Arent van Curler, later van Corlaer, (1619,

Nijkerk Nijkerk (; Dutch Low Saxon: ''Niekark'') is a municipality and a city located in the middle of the Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_ ...

Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...

- 1667) was the grandnephew of Kiliaen van Rensselaer. In 1637 Rensselaer commissioned him as his secretary and accountant at Rensselaer's

patroon In the United States, a patroon (; from Dutch '' patroon'' ) was a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland on the east coast of North America. Through the Charter of Freedoms ...

ship

Rensselaerswyck The Manor of Rensselaerswyck, Manor Rensselaerswyck, Van Rensselaer Manor, or just simply Rensselaerswyck ( nl, Rensselaerswijck ), was the name of a colonial estate—specifically, a Dutch patroonship and later an English manor—owned by the va ...

in the Dutch colony of

New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva P ...

Life

As time went on, Rensselaer began to suspect that Van Curler was neglecting his management duties to engage in the fur trade. Dominie

Johannes Megapolensis Johannes Megapolensis (1603–1670) was a ''dominie'' (pastor) of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Dutch colony of New Netherland (present-day New York state in the United States), beginning in 1642. Serving for several years at Fort Orange (present ...

reported that van Curler had built a fine house and was drinking more than occasionally. In the summer of 1642, Van Curler began to develop a large farm, located on the west side of the Hudson, four miles above Fort Orange, in an area called "de Vlackte". In August 1642, French Jesuit missionary

Isaac Jogues Isaac Jogues, S.J. (10 January 1607 – 18 October 1646) was a French missionary and martyr who traveled and worked among the Iroquois, Huron, and other Native populations in North America. He was the first European to name Lake George, call ...

was captured by the Mohawk and brought to their village of

Ossernenon Auriesville is a hamlet in the northeastern part of the Town of Glen in Montgomery County, New York, United States, along the south bank of the Mohawk River and west of Fort Hunter. It lies about forty miles west of Albany, the state capital ...

. Hearing of this, Van Curler visited the "first castle" and attempted to ransom Jogues, but without success as the Mohawk were not inclined to release him at that time. In the autumn of 1643, the Mohawk were persuaded to bring the priest with them when they came to

Beverwijck Beverwijck ( ; ), often written using the pre-reform orthography Beverwyck, was a fur-trading community north of Fort Orange on the Hudson River in New Netherland that was renamed and developed as Albany, New York, after the English took cont ...

to trade. Once there, van Curler helped Jogues to escape, hiding him his barn until a deal could be reached and the Frenchman put on a ship to take him downriver to New Amsterdam. In 2011 the Colonie Historical Society and the town historian were working on an interpretive sign for Schuyler Flatts Park to commemorate this. The ransoming of Jogues brought a change in how the Mohawk treated captives. The following year Jesuit missionary

François-Joseph Bressani François-Joseph Bressani, (Francesco-Giuseppe), (6 May 1612 – 9 September 1672), was an Italian-born Jesuit priest who served as a missionary in New France between 1642 and 1650. At one point, he was captured by the Mohawk people and ritua ...

was brought to Fort Orange to be ransomed for a substantial price in trade goods, for which the Dutch later sought reimbursement from the French. Also in 1643, Van Curler married the widow of

Jonas Bronck Jonas Bronck (alternatively Jonas Jonsson Brunk, Jonas Jonasson Bronk, or Jonas Jonassen Bronck) was born around year 1600 and died in 1643. Bronck was an immigrant to the Dutch colony of New Netherland after whom the Bronx River, and by extension ...

, Teuntie Joriaens, also known as Antonia Slaaghboom, and the couple settled in Beverwijck, near

Fort Orange Fort Orange ( nl, Fort Oranje) was the first permanent Dutch settlement in New Netherland; the present-day city of Albany, New York developed at this site. It was built in 1624 as a replacement for Fort Nassau, which had been built on nearb ...

.Elna Nilsson (2007)
Jonas Jonsson Brunk - From Komstad to Bronx
' in Swedish In 1663 he had a son by Anneke Schaets, daughter of Gideon Schaets, the dominie of

. In 1662, he founded the city of

Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

on land he purchased from the Mohawks. He was known for his fair dealings with the Indians, negotiating disputes and arranging for captives to be freed. He also fathered a child with a Mohawk woman, possibly before his marriage to Teuntie Joriaens. For many years the Mohawks called the governors of New York "Corlaer", using his name as a title, because of the high regard in which they held him. In 1666 he aided De Courcelle, governor of

New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...

, who ran into difficulties while on an expedition to the Mohawk Valley, supplying the French with provisions. In 1667, on a trip to Quebec at the invitation of Governor de Tracy he drowned in

Lake Champlain Lake Champlain ( ; french: Lac Champlain) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. The New York portion of t ...

when his boat overturned in Perou Bay during a storm. The Hotel Van Curler in Schenectady, built in 1925 – now Elston Hall of Schenectady County Community College – was named after Arent van Curler. Van Corlaer Elementary School, built in 1914 on Guilderland Avenue in Schenectady, is also named after him. In the birthplace of van Curler, Nijkerk, two districts and two schools named after him.

References

External links

Arent van Curler and the Flatts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Curler, Arent van 1619 births 1667 deaths People from Nijkerk People of New Netherland People from Schenectady, New York Deaths due to shipwreck