AMSTEL AVENUE is a street in Charlottesville. Runs right behind the University of Virginia. In itself, there is not much strange about that. You’ll also find Amstel Avenues in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, California, Missouri, West Virginia and Delaware. The first town in Delaware was originally named Nieuw Amstel, now New Castle, and although most Americans today, when they see the name, think mostly of beer, it really refers to the Dutch river. Many early emigrants left Holland from Amsterdam, across the Amstel and the IJ (IJ = old Dutch for water, as are Ee and Aa, much like the French use Eau, pronounce: O) via the Zuiderzee and the North Sea, and onto the ocean.
What is remarkable, however, is the street that runs parallel to Amstel Avenue. That is Almere Avenue. Almere didn’t exist until very recently. I was there when it became a town, I was the editor of Almere’s very first newspaper. Therefore that neighborhood in Charlottesville refers to something else, to a very much alive awareness of Dutch roots. Not unlike a day’s travel down the road, in Georgia. There, just below Atlanta, they have opened up an Almere Drive. In addition to a Friesland Drive, Amsterdam Way, Rotterdam Pass – and Gelderland Drive.
IN BOTH cases, that’s no accident. In Georgia, they knew what they were doing. Rotterdam and Amsterdam anyone can conjure up, but Friesland and Gelderland, the average street name commission doesn’t come up with those, let alone Almere. These are people with a decent knowledge of history, and of Holland itself. The ring road around the neighborhood isn’t called Dutch Town Road for nothing.
Same thing in Charlottesville. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which name refers to a Dutchman from Zutphen and the surrounding area: Doetinchem, Hoog en Laag Keppel. His name was Willem van Keppel, the son of father Nol and mother Trui from The Hague. Nol was friends with Prince William III who, when he became king of England as well as stadtholder of Holland, gave Nol a blue blood title, Count of Albemarle. Nol died, William inherited the title and then also became governor of Virginia. That’s where Charlottesville is located. Someone there now recently did their homework when new street names were needed, realized the county’s Dutch connection, and found a new, cool, young town to name the Avenue after.
