View of the Zakkendragershuis in Rotterdam on the south side of the Nieuwemarkt.
Elisabeth was almost four months pregnant when she married Frans Schrijver. On the 28th of Jan. 1798 Johannes Bernardus was born. The grandparents, Barend and Anna were the godfather and witnesses at the baptism.
For 9 more years Frans and his family lived at bis father’s house in Zandstraat, where he also
worked. In 1806 Elisabeth’s mother Christina died and in that same year the Estate of Herman Melchers was divided. It turned out that he left almost everything to Margaretha and Agatha both of whom were then married, respectively to Bernard van Nistelrooyen and Everardus van den Berg.
The testament dated from 1786. Everybody, except the two girls and their husbands of course were deeply shocked but the notary assured them that everything was “on the up and up”.!
Jan Wijtenburg received condonation for the balance of the 4000 gld promissory note on bis house (3,850 gld. still unpaid!) . Our Frans and Elisabeth were allowed to buy the house on the Nieuwe Markt for 4800 payable strictly in cash. This was supposed to be a bargain and as such, their part of the inheritance.!
The following big surprise carne a short time later…… A secret “Act of Consent” presented by a
lawyer, declaring that the two sisters Magaretha and Agatha had promised uncle Herman on his deathbed to render the last will and testament invalid and that the moneys received by the girls was to go to a certain Esther Rufat……! Esther turned out to be a Jewish girl who was secretly married to Herman Melchers, while all the time everybody was under the impression that he was a bachelor.! The so-called reason for all this secrecy was that Jewish women were not eligible to receive inheritances from Christian husbands. It was a known fact that Jews in general where not highly regarded, even though the Republic had such a large number of them, that Amsterdam was called “New Jerusalem” and the Jewish neighborhood ”the Jordaan”! But for the law to go this far was pretty stunning.! Anyway that is what happened. Rather bad but not as bad as what happened next………
Every one of the beneficiaries mentioned in the will were served notice of a process by the heirs of a certain Pieter Schuuren. It seemed that our nice uncle Herman had signed a couple of promissory notes in 1783 to this man amounting to 4,650 gld. He never paid a dime on it.! And after 23 years the total amount of the claim plus accumulated interest had reached nearly 16.000 gld. and climbing. !
Heman’s heirs paid the total amount of this claim in the following manner: Jan Wijtenburg 2,535 gld., the poor man had to sell bis house for this to bis brother-in-law Gerrit Stukart for the sum of 2000 gld. (He had paid 4000 for it, 30 yrs ago!) So he still had to pay 535 gld. out of bis own small resources. This Gerrit Stukart was married to Maria van Rooyen who in turn paid 3400 gld. But they were pretty well off and no hardship there. Besides for 2000 gld. they had an unbelievable bargain in the house they got from Jan Wijtenburg.!
Frans and Elisabeth paid 4800 gld. In other words the house on the Nieuwe Markt cost them 9600 gld. Which was no bargain anymore. The bigger house next door called “de Beer” was just recently sold fora mere 8500 gld. However the couple seemed to have enough money by that time because a few months later they bought a house on the Zandstraat, close to his father’s place voor 2800 gld. Also in full paid in cash. May be aunt Elisabeth’s inheritance amounted to more than it first appeared.
The other two girls Margaretha and Agatha and their husbands, van Nistelrooyen and van den Berg paid each a mere 2630 gld. And they were the ones that caused all the problems and could best afford to pay for their damage. !
Well this was the last we heard of the Melchers family until our family lived in Schiedam in the nineteen-thirties and I met two of the Melchers boys in school. Their family were well known distillers and Melchers’ Gin is still on the market. Of course at that time I did not know we were distant relatives. Maybe a good thing I did not know or we might have continued the family feud right there !
One of Stephan Melgers’ brothers Jacob moved to Schiedam around 1730, he must have
founded the Schiedam branch. They are still there.
Dutch flagship in combat with French flagship.
By: Carel Allard, end 17th century.
