Wolfert Gerretse Van Kouwenhoven - WOLFERT GERRITSE IN THE NETHERLANDS

WOLFERT GERRITSE IN THE NETHERLANDS: Further Thoughts About the Van Couwenhoven Family

BY WILLEM VAN KOUWENHOVEN

The purpose of this article. Several years ago, I made a study using documents about Wolfert Gerritse van Couwenhoven which Marcel Kemp had sought out at my request in the archives of the district Amersfoort in the Netherlands.[1] The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society was kind enough to publish this in THE RECORD as "Wolfert Gerritse in the Netherlands." (2] During the intervening time, I have developed several points of criticism about the article which pertain to the views which were expressed there about Wolfert's first wife Aeltge Jansdochter, the birth order of Wolfert and his brother Willem, the date on which the tenancy of Willem's son Jan on the farm Kouwenhoven was terminated, and the projected picture of Wolfert's childhood.

Wolfert Gerritse in recent literature. Additional information has been published in the meantime by Marcel Kemp and Gerard Raven as "Boerderij Kouwenhoven en de familie Van Kouwenhoven 1400-1650" in De Bewaarsman,[3] the publication of the Historische kring Hoogland, the Historical Society' of Hoogland. (The farm Kouwenhoven is located in the neighborhood Coelhorst within the former district Hoogland, which is now a part of the district Amersfoort.) Gerard Raven was co-editor of De Bewaarsman when the article was published. In addition to information about the early history of the farm that appeared in Kemp's article "De herkomst van Wolfert Gerritsz, stamvader van de Amerikaanse familie Van Kouwenhoven" in the 1996 Jaarboek van bet Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie[4] and in the above-mentioned article in THE RECORD, the article in De Bewaarsman contains information about a tenant on the farm in 1536, insights into the lives of the tenants in the period 1620-1650, and a report of the construction of a brick manor house on the farm during the eighteenth century by a new land owner, as well as the history of the farm to the present day. Only the material that pertains to the critique of the article in THE RECORD will be dealt with in this discussion.

Information about Kouwenhoven, its neighborhood Coelhorst, and the local Chapel Coelhorst were included in the booklet "Hoogland-West," the issue of De Bewaarsman for April 2001. The material about the chapel will be recounted in the portion of this critique that deals with Wolfert's childhood.

Aeltge Jansdochter, Wolfert's first wife. As first point of critique, the view of Aeltge Jansdochter which was set forth in the article in THE RECORD[5] should be revised - that it was uncertain that the Wolfert Gerritse who married Aeltge Jansdochter on 17 January 1605[6] was the same person as the Wolfert Gerritse who is found in numerous documents in the archives of Amersfoort in the period 1611-1623. M. Kemp expressed this opinion initially in the report of his impressively thorough search for documents regarding Wolfert Gerritse which was first given to this writer, and this opinion was used in the article for THE RECORD. By the time it was published, Kemp had expressed the same view in his article "De herkomst van Wolfert Gerritsz, ..."[7] Because other documents were not found which linked Aeltge Jansdochter to the baker/bleacher Wolfert Gerritse, Kemp hesitated to draw the conclusion that Aeltge was Wolfert's first wife.

This seems overly cautious. Only one Wolfert Gerritse has been found in the numerous other documents from more or less the same period that have been preserved in the records of the district Amersfoort. Although many documents from this period in the district have been lost for various reasons, those that have survived give no reason to surmise that there was at that time a second Wolfert Gerritse in the district to whom the entry in the marriage register might refer. It would then be better to reason that the Wolfert Gerritse of the marriage record is the same person who is found in all of the other documents. It then follows that Aeltge Jansdochter was Wolfert's first wife, that she died shortly after their marriage without bearing any children who survived, and that Neeltje Jacobsdochter, who is shown as his wife in the documents from the Amersfoort archives, was his second wife and the mother of his known children.

