Wilhelm Holtzclaw (1573 - abt. 1630)

Born 1573 in Weidenau, Germany

Ancestors

Husband of ----- Flender — married about 1604 in Westfalen, Preussen

Descendants

Died about 1630 at about age 57 in Nassau-Siegen, Germany

Problems/Questions Profile manager: J. Salsbery [send private message]

Biography

"Wilhelm Holtzklau of Weidenau, son of Franz Holtzklau, was probably born around 1573/4 and died around 1630, when the plague was raging in Nassau-Siegen. His wife (first name unknown) seems to have been a daughter of Henchen Flender of the Hardt. In the special tax of 1619/20 he was the only Holtzklau at Weidenau and paid a tax of 2 Gulden. The Treasury Accounts show that he paid a defense tax of 3 Albus at Weidenau in 1624, 1626, 1628 and 1629. These records show that he was occupying only half a house in the village (for a full house, the defense tax was 6 Albus), and that (unless excused from the militia for some other reason) he was over 50 years of age, so born prior to 1574.

"Johannes Holtzklau appears for the first time along with Wilhelm in 1628 and 1629, but as a member of the militia, indicating that he had just reached the age of 18 and become subject to military duty in 1627 or 1628 (there are no surviving treasury accounts for 1627), so that he was born about 1609/10.

"As in the case of his father, Franz Holtzklau, it is interesting to speculate whether Wilhelm was teacher at Weidenau, like his son, Johannes. If so, he lost his position in 1626. In that year, during the dominance of the Catholics in the Thirty Years War, the Catholic Count John the Younger seized the whole of Nassau-Siegen, brought in the Jesuits to enforce Catholicism among his subjects, and issued an edict ousting all Protestant pastors and teachers from the churches and schools. Following this edict, a man named Johann Wiedemann became the Catholic teacher at Weidenau. We are not told the name of his Protestant predecessor, but he was rather probably Wilhelm Holtzklau, for in the year 1631, at the birth of his first child, the records show that Wilhelm's son, Johannes Holtzklau, was the Weidenau teacher. The presence of a Protestant schoolmaster in Weidenau in 1631 is somewhat remarkable, as it was not until 1632 that the troops of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden occupied Nassau-Siegen, and Protestantism was restored for a few years in the country. Probably the explanation is to be found in the temper of the inhabitants of Weidenau, which was staunchly Protestant. On many later occasions, when the Catholic counts tried to foist Catholic schoolmasters on them, the people of Weidenau village and the surrounding ironworks settlements simply refused to pay them so that very few Catholic teachers lasted more than a year or two. This may have been the fate of the Catholic Johann Weidemann, who was soon replaced by Johannes Holtzklau." ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ B.C. Holtzclaw, Ancestry and Descendants of the Nassau-Siegen Immigrants to Virginia 1714-1750 (Harrisonburg, Virginia: The Germanna Foundation, 1964), pp. 220-21.

Acknowledgements

• WikiTree profile Holtzclaw-24 created through the import of My Ancerstors.ged on Jul 2, 2011 by Mike Snider. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Mike and others.