Lambert van Tweenhuysen

Lambert van Tweenhuysen (1564 in Zwolle – 1625 in Amsterdam) was a prominent Lutheran merchant at Amsterdam in the early seventeenth century. Born of a well-known patrician family, he had contacts ranging from Archangel and Spitsbergen to North America, and from Northwest Africa to Istanbul. He traded in a wide variety of items, including salt, corn, wine, wood, linseed, textiles, tar, soap, furs, spices, and pearls. He had trade connections in the Baltic, France, Spain, Portugal and the Mediterranean.[1]

In 1612 Van Tweenhuysen was the investor/administrator of a company in Amsterdam that sent the first Dutch walrus-hunting expedition to Spitsbergen under the command of Willem Cornelisz. van Muyden. The following year he again sent Van Muyden to Spitsbergen, this time on a whaling expedition.[2] In 1614 he was among the founders of both the New Netherland Company (Nieuw-Nederland Compagnie) and the Northern Company (Noordsche Compagnie). The former was created to monopolize trade with Native Americans in the newly formed Dutch colony of the same name; while the latter was formed to monopolize whaling in the Arctic, in particular at Spitsbergen (Svalbard). For years Van Tweehuysen collaborated with Samuel Godijn, both pioneers.