Willem Gerritse, Wolfert's younger brother. Secondly, there is a problem in the article with the estimated birth year that was given for Wolfert's brother Willem. While Kemp made no statements about Willem's birth year in his article in the Jaarboek, he and Raven estimated in the article in De Bewaarsman that Willem was born in the period 1580-1585.[8] Since Willem remained on the farm Couwenhoven as its tenant, it was assumed in the article for THE RECORD that he was older than Wolfert, who was born in 1584.1] Yet, none of Willem's five children had attained their majority when their father died in 1622. Thus, none of them were capable of succeeding him as tenant. The family was enabled to stay on the farm because Willem's widow Neeltge Willemsdochter married Peter Coenraetsz., apparently with the approval if not the instigation of the owner of the farm, Johan de Wijs of Amersfoort.[1]

If one of Willem's five sons was but a few months removed from attaining his majority, it would seem that it could have been arranged in one way or another that he become the tenant of the farm, if he was in other respects a suitable candidate for this work. That this did not occur suggests that the oldest son was several years removed from his majority, and this is the tenor of the agreement which the "blood guardians" Wolfert Gerritse and Harmen Willemsz. of Amersfoort (respectively the brother of Willem and the brother of Willem's widow) made with the mother of Willem's children on 5 November 1622.P 1] She was to care for the children and let them attend school and learn to read and write. Such stipulations suggest that some of the children were too young to have learned basic literacy skills at the time of their father's death.

Since Willem's children were not so old when he died in 1622, it would seem that the birth year 1580 that was assigned to him lies too far in the past and that it is likely that he was born several years later. If Willem's children are listed in birth order in the agreement between the "blood guardians" and the widow, Jan would be his third son. He became the tenant on Couwenhoven on 5 July 1636,02] and he married Nellitgen Henricxdr. five days later.[13] Assuming that both father and son married shortly after their twenty-first birthday and that there were three years between each child, results in an estimated birth date of circa 1587 for Willem rather than circa 1580, which was assigned in THE RECORD article.[14] Willem would have been legally eligible to enter into contracts as a tenant only when he reached his majority, which would seem to have been about 1608.

It should be emphasized that this is but an estimate that is based on reasonable assumptions about birth order and birth intervals that have been made in regard to two men. It should be expected that new documents about Willem and Jan could well require further slight corrections regarding their birth and marriage dates. Yet, Kemp's search in the Archives of Amersfoort was so thorough that it is unlikely that further documents about these persons will be found there. Perhaps a reference to them will by chance be discovered in one or more documents from other districts while other matters are being studied.

as the younger son who left home, learned a trade (perhaps with some parental support) and became a businessman. The thought that is being presented here is that although Willem was the younger son, he stayed on the farm, working it and perhaps initially serving as a caretaker for his parent(s) while the older brother Wolfert had years earlier left the homestead, even though it was customary in Hoogland that the oldest son succeed his father as tenant. Wolfert sought to survive in the business world of Amersfoort, where he already resided as a married man when he was twenty-one years old according to the entry in the marriage register of the Reformed Church of Amersfoort, which was located in the St. Joriskerk[15] (St. George's Church). This is a plausible explanation, yet it requires further refinement.

Jan Willemse's tenancy on Kouwenhoven ends. The other tenants on Kouwenhoven about which there is information were not able to labor there many years. Peter Coenraetsz. became tenant in 1622, and by 1638 he had died and was succeeded by Jan Willemsz van Kouwenhoven. While Kemp and Raven argue that Jan was deceased as early as 1646, it is certain that he was no longer living in 1656 when the estate of his mother Neeltge Willemsdr. was inventoried.[16

Kemp and Raven are of the opinion that Jan had died by 1646 since a police report from that year was made by Jan Bartz. who lived on Kouwenhoven.[17] Apparently the thought is that the farm Kouwenhoven was so small that the tenant farmer (pachter) could not have employed a resident worker (knecht), but only day laborers (dagloners) as they were needed. Thus, it could be reasonably concluded that a person who listed his residence as Kouwenhoven must have been the tenant farmer of that date.[18] It is noted that it is a problem that Jan Willemsz. and his wife Nelletge Hendrixdr. would then have had to have had eight children in ten years. Kemp and Raven conclude that Nelletge was forced to depart from Kouwenhoven following Jan's death because none of the children was old enough to become the succeeding tenant.

It would be more reasonable to consider that it would be bad for the health of the wife and the children which she bore if they came into the world made for a healthier farm. Although the pill' was not yet then known, local populations generally had their own effective means of planning parenthood, even in the seventeenth century. It would then seem better to conclude that by 1646, Jan Willemsz. and his wife Nelletge Hendrixdr. had relocated, that five of their children or so had been born on Kouwenhoven and that the rest were born in their new location before Jan died somewhat more than fifteen years after he had become the tenant farmer on Kouwenhoven. [19]

As a third point then, there is no need to change the view which was expressed in THE RECORD article of 1998 regarding Jan's death date, but it would appear that the family's tenancy on Kouwenhoven likely had already ended by 1646, ten years earlier than was presented in that article.

