in Africa and Lake Nicaragua shark in Nicaragua, is a species of requiem shark commonly found worldwide in warm, shallow waters along coasts and in ri ...
.
In popular culture
![Antony Van Corlear Brought Into the Presence of Peter Stuyvesant](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Antony_Van_Corlear_Brought_Into_the_Presence_of_Peter_Stuyvesant.jpg)
The 1838 painting ''Dance on the Battery in the Presence of Peter Stuyvesant'' by
Asher B. Durand
Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School.
Early life
Durand was born in, and eventually died in, Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eighth ...
depicts Van Corlaer with his trumpet.
In 1893
Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle (March 5, 1853 – November 9, 1911) was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. He was a native of Wilmington, Delaware, and he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.
In 1894, he began ...
painted a picture of Anthony Van Corlaer to serve as the basis for a stained glass window commissioned by the Colonial Club of New York from Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company. The window was removed at some point and on March 30, 1984, was auctioned by Christie's in New York and purchased by the Delaware Art Museum.
Kamala Sankaram
Kamala Sankaram (born 1978) is an American composer, vocalist, playwright and actress. Based in New York City, she is best known for chamber operas about women who find themselves in situations where they are forced to confront patriarchal struct ...
wrote a musical composition in 2016, "The Last Blast of Anthony the Trumpeter".
References
;Notes
;Sources
*
*''Myths and Legends of Our Own Land – Volume 1: the Hudson and its hills'' (a
gutenberg.org, Skinner, Charles M. (Charles Montgomery), 1852–1907
External links
*, a longer, more fanciful version of the story
{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Corlaer, Anthony
American folklore
Spuyten Duyvil, Bronx
Washington Irving
Fictional musicians
Literary characters introduced in 1809
Sidekicks in literature