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Douwe likely farmed in Jamaica on Long Island. He was a staunch Loyalist, found among the signers pledging allegiance to the King in 1775-76, and promised assistance in raising Loyalist troops in 1777.(1) At the close of the Revolution, Douwe, his children and their families immigrated to Nova Scotia, a Loyalist haven.
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(The New York Gazette, 25 August 1783)
"The fleet for Nova Scotia, of thirty sail, put to sea yesterday morning with a fair wind." (Rivington's Gazette, 29 September 1783)
Douwe was granted his property by the Canadian government in 1786, which included what is now the village of Clementsport. He and other Douwes in this family are occasionally called "Dowie," presumably a diminutive.(2)
photo by Becky Kraussmann, all rights reserved
Douwe's grant now hangs in the Old Church of St. Edward
Several land transactions involving Douwe and Douwe, Jr., in this area occurred in 1784, and how this relates to the government grant hasn't yet been determined. Douwe, Sr., undoubtedly had a home on the property right away, but the house as it now stands appears to be two houses joined or one expanded on the other. Construction evidence leads to some complicated theories as to the history of the house. Below is a floor plan (not exactly to scale).
the portion in red is a wattle & daub wall. Wattle & daub is a construction technique placing it in Acadian tradition. The English were not known to have used it. There is a local tradition that this was an Acadian cottage was purchased in the Annapolis Royal area and floated down to Clementsport. This is reasonable, given that it could have been brought into the mouth of the Moose River and then dragged up to the Ditmars homestead about a half a mile away. However, this was a considerable effort, and among the residents of Digby, Annapolis Royal and elswhere in the area, it is hard to imagine there not being carpenters who could have at least overseen the construction of small houses for the Loyalist settlers. There were already people living in the area who had houses and other kinds of structures. Douwe may have been offered a very good deal, and perhaps the means to move a very small house was not as complicated as it seems if there was enough man and horse or ox power available. The Sinclair museum in Annapolis Royal, a former home, has an Acadian cottage as part of it's 18th century construction, so the idea was not a unique one. The Long Hills Museum in Granville Ferry (across the Annapolis Basin from Clementsport), also formerly a home built in a largely English traditon, supposedly has a wattle & daub portion as well.
A reconstructed Acadian cottage on the grounds of the Historic Gardens at Annapolis Royal
part of the wattle & daub wall in the Ditmars house
Since Douwe, Jr., inherited the house and lived there after his father died, he and his family may have lived with his widowed father as soon as they arrived in Nova Scotia. In theory, they may have lived in the Acadian cottage, with modifications, and then built the rest of the older portion of the house around the cottage. Referring to the above floor plan, the "cottage" would have been the back room only where the red wall is indicated. The additions would have been the stair hall and rooms to the right (first and second floors) and the front rooms (up and down) on the the other side of the "cottage" room. Rather than use the back wall of the "cottage" as an exterior wall, the new construction was deeper and the new back wall continued all the way across, creating an odd, narrow back room. Windows in the "cottage" wall would originally have been casements, but were likely replaced by the Ditmars. The remaining, older back wall, now an interior wall, still has windows in it. Local tradition says that the Ditmars had a store in the house. The narrow room would have been an ideal spot for it, and the idea of store space may have been incorporated into the expansion plans from the start. The chimneys and fireplace arrangement were very likely part of the new construction. The mass of the combined houses was unified by a new roof, but Leslie Langille, who oversaw the renovation of the house, reports that the roof gives the appearance of two existing houses being butted against each other. That idea creates a new layer of complications in the history of the house. It is possible this occurred, although it is very hard to imagine that bringing in two houses to the site was easier than a simple expansion at some point. Perhaps the other house was close by and available. It's doubtful that the "cottage" was as deep as the present house, and the Acadians built their cottage roofs quite steep. Perhaps the framing in the roof will reveal further clues. The floor level in the "cottage" portion is lower than the rest of the house, and although building expansions elsewhere (involving new construction onto older parts) used this approach for whatever reason (the house that Doug grew up in, for instance), in the instance of the Ditmars house, it does raise the question why the "cottage" floor - a small area - wasn't raised. Whether there were two houses joined or one house expanded, why not raise the floor in that one room to match? Further evidence of two different construction dates is the difference in window spacing evident on the front of the house.