Collection Inter-Antiquariaat Mefferdt & De Jonge, Amsterdam.
The year is 1807 Napoleon Bonaparte was the undisputed Emperor of France which at that time contained not just that country but also The Low Countries, Western part of Germany, Northern Italy and Spain as welt Prussia, Austria and Sweden were defeated and everything looked quite peaceful and under control. Only the British and Russians were still a factor to be reckoned with. Even in the previous century French had become the language of the real and quasi intellectual as well as diplomats of almost every country. But now it was practically compulsory in these parts.
To get back to our story and the lives of Frans and Elisabeth and their son Bernard who were by now living in their own house in the Zandstraat, corner Hofstraat (see map on next page) with her widowed father Jan Wijtenburg, broke, homeless and 61 years old and thus dependent on his daughter. Frans and his family were doing alright, he was a master tailor and besides had a reasonable income from bis big house on the Nieuwe Markt as well.
Next door was an older couple living. Hendrik van Burik and bis wife Johanna Franken. Our Jan Wijtenburg had nothing to do and became quite chummy with the couple. When old Hendrik died it did not take him long to convince the (what he thought) well-to-do widow to marry him.(1810) he moved next door in her house that was twice the size of his daughter’s place.
He must have had a taste for well-to-do old widows, after all Christina had been married twice before and was quite a bit older than him when he married her. One year later Johanna Franken died but it turned out our Jan was out of luck again, the 4 or 5 houses in her name were so
heavily burdened with debts that even her own children refused to accept the estate !
He must have been in good health and spirits though, he eventually died around 1830 in Boxtel,
in the province of Brabant after having married another widow in that part of the country!
In 1813 Napoleon met bis Waterloo, peace was restored, the prince of Orange carne back from England and became king Willem I of the Netherlands (both Holland & Belgium).
For the Schrijvers this was not such a wonderful time. Both Barend and Frans took out quite a few loans and mortgages in these years. It is difficult to understand because especially around that time, there was an enormous shortage of housing, the city had not grown beyond its walls and moats and the influx of new-corners was steady so the rents from their properties must have been high and stable. But nevertheless they sold one house after and other and even at a loss too! In 1823 Barend had to sell his own house on the Zandstraat. He most probably moved in with Frans and Elisabeth.
In 1827 Anna dies (according to the death-certificate she was 4 yrs. younger than her birth certificate indicated). Barend followed her one year later at age 81. Seemingly a poor man as there was no testament, there could not have been anything left to divide among his children.
A possible reason for Barend’s financial problems has been found in a legal document wherein Barend and a certain Jan Lentfunk signed up as sureties for a Jacob Florijn who was in jail for un- paid debts in 1796 but this is just an assumption.
Of Barend’s younger children we have to mention first of all Johannes, Henricus born in 1780, he must have been in poor health ,right from the start, he too became a tailor and worked in the family business, married in 1811 with Johanna van der Velde and lived in the family residence on the Zandstraat, in 1813 he was ill enough to have to make bis testament and last wilt, leaving all bis possessions to bis wife.
Street map around the Rosalia Church in Rotterdam.
Hans has indicated with letters where various family members lived.
Unfortunately this is not clearly visible.
However Henricus seems to have recovered somewhat and the couple gets 3 sons, two of them survived. Bemardus was born in 1816 and Henricus Jr. in 1822. Around 1824 the family moved to Amsterdam where Henricus established himself as a tailor. In 1827 he died at the age of 46. Even though he had a short life and few children, he became the forefather of the “Venlo-branch” of the Schrijver family.
The oldest boy Bernard, married in Amsterdam with Johanna Snijders. He became a “ships’ doctor and on one of bis travels he just plain disappeared. He might have been ship-wrecked or jumped ship in America nobody knows for sure. Anyway bis wife obtains a legal divorce.
