DUTCH

 

IN ALBANY, the capital of New York State, say, halfway between the Ten Broeck and Helderberg districts, you’ll find the Beverwijck neighborhood. All of Albany was originally called Beverwijck. Possibly the Dutch founders had in mind that there was also a Beverwijk back in the mother country, but the name had mostly to do with real beavers.

Fur, sure, but above all: felt.

Everyone in Europe wanted a hat made of felt. Just look at Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals’s paintings. Men were wearing big felt hats. It was fashionable, and it was snuggly warm in a century that was unusually cold. The trade in beaver skins was very lucrative, and the Dutchmen in and around Beverwijck worked day and night to load ships from Amsterdam, Hoorn, Texel, Rotterdam and fill them with ready-made felt.

This was obtained by scratching the beaver’s soft-haired underlayer bare. It was a tough job, done in rooms without much ventilation. It required using a mercury solution. And mercury came with fumes. Dutch felt workers in America breathed those in. With clockwork regularity, someone would go gaga as a result.

These folks were called hatters. The hatters who went mad from the mercury were called Mad Hatters.

ENGLISH WRITER Lewis Carroll knew about it. After he wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, some thought he had borrowed the Mad Hatter from a British furniture store owner who served customers wearing a top hat.

No way.

It was the early Dutch immigrants in Beverwijck breathing in mercury too much.