Lodowigh op den Dyck

Notes:

From The op Dyck Genealogy, citation details below:

There is no record of Lodowick having held any of the offices so often occupied by his ancestors. He appears for the first time, as admitted to citizenship in 1586, upon a page of the Wesel Town Book [...] In former times this privilege of burghership was regularly transmitted from father to son, but in the sixteenth century it seems to have become personal to the individual, and a deceased burgher's son wishing to receive it had to be accepted by the Council, and to pay a fee.

For at least a part of the thirty years during which he appears on the Wesel records, Lodowick was engaged in brewing, and was also host of the "Dragon" Inn. An explanation of his undertaking these somewhat humble occupations is to be found in the great decadence suffered by Wesel in his life-time. The prosperity of the city depended on its commerce. In the latter part of this century the long and unsuccessful efforts of Spain to conquer Holland, and political dissensions in other countries, involved Wesel in dangers and difficulties. These were increased, as we shall see, by the confusion arising from the death of the Duke of Cleves without male issue, and finally resulted in the siege, capture, and long occupation of the town by a Spanish force. [...] The burghers saw their substance consumed and their commerce stifled. At such a time it would be natural for a man of active mind to profit by the crowds of strangers that overran the city, and to try, by selling them the necessaries of life, to repair some of the losses occasioned by their hostile presence. We may infer that Lodowick did not lose caste by so doing from the fact that his marriage to a member of the Altbuerger class seems to have occured after he became a brewer.

The records printed below show Lodowick [Lodowick⁸] to have been concerned in several suits before the Council. [...] The details given are very meager, but we know that one of the suits was brought by Lodowick to recover access to his garden, from which the defendant had sought to exclude him by closing a road-way; Lodowick was denied possession of this road, but was awarded the right of way to his garden. In another case he was granted judgment for nine thalers as the price of three kegs of beer sold to the defendant. Later he brought an action of slander for having been falsely accused of selling short measure. On another occasion he was charged before the Council with the utterance of blasphemy against the Virgin Mary. Although cleared through the testimony of friends, he may have been too outspoken in his zeal against Catholicism. He was also defendant in suits for the violation of city ordinances, relating in one case to the quantity of beer that he had a right to brew and sell, and in another to an obstruction of the street by windows and hooks projecting from his house. There is mention of two other suits in which he was defendant and plaintiff respectively, but their nature and result are unknown.

In 1599 the estates of Lodowick's grandfather Lodowick⁶ and great-uncle Johan⁶ appear to have been settled. He then began to make the payment on the Mathena house previously made by them and their heirs, and by their father and his heirs. In the same year four annuities, previously paid by the city to a stranger, began to be paid to Aletta,--the aged widow of Lodowick⁶, mother of Gysbert⁷, and grand-mother of Lodowick⁸. They were probably bought for her on the settlement of her husband's estate, with the proceeds of a part of his property. She must have been not far from one hundred years old at this time, and the cessation of her annuities after 1607 and her disappearance from the records make it altogether likely that she died in that year. The payment in her life-time of some of these annuities for five years to her son's widow, was doubtless made by her direction, and suggests the existence of pleasant relations between the old lady and her daughter-in-law. In 1608 all of these annuities were entered in the name of the heir of Lodowick's father, and thereafter until 1615 in the name of Lodowick as heir. In 1614 Lodowick surrendered the annuities to the New School recently established in the city, in return for the release of two yearly payments secured by rent-charges upon his house in favor of two certain charities controlled by the city. The next year he made payment for the last time on the Mathena house, and the subsequent payments on it are made in the name of a stranger. His termination of these payments, his surrender of the annuities, and the absence of all subsequent mention of him as living in Wesel, coincide perfectly in time, and support the theory that he left his native town about 1615. That he did not die at this time appears clear from the fact that the records, in continuing to mention him as the predecessor of the New School in the receipt of the annuities, do not contain the customary expression "the late." Only the year before Lodowick's disappearance, Wesel had been captured by the Spaniards, and the emigration arising from their occupation of the town is known to have been so great that the population was reduced to a small fraction of its former size. The larger number of the refugees sought an asylum in Holland, the sturdy inhabitants of which country, after years of heroic struggle, had thrown oil the Spanish yoke and firmly established their political independence and religious freedom. Intimate relations had long existed between the Protestants of Holland and Wesel, and in the preceding century the town had generously received the crowds of Dutch that were driven out of their native land by the Spanish-Catholic oppressions; Holland now returned that hospitality.

