SMALL ISLANDS, big consequences. The very first American flag was hastily sewn together in Texel. Admiral John Paul Jones of the newly independent United States had hijacked a British frigate at sea, towed it to Texel, and asked for a flag. America did not yet have a flag, but Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin and John Adams had often been to The Hague and Amsterdam as ambassadors. Jones knew they wanted “a flag with thirteen stripes, alternating red, white and blue”. Like the Dutch tricolor, honoring America’s original thirteen states. Jones got what he wanted. The flag, with its original Dutch title “Noord Americaansche Vlag,” now sits behind glass in a Chicago museum.
Kees van Texel from Koog also came to America. Promptly upon landing, he fell in love with a Long Island Montauk tribe girl. The result: eight children who had lots of offspring themselves, with names whose spelling changed over time. Texel sounds like Tessel, so that evolved into Tassel, Tassell, Vantassel, Vandessel, etcetera. Mr Rensselaer Schuyler van Tassell became a millionaire. A small town in Wyoming, Van Tassell, was named after him. And a guy who was a very successful writer in his day, Van Tassel Sutphen, was Mark Twain’s publisher. His ancestors hailed from both Gelderland and the Wadden islands.
ON A MAP from 1614, drawn by Amsterdam’s Adriaan Block, you find Texel as well as Vlieland off the coast of Massachusetts. Texel is today Elisabeth Island, and Vlieland is well-known as Nantucket, but for quite a while, just like back in the Netherlands, they lay opposite the Zuyder Zee, as you can see on the map below, printed in 1647. It also shows that the Roode Eylant, which Block noticed from his ship, because of the red clay that stood out to him, has kept its original Dutch name ever since, now spelled Rhode Island.
There, in Wickford, Rhode Island, you can check out the Brandaris, a large Dutch sloop that escaped the German invasion in 1940, helped the evacuation of British soldiers in Dunkirk, and then crossed the Atlantic. The boat is named after Terschelling’s famous lighthouse. It is available for party rentals.
ALL IMPRESSIVE, but the deepest footprints from the Wadden come from Ameland. Kees and Maaike Hendriks sailed to America from the island town of Nes and were immediately called Van Nes. A second s was soon attached to it, Van Ness. And look at them now. Not only does America today count 4,500 families named Van Ness or Vanness, but how about the Van Ness neighborhoods in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington? There are Van Ness Houses in Vermont and New Jersey, and through Torrance, Boston, Washington, Fresno and San Diego run Van Ness Avenues and Streets. All named after descendants of Kees and Maaike, including Jaap van Ness who became mayor of San Francisco. His official birth name was James. His uncle John was also mayor, in Washington, but his birth certificate said Johannes Petrus.
New York has a neighborhood in the Bronx, which is called Van Nest, also named after a Van Nes, but that was Piet, an Ameland neighbor of Kees’, not related. Kees and his descendants all had quite a mouth, they stood out, one after another they assumed high positions in America: governor of Vermont, judge in New York, mayors on both coasts. About Piet, however, we didn’t hear much more. He became a militia recruiter in New Jersey, and his daughter married Dirk Middagh from Hei- en Boeicop in Utrecht. He bought his father-in-law’s house. Hence today still Middagh Street in New York. Nobody realizes, and few probably care, but that’s therefore also a part Ameland-rooted road.