The younger son Henricus also married in 1842 with Hendrika van Leek, he also seemed to have been in poor health and dies young, leaving a daughter Anna, Maria and one son Martinus, Paulus who married Maria Koehorst. According to old rumors these two must have been the “Romeo & Juliet” of the family……
They made their living operating a pawnshop in Haarlem…… and were said to be so much in love
with each other that when Martinus died in 1891, age 38, she followed him only a few days later.!
The couple left a nine year old orphan by the name of Martinus, Henricus who was lucky enough to have his aunt Anna Maria, married to Martinus van Buschbach, take full and good care of him. Our Martinus became an administrator in the civil service and was transferred to Venlo in Limburg where he married in 1912 with Maria Op ‘t Roodt, had two children Michèle in 1913 and Wijnanda. Martinus like his father, his grand-father and great-grand-father died young in l928
at age 46. And this is decidedly the main reason why we are now so deeply involved in genealogy. Michèle grew up and wondered what was wrong with the family’s health and started this process of searching for ancestors and how and why they died” His searches brought him to Rotterdam’s Municipal Archive and being there in 1947 he phoned a few “Schrijvers” from the phonebook, amongst them my father Hermanus. who suggested he check with me because I was stationed in Venlo with the army at the time and quite interested in that kind of research. He did and the rest is history. Michèle became a notary public, married and I understand that the couple had two sons
It really is too bad that the man who got us started and going on this search, could not co-operate in completing this project, hopefully one of bis descendants will do that in the near future.!
But it is high time we moved back to our story about Barend and bis children, early in the 19’6. Century. Barend and Anna had 3 daughters who survived, Maria Elisabeth marries in 1801 with Henri Kerkhof, she dies quite young and Henri then marries her sister Anna Maria. Barbara marries in 1803 with Jan Zegelaars. One daughter died in infancy, there was one more son Johannes Albertus born in 1791. He married twice but did not leave any surviving children.
The Spaansekade, Koestraat, the Zeekantoor and the Episcopal Church, seen from the Geldersekade.
The early 19th century is usually identified with the Industrial revolution, a period in history of great inventions, the beginning of mass production and a sharp increase in international trade.
However, judging the period by the standard of health and sanitary conditions, one must conclude this to be nothing short of disastrous The death-rate per 1000 in Rotterdam in the years around 1850 was mostly in excess of 45. In the so called Cholera years of 1865/66 the death rate went way over a hundred and settled in 1870 at 31.8 p/1000. (Alberta 1991 : 5.4 p/1000)
Small wonder when one considers that there was no sewer system, excrement and other waste was dumped in canals, rivers and even in the moats. Toilets were practically nonexistent in inner-city dwellings. So the chamber-pot was all they had to go by. By the year 1845 they started a system whereby this kind of waste was picked up, all people had to do was deliver it to any of a number of big boxes, placed strategically around the down town area.
View of the Gasthuis (Old name for a hospital.) on the Hoogstraat.
Van Adriaen (A.) Schoonebeek (1688 – 1692).
Picked up with very smelly and sometimes leaky wagons, later mixed with some straw and sold to the farmers as fertilizer.
Later the system was somewhat improved by banding out containers to each city dweller, which were picked up twice a week and exchanged for a clean ones.
It took nearly to the turn of the century to complete a double sewer system.
Drink water was another problem. Public water pumps were available but what they got was
polluted ground water, besides people who found themselves too far removed from these pumps took water out of canals and other water gathering places.
No wonder epidemic diseases were common place and especially young mothers and newborn babies were the main victims, it is even difficult to imagine that any birth in a small one room dwelling without clean water or most other conveniences would be possible. But somehow they managed to survive, even though, judging from birth records, at least half of these babies and an enormous number of women did not make it!
Hospitals and medical care was another problem. Medical doe- · tors were few and expensive
and in many cases not qualified to give the proper care their patient needed. In all of the city of Rotterdam was one hospital, a converted cloister from the middle ages. The place is only used by desperately poor and sick, no self-respecting citizen would be caught dead in
a place like that Then the word ‘ hospital itself says it all: “hotel de ville” or guest-house.!!
Municipal hospital on the Coolsingel, seen from the east. ca 1860.