Lodowigh married Gertrudt van Wesek before 1597. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Gysbert op den Dyck was born before 25 Sep 1605; was christened on 25 Sep 1605 in St. Willibrord, Wesel, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Notes:

From The op Dyck Genealogy, citation details below:

He was seven times elected Town Councillor from the Cow Gate Ward, was Supervisor of the City Poor one year, and for the last six years of his life served and received salary as Werkmeister or Commissioner of Public Works, an office held by his father before him. As Supervisor and Commissioner he received from the city the usual Christmas gifts of wine. His wife acted one year as Inspectress of city washerwomen, and as such received a like gift. He appears as of the Cow Gate Ward on two fortification tax lists, in 1568 as paying the tax (see Lodowick⁶) and in 1582 as excused from contributing by reason of his services as Commissioner of Public Works. He was busied with the construction of the very works to pay for which the tax was levied, and it is pleasant to think that to his skill and energy the city in part owed its strong walls and picturesque towers, shown in the drawing made by Mercator in the year of Gysbert's death [...]

In the midst of his official work, Gysbert's next neighbor in the Cow Gate Ward, the widow van Elverick, brought suit against him, and obtained judgment that he repair the party wall between her house and his. The court record incidentally mentions that he had inherited the house in question, and there is no reason to doubt that it was identical with the one settled upon his father and mother on their marriage in 1523, and then described as next to the house of a van Elverick in the Cow Gate Ward. We infer that Gysbert's efforts to put the city in a state of defense had prevented him from giving due attention to his private affairs. It was probably owing to the same reason and to the general disturbances of the time that the estate of his father was not settled until after Gysbert's death, and that during his life-time we find the payments on the Mathena house entered in the name of the heirs of his father and uncle.

In 1585 Gysbert's name appears on the account book of St. Willibrord's among the very few citizens on whose death the great bells of the church were rung. Wesel was still a Romanist town when he came into the world; before he died it had become Protestant.

Gysbert married Maria Ryswick. Maria died after 19 Apr 1585. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From The op Dyck Genealogy, citation details below:

Held the post of Werkmeister, an office corresponding to that of a modern Commissioner of Public Works, and involving the superintendence of the fortification and building done by the city. As Werhmeister Lodowick controlled the disbursement of considerable sums of money, and received a yearly salary of twenty-five thalers. He also served one year, at a like salary, as Municipal Inspector of the master butchers of the city.

The earliest direct mention of Lodowick occurs in a deed of 1523, whereby he and his wife Aletta charge their house in the Bridge Street, between the houses of Elverick and Voewynckel, with a yearly payment of five gulden to one Pelsser. They had the year before received the house as a gift from Aletta's mother, Gesina Swartwalt, with the consent of her brother Gerlich and her sister Anna, and the circumstances of the gift point clearly to a marriage settlement. To bestow a house upon the newly married couple, the bride's family must have been people of means, and the bridegroom's position in Wesel honorable. Bridge Street was and still is the chief street of the town, and, as has been said, leads from the Great Market Place towards the Mathena Church, (see very small number 64 on the plate opposite). The house "near the Mathena Church," on which yearly payments were made by four successive generations of op den Dycks including Lodowick, is spoken of as in the Sand Street, (see very small number 55 on the same plate). The two streets intersect (at large number 3) and it is not improbable that Lodowick's house stood on or near the corner. From deeds of 1522 and 1530, mentioned in the records below, we see that Aletta's father must have been a Zailen, dead in 1521, and that her mother Gesina must have married a second husband, Saliken Swartwalt.

By their deed of 1530, Lodowick and Aletta granted a rent-charge to the Burgomaster at Wesel, as patron of one of the twenty-nine vicaries in Willibrord's Church. These were private endowments for the purpose of providing a series of special religious services, commonly in honor of some particular saint. Each vicary supported the priest having charge of the services, who was called a vicar. In this matter of religious benefaction Lodowick followed what we have seen to be the generous example of his ancestors.

In the table given above we saw that the annual payment made on the Mathena house by Gysbert⁵ was continued by his heirs and his widow after his death down to 1538. In that year there seems to have been a settle- ment of the estate, his son Lodowick taking the house in question, and beginning to make the yearly payment on it.

