Johann Gerhard Bekel

Johann Gerhard Bekel , known as Hermann Eilers (born January 15, 1745 in Dalum , Hesepe parish , Niederstift Münster ; † April 21, 1795 in Klein Hesepe, Hesepe parish , Niederstift Münster) was an upland moor pioneer from the Emsland region and the first settler in the Münster moor colonies in Bourtanger Moor .

Life

Catholic Church of St. Nicholas in Groß Hesepe, around 1900. Until 1799, the residents of the new Hesepertwist bog colony were looked after by the pastor of Groß Hesepe.

Johann Gerhard Bekel was born in Dalum, Hesepe parish, and was baptized on January 15, 1745 in the Catholic parish church of St. Nicholas in Groß Hesepe. His name was entered in the baptismal register as Joannes Gerard Beckel . His father was also called Johann Gerhard Bekel and his mother Elisabeth Camphincken. He was the first child of his parents, who were married on May 16, 1744 in the parish church of St. Nicholas. Shortly after the birth of Johann Gerhard, Dalum's small family must have moved to the nearby Groß Hesepe, because the other children were born there: Johann Heinrich (1746), Anna Gesina (1748), Helena Veronica (1752) and Johann Hermann (1754). Anna Gesina died as an infant. Another move followed before 1757 because in that year the youngest child, again called Anna Gesina, was born in Klein Hesepe.

Johann Gerhard Bekel's next mention took place in the status animarum ("soul directory") of the parish of Hesepe , created in 1750 . There he was performed as Joes Gerardus Beckel at the age of 6. At that time his father was a hirer for the farmer Wolcken in Groß Hesepe. Otherwise nothing is known about Johann Gerhard's youth, which he spent during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763).

In 1771, the 26-year-old Gerdt Beckel, together with the other hirers Joan Greten, Heinrich Röckers and Wessel Beckel, submitted an application to the prince-bishop's government in Münster for permission to build farms in the area of ​​the Twist in the Bourtanger Moor. At that time Maximilian Friedrich von Königsegg-Rothenfels was the Prince-Bishop of Münster. The reason for this request seemed to be related to the great famine of 1771 throughout the Old Kingdom . The applicants were looking for a way to make a living. The decision on the permit was postponed by the government because the course of the borders between the Principality of Munster and the Republic of the Seven United Provinces in the Bourtanger Moor had not yet been finally settled. The then uninhabited area of the Twist is located in the Bourtanger Moor and managed by the Twister Aa flows through, lay her in the 18th century Boön that the Schoonebeeker belonged Beerbten. The moor was used by the residents as grazing land for cattle and sheep, for peat extraction and for growing buckwheat .

On July 7, 1772, the 27-year-old Bekel married the 34-year-old Anna Maria Eilers in the parish church of St. Nicholas. Anna Maria was the daughter of Gerhard Eilers and Maria Tappel and lived in Groß Hesepe. Before the wedding, Bekel must have moved back from Klein Hesepe to Groß Hesepe, because this was stated in the marriage register as his place of residence. After the marriage he moved to the Eilers family and also takes their family name. Two children were born to the couple: Johann Gerhard Heinrich on February 24, 1774 in Groß Hesepe and Anna Maria Elisabeth on October 27, 1777 also in Groß Hesepe.

In the following years Bekel worked as a hirer for farmer Többen in Groß Hesepe. In the spring of 1780, he quit his job and gave him a deadline to move out by May. Now, as in 1771, Bekel, together with other hirers, again submitted an application to the government in Münster for the allocation of land in the moor. He draws attention to the misery of his family and his lack of prospects. But the government still didn't decide anything. Bekels and his family's hiring place was vacated in the summer of 1780. That is why, out of sheer necessity, he built a hut for himself and his family on the edge of the moor between Fullen and Rühle . This illegally erected dwelling was torn down by the neighboring farmers. Thereupon Bekel and his family moved further into the moor, in the area of ​​the Twist, and built a new hut. He and his family were the first to live in this area. The farmers who had already destroyed his first hut followed him on the twist and drove him from there too.

