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Appendix 2 Books in Westerlo’s Collection
Among the Westerlo Family Papers in the Albany Institute of History and Art in
Albany, NY, Box 2 F5, a handwritten document, “Register van Boeken met
desselver Prijzen in de Bibliotheek van Do. E. Westerlo anno 1771 d 2 maij”
[Register of books and their prices in the library of the Reverend Eilardus
Westerlo, 2 May 1771], displays a list of 358 books in folio, quarto, octavo and
duodecimo size. There is evidence that he did not include all the books in his
possession, and that he revisited the list between 1771 and 1789, adding books
and crossing others out, 664 so that the accuracy of the number for the original year
is in question.
This appendix will shed more light on the books on Westerlo’s 1771 document
(List 1). List 2 shows books with an indication that they belonged to Westerlo,
which can be found in libraries today, which confirms Westerlo’s library grew
after 1771, as his Memoirs indicate. This list includes the books that Mrs. Jane
Lansing Westerlo (1785-1871) donated to the New York State Library in 1852, 665
following the death of her husband, Eilardus’ son Rensselaer, and the ones she
donated to the Peter Hertzog Theological Hall Library in New Brunswick, NJ on
March 31, 1868, when she was 83.
List 3 contains only those books Westerlo mentioned in his Memoirs, but which
are not known to have been in his possession.
In May 1771, the month he drew up his “Register,” Westerlo had been in Albany
almost 13 years. He was still a bachelor. It is unclear how he acquired most of
his books, but it is possible that, as the only son in the ministry, he obtained his
father’s books after his death in 1766.
He also may have obtained some books as the minister in Albany, either those left
behind by his predecessor, Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, Jr., or given by
members of the congregation. He also possessed the handwritten sermons of
Cornelis Van Santvoord (1686-1752), minister on Staten Island, NY (1718-1742)
and then in Schenectady, NY, until his death). 666
664
Most notably, Alberthoma’s Uittreksel van de Leere der Waarheid was not included. There is at
least one book on the list, J. C. Struchtmeyer’s Rudimenta Linguae Graecae, that was not published
until 1784.
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These books have been lost, most likely in the fire that swept through the New York State Archives
in 1911. In 1899, the Senate of the State of New York reported it had “a “collection of the writings of
the Rev. Eilardus Westerlo in the Dutch and Latin languages [which] was given to the Library by Mrs.
Rensselaer Westerlo” [Documents 1899:210]. Corwin makes mention of “250 volumes of
Theological Works in the Dutch language, from the Library of the Rev. Eilardus Westerlo, given to
General Synod by his son, Rensselaer Westerlo,” in 1852, but it is unclear where these books are
today. [Corwin 1906:791].
666
How these sermons [see Appendix 3] ended up in Westerlo’s hands may be explained in his
Memoirs, in which he indicated having purchased items out of Van Santvoord’s legacy, possibly in the
Netherlands. Van Santvoord did not think much of his manuscripts, and his will contains the text “My
manuscripts being not of much worth to my children, but my translations of Spanheim upon Psalm 14
is to be for my sister or her husband […].”
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