In 1544, Lodowick and his brother Johan, the Schepen, were directed by the Council to pay a debt owing from them jointly to St. John's Hospital, and in the next two years a disagreement of some kind arose between the brothers in regard to their joint affairs. In 1545 we find Lodowick promising to pay all that is due his brother, and "within eight days to enter into negotiations with him touching the mill" operated by them together. There was an attempt to bring about an arbitration, but the trouble continued, and finally reached its height on the last day of May, 1546, when Lodowick and his son were driven by Johan into the Lion Ward. Both parties were bound over to keep the peace for one year and six weeks, the obligation being taken by shaking hands with the Burgomaster. As to the nature and merits of the original controversy, we have no evidence other than the fact that in the next year Johan seems to have been admitted to a share in the Mathena house, for the payments on it begin to be made by the two brothers jointly. Lodowick's conduct in this disagreement can hardly have been blameworthy, for it was only two years afterward that he began to hold the office of Werkmeister above referred to. The op den Dyck mill is often mentioned in the records. In 1552, the year before Johan's death, Lodowick and he made an arrangement with the Council under which they were to receive a subvention for the repair of the "Dyck" mill on the river Lippe. In 1563 a vote was passed by the Council, apparently to prepare for threatened war, directing Lodowick and the heirs of Johan to put the mill in working order, and to pay the city what was due upon it. Our plan of Wesel, drawn by the geographer Mercator in 1585 [...] shows only one mill on the Lippe [...], probably the same as that operated by Lodowick and his brother. During his first visit to Wesel, in November, 1887, the writer found standing on this site an ancient wind-mill, and had it photographed in the hope to identify it with its predecessors of 1552 and 1585, with the old mill called "Johan op den Dyck's Mill Tower" in 1432, and even with the stone mill, a half share in which was sold in 1394 by the priest Henric op den Dyck (perhaps a brother of Deric²) to the Burgomaster of Wesel, and which was then described in the deed as standing on the city walls. An extended search failed to bring any further evidence to light, but it seems wholly probable that all these mills occupied the same position.

After Johan's death, the payments on the Mathena house continued to be made in the name of the two brothers jointly until the death of the survivor, Lodowick, in 1571. There is no mention of any children of Johan, and these payments after his death were doubtless made by Lodowick alone, a probability that is strengthened by the fact that one of the series of joint entries stands in his name only. From 1572 to 1599 the payments are in the name of the heirs of both brothers, except in 1597, when the credit stands in the name of the heirs of Lodowick. Our conclusion that Lodowick was more actively interested in the property than his brother Johan, is confirmed by the succession in 1599 of Lodowick's grandson in making the annual payment.

Toward the end of Lodowick's life the activity of Wesel in favor of the Protestant cause attracted the enmity of the Spaniards, and an attack being threatened, it was decided to extend the fortifications of the town so as to include several outlying suburbs. The citizens were called upon to assist in the work, under penalty of a fine in case of failure to present themselves for duty at six o'clock in the morning. Their labor seems, however, to have been of little service, and it was soon found better to assess upon them the cost of employing workmen in their stead, and to replace the two Town Councilmen that had superintended the work, by the trained services of Lodowick op den Dyck as Werkmeister. To meet these expenses, a special fortification tax was levied, and the list stating the names of the burghers, the wards in which they lived, and the sums due from each, is preserved in the Dusseldorf Archive Office. In it both Lodowick and his son Gysbert appear as of the Cow Gate Ward, early so called from the fact that the city gate situated in it was the one through which, when the town was smaller, the cows were driven out to pasture in the fields, Matten, lying about and beyond the Mathena Church. At this time the pasture fields had been covered by houses, and composed the Mathena suburb, but the original name was still retained. Both wall and gate have long since disappeared, and the place is now near the geographical centre of the city.

The last direct mention of Lodowick is in 1571, when money was paid to Willibrord's Church for ringing the great bells on the occasion of his death.

During his life-time occurred the capture by the Duke of Cleves of the city of Munster then held by the sect of Anabaptists, 1535. The assistance rendered by Wesel to its feudal lord on this and many other occasions was the more creditable, because under their free charter of 1277 the citizens were not bound to make any warlike expedition at their own cost, or against their will, or unless they could return the same night to Wesel.

Lodowick married Aletta Zailen in 1522. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From The op Dyck Genealogy, citation details below:

He was ten times elected one of the Town Treasurers of Wesel, held the office of Schepen after his father's death, and received from the city, as had three generations of his ancestors, the usual salary and Christmas gifts of wine. His appearance in the records less often and somewhat less conspicuously than his father and grandfather may be explained by the fact that Johan⁴ continued very active in public affairs almost to the end of an uncommonly long life, and was survived by Gysbert only nine years. Gysbert acted as agent for the disbursement of church money, and for long periods received an annuity from the city; he was probably well-to-do.

