Teunis Cray was one of the many Europeans who immigrated to New Amsterdam in the 17th century. He was born in Venlo, in northern Limburg in 1602 and later, in 1642, moved to New Amsterdam. There, Cray built himself and his family a small house on a plot of land at the corner of Brewer Street and the Broad Street canal. While he worked as a tavernkeeper for almost thirty years, his career was unremarkable, aside from his 1667 appointment as the public measurer of apples, onions, and turnips.
View of the Heere Gracht
However, perhaps the most notable thing about his life is a 1658 incident relating to his daughter Janneke Cray and her groom Philip Schooff. The two got married in August of that year and when leaving the church, Anneken Sibouts shouted “they slept together and therefore did not deserve to have palm strewed” at the newlyweds. Here, Sibouts referred to the tradition of decorating a marital bed with flowers and palms, and so implied that as Philip and Janneke had premarital sex, the two were not worthy of marriage. The groom obviously found this remark offensive, and he took Sibouts to court, just as he did two weeks before with a certain Breghtlande van de Graaf whom he accused of slandering his wife.
Interestingly, about a month prior in July, Teunis Cray and Philip Schoof had a minor legal dispute. As a result, Schoof was not allowed to leave New Amsterdam for a certain amount of time about which he complained to the court. While we do not know with certainty what exactly van de Graaf said about Janneke Cray or the cause of the dispute between Teunis Cray and Philip Schoof, we can speculate that these incidents were possibly connected to the couple’s premarital sex.
Learn about Teunis Cray and a House on Brewer Street