Voices of Faith
Celebrate Freedom to worship
This article by Gloria Waldron was published by the Times Union News, Albany, New York July 2007

Americans might take our right to worship according to personal conviction for granted. We barely notice when prayers are offered at a table in a restaurant or a passer-by makes the sign of the cross in front of a church. After all, freedom is what we're about here in the United States, even if occasionally we feel sticky about it. I experienced some of that uncomfortable post-9/ll feeling last month at the Manhattan Book Expo America, where I participated as the author of a novel about the Waldron family in l7th-century Manhattan. As I navigated the congested, exhilarating, maddening aisles on the floor at the Javits Center, a salesman shouted, "Get your free copy here. The Quran, $8.95 in the store. Free here!" The first time I passed him, I said 'No thank you.' The second time, I told him, "No thank you." On the third pass, I said, "OK and thank you." He smiled back and said, "Persistence." That promoter's doggedness is the same stubborn resolve harnessed by a Norwegian immigrant named Albert Andriessen Bradt, who settled in Rensselaerwyck, and English immigrant John Bowne of Flushing, Queens. More than 300 years ago, they were the focus of disputes that paved the way to the First Amendment of the Constitution. Their courageous resistance helped win that fellow at the book show the right to promote the Quran-and me, the right to accept a copy. Few people today have any knowledge of Bradt or Bowne. Equally obscure is familiarity with the American document known as the Flushing Remonstrance, a one-page proclamation of peace and religious freedom extended to all, including "Jews, Turks and Egyptians." It was written in l657 by Edward Heart, a minister in Flushing. The principles of that document, which had been accepted by the Dutch Colonial government, were tested five years later when Bowne, by then a respected merchant, was arrested on Peter Stuyvesant's orders by Resolved Waldron , the sheriff in New Amsterdam. Bowne's wife, Hannah, a Quaker, was holding religious meetings in their home. Bowne was arrested because he refused to pay the fine imposed upon lhim for his wife's actions. Bowne was deported and tried back in Holland, where he was cleared and allowed to return to his family in America. His is considered by many to be the first case of religious freedom in America. Also relatively unknown are the religious activities in our Albany, New York area, then called Beverwyck, a year prior to the Remonstrance, by Albert Bradt. He and others were arrested, tried and fined for their attempt to start a Luthern church in a home located directly across from the Dutch Reformed Church. Coincidentally Albert and his brother, Arent, are being celebrated this week, from Thursday through Sunday, at the annual Bradt Family Reunion at the Desmond Hotel in Colonie. Religious tolerance has never been easily won in this country. Maybe with this realization in mind, and the 350th anniversary of the Flushing Remonstrance upon us, a Freedom of Religion celebration is being organized for December in Queens. At the invitation of the John Bowne Society of New York City, a nationwide call has goone out for descendents of John Bowne, Resolved Waldron and the 30 brave men who signed the Remonstrance to attend this unique historic event. Resolved Waldron's grandson Peter Waldron, his wife, Catherine, nee Vandenberg, moved to Albany in l698. Throughout the l8th century, Waldrons married into Albany, Schaghticoke and Schenectady families like the Knickerbockers, Yateses, Bradts, Beekmans and Van Wies. I count myself among the hundreds of Waldron descendants known to live in the Capitol Region to this day. -Gloria Waldron Hukle is the author of "Manhattan Seeds of the Big Apple and an llth generation descendant of Resolved Waldron.