To the student of the records he is one of the most interesting of the eight Wesel ancestors of the American settler Gysbert, whose baptismal name he was the first of them to bear. He forms the connecting link between the earlier or mediaeval group of op den Dycks whose descent is proved by documents, and the later group, the chief evidence of whose descent is found in their continuous yearly payment to, and receipt from, the city of certain identifiable sums of money. In 1492 (the year of the discovery of America), Gysbert began to pay an annual sum to the city on account of a house of his near the Mathena Church, the continuance of which by four generations of the family first enabled us to push the descent of the American settler's father beyond what seemed the insuperable obstacle placed in our way by the destruction of all the early birth registers of Wesel.

In the records printed below, we find three series of almost continuous yearly mentions of Gysbert coming to an end in 1513, and, as he nowhere appears later, we conclude that he died in that year. The city account book for 1512, in which the payment on the Mathena house is entered for the first time in the name of Gysbert's heirs, includes the first few months of 1513, and the payment in question must have been made early in 1513, and not in 1512.

Although the official use of the German language had become well established in Gysbert's time, Latin was still occasionally employed, and it was the happy accident of his name as treasurer appearing in the two languages in two separate record-books of the same date, that led us to discover the identity between de Dyck and op den Dyck, and so enabled us to trace the line of ancestry through the five previous generations back to the Schepen Henric¹.

Gysbert married Helena. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

(Unknown) married Gesina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From The op Dyck Genealogy, citation details below:

Johan was a Schepen of Wesel, Treasurer, and nine times Burgomaster; he received the usual salaries and official Christmas gifts, served on various diplomatic missions, and also appears as an officer of St. John's Hospital. Toward the end of his life we find him acting as Mint-warden. This post was held directly of the Duke of Cleves, and among its duties was the auditing of the ducal Mint-master's accounts. Sometimes Johan was associated with another in the office, but in some years he served alone. Although relating to the affairs of the whole Duchy of Cleves, and involving large sums of money, his service as Mint-warden is even more interesting to us in that it furnishes an authentic specimen of his handwriting. In 1486, on the occasions of one of his accountings with "Master Herbert," the Duke's Mint-master, Johan drew up a memorandum of the state of the mint funds. This document is preserved in the archives of Dusseldorf, and bears a contemporaneous endorsement to the effect that it is in Johan's own hand. The autograph printed above is a photo-engraved fac-simile of one of the two signatures that Johan wrote upon the instrument, and is seen to show the family name in full, "op den Dyck," and not in any of its abbreviated forms, oppen-, uppen-, opn-, upn- or opp-Dyck. His penmanship throughout the memorandum is beautifully neat and regular, hardly inferior to the formal parchments of the period, for a specimen of which see our reproduction of a deed attested by Johan in 1469 (plate opposite), the original of which and also the fragments of the seal that Johan attached to it are in possession of the writer. While there is reason to believe that this, or at least some of the many deeds attested by Johan and his line, may have been written by them, still his memorandum as Mint-warden is the only scrap of writing so far found that we know beyond all doubt to be the autograph of a Wesel op den Dyck. A translation of the document will be found in the records given below.

During nearly the whole span of Johan's activity we find in the city account books the record of his yearly payment of a sum of money on account of a house of his in the Stone Way Ward. The precise nature of these payments is not known; they may have been a ground-rent for the land on which the house stood, or a rent-charge securing some municipal loan to Johan, or more probably a simple land tax. Their chief interest lies in the evidence that we shall find in them of the next step in the descent. Johan's active prominence in public affairs was even greater than that of his father, and in his life-time the prosperity of the Wesel family seems to have reached its height. In conveying some lands to a cloister in 1474, Johan executed the deed personally and attested it with his own seal without going before the schepens as was customary. For his mere declaration and seal to suffice, he must have been a well-known and eminent person. The subject of his grant is also of significance. When an ordinary citizen wished to secure the prayers of the Church, he was usually content to pay so much money for so many masses; Johan, however, transferred certain lands to the Church outright in order to secure the perpetual continuance of yearly services for the souls of his family. His devoutness is further shown by his appearance in 1460 on the account book of St. Willibrord's among the very few that paid money for making of their wills. Certain church contributions made by him on account of his garden seem to have been similar to those of his father and grandfather, and lead us to believe that some charitable ancestor had charged a part of the family property with an annual gift to the church.

