2398.Lodowick op den Dyck. Born ca 1565 in Weisel, Rheinland-Pfalz.5 Lodowick died in Weisel, Rheinland-Pfalz aft 1615.5
From The Op Dyck Genealogy, pages 34–37:5
Born about 1565; alive in 1615; married Gertrude van Wesek before 1597.
His wife may have been a sister of Nicholas and Deric van Wesek, who were elected Schepens of Wesel in 1603, and who are believed by Dr. Harless to have been descended from a knightly family of the name van Woesik, found in Gelderland as early as the fourteenth century.
There is no record of Lodowick having held any of the offices so often occupied by his ancestors. He appears for the first time, as admitted to citizenship in 1586, upon a page of the Wesel Town Book, of a part of which we give a photographic reproduction opposite. In former times this privilege of burghership was regularly transmitted from father to son, but in the sixteenth century it seems to have become personal to the individual, and a deceased burgher's son wishing to receive it had to be accepted by the Council, and to pay a fee.
For at least a part of the thirty years during which he appears on the Wesel records, Lodowick was engaged in brewing, and was also host of the “Dragon” Inn. An explanation of his undertaking these somewhat humble occupations is to be found in the great decadence suffered by Wesel in his life-time. The prosperity of the city depended on its commerce. In the latter part of this century the long and unsuccessful efforts of Spain to conquer Holland, and political dissensions in other countries, involved Wesel in dangers and difficulties. These were increased, as we shall see, by the confusion arising from the death of the Duke of Cleves without male issue, and finally resulted in the siege, capture, and long occupation of the town by a Spanish force. Some account of these war troubles will be found at the end of this sketch. The burghers saw their substance consumed and their commerce stifled. At such a time it would be natural for a man of active mind to profit by the crowds of strangers that overran the city, and to try, by selling them the necessaries of life, to repair some of the losses occasioned by their hostile presence. We may infer that Lodowick did not lose caste by so doing from the fact that his marriage to a member of the Altbuerger class seems to have occured after he became a brewer.