Little Rivers

Henry Jackson van Dyke (November 10, 1852 - April 10, 1933) was an American author, educator, and clergyman. Henry van Dyke was born on November 10, 1852, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1869, Princeton University, in 1873 and from Princeton Theological Seminary, 1877. He served as a professor of English literature at Princeton between 1899 and 1923. Among the many students whom he influenced was, notably, future celebrity travel writer Richard Halliburton (1900-1939), Editor-in-Chief, at the time, of the Princeton Pictorial. Van Dyke chaired the committee that wrote the first Presbyterian printed liturgy, The Book of Common Worship of 1906. In 1908-09 Dr. van Dyke was a lecturer at the University of Paris. By appointment of President Woodrow Wilson, a friend and former classmate of van Dyke, he became Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1913. Shortly after his appointment, World War I threw Europe into dismay. Americans all around Europe rushed to Holland as a place of refuge. Although inexperienced as an ambassador, van Dyke conducted himself with the skill of a trained diplomat, maintaining the rights of Americans in Europe and organizing work for their relief. He later related his experiences and perceptions in the book Pro Patria (1921). Van Dyke resigned as ambassador at the beginning of December 1916 and returned to the United States. He was subsequently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received many other honors. Van Dyke was a friend of Helen Keller. Keller wrote: "Dr. van Dyke is the kind of a friend to have when one is up against a difficult problem. He will take trouble, days and nights of trouble, if it is for somebody else or for some cause he is interested in. 'I'm not an optimist, ' says Dr. van Dyke, 'there's too much evil in the world and in me. Nor am I a pessimist; there is too much good in the world and in God. So I am just a meliorist, believing that He wills to make the world better, and trying to do my bit to help and wishing that it were more.'" He died on April 10, 1933. He is buried in Princeton Cemetery. A biography of Van Dyke, titled Henry Van Dyke: A Biography, was written by his son Tertius van Dyke and published in 1935. Robert Venables (ca. 1613-1687), was a soldier during the English Civil War and noted angler. Venables was a lieutenant-colonel in the parliamentary army and was wounded at the siege of Chester in 1645. He was appointed governor of Liverpool in 1648 and then served with success in Ireland from 1649 until 1654. Venables was sent as joint commander with Admiral William Penn on the Caribbean expedition against the Spanish in the West Indies in 1654. The English forces were routed at the Siege of Santo Domingo in 1655, but managed to successfully take the Spanish colony of Jamaica for England later in the same year. On his return to England he was sent to the Tower of London for failing to wrest the larger prize of Hispaniola from Spanish control, and cashiered in October the same year. Venables was briefly appointed governor of Chester in 1660. After the Restoration he bought the estate of Wincham, retired from public life, and remained a nonconformist. He published a treatise on fishing, The Experienced Angler, in 1662