Author: Stew Ross

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Going Dutch on Thanksgiving

An American in…Holland?

As an expat growing up in Holland, I was constantly reminded of the role the Dutch played in the American tradition of Thanksgiving—not as direct participants, but as hosts to the English Pilgrims before they emigrated to America. The Pilgrims were religious dissenters of The Reformation who fled England in 1608 and arrived in Amsterdam. A year later, they moved to the South Holland city of Leiden where they lived for the next 12 to 20 years.

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Exterior view of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum. Photo (2009). Herenld. Wikimedia Commons.

The three primary churches where they worshiped are the Vrouwekerk (in ruins today: the Pilgrims who settled Manhattan worshiped here), Hooglandsekerk, and Pieterskerk.

Today, the American Thanksgiving is celebrated every year at Pieterskerk as a way to celebrate the Dutch assistance given to the Pilgrims. The records at Pieterskerk reflect the births, marriages, and deaths of the pilgrims while living in Leiden. Next to the Hooglandsekerk church stands a medieval building (built in 1365) known as the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum (Beschuitsteeg 9). It is dedicated to the Pilgrims and you can see many original artifacts from the time they lived in Leiden. Read More Going Dutch on Thanksgiving

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Where Did They Put the Guillotine?

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Execution of Louis XVI. Engraving (unknown: mid-19th century). Author’s collection

In the spring of 1965, a young boy, aged ten, stood on the Place de la Concorde in Paris and looked around at this giant space that now contained an Egyptian obelisk, two big fountains and swirling mass of automobiles going around in a circle.

He was trying to imagine what this site might have looked like in 1789 and throughout the French Revolution and the period of time known as “The Terror”. He knew that this was the place where the guillotine had been erected and many people, including the King and Queen of France, had been executed.

As he stood there with his parents, he asked a very simple question; “Where did they put the guillotine?” No one knew the answer.

For me, that started a life-long fascination with history and in particular, European history. I was fortunate to have grown up in Europe (Holland and Germany) during the 1960’s. Today, my wife and I love to travel around Europe. We are visitors that like to see original buildings, places where the buildings stood and things like that. We want to know if the roof is the original one, is the wallpaper original or recreated. When we were in Shakespeare’s home, the docent told us that one of the rooms we were walking through had the original floor that Shakespeare walked on. We like that kind of stuff.

I think that there are a lot of people who travel, both domestically and internationally, that enjoy and approach history like us through their travels.

This is the reason why I am writing a book called “Where Did They Put The Guillotine…A Walking Tour of Revolutionary Paris (1789-1794)”. Read More Where Did They Put the Guillotine?