Jacob Westervelt (sheriff)
Jacob Westervelt (1794–1881) is often confused with his brother-in-law John Jacob V.B. Westervelt (1805–1866), who was a Deputy Sheriff under him, and subsequently High Sheriff of New York City himself too (1846–1849), as well as Assistant Alderman from the 16th Ward (1844–1846). Another namesake is Jacob Aaron Westervelt (1800–1879), the shipbuilder, Alderman from the 13th Ward and later Mayor of New York City (1853–1855).
Jacob van Maerlant
Also unknown is when and where Jacob died. Tradition holds that Jacob must have been alive in 1291, because he is considered to be the author of a poem "Vanden lande van Overzee" (On the Land across the Sea [the Holy Land]), which was written as a 'complaint' of the fall of the last Christian city in the Holy Land, Saint-Jean d'Acres.
This poem however, which survived in only one manuscript (UB Groningen, Ms. 405), has no name attached to it in the manuscript itself. None of the texts in this manuscript bears the name of its author. But since the main body of this manuscript is Jacob van Maerlant's translation/adaptation of Petrus Comestor's "Historia scholastica", traditionally known as "Rijmbijbel" (rhymed Bible) and Jacob's adaptation/translation of Flavius Josephus's "De bello judaeico". In his recent edition of the oldest surviving manuscript (BR/KB Brussel, Ms. 15001) Maurits Gysseling treats Jacob's Josephus-translation as belonging to the Comestor-translation, yet it is a different text which Jacob named "Die wrake van Jherusalem" (The vengeance of Jeruzalem), thereby showing his interpretation of what happened – and why it happened – during the Jewish revolt against the Roman oppressors, which ended in the capture of Jeruzalem and the destruction of the Temple by emperor Vespasianus' son Titus in AD 70. Nineteenth century Dutch scholars who were used to consider rhymed texts as 'poetry' were not too happy with Jacob's rhyming couplets, which they thought were lacking poetical beauty, so they needed his authorship of these 'real' poems at the end of manuscript to prove that he was a real poet or could be a real poet, if only he wanted to.