Wolfert's childhood. What were the circumstances of Wolfert's childhood? Farm work was much harder and heavier than it is now, and it was often necessary to labor in a strong wind in cold, wet weather, which caused severe illnesses. Although it now seems strange, the life of a farmer was similar then to that of a contemporary professional athlete. The training or work began for both early in life, and by the time each was thirty years old, he was already past his peak. While it is now unusual to find an athlete older than forty-five on a team roster, it was then unusual to find a farmer older than forty-five years old on a landlord's list of tenants - not because the older tenant was enjoying retirement in his luxurious villa, but because he had died of exhaustion and illness. Although it would seem that the average lifespan of a tenant farmer in this region did not differ greatly during this period from that of the general population and that it thus was about forty-five years, Jan Willemsz. was younger when he died, and it would seem that this was also true of his father. It would seem that some tenants died several years before they reached forty-five while a similar number lived a few years beyond that benchmark.

It would seem unlikely that Gerrit the father of Wolfert and Willem would have been able to work as a tenant farmer for many more years than the documented tenants of Kouwenhoven Peter Coenraetsz. and Jan Willemsz.[20] It would thus have been unlikely that he would have been able to work as a tenant much more than fifteen years. If Willem became the tenant about 1608, it would then seem that his predecessor may have begun his tenancy about 1593. This is three years later than the estimate given in the above cited article in THE RECORD.

According to the above calculations, Wolfert would then have been nine years old, and Willem six. At first sight, this would seem to suggest that there is something wrong with the assumptions behind these figures, since this would mean that the children apparently were not born on Kouwenhoven, but it is more profitable to reason that insight is thus given into the complex and fragile world into which the boys were born.

There is no document in which Wolfert is listed as a resident of Kouwenhoven or as its tenant farmer, nor for the reasons enumerated above, does it seem likely that such evidence of his presence on the farm will be discovered. Yet, he used the name Van Couwenhoven,[21] and he worked as a farmer and as a farm supervisor. Why the choice for this name? Where did he learn farm work? If he lived and worked on the farm Kouwenhoven as a child, both questions would be answered. Thus, because no better explanation has yet been found, it is reasonable to assume that this farm was his home and work place for a time during his early years.

In the earlier article in THE RECORD it was mentioned that a director of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) in the early seventeenth century bore the family name Couwenhoven,[22] and it was suggested that although this man was not a blood relative, his high position may have afforded Wolfert a further reason to use the name Van Couwenhoven in New Amsterdam rather than another reasonable choice of name such as Van Amersfoort or Van Coelhorst. In regard to this, Gerard Raven has commented[23] that the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam would not necessarily know that a Couwenhoven was a director of the Dutch East India Company in Rotterdam. It is thus uncertain that it would have been professionally advantageous for Wolfert to use this name. This implies that he used it for personal reasons, that is to say, because he had lived and worked there during a significant portion of his youth.

It is possible that Wolfert and his brother Willem were born elsewhere and that their father only later became tenant on Kouwenhoven. If so, he probably was tenant for six or twelve years at their previous residence. If that is the case, the father likely died within five years of the start of his work on the farm, although he may have lived longer and have seen Willem become the tenant on the farm, in which event he may then have been able to do but limited work because he would already have reached the advanced age of 45 years. Still, there is a considerable likelihood that the father died before either boy attained his twenty-first year. This implies that there was a tenant intermediate between Willem and his father. If that was indeed the case, how were the children enabled to remain on the farm? And their mother? Other siblings? Because of the dearth of documents, it is not possible to answer these questions. There is for instance no testament or inventory for the estate of Wolfert's father in which his patronymic and that of his mother are disclosed with a list of their children, although it is reasonable to think that such documents once existed. It is not possible to ascertain precisely to what extent Wolfert's life and that of his father Gerrit and his brother Willem were in agreement or disagreement with the possibilities and probabilities which have been set forth here. The contours of the pieces of the puzzle do not come into clear view, and it is not possible to seen how they fit together.

