Archive File NLA HA Hann 80 Hannover Nr 13997 Bodenwerder Town Mill 1803-1841

The record

# Archive File NLA HA Hann 80 Hannover Nr 13997 Bodenwerder Town Mill 1803-1841

NLA HA, Hann. 80 Hannover, Nr. 13997 — Grant of the Bodenwerder Town Mill on Erbenzins to J. E. Wesemann, and Subsequent Changes of Ownership (1803–1841)

Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, Abteilung Hannover, Hann. 80 Hannover, Nr. 13997. “Verleihung der Stadtmühle zu Bodenwerder auf Erbenzins an J. E. Wesemann und weiterer Besitztumwechsel der Mühle,” 1803–1841. Former identifier: Ca Nr. 102. Fonds: Verwaltung des städtischen Vermögens \> Kommunalvermögen (Landdrostei Hannover). 428 leaves, digitized.

1. The Volume's Own Index (page 1)

The first leaf of the volume carries a running index in a later hand, evidently added when the file was assembled or re-bound. It reads, in substance:

1803 — [Grant of] the Stadtmühle on Erbenzins to J. E. Wesemann.

1826 — Sale of the same by Wesemann to [Ficker].

1838 — Second purchase for Ficker; redemption of this mill from Ficker to the farmer Bedecker.

1839 — New lease to A. Bunge.

This index proved accurate as a roadmap once its date references were understood correctly: they are calendar years marking successive stages of the mill's ownership history, not page numbers. The actual grant to Wesemann was not finalized until 1807–1808, three to five years after the process opened in 1803 — the index's early date marks when the question was first raised, not when it was settled.

2. The Grant Process, 1803–1807

Pages 2–7 open the file with a retrospective 20-year financial audit of the mill's costs and revenues, Trinity 1782 to December 1802 — the case built to justify granting the mill out on hereditary lease. Signed by H. C. Grave.

Page 8 (1803): Amt Wickensen writes to the Bürgermeister und Rath of Bodenwerder opening the question of leasing the town mill auf Erbenzins to a competent miller, in response to the town's own report on the building's condition.

Pages 9–14 (1803–1806): correspondence continues with a Baumeister (building surveyor) Friedrich Leibers of Hameln on the physical state of the mill, and separately with Hameln's Stadtsyndicus (town legal officer) Leiders for a formal opinion on what terms an Erbenzins grant should carry.

Pages ~15–63: a substantial general treatise on Erbenzins law is copied into the volume as reference material — printed/typeset in places, citing Justinian's Novellae (Nov. 7 Cap. 3; Nov. 120 Cap. 6) alongside contemporary Hanoverian ordinances. This is boilerplate legal background, not case-specific.

Pages 64–111: a full model “Bedingungen” (Conditions) contract of 44 numbered paragraphs is drafted, specifying that the mill will be granted via public auction (Licitation) to the highest bidder, the outgoing tenant to vacate by year's end.

Page 98 (dated for 1 January 1807 transfer): a clean second copy of the same Bedingungen is entered, this version running to at least 49 paragraphs before its close.

Page 118 (14 August 1807): the Landdrostei authorizes the Bodenwerder Magistrat to proceed with the public auction.

Page 132 (6 October 1807, auction date referenced): the executed Erbenzins contract opens, formally naming the two parties: “Zwischen dem Zensual-Domino der Cämmerey der Stadt Bodenwerder an einem, und dem Mühlenmeister Johann Ernst Wesemann am anderen Theile...” — confirming his full name as Johann Ernst Wesemann, styled Mühlenmeister.

Page 133: terms recorded — purchase price 2,000 Thaler in cammermäßigen Species (chamber-standard specie coin), effective 1 January 1808, the outgoing tenant (read as “Dangerwolf,” not fully certain) to vacate by 31 December 1807.

Page 164 (23 December 1807): the contract's closing and signature page. Dated Bodenwerder, signed:

Heinrich Christian Grave, Cämmerarius.

