Vollenhoven, van, family

Van Vollenhoven, an outstanding and widely rami­fied Dutch family, Mennonite until the 19th century. By its faithfulness and its contributions, both spirit­ual and financial, this family has given the Mennon­ite church in Holland meritorious service. Its ances­tor was (1) Lubbert Wolfertsz (1578-1663), at first a bargeman, who took the family name of van Vol­lenhoven, probably after the town of Vollenhove (province of Overijssel), from which he may have stemmed. From about 1610 he lived at Schiedam near Rotterdam, where he operated a cloth business, and was also a shipowner. He was a dea­con and probably a preacher of the Schiedam Flem­ish Mennonite congregation from 1630. His son was (2) Coenraad Lubbertsz, called Koenraad van Vol­lenhoven, who was a Mennonite preacher at Schiedam and at Haarlem. Another son of (1) Lub­bert Wolfertsz was (3) Jan Lubbertsz van Vollen­hoven (Schiedam, 1624-Amsterdam, ca. 1670), founder of the Amsterdam branch of this family. (4) Anthoni Lubberts (1617-1707), another son of (1) Lubbert, was an important owner of herring boats at Schiedam and a founder of the large herring fish­ery of Vlaardingen. (5) Cornelis van Vollenhoven (Schiedam, 1690-Rotterdam, 1768), a grandson of (4) Anthoni, was a flax merchant at Rotterdam and the founder of the Rotterdam branch. He was a deacon of the church at Rotterdam, as were nine of his descendants between 1721 and 1840. In the 19th century this branch joined the Remonstrants. Other prominent members of this family were (6) Coenraad van Vollenhoven (Schiedam, 1682-1743), a son of (4) Anthoni, an owner of herring boats, director of the relief of the poor and of the town orphanage, deacon of the Schiedam Mennonite Church, (7) Willem van Vollenhoven (1707-79), a merchant and wholesale dealer at Amsterdam, who later lived at Haarlem, where he was a deacon and a trustee of the Mennonite orphanage. He is the founder of the Haarlem branch. (8) Jan Messchert van Vollenhoven (Rotterdam, 1748-Bloemendaal, 1814), owner of a brewery at Amsterdam, director of the Dutch Levant trade, shipowner, and writer. His son Jan Messchert van Vollenhoven (1812-1881) in many respects broke the traditions of his family: he studied law, was not engaged in business but in politics, left the liberal political views of his ances­tors to side with the "Anti-Revolutionaries," for which political party he was a member both of the Second and the First Chamber. He was a burgo­master of Amsterdam 1858-66. His descendants were Reformed. (9) Aelbert van Meurs van Vollenhoven (Rotterdam, 1749-Utrecht, 1817) was a wholesale dealer and banker at Rotterdam and a deacon of the Rotterdam congregation. His widow Alida (Hesselink) van Vollenhoven (Heerenveen, 1754-Utrecht, 1829) left a considerable sum to the congregation of Knijpe into which she had been baptized. (10) Maria Elisabeth van Vollenhove (1730-1811), a great-granddaughter of (4) Anthoni, was first mar­ried to the Remonstrant pastor Jan Verbeek and then (1797) to the Mennonite pastor Cornelis de Vries at Haarlem. After 1881 there are no Mennonite van Vollenhovens. Some branches died out; others joined the Remonstrants and the Reformed church. An outstanding non-Mennonite descendant of this family was Cornelis van Vollen­hoven (1874-1933), from 1901 professor of inter­national law at the University of Leiden.

Bibliography

Doopsgezinde Bijdragen (1863): 22, 24; (1909): 164, 166, 167.

Molhuysen, P. C. and  P. J. Blok. Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, 10 vols. Leiden, 1911-1937: v. III, 1333 f.

Nederland's Patriciaat XVI (1926): 278-340.

Rogge, J. Het Handelshuis van Eeghen. Amsterdam, 1948: 52. 97, 109.

Veen, P. De Doopsgezinden in Schoterland. Leeuwarden, 1869: 118 f.

Vos, Karel. De Doopsgezinden te Antwerpen in de zestiende eeuw. Reprint from Bulletin de la Commission Royale de Belgique 84 (1920); reprinted Rotterdam, 1907: 47 f.

Author(s)	Nanne van der Zijpp
Date Published	1959

Cite This Article

MLA style

Zijpp, Nanne van der. "Vollenhoven, van, family." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Web. 22 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Vollenhoven,_van,_family&oldid=109639.

APA style

Zijpp, Nanne van der. (1959). Vollenhoven, van, family. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 22 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Vollenhoven,_van,_family&oldid=109639.

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Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, pp. 847-848. All rights reserved.

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