Individual Details

WILHELM HOLTZKLAU, the father of Johannes Holtzklau and the son of Franz Holtzklau, was probably born around 1573/4 and died around 1630, when the plague was raging in Nassau-Siegen. His wife (first name unknown) seems to have been a daughter of Henchen Flender of the Hardt (ironworks). In the special tax of 1619/20 he was the only Holtzklau at Weidenau.
As in the case of his father, Franz Holtzklau, it is interesting to speculate whether Wilhelm was a teacher at Weidenau, like his son, Johannes. If so, he lost his position in 1626. In that year, during the dominance of the Catholics in the Thirty Years War, the Catholic Count John the Younger seized the whole of Nassau-Siegen, brought in the Jesuits to enforce Catholicism among his subjects, and issued an edict ousting all Protestant pastors and teachers from the churches and schools. Following the edict, a man named Johann Wiedemann became the Catholic teacher at Weidenau. We are not told the name of his predecessor, but he was rather probably Wilhelm Holtzklau, for in the year 1631, at the birth of his first child, the records show that Wilhelm's son, Johannes Holtzclaw, was the Weidenau teacher. The presence of a Protestant schoolmaster in Weidenau in 1631 is somewhat remarkable, as it was not until 1632. that the troops of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden occupied Nassau-Siegen, and Protestantism was restored for a few years in the country.

Birth	1573
Death	1630	Nassau-Siegen, Germany
Marriage		FLENDER

Spouse	FLENDER ( - )
Child	JOHANN\JOHANNES HOLZKLAU (1609 - 1664)

Father	FRANZ HOLZKLAU (1552 - 1619)
Mother	HUETTENHEN ( - )