Johann Ernst Wäsemann.

certified “in fidem praelect. ratihab. et subscriptionis” by Schaefer. This is Johann Ernst's own signature, not a clerk's rendering — spelled with the umlaut variant “Wäsemann.”

Notes

Heinrich Christian Grave, here confirmed by full name and title (Cämmerarius — town chamber officer/treasurer), is almost certainly the same “H. C. Grave” who signs the 1782–1802 financial audit at the front of this file, and very likely connects to the recurring Grave surname in the separate Nr. 14011 land-dispute file (a 1782 seller, and the 1822 mortgage estate both bear this name). Worth treating as one Bodenwerder family occupying the town's chamber-officer role across decades, though the file does not itself state the relationships between the various Graves.

Schaefer recurs as the certifying Bodenwerder official across this file and Nr. 14011, spanning at least 1807 to 1838 — consistent with a long-serving town official rather than several men of the same name.

3\. Johann Ernst Wesemann's Later Tenure: Relocation to Hameln and Subletting

This is the most significant new material found in this file for family reconstruction.

Page 293: a separate, standalone Pachtcontract (sub-lease agreement), undated on the leaf examined, opens: “Zwischen dem Mühlenmeister Ernst Wesemann zu Hameln und dem Müller Heinrich Kenzer zu Hämelschenburg ist am heutigen Tage folgender Contract geschlossen worden.” Wesemann, now styled as living at Hameln, leases the Bodenwerder Erbenzins mill with all appurtenances to Heinrich Kenzer of Hämelschenburg (a village near Hameln), who is to keep it in serviceable repair and pay an agreed rent.

Pages 304–306: a double-entry ledger for the years 1824–1825, headed across both facing pages — “Müller Ernst Wesemann in Hameln” — confirms this was an ongoing arrangement, not a one-off. By this point the operating tenant is named Sebohm, who pays quarterly mill-rent (Mühlenpacht) to Wesemann's account. The ledger records that Sebohm's payments for the last quarter of 1824 (October–December) were never received — “ist kein Mühlenpachtgeld angekommen ... zu des Müllers Sebohm Nachtheil entfallen.”

One entry in the 1824 ledger (in the debit column against a balance carried from 1823) reads: “Rest pro 1823 welchen der Müller Ernst Wesemann in Linse nicht hat bezahlen wollen” — “balance for 1823 which the miller Ernst Wesemann at Linse did not want to pay.” This is the same running account headed “in Hameln” three lines above; the shift to “in Linse” for this single entry is not explained in the surrounding text.

The 1825 ledger (pages 306–307) shows the year's Erbenzins accounting running only to 5 October 1825, then closing with an unresolved deficit carried forward, signed by Friedrich Homann, Cämmerer, Bodenwerder, 24 December 1825.

Notes

The Hameln relocation is now documented fact, not inference: the ledger's own running header states it in his name across two consecutive years' accounts. Johann Ernst Wesemann was, by the 1820s, an absentee Erbenzins-holder rather than a resident working miller — a real contrast with his brother Georg Ludewig at the Linse Mittelmühle, who is consistently documented living and working at the mill itself.

The “in Linse” entry is flagged, not resolved. Three readings are possible: a clerk's slip (falling back on the family's home village out of habit), a genuine period of residence or business interest at Linse concurrent with or subsequent to Hameln, or confusion with a different Ernst Wesemann. Nothing else in the file supports or rules out any of these; it should be treated as an open question, not a fact, until corroborated elsewhere.

Heinrich Kenzer of Hämelschenburg and the later tenant Sebohm are new names to the project, relevant to the Bodenwerder mill's operational history but with no indicated family connection to the Wesemanns.

