Eagum

Eagum (Dutch: Aegum) is a village in the Dutch province of Friesland. It is located in the municipality of Leeuwarden, about 10 km south of the city of Leeuwarden.

Map of Eagum, Netherlands

With about 30 inhabitants, Eagum is one of the smallest villages in Friesland.

One claim to fame is that Eagum, in the 17th century also spelled Agum, is the place of origin of the Fonda family in the United States. In 1642, Jellis Douwese Fonda (1614–1659), an innkeeper in Aegum, married Hester Jansz in Diemen, near Amsterdam. Six weeks later, their son Douw Jellise Fonda was born in Aegum, soon followed by daughter Annetje and another named Geertie. In 1642, the Fonda family emigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland (New York), and settled in the Hudson River valley, near Fort Orange (Albany), in a hamlet called Rennselaerwyck (Troy). Jellis became a blacksmith and brandy distiller, and Hester gave birth to three more children, Sarah, Abraham, and Saertje. Jellis Fonda died in 1659, only 45 years old. His widow soon remarried. Among Jellis Fonda’s best known descendants are American actor Henry Jaynes Fonda (1905–1982), an American Academy Award-winning film and stage actor, and his daughter Jane Fonda (1937- ), two-time Academy Award-winning actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru.