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Sebastian Croll was a Dutchman said to have been made the first commissary of Fort Orange in 1617, [1] which was built on the site of the present-day city of Albany, New York. He was also an elder in the "Church in the Fort," which was founded by the Rev. Jonas Michaelius in 1628. [2]

The last name Croll is pronounced /krɔl/ in Dutch, similar to the English pronunciation, but according to an upper class widow living in Hudson, New York in 1909, one Mrs. Anna R. Bradbury, Croll is pronounced as "crull" in Dutch. Thus she claimed that he introduced the cruller to the New World, and that she thus believed him to be the eponym for the pastry. This belief has been repeated in other later US works. [2] [3] [4]

References

  1. ^ Munsell, Joel (1854). The annals of Albany, volume 5. p. 98. Fort Orange was erected in 1617, and a person by the name of Sebastian Croll was the first commissary at the fort.
  2. ^ a b Bradbury, Mrs. Anna R. (1909). "The Dutch Occupation". History of the city of Hudson, New York : with biographical sketches of Henry Hudson and Robert Fulton. Hudson, N.Y.: Record Print. and Pub. Co. p. 7. ... Sebastian Croll (pronounced Crull) was placed in command. He is the traditional inventor of the cruller ...
  3. ^ Ripley, Robert (1971). Ripley's Believe It or Not! 16th Series. Pocket Books. ISBN  9780671800727.
  4. ^ "The Gossips of Rivertown: MRS. Anna Bradbury". 13 March 2011.