jobs on the water

Stapels by river and sea.

All Stapels on the right in this table eventually originate from Gendt and their work was on or connected with water.

Davids eldest son Johan Hendrik is the first Guelders' Stapel who went to sea. Paybook 6714 page 209 of the Dutch East India Company records a Jan Hendrik of Amsterdam. He must have been the Guelders' Johan Hendrik then living in the capital, as in those days no other namesake existed in the five regional Stapel families. Besides he signed a 150 guilders debenture to his mothers name. Her name may have been somewhat misspelled, but the clerk had to go on his Guelders' dialect, since Johan could not write himself and had to cross his charter. March 4, 1783 he engaged as a 25 year old sailors aid on the "Prinses van Oranje". She departed July 24 from the Texel roadstead for her fifth yourney: over half a year sailing to Batavia, three months of which stationed at the Cape of Good Hope, for repairs and scurvy recovery and prevention. With 313 sailors the vessels intended crew was filled for only ninety percent, but captain Volmer could not find any more European crew willing to go to malaria infested Batavia.
In the Orient Jan Hendrik sailed more than 2.5 years on the ship Hoolwerf, under captain Van der Spek, also visiting India. Early 1787 he left for home with the much smaller "Duyf" under master Van de Kerkhof and arrived September 25 at Texel safe and sound with 31 other crew. Apparently he was healthy, as no hospital days were subtracted from his pay. That could not be taken for granted, as in those declining years of the Company only one in seven ever came back home. Jan Hendrik made no more yourneys as for the rest of his life all his further traces are situated in and around Gendt, as a bridegroom and father, farmer and contractor.

Also Davids eldest daughter Johanna Maria had two sons who became bargemen: Johannes Derksen 1799-1850 and Henricus Derksen 1803-1838.

From each of his two successive wives bargeman Hendrik (II) Stapel had a daughter who also married a bargeman: Gezina Willemina Theodora with Abraham Schimmel and Margaretha Theodora with Frederik Didden resp. Each could hand over his profession to his own son: bargeman Heinrich Schimmel 1876-? and captain Frederik Johannes Didden 1892-?. The latter had two brothers also connected to the water: Hendrik Didden 1888-1976, a towing agent and Theodoor Didden 1897-1974, a steward between 1912 and 1924 on ferry SS Belgenland to Ellis Island NY.

We do not know how Jan Dirk Stapel from Roosendaal joined the Navy, except that his mother came from Flushing. When visiting his family there, he must have admired the harbour where he later signed on as a 17 year old lad. Perhaps she told him of her greatgrandfather Huijbrecht Maas, around 1820 1st class marine in Flushing, or about her (steph)grandfather Janus Leijnsen, master-at-arms in the Navy, who died 1869 while serving in Dutch India ... (See Jan Dirks matrilinear family tree).

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