One of the most distinctive parts of the Ditmars house is the roof that apparently was built to unify the two portions. On the front half of the house is a so-called "Dutch kick" - a flare that extends out to create a large overhang very much in the style of Anglo-Dutch houses in lower New York State, where the Ditmars lived before coming to Nova Soctia.
The front of Douwe Ditmars' house in Clementsport
The Wyckoff house in Canarsie, Brooklyn, NY, with a typical "Dutch kick" of the mid 1700s (the house has been restored as a museum). There is a very good chance that the Ditmars lived in a house of this style in nearby Jamaica (NY) before moving to Nova Scotia.
The little room in the front, left corner of the house has its own window with a little shelf on the sill and is entered into through a round-arched opening unlike any other in the house. One of the Ditmars was reportedly a paymaster of some sort, and this is thought to have been where that business took place. There may have been a prescribed time when men could come to the house (to be paid for something? military services?). They may have come up to the window, which is set unusually in the wall to correspond to this room, and paperwork and money exchanged on or over the sill shelf. This may also be where goods were paid for when the Ditmars had the store. The following photo shows that corner of the house.
Many thanks to Leslie Langille and Blaine Allaby for graciously allowing access to and providing a tour of this fascinating house.
Various members of this family returned to Long Island on occasion. There is an entry in the diary of John Baxter of Flatbush? dated 10 July 1790 mentioning that he "shaved old D. Dittmas from N. Scotia."(3) His son Douwe and daughter-in-law/step-daughter Jannetje (wife of Isaac) are supposedly also mentioned by Baxter, but this hasn't been confirmed. Douwe and his son Douwe married women named Catryntje/Catherine Snedeker. The elder Catherine was the daughter of Isaac and Catryntje Jans (Dorlandt?) and the younger was her niece. Douwe, Sr.'s, second wife Sara Remsen was first married to Abraham Voorhees and secondly to Joris/George Vroom, with both of whom she had children. The conglomerated Ditmars/Vroom household was large and apparently close-knit. Two of Douwe's children married their step-siblings: one a Voorhees, one a Vroom.
Douwe died of "nasal palsy" (4) and is buried in the Old St. Edward's churchyard in Clementsport. Douwe was a founding member of St. Edward's in 1794. There is a local tradition that Douwe donated land for the church and accepted a peppercorn in exchange. Peppercorns were a traditional means of legalizing an exchange of goods or property when it was intended as a gift. He eventually was convinced to accept 5 shillings instead. He lived to see the church finished, or nearly so, and his funeral was likely held there.
Old Church of St. Edward, Clementsport. The ceremonial entry for weddings and funerals reportedly was on this side.
The head and footstones at Douwe's grave in the St. Edward churchyard
children of Douwe, Sr., and Catryntje (Snedeker) Ditmars:
i. Marritje, b. 13 Feb. 1746, m. 1. 1761/1762, Cornelius Voorhees (her stepbrother), 2. 1773, Paul
Ammerman
ii. Catryntje?, died young?
iii. Douwe, b. 18 Nov. 1750, m. 1768, Catryntje Snedeker (his first cousin)
iv. Isaac, b. 1 Aug. 1751, m. 1771, Jannetje Vroom (his stepsister)
v. Gerrit?
vi. Jan, bap. 31 Mar. 1754, m. 1776, Magdalena Vanderbilt
vii. Catryntje, bap. 3 June 1759, sp. Eldert Elderts and his wife Jannetje Nostrand
His baptism and first marriage dates come from the Jamaica Dutch Reformed Church records. His second marriage date is inferred from an abstract of marriage bonds in "New York Marriages Before 1784."
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4. History of Digby County, citing the records of Trinity Anglican Church, Digby, the pastor of which served the St. Edward's parish.
all text and photographs © 1998-2005 by Doug Sinclair unless where otherwise noted