American Heritage Partners

The Forgotten Colony: the 400th Anniversary of the Founding of New Netherland, America’s First “Melting Pot”
2025-01-18 00:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Forgotten Colony: the 400th Anniversary of the Founding of New Netherland, America’s First “Melting Pot”
Today, many Americans consider New York—New York City in particular– to be a “melting pot,” where different ethnicities and cultures have come together to form a vibrant, diverse community, a center of international commerce and finance, and a welcoming place for immigrants from all the nations of the world. It all started 400 years ago, when a sailing ship carrying a small group of Dutch settlers arrived in North America, traveled up what came to be known as the Hudson River, and established a trading post at today’s Albany New York, following quickly by the settlement of the place they called New Amsterdam, renamed forty years later “New York.” Led by the Dutch West India Company (the “WGC”), over the next two decades thousands of immigrants settled in the region of today’s New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, forming the Dutch Colony of “New Netherland.”
Americans today celebrate the nation’s founding colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth, but somehow we’ve forgotten the massively important colony of New Netherland. On January 18, American Heritage Partners hosted a special luncheon featuring guest speaker, Deborah Hamer, the Director of the New Netherland Institute (“NNI”), who shared with us the story of New Netherland. Headquartered in Albany New York, NNI has been engaged over the last few decades in extensive preservation efforts of early Dutch records on a colossal scale. Ms. Hamer provided an overview of the history of New Netherland and shared with us the details of NNI’s efforts to preserve, digitize and translate the extant records of the WGC and other surviving Dutch records related to the history of New Netherland. The large collection of records NNI has already made public has provided critical new information about how the Dutch colony operated, how its people lived their day-to-day lives, how colonial leaders dealt with the indigenous peoples, and how those leaders helped foster the “melting pot” we know of today.
This special event was held at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, Nevada.

Robert Burns Celebration
2025-01-25 00:00
AHP Supports the Robert Burns Celebration in Reno Nevada

On January 25, the Nevada Society of Scottish Clans is hosting its annual Robert Burns Celebration at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada. This annual event is a “blow out” evening banquet, featuring the full array of Scottish traditional entertainment, food (including haggis!), raffle items, and most importantly, a free scotch whisky tasting beginning at 4 pm on the day of the event. This year, American Heritage Partners is a sponsor of the Celebration, which promises to be another sell-out. AHP is supporting the NSSC in large part because of the major impact our Scottish-American ancestors have had on our shared American history. To learn more about this fun event, and to register to attend, click here.

Seeking El Dorado: The History of The Pioneer Migration on the California Trail
2025-03-15 00:00
Seeking El Dorado: The History of The Pioneer Migration on the California Trail
This sold-out luncheon was co-sponsored by the Oregon-California Trails Association (“OCTA”), the Nevada Historical Society, the Nevada State Genealogical Society, and the Dayton Valley Historical Society. The Nevada State Museum supported the event and offered free admission to the Museum on the day of the event. Our guest speaker wwas David Fullerton, Vice President of the Nevada-California chapter of OCTA, and a leading expert on the history of the California Trail. Mr. Fullerton discussed the history of the California Trail, the people who traveled it, and the challenges they faced. He also talked about the ongoing projects he and other members of OCTA are pursuing to preserve and protect the remnants of the trails, and the discoveries they have made in the process. Working in collaboration with the National Park Service and other organizations, OCTA has unearthed many new and exciting artifacts that add meaning to the story of western migration. On display were several actual pioneer diaries that have been preserved– priceless visual evidence of the pioneers’ day-to-day life on the trail.
The event was held from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the South Gallery of the Museum, located at 600 North Carson Street in Carson City.