After the extremely cold winter of 1783/84 , Gerd Bekel and six other men submitted another application to the government in Münster to settle the moor. In 1784 Maximilian Franz of Austria became the new Prince-Bishop of Munster, he led a different policy than his predecessor, and so the request was finally granted. Thereupon the petitioners were supposed to go to the rent master Johann Bernhard Lipper in Meppen . But only three of the seven men appear here. The other four, including Bekel, had gone to the Netherlands seasonally as hollers , i.e. day laborers in agriculture and peat cutters, to work and earn money there, but had not yet returned. After the conditions for the settlement had been discussed with the rentmaster, the official settlement of the first seven bog colonists in the new colony of Hesepertwist began in July 1784 : Gerd Beckel, Henrich Schroer, Joan Henrich Greten, Wessel Beckel, Henrich Töben, Henrich Rakers and Henrich Beckel . The settlement was contractually regulated on September 26, 1784 in Meppen.

In 1786 and 1787, Gerd Bekel appeared as the spokesman for the new settlers and asked the government to expand the allocated land and to repair the path between Groß Hesepe and the Hesepertwist. Bekel can still be identified as a colonist on the Hesepertwist in 1788, after which he must have moved back to Klein Hesepe. The reason for this departure from the bog colony for which he had fought for so long is not known.

Gerhardus Beckel died on April 21, 1795 in Klein Hesepe, Hesepe parish, at the age of 50. The cause of his death is unknown. He was buried in the cemetery of the parish church of St. Nikolaus in Groß Hesepe. His widow Anna Maria died on April 12, 1811 in Picardy, her body was transferred to the Twist and buried there in the cemetery of the parish church of St. George, which was laid out in 1788.

Many direct descendants of Bekel and his wife still live in the area around the Twist today. Nobel laureate in chemistry, Ben Feringa, is one of his direct descendants .

Hermann-Eilers-Strasse in the Twister district of Bült was named after Johann Gerhard Bekel, who became known under the name “Hermann Eilers”.

The problem with the name

Various names and forms of name are known of Johann Gerhard Bekel: His surname is mentioned in the sources as Bekel , Beckel or Beeckel . His baptismal name was Joannes Gerard , of which different variants such as Joes Gerardus have been passed down. The modern form of this name is Johann Gerhard . His nickname was Gerd or variants like Gerdt and Gerard . At that time there was no fixed form of a name, the name was often written down as the writer understood it.

Bekel is referred to in the sources as Püntgerd , Püntger or Püntker . The origin of this name is unknown, it could be related to the Pöttker family , with whom Bekel may have lived for a time.

In addition, since his marriage to Anna Maria Eilers, Bekel's surname has also been given as Eilers or Eylers because he lived with their family after the wedding.

The name Hermann Eilers , by which Bekel is still known today, only came about through a mix-up: Johann Bernhard Diepenbrock accidentally called him Herm Eilers in his history of the former Meppen office of Münster from 1838 .

review

In addition to the official contemporary sources on Bekel's life, there is also a chronicle by Heseper Beerbten Scheveling who mentions him. In historical literature it was first mentioned in 1838 under the name Herm Eilers in the book History of the former Münster office of Meppen by Johann Bernhard Diepenbrock . Bekel is not directly mentioned in the various publications by Hermann Gröninger that appeared around 1900. It was only under Heinrich Blanke in 1938 that a further description of the history of Bekel in Emsland moor colonies in the Meppen district was made . Blanke was also the first to recognize the connections between Hermann Eilers and Johann Gerhard Bekel. It was not until the 1970s that the otherwise incomprehensible figure of Eiler, identified by the historians Bechtluft and Santel, was identified with Bekel and then his life story was uncovered, researched and published in extensive publications.

