David William Voorhees (Ph.D., New York University, 1988) Director of both the Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History and of the Jacob Leisler Papers Project, is also Managing Editor of de Halve Maen, a quarterly scholarly journal devoted to New Netherland studies published by The Holland Society of New York. Formerly Managing Reference History Editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons and a co-editor of The Papers of William Livingston, his published works include The Concise Dictionary of American History (1983), The Holland Society: A Centennial History 1885-1985 (1985), and Records of the Reformed Protestant Church of Flatbush, Kings County, New York, Volume 1, 1677-1720 (1999), Volume 2, Deacons’ Accounts, 1654-1709 (2009), as well as numerous articles on late seventeenth-century New York. He is currently a consultant to Historic Hudson and Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, NY. In 2010 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands presented him with knighthood in the Order of Orange Nassau.
Board of Trustees
Sarah Burrows Winch (B.A. in English and history from Hobart and William Smith Colleges) is President of the Board of Trustees. Ms. Winch, an author, poet, and noted photographer, and has a business background in sales with multiple companies, including the Boston publishing firm CFO Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of The Economist, London. A native of Syracuse, New York, she now resides in Vermont with her husband, with whom she has three sons. Under the nom de plume Sarah Tracy Burrows, Kent State University Press recently published her Yours Affectionately, Osgood: Colonel Osgood Vose Tracy’s Letters Home from the Civil War, 1862–1865, which she collaborated on with Civil War historian Ryan Keating. She is a direct descendant of Jacob Leisler through his daughter Hester.
Dr. Jaap Jacobs (Ph.D., Leiden University, 1999) serves as our Vice President (pro tem). He is affiliated with the University of St. Andrews and has specialized in early American history, specifically the Dutch in the Americas in the early modern period. Dr. Jacobs has taught at Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam, Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University. His publications on New Netherland and New Amsterdam include The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth Century America (Cornell University Press, 2009). He is currently working on a biography of Petrus Stuyvesant. He gives lectures and presentations on Dutch New York.
Annette van Rooy, Secretary and Treasurer of the Board of the Jacob Leisler Institute, served as Executive Director for The Holland Society of New York from 1994 to 2012. Fluent in Dutch, French, and German, she currently volunteers at The New Netherland Institute in Albany, New York, as program and book graphic designer. She is a volunteer on the Lecture Committee of the Pittstown Historical Society. She was also social director at the Northern Lake George Yacht club and a co-editor of The Netherland Club of New York Newsletter.
Dr. Noah L. Gelfand (Ph.D., New York University, 2008) is a Doctoral Lecturer at Hunter College, where he teaches courses on early US history and American Indian history. While pursuing his Ph.D. at NYU, he worked for a number of years as a graduate assistant on the Jacob Leisler Papers Project. He has published several articles and book chapters on Atlantic history and American Jewish history and is currently working on a book about the Jewish Atlantic world in the early modern era.
Gary Laube is founder and retired proprietor of Liberty Gas, a full-service source for residential and commercial propane needs on Long Island’s East End. He was a business partner in Village House Wrights LLC, a firm which specialized in building fine eighteenth-century reproduction homes. A colonial history enthusiast, he has purchased and restored several pre-Revolutionary homes. His former home in Southold, New York, was featured on HGTV and in Early American Life magazine. Mr. Laube also collects historical items, including the only known pre-Revolutionary Pine Tree flag in existence. He is a direct descendant of Col. John Young, one of the chief justices for Jacob Leisler’s 1691 trial.
William F. Locke, CFA, is the President and CEO of Adirondack Financial Services (AFS), headquartered in Utica, New York. Locke has more than 38 years of experience in investment advisory and trust management. Prior to AFS, Locke was the Senior Vice President and Market Manager for the Central New York Region at Fleet Investment Services. Locke holds an MBA from Babson School of Management and a BA from Bates College. He earned his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1993 and has a proven track record as an investment manager for individuals, corporations, and not-for-profit organizations.
Dr. Simon Middleton (Ph.D., City University of New York Graduate Centre, 1998) is a William E. Pullen Associate Professor of History at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia. He earned his Ph.D. from the City University of New York Graduate Centre in 1998 and taught at the University of East Anglia and the University of Sheffield, both in England, before joining the faculty at William and Mary in 2018. His publications include From Privileges to Rights: Work and Politics in Colonial New York City (Philadelphia, 2005), as well as articles for William and Mary Quarterly, Journal of Early American Studies, American Journal of Legal History, and numerous others. His research has focused upon the middle colonies and the Atlantic World in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Jeff Rigby, AIC, operated a full-service book and document conservation company. He began his career with an apprenticeship in archival and conservation at the Newberry Library in Chicago. Since leaving the Newberry, he has had a distinguished career preserving documents for numerous library and archival collections throughout the northeast and mid-Atlantic region, including the Brooklyn Museum, Ellis Island National Park, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, the Frelinghuysen Arboretum, the Museum of Modern Art, the New York County Clerk’s Office, and the New York Stock Exchange. A resident of Hudson, New York, he has served on the Hudson Area Library Board.
Carl J. Whitbeck Jr. is a Senior Partner in Whitbeck Benedict & Smith, LLP. Mr. Whitbeck received a J.D. degree from Albany Law School of Union University in 1974, and a bachelor’s degree in history from Williams College in 1970. Mr. Whitbeck has many years of experience advising municipal, corporate, and not-for-profit clients. He functioned as corporation counsel to the City of Hudson from 1980 to 1999, and again from 2014 to 2016. He also served as town attorney for the Town of Greenport from 1986 to 1995, and again from 2016 to 2017, and as Columbia County Attorney from 1988 to 1989. He represented the New York State Bridge Authority from 1994
William A. Starna, Ph.D., State University of New York at Albany, 1976) is Vice President of the Board of the Jacob Leisler Institute and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the State University of New York College at Oneonta. He has held visiting and adjunct appointments at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario), the University at Albany, Binghamton University, and Hartwick College, and has served as Adjunct Curator of Ethnology at the New York State Museum. A specialist in the Iroquoian and Algonquian peoples of eastern North America and federal-state-Indian relations, he is co-editor of The Journal of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert (1988, 2013), Iroquois Land Claims (1988), Adriaen Van der Donck’s Description of New Netherland (2008), A Quaker’s Tour of the Colonial Northeast and Canada: The 1773 Travel Journals of Jabez Maud Fisher of Philadelphia (2014), and Gideon’s People, Being a Chronicle of an American Indian Community in Colonial Connecticut and the Moravian Missionaries Who Served There (2009). In 2013 the University of Nebraska Press published his book From Homeland to New Land: A History of the Mahican Indians, 1600-1830.
Charles Zabriskie Jr. (B.S., University of Vermont) is Trustee Emeritus of the Board of the Jacob Leisler Institute and President and Chief Executive Officer of the Zabriskie Family Foundation. Following military service, he worked as a bank executive, consultant, and executive recruiter. A former Trustee and President of the Holland Society of New York, he is a recipient of the U.S. Army’s Civilian Distinguished Service Medal.
