Queer Places:
Stone St, New York, NY 10004
Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert (c.1612 - 1648) was the son of Myndert Van Der Bogart and Hermione Billard Nessie. He arrived in New Amsterdam in 1630, on ship 'De Eendracht'. He was 18 at the time. He continued in the West India Company's service until 1633, when he settled in New Amsterdam until being appointed commissary to Fort Orange. He married Jillitje Cleesen Schouw, daughter of Claes Jansen of Zierickzee, at the Schenectady Reformed Dutch Church and had four children: Frans Harmensen Van Der Bogart, Lysbeth Knickerbocker, Myndert Harmensen Van De Bogart. For nearly twenty years, he was a respected citizen of New Amsterdam, owning a house on today's Stone Street, raising four children with his wive Jelisje, inheriting a plantation and investing in the privateer La Garce.
In 1634 the commander of Fort Orange ordered Harmen van den Bogaert west into the Mohawk Valley and Indian country, for the purpose of understanding why the fur trade had declined. He was accompanied on this journey by Jeronimus dela Croix and Willem Thomassen. The trip lasted six weeks in the winter of 1634-1635 and took the men through a number of Mohawk villages and into Oneida villages, at least 100 miles from the fort. This journey was recorded in Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert's daily journal which is titled A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country 1634-1635, and is significant as a chronicle of the Mohawk and the other tribes of the Iroquois confederation at this early time.
At this time, New Amsterdam was a trading outpost of the Dutch empire. Beaver pelts were the main product of the Hudson River region, traded with the people of the Mohawk nation. According to the limited information about the life of van den Bogaert, he’d arrived into New Amsterdam on the ship the Unity — on the ship’s passenger manifest he was listed as a barber-surgeon. Van den Bogaert held a farm on the island of Manhattan. He served as supply master to the Dutch West India Company - the trading firm that ran New Amsterdam at that time. As well as beaver pelts, one of the most valuable commodities traded by the Dutch West India Company was slaves — transported from Africa to New Amsterdam and the other colonies of North America. Harmen van den Bogaert owned a slave — his name was Tobias. In 1634, van den Bogaert was somehow discovered having sex with Tobias. At this time, homosexuality was illegal throughout the Dutch empire — the punishment was death. Escaping prosecution and certain death, van den Bogaert and Tobias fled New Amsterdam and travelled into lands controlled by the Mohawk nation. They were pursued by a bounty hunter from New Amsterdam, Hans Vos. Vos tracked van den Bogaert and Tobias down in a village of the Mohawk people, took them prisoner, and took them back to Fort Orange — the fortified trading post on the Hudson River. Ahead of their impending trial, van den Bogaert and Tobias escaped from their cell in Fort Orange and made a bid for freedom by crossing the frozen Hudson River. While they were attempting to cross, van den Bogaert fell through the ice and drowned, Tobias was recaptured. The fate of Tobias is unknown, although it's likely that he was killed.
On November 10th, 1648, Jan Labatie of Beverwyck, as husband of the widow of Harman Bogardus, filed a power of attorney, for Adriaen Van der Donck to act on his behalf regarding Harman's share of the Yacht La Garce which he had purchased in 1647.
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