The Arms of the Huyck Family

295 Pages·2004·9.16 MB·English

by  The Lozers

The Arms of the Huyck Family
The escutcheon; in argent, a demi-lion of sable. The helmet; a
patrician one. The crest; a demi-lion of sable. The mantling;
argent and sable."

Oliver E. Huyck

Lena Huyck Myers and her family pose for a picture on a summer’s day. She looks down fondly at
her little daughter Grace, who peers shyly at the camera, her blonde hair shining in the sun. Beside
her, husband Leland, wearing the cap he always wore, looks over to their son Archie.

Foreshadowing a lifetime of independent thinking, 12-year-old Archie sits on the ground, his jaunty beanie
hiding his blond hair. Lena Huyck married Leland Myers on June 13, 1906. Our trail to the family history began
with Lena and Leland’s very elaborate hand-colored marriage certificate.

Archie Leland Myers, in 1935 >
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. . . It started in the Holy Roman Empire

Way back when
, the Romans sailed right up the Rhine, founding cities along the way,
including Nijmegen, an imperial city under Charlemagne. The city’s name comes from the Latin “novio
magus" for “new market.”
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St Nicolas Chapel, built in
1080 in Nigmegen, is one of
the oldest constructions in
the Netherlands

Concerning Charlemagne

In 771 A.D.,
Charlemagne took over as the sole ruler of Holy Roman Empire. He was
“six feet four inches tall, with
blond hair and a powerful nose. ‘

“He was temperate in eating and
drinking, abominated drunkenness,
and kept in good health despite
every hardship.” He believed
government should be for the
benefit of the governed, and was
a tireless reformer.

Charlemagne struggled to protect
a free peasantry against spreading
serfdom. He established a system
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of poor relief, and taxed the nobles and the clergy to pay its costs.

Not bad for the elder son of Bertrade ("Bertha Greatfoot") and Pepin the Short.

Nijmegen, the city that Charlemagne founded, to this day remains a center for medical and scholarly
research.

Back to the Huycks

By 1591
, when Hendric Huyck was born, the area had become a possession of the Habsburg
dynasty. Phillip II of Spain tried to persecute the Protestants. Attempts to centralize government
and taxation led to the uniting of seven Dutch provinces in the Union of Utrecht. The Dutch
embarked, under the leadership of William of Orange, on the Eighty Years’ War. It likely was a good
time to get out of Europe. During the Eighty Years’ War the Dutch started their Golden Age
of international trading.

We should note that all these religious and political problems were actually part of the Inquisition.
After the Roman Church consolidated its power in the early Middle Ages, heretics were regarded as
enemies of society. The crime of heresy was defined as “a deliberate denial of an article of truth of
the Catholic faith, and a public and obstinate persistence in that alleged error.” Amazingly enough,
the Inquisition survived to the beginning of the 19th century.

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Galileo’s trial, pictured above, was held in 1633, seven years after our forebears came to the New World!

Hendric had come from
Wesel, one of the strongly
fortified towns on the Rhine.
He had two sons, Johannes
and Hendric.
<<Wesel

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Johannes, our ancestor, married Lisabeth Peters, who was related to Peter Minuit, who was also
from Wesel. Peter Minuit was the first Director General of the Dutch West Indies Company, an
offshoot of the Dutch East Indies Company.

The Dutch East Indies
Company

in 1609
, the Dutch East India
Company hired Englishman Henry
Hudson to find a Northeast, all-water
route to Asia. Only a month out of
port, the Dutch/English crew was
disheartened when their passage north
of Norway was blocked by Arctic ice
floes. Many talked of mutiny.

So a compromise was made and the
course was changed. What began as a
search for a Northeast passage became
a transatlantic crossing to look for a
Northwest passage to the rich spice
trade of China. In 1609, Hudson sailed
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