Hendrick Hendricksen Kip ★

1600s–1620s

Born around 1600 in Friesland, in the Netherlands. Married in Amsterdam in 1624.

1630s–1640s

Emigrated to New Netherland around 1637 and worked as a tailor on what is now Bridge Street, Manhattan. Spoke out against Director-General Kieft's war in 1643, was elected to New Amsterdam's first Board of Nine Men in 1647, and in 1649 signed the remonstrance asking for direct crown rule.

1650s–1680s

Appointed one of the city's five Grand Schepens in 1656 and made a Great Burgher in 1657. Swore allegiance to England after the colony's surrender in 1664. Died at his Manhattan home, Kippenburg, on 14 September 1685.

A Tailor on Bridge Street

Hendrick Hendricksen Kip was born around 1600 in Friesland, in the Netherlands, and emigrated to New Netherland around 1637, possibly prompted by the economic collapse following the Dutch tulip market crash that February. He built a career as a tailor from his home and shop on what is now Bridge Street in Manhattan, and rose to become one of the colony's leading citizens: elected in 1647 to New Amsterdam's first Board of Nine Men under Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, and in 1656 appointed one of the city's five Grand Schepens, or aldermen. Hendrick was an outspoken critic of authority when he thought it deserved — his family name may even have originated as an ironic nickname, since “kip” is Dutch for chicken; Edmund Clarence Stedman's 1897 poem “The Dutch Patrol” called him “Hendrick Kip of the haughty lip.”

Opposing Kieft's War

Hendrick was a vocal opponent of Director-General Willem Kieft, whose massacre of over a hundred Indigenous people at Corlear's Hook and Pavonia in February 1643 plunged the colony into a war the settlers feared would bring retaliation. Reported in 1643 as wishing aloud that Kieft be shipped back to Holland for “a nobleman's death,” Hendrick was pointedly excluded two years later when the city's other citizens were called to hear the terms of the peace treaty ending that war, on account of his open hostility. In 1649 he was one of eleven leading citizens who signed a formal remonstrance asking that New Netherland be placed under direct crown rule rather than the mismanagement of the West India Company. He was granted Great Burgher status in 1657, swore allegiance to England after the colony's surrender in 1664, and died at his Manhattan home, Kippenburg, on September 14, 1685, leaving an estate of 7,800 guilders; his family's coat of arms was set in the stained glass of New Amsterdam's first church.