In 1670, Albany’s Schoolmaster Jan Jurians Beecker was having a hard time. Despite the fact that Colonial Governor Richard Nicolls had granted him the right to keep the Dutch school “for ye teaching of youth to read and wryte,” there were some freelance teachers horning in on the business. “Several others not so capable do undertake ye like some perticular tymes & seasons of ye yeare when they have no other Imployment,” according to an order by the next governor, Francis Lovelace, “where by ye Schollars removing from one Schoole to another do not onely give a great discouragement to ye maister who makes it his businesse all ye yeare but also are hindred & become ye more backwards in there learning. . . .” Therefore Lovelace decreed that Jan Jurians Beecker, “who is esteemed very capable that way” would be the schoolmaster for instruction of youth at Albany and parts adjacent “& that no other be admitted to interrupt him.” It was “presumed that ye said Beecker for ye youth & Jacob Joosten who is allowed of for ye teaching of ye younger children are sufficient for that place.”
