Lutherans

Lutherans were followers of the German theologian and priest Martin Luther, and – like Jean Calvin – a seminal figure in the 16^th century religious movement that broke the hegemony of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. Towards the end of the 18th century roughly one-sixth of Amsterdam’s population, around 33,000, were members of the Lutheran religious community there. Established in 1588, its initial members were religious refugees from Antwerp following the conquest of that city by the Spanish Count Alva who was assigned to abolish Protestant heresies. They were joined by many German and Scandinavian immigrants who were  established Lutherans. By the middle of the 17th century they formed the largest group of foreign immigrants to have settled in Amsterdam.

While the Lutheran immigrant community was well tolerated in Amsterdam from the outset, a strong Calvinist presence on the city’s council resulted in some restriction as to how Lutherans could practice their faith. This  included not being allowed to have a tower or spire on their church. The Lutherans were able to trump that edict by building the majestic and uniquely shaped rounded Lutheran Church in 1671.

Christiaan Goedhuijs (b. <> 1708) was a German Lutheran who signed himself as Christiaan Henning Guthaus at the November 1735 christening of his first son , Diederich Ludewig Guthaus, with the Evangelical Lutheran “Church-at-Home” in Amsterdam. In January of 1735 he had married Judith Eijser from Amsterdam. Born in 1715, she was the daughter of Jurriaan IJser, a German immigrant from Bremen who was a boatswain with the VOC and Susanna Jans from Amsterdam. (Of note is that both Jurriaan IJser and Susanna Jans listed their religion as being Jewish (Jude) on their marriage license in 1706.)

On in April of 1789 Christiaan Goedhuijs’ youngest son, Paulus Goedhuijs (1754-1803) married  Guillaume Leignes’ eldest daughter Marie Magdalaine Leignes  in Amsterdam. They  had eight children, all born  and baptized at the Walloon church in Amsterdam:

— Guillaume Leignes Goedhuijs, (1790 –  1827)
— Antonia Goedhuijs,( b. 1793)
— Paulus Goedhuijs, (1795-< 1798)
— Jan Pieter Goedhuis, (b. 1796)
— Sophia Petronella Goedhuijs, (b. ca. 1797)
— Paulus Goedhuijs, (1798- 1846)
— Christiaan Goedhuijs (b.1801)
— Marie Madaleine Goedhuijs, ( 1804-1843)

Of note is the roughly 50/50 split of the children’s Dutch and French given names, following the Dutch tradition of naming their eldest children after their grandparents.

Paulus Goedhuijs (b.1798) was a professional soldier in the Dutch army.  In 1832 he received the Metal Cross for participating in the Ten Days Campaign by King William I of the Netherlands to suppress the Belgian Uprising by force of arms. He died in 1846 at age 48 on the island of Borneo, Indonesia.

In 1825 he married Egberdina Gesina Wagtendorp Eekman (b.1790) in Amsterdam; they had at least three children but at this time there are no birth or baptizing records from the Walloon church in Amsterdam. Also, only the naming of their eldest child – after her grandmother Marie Magdelaine Leignes – still suggests the family’s French Protestant or Huguenot roots:
– Anna Maria Magdalena Goedhuijs (1827 – 1900) Indonesia)
– Paulus Goedhuijs (1828 – 1909) Amsterdam)
– Willem Goedhuijs, (1830 – 1882, in Indonesia)

The next generation of this branch of the Goedhuijs family ends with the birth of my grandmother Paulina Mathilda Goedhuijs, and the absence of French given names in this generation suggests that the family’s Huguenot ancestry is little more than a distant memory.

Paulus Goedhuijs (1828-1909) married three times: In October of 1852 he married Sophia Berkman (1830-1855). One child from this marriage:
– Egberdina Gesina Goedhuijs (b.1855, Amsterdam)

Following the death of Sophia Berkman in July of 1855 he married Jacoba Hendrika Coenraadts (1834-1891) in June of  1865. She was a first cousin, the daughter of his aunt Marie Madeleine Coenraadts-Goedhuijs. Two children from this marriage:
– Willem Goedhuijs (b. 1866, Amsterdam)
– Paulina Mathilda Goedhuijs (b.1872, Amsterdam)

Jacoba Hendrika Coenraadts died in March of 1891 and in September of that year he married Anna Wilhelmina Vuuring (1856-1920). There were no children from this marriage

Paulus Goedhuijs (1828-1909) was educated at the Amsterdam Walloon orphanage, and while at first wanted to pursue a career at sea, he was forced to opt for a different path through life at the early age of 17 while at sea after a fall from a mast that resulted in a very serious injury. (*)

Over the next 26 years he worked as an accomplished instrument maker before his longstanding involvement with the church and community work led him to take on a leadership position with a local benevolent society to assist the blind. Between 1871 and 1901 he was the director of the “Vereeniging tot Werkverschaffing aan Hulpbehoevende Blinden“. In 1892 it was located at the Plantagemiddenlaan 64 in Amsterdam where it also included the director’s residence.

There might possibly be one more connection with the family’s now distant Huguenot past, when Paulina Mathilda Goedhuijs married Simon Samuel Ree (b.1871, Zwolle) in 1899 in Amsterdam. His father Roelof Ree was the in 1835 adopted son of Simon Ree,  a descendant of a David van Ré, born ca.1660 and who was most likely a French Protestant from Île de Ré, a small island off the coast of France in the Bay of Biscay across from the seaport of La Rochelle. In 1625 it was the site of a Huguenot revolt against the French king Louis XIII.

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(*)

Given Paulus’ plans to go to sea at such an early age, I wonder if he was aware of an earlier family tragedy involving two of his grandfather Paulus Goedhuijs’ older brothers who both died at sea at the age 16. Dirk Lodewijk Goethuijsen (b.1742) had signed on as a ship’s boy with the VOC ship “Oranjezaal” in May of 1757 and died 7 months later near Batavia, Indonesia. Eleven years later in October of 1768 his brother Christiaan Goedhuijs (b.1752) also signed up as a ship’s boy, with the VOC ship “‘t Loo” bound for Indonesia. He died 68 days later at sea,  off the coast of West Africa , 45 days before the ship`s arrival at the Cape in South Africa, and just four months past his 16th birthday.)