Missing Answer

Princess Wilhelmina "hanging hair", portrait engraved by H. Raeder after a photo of H.R.F. Kameke. 

I've seen hundreds if not thousands of Princess Wilhelmina stationery cards and I only acquire these cards when they are of interest for my special collections. This particular card though is different, but I am still in doubt why... It probably has something to do with the enigmatic message on the reverse and the addressee.

Princess Wilhelmina Stationery 5c (G30)

The card was sent from Utrecht on the 21st of September between 8-9 a.m. and arrived in Antwerp the same day between 6-8 p.m. Apart from the marvelous engraving of princess Wilhelmina, the Dutch coat of arms adorns the card.   

Dutch coat of Arms and Utrecht departure postmark (Small Round)

The message on the reverse is very simple: "Amice, Please preserve this for me. H g." A very intriguing text but alas the answer part of the card has been lost, so we might never know why the sender wished to keep this card...

The message in Dutch: "Amice, Bewaar deze s.t.p. voor mij. H g."

The card was addressed to Albertus Antonie Nijland (1868-1936), a Dutch astronomer who was known for his sightings of so-called variable stars. A crater on the moon has been named the Nijland Crater in honour of him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijland_(crater) 

A.A. Nijland

A wrecked French Brig

Cover which travelled from the island of Vlieland to Amsterdam in November 1871

Sometimes you just stumble upon an interesting piece of postal history by chance. A few weeks ago I enjoyed such a moment when I discovered the envelope depicted above. At first sight a very ordinary cover and - to be honest - even a bit ugly because of  the discolouring of the lower half. Still, I found myself struggling to put it aside and continue my search for covers which would suit my collections better. Several reasons tempted me though not to put the cover aside:

• The unusual location from which the cover was sent: the isle of Vlieland. 
• The unusual addressee of the cover: the French ambassador/consul to the Netherlands.
• The mysterious and quite attractive red wax seal on the reverse (see below).

In the end I bought the cover...

Vlieland

In November 1871 Vlieland could consider itself as the least populated island of the Dutch Frisian Islands (Dutch: Waddeneilanden). Only about 650 souls inhabited the elongated sandy stretch of land and most of them earned their living from fishing and occasionally they plundered wrecked ships...

Locations of the isle of Vlieland (upper arrow) and Amsterdam (lower arrow)

It needs no explanation that most of the Dutch were unaware of the nature of the island, since back in the 1870s tourism wasn't as thriving as in 2018. Nowadays a large ferry shuttles between the island and Harlingen in Frisia which brings thousands of tourists to Vlieland every summer. The island's actual population though remains still quite small: about 1.100 people. The island today belongs to the province of Frisia, although the dialect and more cultural aspects share more resemblances with Texel and North-Holland.

The isle of Vlieland with its sole village Oost-Vlieland on the southeastern side.

Postal pieces travelling to and from the island went by ship via the neighbouring island of Texel to Den Helder in North-Holland. Our piece travelled this route too.

Postmarks

The "Vlieland" town name marker (see below) was placed in blue ink on the cover before reaching the first proper (main) post office in Den Helder. Only main post offices were allowed to cancel the stamp when a postal item travelled beyond the border of a postal district (rayon). In 1871 this happened by the combination of a so-called "hour postmark with letter" (departure) postmark reading Den Helder 4A-8A and its corresponding numeral postmark 53 which was used for the actual cancellation of the stamp. 

Numeral Cancel of Den Helder '53' on a King William III 5c blue (1867-68): Scott 7/NVPH 7 

Den Helder's Hour Postmark with Letter reading "24 NOV 71 / 4A-8A" 'A' stands for the Dutch Avond (evening), so this interval means between 16:00-20:00. A bit inconvenient and therefore replaced by a more logical postmark from 1877 onwards.

Vlieland Town Name Marker in blue

Although both the Den Helder numeral as hour postmark are quite common to find (even on complete postal pieces), the Vlieland Name Marker is scarcer on piece. This is of course due to the relative isolation and the low population number of the island. There was no real need of an advanced and speedy postal service so Vlieland always remained a sub-post office.

Mysterious sender

How odd it is then that the cover above was addressed to French ambassador to the Netherlands (Le Consul Général) in Amsterdam? My first guess was that the cover carried a request made by an inhabitant of Vlieland because he/she wanted to settle in France. Odd indeed, but I couldn't think of anything else until I closely looked at the wax seal on the reverse.

