SEE HIM stand there, the father of the nation. On Plein Square in The Hague.
Or is Willem standing somewhere else? There are two bronze Willem de Zwijgers in the world, and they are identical, both designed by sculptor Lodewijk Royer. The second Willem stands in New Jersey on the Rutgers University campus.
The name says it all, Rutgers, one of the US super universities with a strong Dutch history, like neighboring Princeton (formerly Princetown, in honor of Prince Willem III), William and Mary in Virginia, Vanderbilt in Tennessee, Spelman in Atlanta, and Hofstra on Long Island. Rutgers was founded by the Reverends Theo Frelinghuysen and Jaap Hardenbergh, and made financially possible by Henry Rutgers, descendant of Dutch mayors of New York (De Peyster) and Albany (Bancker), and ancestor of the two Roosevelt presidents from Zeeland.
One day Dr. Benedict Turck was traveling through the Netherlands. He saw the bronze Willem in The Hague, discovered that one exact copy existed, cast from Royer’s original mold, and decided to buy it. Turck had a connection to Willem of Orange. His great-great grandfather had been Willem’s family physician, who had treated him the first time there had been an assassination attempt on The Silent, in 1582.
On the boat trip back to America, Turck felt guilty about his expensive purchase, and he decided not to tell his wife. For eight years bronze Willem was kept hidden in storage. Until the Holland Society of New York had enough. The thing had to stand somewhere, and do justice to Holland’s crucial role in America. Central Park, perhaps. Or else in downtown Albany, or somewhere along the banks of the Hudson, discovered by the Amsterdam ship Halve Maen.
They decided on Rutgers University, and that’s where Willem of The Hague’s Plein has been standing for 96 years now. Students call him Willie the Silent, and Still Bill. They say he whistles in the dark at night when a female student walks by who is still a virgin.
But also that in this entire past century no one has heard him whistle.