On the picture on page 16 it seems rather small but there was a fairly big wing behind this front. In to-day’s concept we would have called it a self-serve hospital!, there were nurses and doctors but relatives of the patients had to make their beds, clean the floor and feed them. lacking
those they were at the mercy of strangers, who were not leery of demanding money for their services.
Finally in 1880 a beautiful and properly equipped hospital was built on the Coolsingel It has served the community well until it was estroyed by the Luftwaffe in 1940.
This was the age in which Johannes, Bernardus Il, the only child of Frans and Elisabeth and our direct fore father lived. We know very little about mm, he never bought or sold any real estate. he was not involved in any public functions or did something unusual up to bis ninth year be
lived in bis grand-father’s (Barend’s) house, and then with bis parents in the house across the street til1be married in 1835 with Cornelia Vermey. On the marriage certificate Johannes was listed as a warehouse worker, and Cornelia as a seamstress. She was from Leyden, where her father Christiaan Vermey owned a store on the Breestraat, the main shopping area of the famous university City. But originally he was a wigmaker, a product for which in the end of the 18• century was a good solid demand.
The Vermey family has been living in Leyden from at least late in the 17th century, they came like many “Leydenaars” from Flanders, and they established the wool, blankets and fabric industry in that city. The oldest forefather found in that branch of the family was a Uldert Henckelman born in Limburg ca 1608. There also was a Israel Provoo who carne from Ypres in Flanders ca 1680 to Leyden. Sounds like some Jewish blood in the family ?
On October 23rd 1837 Bernard and Cornelia’s son Franciscus Christiaan was born at their house on the Nieuwstraat. Grandfather Frans Schrijver was a witness, he still lived at the Zandstraat. and was retired, age 64. Bernard was then listed as a “servant” .He died, age 50 in a house on the Vischmarkt, on April 6 1848. His trade was still listed as warehouse worker. He was survived by his wife Cornelia and son Franciscus, Christiaan then 6 years old.
Of all the relatives we encountered in this family history, none must have suffered more from poverty and deprivation than Cornelia and her little boy Frans during his short life Bernard barely made enough money to survive and when he died he did not leave anything but a few debts At the funeral Cornelia was lucky enough to meet an old friend and relative of the family, Anna, Maria Schrijver, a daughter of Pieter Schreve from Nordkirchen, who had come to Rotterdam around 1800.
She was 36 still single and in need of a place to live, so Cornelia and Anna decided to share a dwelling on the Nieuwe Binnenweg in some cheap new housing being built just outside the city gates. This way they could both go to work and take turns looking after Frans.
From what we later learned about this young man, we must conclude that he was a bright and intelligent boy who in those formative years, living in dire poverty, built up a feeling of resentment against his father or grand-father…..or both. He had seen and heard all about the many houses the family owned at one time and how well they were doing financially, he thus had trouble understanding where all that money had gone, and who squandered it….. and then again may be nobody squandered it and something totally different and un-known to us happened.
But from my father, Herman Schrijver, I heard that his dad held a grudge against these two. Also quite contrary to custom, Frans later in life did not name any of the seven sons he bad after his grandfather Barend.!
It is really puzzling and un-explainable why Barend, who bought those three houses around 1780 and had them paid for in full by 1800, had to take out all those loans and eventually had to sell the houses at a loss. Between 1780 and 1830 the population of the city grew by a full 50 %.! There was very little new construction going on and consequently he should have had no trouble at all renting out every bit of space for a good deal of money.
The same goes for his son Frans who owned that big place on the Nieuwe Markt where the main floor alone was rented out as a pub and should have created enough rent to pay for all expenses. And then there were three more floors to rent out.! Also bis own house on the Zandstraat was by that time fully paid for.
Like mentioned before it could have been the surety Barend signed, But not too likely.!