4\. Financial Distress and the Transition Away from Wesemann, 1825–1828

Pages 313–315 (dated by an adjoining leaf to August 1828): correspondence to the Landdrostei concerning payment of the Erbenzins-Capital. The surviving text discusses a shortfall in payment, raises the possibility of forced sale (“unfreiwillige verkaufende Versteigerung”) should arrears continue, and explicitly frames the outstanding sum as 2,000 Thaler in Gold — the same figure as the original 1807 purchase price, now recast as standing debt. The Bodenwerder Magistrat's response is signed Schaefer, Bode, Schmidt.

The surrounding pages (roughly 292–330) are dense administrative correspondence consistent with a protracted financial difficulty rather than a single clean sale; a name resembling “Ficker” appears in passing as early as the 270s–280s page range in connection with a different, seemingly unrelated boundary or water-rights matter, which may or may not be the same Ficker who eventually acquires the mill — this was not resolved with confidence and would need a dedicated re-read to confirm or rule out.

Notes

The picture that emerges is of a slow-motion financial failure rather than a voluntary sale: an absentee owner in Hameln, a sub-tenant whose rent payments lapsed, mounting arrears against the Cämmerei, and by 1828 explicit talk of forced auction. This fits the index's bare notation of an 1826 ‘sale’ far better as a distressed transfer than as an ordinary market transaction — worth bearing in mind for how this episode is characterized in the manuscript.

The exact instrument recording the 1826 transfer itself was not located and read in this pass. Given the density of pages 292–345, it is very likely present but was not pinned down page-by-page.

5\. Later Ownership: Ficker, Bedecker, Bunge (1826–1841)

Per the volume's own index (Section 1 above): Ficker held the mill from 1826, with further transactions in 1828, 1830, 1831, and 1835. Page 371 (dated 10 September 1838) carries correspondence discussing a contract process naming “Ficker,” a “Sohn” (son), and the Cämmerarius, consistent with the index's note that 1838 saw the mill redeemed from Ficker to the farmer (Ökonom) Bedecker. Page 1's index further states a new lease to A. Bunge followed in 1839, with related entries continuing to 1841, where the file's active content ends. The volume's final leaf (page 428 of the digitization) carries only an “Ende” marker.

Notes

None of this later material (1826–1841) names any Wesemann family member or bears on the family's own history; it is included here only to close out the mill's ownership chain for the project's records. Ficker, Bedecker, and Bunge are not otherwise connected to this project.

This section was covered by sampling rather than exhaustive reading, given the volume of pages (roughly 173–428) and the declining genealogical relevance of content once the mill leaves Wesemann hands. A fuller pass could be done if the Ficker–Bedecker transition specifically becomes relevant to some other thread.

Transcription (German)

[Image 140 of 428, printed p. 133, top third, left page; screen zoom:] Der Betrieb der Cammer überläßt dem Müllenmei-ster Johann [Franz?] Wesemann die hiesige Mühle vom 1ten Januar 1808 an [auf sieben Jahre?], und zwar [ohne Gebäu?], die Taxation, wie sie der-maßen beschaffen ist und von dem zeitigen Müller-pächter [Dempewolf] am 31[sten December 1807 ...]

Translation (English)

The [town] Chamber lets the master miller Johann [Franz?] Wesemann the local [Bodenwerder] mill from 1 January 1808 [for seven years?], in the condition it is in and as handed over by the present tenant miller [Dempewolf] on 31 [December 1807 ...].

Notes

One screen pass, upper third of the page only. "Franz" and "auf sieben Jahre" are rejected as misreadings: p. 132 names "Mühlenmeister Johann Ernst Wesemann" and p. 164 carries his signature "Johann Ernst Wäsemann"; the grant was a purchase on Erbenzins. "die hiesige Mühle" is the Bodenwerder town mill (the findings file's "Delligsen mill" was a translation error).

Conventions: [ ] editorial addition or expansion; [?] uncertain reading; […] illegible or outside the crop; [sic] as written. Spelling, capitals and abbreviations follow the source.