Wax Seal of ?  

Initially I was inclined to see the ornament above the proper shield as the French Fleur-de-Lis. Now I am not so sure anymore, but this initial thought gave me the impetus to look beyond Vlieland's horizon for other reasons why this letter could have been posted. Could this cover has been sent by a French delegate or attaché for instance? An attaché reporting on French trade with Vlieland? Very unlikely, but I continued my search on the great online resource of Dutch newspapers delpher.nl and curbed my search results "Vlieland", "Frankrijk" and "1871" to the months of October, November and December. After 10 minutes or so the following entry caught my attention (Leeuwarder Courant, 05-12-1871):

~

Public Sale

 Vlieland

On Monday the 11th of December 1871, half past ten in the morning Mr L. Zunderdorp will sell by court order of the right honourable Consul-General of France to the Netherlands and in presence of bailiff P. Hoedemaker on Vlieland 

The Body or Vessel  

of the French Brig Adèle, Capt. Frouillon, which headed for St. Malo (Frankrijk) from Sundsvall, but now lays wrecked on the northern shore of Vlieland, approximately a half hour walk from the village of Vlieland, as well as the rigging of the ship, consisting of: Anchors, Chains, Cables, Hawsers, Ropes, Ironwork, Blocks, Sails, Spars, Water casks etc. etc.

- Then a piece about the cargo of the ship: pine and fir wood sheets/plates -          

For more information you could apply in writing to the French Consulate near the Weteringbarrière, B B 153 in Amsterdam, as well to Mr L. Zunderdorp on Vlieland.

~

So there we are! Our cover very likely contained a message about this stranded French vessel. I continued my research and soon afterwards I found two very short articles in which the shipwreck was being reported. The first is from the Algemeen Handelsblad of 19-11-1871:

  

~

Shipping Reports

Amsterdam, 17 Nov. The French Brig Adèle, capt. Trouillon, headed for St. Malo from Sundsvall has run ashore on Vlieland last night according to a telegram from the island today. One man perished in the event ; the cargo is being salvaged.  

~

The second article is from the Helderse en Nieuwedieper Courant of the same date:

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-- Last night the French brig Adèle, capt. Troullon, run ashore on Vlieland, carrying timber from Sundsvall to St. Malo. One of the rig men drowned, all others have been rescued.  

~

Apparently this ship, Adèle, ran aground on the 17th or 18th of November: the two reports differ on the exact night. That makes 6-8 days for its captain (or a French attaché) to have sent our cover to Amsterdam. Bearing in mind that Vlieland certainly wasn't an easy place to reach in these days, I think it was the captain himself who sent the letter. Maybe he had already sent another one earlier on, or - because of the unknown territory he set foot on - he waited a few days in order to sort everything out before he updated the Consul on the dire situation. 

Alas, I haven't found any information on this particular ship and on its captain Trouillon. I will update this post whenever I have found some additional (and eagerly wished for!) details. Obviously no waste of money this cover!    

Reverse of the cover with wax seal, Amsterdam Arrival Postmark (12M-8M: between 12 p.m. and 8 a.m.) and Post Man Mark indicating this cover  has been delivered during his first round of the day (on the 25th of November).

The West Frisian Dialect

Wervershoof 30-05-1913. Mrs Maartje Hooijveld-Mantel sends a postcard to her niece who lives in the neighboring village of Andijk:

~

"Efrouw!

Hiermede bericht ik u dat a.s. zondag P.B. komt, dus verwacht ik later bericht van u. Warm wéér te schoonmaken Ant! maar op bloote benen in de klompen

Nahartelijke groete

M. Mantel-Hooijveld"

~

 In English:

~

"Efrouw!

Herewith I let you know that P.B. will visit me this Sunday, so I expect you to inform me soon. Warm weather to do cleaning Ant!, on bare feet (legs) in our wooden shoes it is then.

Wit kind regards,

M . Mantel-Hooijveld"

 ~

The postcard is somewhat stained, so the true reason I bought this was the message it contains. Especially the last 'cleaning'- sentence sparked my interest:

"Warm wéér te schoonmaken Ant! maar op bloote benen in de klompen"It is written in 'pseudo' West Frisian, to be precise the dialect variant of the Dutch language, not the one labelled as language and which is spoken in the province of Friesland across the IJsselmeer.

