Biography Jacob Steendam

Poet Biography

STEENDAM, Jacob, Dutch poet, born in Holland in 1616. Steendam became known as the first poet of New York (formerly New Netherland) after setting in the New World. In 1661 he published a pamphlet called 'Praise of New Netherlands'. This was an area between the Delaware and the Connecticut River at the time. Steendam who had lived in New Netherland, 1650–1660, wrote glowing reports from the New World, touting its many virtues – "the purity of the air..." – making him, arguably, not only the New World’s first poet but also its first publicist.