Pieter Joannes BAECKELANDT

Martinus-Joseph BAECKELANDT

Jeanne-Catharina VAN LAECKE

Joseph BAECKELANDT

Barbara DE VRIENDT

Ferdinand

Jean-Baptiste

Joannes-Francies

Francisca

General Notes

b. Bellem (Stuyvenberghe quarter)
m. (1st) Aalter 2 Nov 1824 to Barbara MOSTAERT
m. (2nd) Aalter 6 Oct 1832 to Maria Therese LIPPENS
m. (3rd) Aalter 29 Jul 1836 to Marie Therese BUSSCHAERT
m. (4th) Aalter 17 May 1841 to Frederica VERVYNCKT
all children b. Aalter
d. of typhus, malnutrition

Pieter-Joannes was born in Bellem on 27 January 1800. In the year of his birth,, French revolutionaries still controlled Belgium, and maintained the upper hand until Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

Pieter began his working life as a weaver living in Aalter's Oudemeulen Quarter. Later on he was a servant, also in Aalter. His first wife, Barbara Mostaert, was a widow when he married her in November 1824. They lived in Aaltershoeksken and had one child, Rosalie (September 1825), who survived. (During this time (1815-1830), Flanders was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands under William I of Orange. In 1830-1831, Belgium became an independent monarchy under Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.)

After Pieter's second marriage, to Maria Therese Lippens in 1832, he moved back to the Oudemeulen Quarter, where he continued to work as a weaver. He and Maria had three children there as well: Bruno (1833), Pauline Francisca (1835), who died between the ages of five and six, and August (March 1836), who died in infancy as his parents were living in the Sterrestraat Quarter. A few months later, 36-year-old Pieter married Marie Therese Busschaert (b. 12-May-1797), age 39, in July 1836. They had two children: Carolus Ludovicus (June 1838) and Henri (March1840), but neither survived infancy. Henri died on 19 October 1840, and his mother passed away one day afterward.

Pieter-Johannes could read and write, and he signed the birth records of some of his children "P. J. Baeckelant." He was 1.61 meters (5 feet 3 inches) tall.

Pieter became a farm laborer and married his fourth wife, Frederica Vervynckt (b. 30 March 1807) on 17 May 1841. They had four [?] children together while living in Aalter's Schoonberg quarter. Only Pauline survived to adulthood. Pieter died in Schoonberg at the age of 48.

The 1840's were a time of crisis in Aalter. The weaving industry was collapsing in Flanders, and there was a big crisis in the flax industry. In 1840, 235 heads of household in Aalter, representing a total of 1559 family members, were working as weavers and flax spinners. These families depended on this work as their principal source of income. There were about 273 weaving looms and about 580 spinning wheels at home.

By 1843, there were 110 linen weavers out of work. In 1847, 1,960 people were on relief from the city. The city was giving out more than 22,000 Belgian francs a year to support the unemployed. A lot of sharecroppers also turned to weaving linen to get by, and their wives and daughters spun thread at home. In short, the industry collapsed. "We know only handweavers at home in that black period." Flax was very expensive, and the quality of homespun linen poor.

Bad harvests and a potato blight also hit the population hard, leading to a great famine in Flanders between 1845 and 1847. In addition, there was a typhoid epidemic around 1847; child mortality soared. Two hundred people died in one year, including 71 boys, 90 girls, 81 married men, 43 married women, 31 widows and 29 widowers. The situation improved only later, when many industrial jobs were created in Ghent, Brugges and in Wallonia.

Click here for details of Pieter Joannes' family with Maria Therese BUSSCHAERT

Click here for details of Pieter Joannes' family with Frederica VERVYNCKT

Pieter Joannes BAECKELANDT

Ancestor Pedigree Chart