swell

• Folke Santel, Gregor Gerhard Santel: Chronicle for Great Hesepe. Transcription. In: Study Society for Emsland Regional History (Ed.): Emsland History. Volume 2, Cologne / Papenburg / Meppen 1992, pp. 71-94.
• Status animarum 1749 in the courts of Meppen, Haren and Haselünne. In: Emsländische Landschaft e. V. (Hrsg.): Contributions to the Emsland and Bentheim family research. Volume 3, Part 1, Sögel 1995, p. 92.

literature

• Heinrich Blanke: The foundation of the bog colonies. 8. Hermann Eilers initiated the settlement of the left-Emsian high moor. In: Heinrich Blanke: Emsland moor colonies in the Meppen district . Fromm, Osnabrück 1938, DNB 579209717 , pp. 36-37.
• Horst Heinrich Bechtluft, ed. from the Heimatverein for the district of Meppen e. V. (Ed.): The history of the twist. Sketches for the history of a border landscape and the first Münster colony in the Bourtanger Moor . Meppen 1977, DNB 890008965 , pp. 80–83, 89–93 (“The story of Hermann Eilers”, two parts).
• Horst Heinrich Bechtluft: On the founding and administrative history of the bog colonies in the Twist area. In: Community Twist (ed.): Twist: Our new community in the past and future. Festschrift for the inauguration of the Twister Town Hall on June 15, 1984 . Twist 1984, pp. 9-16.
• Horst Heinrich Bechtluft: 200 years of bog colonies twist. a review of anniversary events. In: Municipality of Twist (ed.): 200 years of Twist peatland colonies 1786–1986 . Twist 1986, pp. 7-12.
• Horst Heinrich Bechtluft: The Heuermann and the Elector. How the moor pioneer Gerd Bekel came up with the twist. In: Horst Heinrich Bechtluft, Twist municipality (ed.): Moor without borders. 225 years of twist . Twist 2011, DNB 1015635520 , pp. 12-30.
• Horst Heinrich Bechtluft: Stories about settler pioneers partly invented. Diepenbrock's stories . In: New Osnabrück Newspaper . August 23, 2011, accessed October 6, 2016.
• Johannes Bernhard Diepenbrock : Bog colonies. In: ders .: History of the former Münster office of Meppen or the current Hanoverian Duchy of Arenberg-Meppen…. 2nd Edition. Lingen ad Ems 1885. (Reprint: Meyer, Meppen, 1978, ISBN 3-922086-00-4 , pp. 590-607)
• Helmut Lensing, Bernd Robben: “When the farmer whistles, then the hirers have to come!” - Considerations and research on hiring in north-west Germany, Haselünne. Study Society for Emsland Regional History, 2016, ISBN 978-3-9817166-7-2 , pp. 52–53, 55–56.
• Gregor Gerhard Santel: Hesepertwist and Rühlertwist - the story of the moor pioneer Gerd Eilers. In: Parish Twist (Ed.): 200 years of Twist peatland colonies 1786–1986 . Twist 1986, pp. 21-28.
• Gregor Gerhard Santel: Family and regional history research in twist . In: Working group on family research in the Emsland landscape for the districts of Emsland and Grafschaft Bentheim (ed.): Emsland and Bentheim family research. Issue 31, Volume 6, September 1995, pp. 162–163, last accessed on October 29, 2015.

Web links

• Gerd Bekel . Ortsfamilienbuch Twist on Online Ortsfamilienbücher / genealogy.net, accessed on October 6, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Descendants of Johann Gerhard Beckel . Veenkolonial Genealogien, accessed December 19, 2016.
2. ↑ Eemslandboekweitboerenimmigratie "Geert Feringa . GenealogyOnline.nl, accessed October 6, 2016 (Dutch).
3. ↑ Ancestors of Bernard Feringa Emsländer. Nobel laureates with roots in Emsland Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung , October 7, 2016, accessed on November 3, 2016.