Early change of family on the farm Kouwenhoven. Kemp and Raven list the tenant of Kouwenhoven about 1536 and in 1548 as Reyer Pot.[24l In 1564 the tenant was Gherit Jansz;[25] in 1619/20 Willem Gerritsz.[26] As noted above, the tenant in 1622 was Peter Coenraetsz., and in 1636 Jan Willemsz.,[27] while Jan Bartsz. apparently had become the tenant by 1646. Clearly a change of tenant families occurred sometime between 1548 and 1564 and again about 1646. Because of the short life expectancy and the disruptions of death, it is likely that other changes in tenant families on Kouwenhoven occurred during this period which are not disclosed because of the dearth of documents.

It is thus best to be cautious about drawing an easy conclusion that Gerrit the father of Wolfert and Willem succeeded his father on Kouwenhoven and that the family can be found on this farm much further back into the past. This accentuates the conclusion in the earlier article in THE RECORD that there is insufficient basis to conclude that there was a family relationship between Wolfert Gerritse and the Gherit (Gerrit) Jansz. who in 1564 was listed as the tenant of Kouwenhoven.[28] Kemp described him as a suitable candidate to be the father of Wolfert Gerritsz. and Willem Gerritsz. In his article, he placed brackets around the name [Jansz. Couwenhoven] in his "Genealogie Van Couwenhoven" to indicate that the names within the brackets were merely hypothetical for Gerrit Jansz.[29] He was certain that the father of Wolfert and Willem was Gerrit, and it was speculative if the father was Gerrit Jansz. Couwenhoven.[30] This thought is repeated in the article in De Bewaarsman with the cautionary observation that Gerrit Jansz. would have been unusually old if he were the father of Wolfert and Willem.[31]

A further weakness in the thesis that Gerrit Jansz. and Wolfert Gerritsz. were father and son is that the patronymic Gerritsz. (son of Gerrit) is largely the basis for asserting that this relationship exists while Gerrit together with Willem, Jan and Hendrik are the most common Dutch given names. Gerrit occurs as frequently as Willem in the registers of marriages and baptisms during this period. It is not surprising then that a tenant bore the name Gerrit Jansz., and without further documentary evidence, there is insufficient basis to assert that he was the father of Wolfert Gerritsz. It should be noted that Kemp has cautiously refrained from doing this.

Religious life in Wolfert's childhood, the Coelhorst Chapel. A discussion of religion and worship can be added to the treatment of Wolfert's childhood. The Coelhorst Chapel, which was built about 1350, stands just around the corner from the farm Kouwenhoven. This proximity evokes a picture of Wolfert trudging on Sunday mornings with other family members and residents of the neighborhood Coelhorst through the snow to worship services in this building. Yet, the historical story differs greatly from this.

About 1350, the residents of Hoogland no longer had to attend mass in Oud-Leusden, which was several miles south of Amersfoort while their hamlet then stood several miles northwest of the more northerly city.[321 They received their own chapel, which was dedicated to St. Nicholas, who was not only the patron saint of farmers in areas that had just been placed under cultivation, but also the protector from floods. The Reformation brought a step backward to this little settlement. In 1580, Catholic services were forbidden by the provincial parliament of Utrecht, and the church was closed. It seems to have been the intention of the Protestants to hold their own services in this building, which during the intervening two centuries had been endowed with the income from several farms, but a pastor could not be found. It was not until 1655 that it could be arranged that Reformed pastors from the region would hold services in turn in the chapel. In the meantime, itinerant priests had offered the mass for the faithful without interruption at other places in the neighborhood such as the manor house Hoogerhorst, until Hoogland was again assigned its own priest in 1640.[33 Ill feeling was likely generated when the chapel was closed and its income was not used for many decades for services in that building or for pastoral care for the local residents. Perhaps as a result, the Protestant families gradually departed from Coelhorst in the seventeenth century so that the hamlet was almost exclusively Catholic in the eighteenth century as is noted in another source.[34] This has remained unchanged in subsequent years.

It seems unlikely that such negligence by the administrators of the local Reformed church would have generated interest for that church and its teachings in Wolfert. When he lived in Coelhorst, it would seem that there was little that would have attracted him to the Reformed church. This may explain why none of his children are to be found in the baptismal registers of Amersfoort or Leusden. In a later period when he cultivated contacts with Reformed businessmen such as Killiaen van Rensselaer, he may have found it expedient to affiliate with their church. Perhaps it is for this reason that he is listed on 13 August 1651 as a witness of the baptism of Albert, son of Albert Albertszen, at the Reformed church in New Amsterdam.[35].