It is not known what school he attended but it is almost certain that he started working early in life to help with the family income and early in life meant in those days at the age of 12 or there
about. But whatever happened, Frans became an office clerk first and eventually ended up as an
administrator and office manager, was fluent in the use of both English and French and well-read. How did he ever find time for self-education? Nobody knows…. Jobs in that time were full-time and that meant from 8 till 6, six days a week and no holidays.
And the difficulties did not end there…. At night at home, there was very little room, poor lighting
and heating no public libraries to speak of and not enough money to buy hooks.
Never mind how he did it……he managed to do it.!
Design of houses from the 18th century (Vrouwengang)
at Hoogstraat 99-8, next to the Oude Vrouwenhuis.
The house plan shown on the previous page will give us some idea of what it was like to live there at that time. The overall floorplan gives us an area of 2.95 m x 3.50 m (9’8″ x 11’6″) or 111 sq. Ft. No toilet….. No kitchen (not even a sink), those cubby holes in the corners are “bedsteden” box beds, or oversized closets to sleep in. Also notice the width of the alley in front of the house.! Ca. 4’0″! This type of dwelling was being built at the end of the 18th century. As shown there are no windows on the rear, that way they could build back-to-back rows of housing without waste of land.
At the time of Cornelia’s death in 1858, she was listed as “without a profession”. Our Frans now 20 years old must have made it possible for her to take it a bit easier in her later years. She surely deserved it..!
Frans, now all on his own, searched for a good place with “board and room” and found one with the Roterman family who were living on the Hoogstraat no.54, the busiest shopping street in the city, very close and opposite the store shown on the following lithograph.
Theodoor Roterman lived with his family in a house above this shop.
Later, Frans Christiaan had “board and lodging” there.
THE ROTERMANS and the DORDRECHT CONNECTION
The Roterman family consisted of father Theodor, his wife Catharina Engeringh, two sons. Jeremias born in 1838; Godefridus in ’43. And five daughters, Euphemia born in ’35; Hendrika in ’37; Everdina in ’43; Antoinetta in ’46 and the youngest, Anna Maria in 1850.
Theodor was a travelling salesman, “a man of the world” and a bit of a bragger. A big talker who did not make big money so they had to take in boarders to help pay for the rent.
But that was no problem for our Frans who must have felt right at home with this bunch of very lively and enthusiastic young people. And then all these nice young girls……!! Quite a change from the extremely quiet life with his mom and remote relative Anna.
The family had come to Rotterdam recently from Dordrecht where Catharina Engeringh was born and her family had been living for three or four generations.
Johann Theodor Roterman, born in 1814 in Freren in the County of Bentheim, just across the border in Germany, came to Holland around 1832 and settled in Dordrecht.
Found himself a job as a salesman in a textile store. He must have been a slick and convincing salesman because less than two years later he marries Catharina Engeringh, the daughter of Johan Engeringh, a successful merchant in that city.
Their marriage certificate bas never been found, but as stated earlier that was not uncommon. In 1835 their first child, Euphemia was born and Theodor had established himself (with the help of his in-laws, of course!) as a business man, operating bis own textiles store in the Nieuwstraat with living quarters upstairs. The young family even had a live-in maid…!
In the next ten years the other six children were born there, the business was doing well and Johan was learning a lot from Catharina’s family, the Engeringhs and the van Cleeffs.
Catharina’s grandfather married to Johanna van Cleeff, and his brother Cornelis were in the jewelry business, Cornelis was a “Master Watchmaker” . Besides that, both were very active in the Bond-market and in real estate deals.
In a strange document from the archives Cornelis was named as a guardian for the daughter of a Dr. Bona Fides Vitalli, MD (the name sounds like a joke, especially fora medical doctor.!) from Venice, Italy. He was the widower of Frederika Bambs and in the same document was stated that this young girl had inherited a valuable diamond cross and diamond ring.
In that statement it did not say whether Cornelis was related to either the Vitalli or the Bambs families.!
So there can be little doubt that both parents of Catharina Engeringh were quite well to do and came from enterprising families with a fine nose for lucrative business deals.
Seen from the east side.
With the projected State Railway through Rotterdam.