Dirck Storm

Dirck Storm (1630–1716) was an early colonial American famous for composing the history of the Dutch community at Sleepy Hollow and beginning the community's records. His book "Het Notite Boeck der Christelyckes Kercke op de Manner of Philips Burgh" is one of the nation's most valuable historical documents. Sometimes referred to as "Het Notite Boeck", the five-part book is a rare surviving record of Dutch Colonial American village life in English-occupied New York province.

Birth and early life

One line of research provides that Dirck Storm was born in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in 1630. His family resided in Leyden, Holland, where they dealt in fine cloth. Historical records carry this proposed Storm line back to Dederick Storm, who lived in Wyck, near Delft, in 1390. The family may have been of Viking stock since so many settled in the province of North Brabant when the Vikings overran the Low Countries before the year 1000.

At the age of eighteen Dirck went to Den Bosch to be clerk in his uncle's commercial office. On May 13, 1656 he married, in the church of St. Gertrude in 's-Hertogenbosch, Maria van Montfoort, daughter of Pieter van Montfoort, an old family of Delft and Leyden. By 1660, Dirck was named Town Clerk of Ossch in the Mayorate of 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch). Public service was part of the Storm family history, as Dirck's father was the City Clerk of Leiden and his grandfather was a lawyer in the Court of Justice of Holland, West Friesland and Zealand. When Protestant Holland was hit by a recession after the overthrow of Cromwell in England, Dirck set sail for the new world.