Jasper Danckaerts was the founder of a colony of Labadists along the Bohemia River, located in the present US state of Maryland. The narrative of his journey in 1679 and 1680 offers a description of the landscape and the lifestyle of inhabitants of the region in the late 17th century. The diary is one of the earliest description of the region that had been part of New Netherland, now New York, New Jersey and Delaware.