Jan Jacobszoon May van Schellinkhout () was a Dutch seafarer and

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

Family

May was born in the small village of Schellinkhout, just east of the town of

Hoorn Hoorn () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the northwest of the Netherlands, in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland. It is the largest town an ...

North Holland North Holland (, ) is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht (province), Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevola ...

. He appears to be the brother of Cornelis Jacobsz May, the first director of

New Netherland New Netherland () was a colony of the Dutch Republic located on the East Coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to Cape Cod. Settlements were established in what became the states ...

.Samuel Muller ''Geschiedenis van de Noordsche Compagnie.'', Gebr van der Post, 1874, footnote on page 16

/ref> The brothers were cousins of the contemporaneously far more famous sailor Jan Cornelisz May, Gerben Kazimier ''History of Schellinkhout 1601–1650''
/ref> who led several expeditions to explore the

Northeast passage The Northeast Passage (abbreviated as NEP; , ) is the Arctic shipping routes, shipping route between the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Pacific Oceans, along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia. The western route through the islan ...

and between 1614 and 1617, circumnavigated the world with

Joris van Spilbergen Joris van Spilbergen (1 November 1568 in Antwerp – 13 January 1620 in Bergen op Zoom) was a Dutch naval officer. His first major expedition was in 1596, when he sailed to Africa. He then left for Asia on 5 May 1601, from Veere, a seapor ...

Discovery of Jan Mayen island

Jan Jacobsz May is best remembered for giving his name to the island of

Jan Mayen Jan Mayen () is a Norway, Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: la ...

. As part of an exploratory expedition for the

Noordsche Compagnie The Noordsche Compagnie () was a Dutch cartel in the whaling trade, founded by several cities in the Netherlands in 1614 and operating until 1642. Soon after its founding, it became entangled in territorial conflicts with England, Denmark-Norwa ...

, May visited the island in July 1614. The highly regarded cartographer

Joris Carolus Joris Carolus (–) was a Dutch cartographer and explorer who was employed by the Noordsche Compagnie and the Dutch East India Company. Career Carolus apparently was a native of Enkhuizen. After he lost a leg at the Siege of Ostend (1601–04) he ...

was on board, and made a (now lost) report and (still existing) map of the voyage. On this map, he named one of its promontories "Jan Meys Hoeck". In 1620, the cartographer Willem Jansz Blaeu transferred the name to the island as a whole, although two other Dutch captains—Jan Jansz Kerckhoff, sailing for the Noordsche Compagnie, but privately financed by other people, and Fopp Gerritsz, sailing for the Englishman John Clarke, of

Dunkirk Dunkirk ( ; ; ; Picard language, Picard: ''Dunkèke''; ; or ) is a major port city in the Departments of France, department of Nord (French department), Nord in northern France. It lies from the Belgium, Belgian border. It has the third-larg ...

—appeared to have beaten May to the island by a week or two.Hart, S. ''De eerste Nederlandse tochten ter walvisvaart'' (1957), p. 50. Hart says Gerritsz sighted it on 28 June 1613, on his way to Spitsbergen. However,

William Baffin William Baffin ( – 23 January 1622) was an English navigator, explorer and cartographer. He is best known for his attempt to find the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans, during which Baffin became the first European to disc ...

(Markham

881 __NOTOC__ Year 881 ( DCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * February 12 – King Charles the Fat, the third son of the late Louis the German, is crowned as Holy Roman Emper ...

pp. 40–43), pilot of the English warship ''Tiger'', had met Gerritsz off Spitsbergen between 19–23 June 1613, giving him only five days to have reached Jan Mayen ''after'' having visited Spitsbergen. Hart either erred on the date or Gerritsz, writing years after the fact (1631), may have made the discovery up. The other captains apparently kept the discovery secret, perhaps so that their companies could benefit without giving the location away to the competition. The discovery allowed the Dutch company to use the island as its whaling base for the coming 35 years.Louwrens Hacquebord, “The Jan Mayen Whaling Industry” in ''Jan Mayen Island in Scientific Focus'', Stig Skreslet, editor, Springer Verlag 2004

Later life

After his 1614 voyage of discovery, Jan Jacobsz May was as late as 1623 mentioned as a captain on a Dutch warship employed by the

Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier The Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier ( Dutch, 'Northern Quarter'), also known as the Admiralty of West Friesland, was one of the five admiralties of the Dutch Republic, based at West Friesland, a region in the north of the province of Holland ...

. In 1622, for example, he brought in a French warship. In the past a street was named after him in his hometown of Schellinkhout, but he is otherwise little known in his home country, where the name Jan Mayen is often thought to be of Norwegian origin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:May van Schellinkhout, Jan Jacobszoon 16th-century births 17th-century deaths 17th-century Dutch explorers Dutch polar explorers Explorers of Svalbard Explorers of the Arctic People from Venhuizen