It may aid us to realize the character of Johan's period if we recall that it was during his life that the New World was discovered, and that printing was invented. The famous pictures, the carved furniture, the quaintly wrought iron, the dainty glass and porcelain, the rich woven stuffs, and the exquisite work in gold and silver, that are preserved in the museums of Holland and Germany, give us a vivid impression of the wealth and luxury of the time. Houses of wealthy burghers of the Rhine towns have come down to us with their costly fittings nearly intact. The most intelligent patrons of art were prosperous merchants, and in their portraits we see the picturesque elegance of their daily lives. Kich furs protect them from the cold; their stately persons are clothed in heavy silk and velvet; golden chains hang around their necks, and seal rings adorn their hands. About them lie ponderous books, the beauty of whose print and the richness of whose binding have never been surpassed; the implements of writing on their desks are delicately ornamented, and the slightest written memorandum of their trade is in a hand so regular and precise that we wonder how they found time to transact the business it records. They may have lacked some of the conveniences that we now regard as essential to comfort, but in hardly any age or country have the material surroundings of life been more sumptuous than those of the German or Dutch Althuerger of Johan's time.

Johan married Ida Renwalts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From The op Dyck Genealogy, citation details below:

Johan appears in the records as Schepen, Treasurer, and Town Councillor, as Burgomaster eleven times, and as receiving the usual salaries and Christmas gifts incident to these offices. For two years he was custodian of one of the four keys of the city chests, and he was repeatedly chosen with others by the Council to represent the city at the court of its feudal lord, the Duke of Cleves, and also in foreign towns. The mission on which he served in 1449 was to Deventer in Holland, to procure the release of Wesel citizens wrongfully iniprisoned there, while that of 1431 had for its object the remission by the Duke of Cleves of an excessive tax that he had levied upon the town. Besides paying various taxes and imposts, the townsmen were occasionally invited to meet the pressing needs of their feudal lord by lending him money. One of these loans was of 400 gulden, of which amount Johan alone contributed one-twentieth part.

The records contain numerous mentions of Johan as holding land at and near Wesel. It is this continued tendency towards land-ownership, quite as much as their hereditary office-holding, that distinguishes the Wesel op den Dycks and others of the Altbuerger class, and suggests for them an origin in the equestrian rank. While we have no reason to suppose that they were more honest or able, or better educated than many other citizens of the place, we are forced to conclude that they enjoyed a dignity and consideration to which their less fortunate neighbors hardly aspired. As an instance of this We find such expressions as "Sir" and "Honorable" attached to Johan's name in the records. Whatever ground he and his line may have had for family pride, we must still think of them as chiefly engaged in manufactures or commerce. One of the most important industries of Wesel was its woolen trade, and we find Johan appearing as a member of the City Woolen Guild. [...]

Even at this early period the citizens of Wesel deserved great praise for their numerous charities, not only hospitals for immediate relief, but institutions for the future support of the needy and their successors. To these purposes the merchants devoted a considerable part of the wealth acquired by them through fortunate trade, and the still existing benevolent foundations are so many monuments of their virtue and wisdom. Among these was the Orphan Asylum, built by the town before 1450. It was controlled by two managers, one selected by the magistrates, and one elected by the people. The orphans were dressed in ashen gray cloth, with a stripe on the shoulder; they must not beg; they were taught reading, writing and a trade, and were maintained until the age of sixteen years or later. They knelt morning and evening to say the Lord's Prayer and the articles of faith, and ate their breakfast at eight o'clock, none being allowed to rise before grace. Those that worked outside carried their dinners, but all returned to an afternoon meal at four o'clock, and again had a six o'clock supper of bread and butter and beer. There were also many smaller institutions, which were usually supported by rent-charges placed by the founders upon their estates, and which often bore their name. One of these was the Offerman Charity, of which the original deed of foundation, 1443, recites that :

"Before _____ and _____, Schepens of Wesel, came Deric Offerman and his lawful wife Ludegard, who, in the honor of God, His Mother Mary, and all the Saints, and for the comfort of their own souls and of those of their children, relatives, and friends, have given their house and land for the use of eight or nine persons forever, said persons to be chosen by the founder and his Wife and their heirs. Each person so chosen shall be received in the house, have his chair, his place by the fire, his food, his candle, etc.; shall wash the spoons in his Week, shall carry fire-wood, and prepare what is to be cooked, etc., but shall carry away no beds, Wood, or coals, etc. All shall live quietly and peacefully together, and pray for the souls of Deric, his wife, children, relatives, and friends. What each brings shall remain at his death in the house for the common good of the poor. If any is discontented and troublesome so that the others can not live with him, and does not mend his Ways after two or three Warnings by Deric, his wife, or his heirs, then shall such a one be expelled with all the goods that he has brought."

Another endowment was of seven small houses for seven widows; another for two poor women; and another for poor maidens of good character. Johan and his wife twice gave property to similar godly and charitable purposes, and are mentioned as members of a religious association at a neighboring town.

Johan married Judith. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Engelbrecht married Gilliken. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]