On May 16, 1691, Jacob Leisler, de facto governor of the Province of New York, was hung til half-dead then beheaded before the largest gathering in the city of New York up to that date. Leisler’s administration had created a bitter division in New York.
Leisler aroused deep emotions that reveal much about the milieu in which he lived and continued to echo in historical evaluations. Moreover, Leisler’s immediate family and their households of servants and enslaved persons, their trade and marital connections, and their actions provide insights into the broader social, ideological, economic, artistic, and political events of colonial New York and its place in the larger world at a time of tremendous change.
The Hudson Area Library History Room in collaboration with the Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History will host “Fanatic or Martyr: Jacob Leisler, a Window into an Age,” a talk by Dr. David Voorhees on Thursday, January 27th.
Dr. Voorhees is director of the Jacob Leisler Papers Project, formerly located at New York University, as well as the Jacob Leisler Institute headquartered in Hudson. He’s also managing editor of de Halve Maen (The Half Moon), a quarterly scholarly journal published by The Holland Society of New York. An NYU research scientist, he is a former managing reference history editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons and has published numerous historical works and articles, and been a consultant on historical exhibits at the Museum of the City of New York and the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan among others.
This program will take place from 6 to 7:30 pm and will be held via Zoom. For more information contact Brenda Shufelt, History Room Coordinator, at (518) 828-1792 x106, email brenda.shufelt@hudsonarealibrary.org, or visit the Hudson Area Library website.
Photo: a statue commemorating Jacob Leisler on North Avenue in New Rochelle, New York (courtesy Wikimedia user Anthony22).
As a long-time 38 year resident of New Rochelle and an intense student of New York City history ,I have long had a fascination with Jacob Leisler whose unquiet death reverberates throughout new York’s early history. It is too bad that the successful appeal of his death sentence for treason to the English courts did not come early enough to save his life.