| 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.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
Abt 1492 - 1571 (~ 79 years)