A short piece on this dialect can be consulted on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_Dutch but alas there is no grammar available for English readers, so I will show you a couple of linguistic phenomena typical of West Frisian from the handbook "Hé, is dat Westfries?" by the great H. Langedijk:

Different conjugation of irregular verbs

Dutch: helpen, hielp, geholpen
West Frisian: helpe, holp, holpen
English: help, helped, helped

A peculiarity of West Frisian is the absence of the 'ge'-prefix for the present perfect: so, "holpen" instead of "geholpen"

Another one:
Dutch: hangen, hing, gehangen
West Frisian: hange, hong, hongen
English: hang, hung, hung

Different auxiliary verbs

Dutch: Jij bent niet mee geweest.
West Frisian: Jij hewwe niet mee weest.
English: You haven't come/'been' (with us).

In West Frisian the auxiliary verb of 'to be' = a form of 'hebben' (hewwe) and not 'zijn' (bent) as in Dutch. It sounds very odd if you're not from West Frisia and would be the equivalent of replacing the English 'haven't' with 'wasn't': 'You wasn't come with us'...

The real surprise, if you have been paying close attention, is the fact that English uses the auxiliary verb 'to have' for the present perfect 'been' as in West Frisian but unlike the Dutch 'to be'.

Vocabulary

Enough grammar for now, since the real reason why West Frisian is such a fun language to learn results from its vocabulary and proverbs. It is well-known Frisian is more closely related to English than Dutch and therefore West Frisian has some conspicuous anglophone words as well which are non-existent in Dutch: e.g.
Dutch: Schemerig
West Frisian: Tweilichtig
English: Twilit / dusky

Other wonderful West Frisian expressions (some derive from older Dutch or French words, but other are definitely 'original' and very creative):

Dutch: 't Is mistig.
West Frisian: 't Is moordenaarsweer.
English: It is foggy [murders' weather].

Dutch: Dat was een welkome verrassing.
West Frisian: Dat was in de emmer.
English: That was a pleasant surprise [That was in the bucket].

Dutch: Hij keek erg teleurgesteld.
West Frisian: Z'n lip hong op 't onderste knoupsgat.
English: He looked very disappointed [His lip had fallen to his undermost buttonhole].

Dutch: Daar komen van die hooghartige dames aan.
West Frisian: Deer komme van die grooske tieten an.
English: Those arrogant women are approaching [those arrogant tits are approaching].

Now the grand finale: a proverb which is said of lazy and/or tired people:

West Frisian: 'Louf? Louf ken lang an: eer je biene bai je kniese of benne kèn je nag zestien jaar te wortelewuden nei de Langedoik.
English: Tired? Fatigue can take a long time: before your legs have been worn up to your knees, you're still able to weed amid the carrots in Langedijk for sixteen years.

There you have it: a small introduction to West Frisian because of Maartje Mantel's:


"Warm wéér te schoonmaken Ant! maar op bloote benen in de klompen"
Although she tried to make her West Frisian more Dutch, she made one mistake: to place the essential subordinating conjugation 'om' before the 'te': het is warm weer om te schoonmaken'. But overall, she did a good job: she didn't wrote 'skoonmaken' instead of the Dutch schoonmaken (to clean) and she didn't wrote 'biene' for the Dutch 'benen' (legs).

Large round postmark of Wervershoof on a ¢2½ Vürtheim stamp

The decline

Already in 1913 West Frisians seemingly wanted to speak and write as 'normal' Dutch (whatever that means...). After WWII when the Netherlands prospered and West Frisians could afford study and travel, they tried even harder to ban West Frisian because you made yourself look ridiculous in company of more decent people (from Haarlem, The Hague, Utrecht etc.). The rise of television didn't help much either to preserve the language.
Nowadays you could still hear some reminders of the West Frisian dialect in people's tongue. Especially the melodious aspect of it and the 'wrong' pronunciation of the sch- as in Schaatsen (Ice-skating) which becomes 'Skaatsen' is something difficult to get rid of. But the true soul of the language: the vocabulary, typical expressions and grammar have sadly all become something of the past.

Typenrader arrival 'Langebalk' postmark of the neighbouring village of Andijk