Eternal fame

Around 1820, the reclamation of the Haarlemmermeer became a topic of discussion once again, and with it, the Haerlemmer-Meer-Boeck. As early as 1819, a prominent Alkmaar resident referred to Leeghwater in a new treatise on the Haarlemmermeer as 'a scholar and a man who is very familiar with the water management of our country'. In 1838, a reprint of the Haerlemmer-Meer-Boeck was published. When the Haarlemmermeer was finally reclaimed in 1848-1852, one of the steam pumping stations was named after Leeghwater. His fame then rose to enormous heights. At the beginning of the last century, he was generally regarded as the great self-made engineer to whom all the major^17th-century land reclamation projects were attributed. That greatly exaggerated image has since been reduced to its true proportions. We now know that Leeghwater was only a small bright spot in the sky of the Golden Age, which was filled with many great stars. But 450 years after his birth, that light still shines brightly over the Dutch polder.