Origin of the memorial stone,
The photo above was taken in 1976 in the grounds of the municipal storage facility in Beatrixhaven.
The stone - every time having moved with the Museum of History - had already gone through many wanderings by then.
The Friends of Maastricht Gable Stones (VMG) managed to get the stone on loan for relocation, preferably in its original place.
On an old stock list of the Museum of History, this stone - unknown as one apparently was with its origin - is called a tombstone, but it is the foundation stone of the stone Aldemolen, which was located on the Jeker at the corner of the Grote and Kleine Looiersstraat.
De Stuers and Eversen still saw the stone in the mill there in the 19th century and wrote down the full text at the address:
Groote Looyerstraatmolen:
IAN SMETS GYLIS GRAVEN MVELEMEESTERS DOE TER TYT Ao 1595 DEN 15 STEN SEPTEMBRIS
The first stone
The text on the stone tells us that the Aldemolen was built - or rather rebuilt - in 1595 and that Jan Smets and Gylis Graven were the then millers.
On the stone their name and house mark are mentioned with initials.
A house mark was not a mark of a house, but of a family (cf. the use of 'huis van Oranje') and it was therefore a kind of signature. By adding the initials, it was clear who of the family was meant.
A 'shield' is still vaguely visible between the house marks. What it might have contained is unknown and could not be traced, which is why during the restoration an animal skin was added as a tannery mark to emphasise the connection with the tannery trade.
The Aldemolen was mentioned as early as 1264 and at that time it was a fulling mill, owned by the sheet weavers. In 1557 it appears to have been owned by the tanners' trade and with four other run mills (run is ground oak bark for tanning leather) for 51 tanners operating in Maastricht.
In 1795 the mill was seized by the French occupiers and sold as domain property. This did not happen until 1803 when Pieter Nijst became the new owner of the mill and the adjacent house. The Nijst family already had a tannery, a bark drying mill and mill - later varnish mill - in the Heksenhoek.
At the end of 1857 the Nijst heirs sold the mill to the leather business of the Coopman brothers, who unfortunately went bankrupt in 1869 and saw the property sold publicly. The buyer was the Municipality of Maastricht, for fl 4050.
The latter had the mill and the house demolished in 1873, but the water works were retained as a weir until the middle branch of the Jeker was filled in in 1897, so that as much water as possible did not flow away via the middle branch, but was forced through the northern branch where the city's most important water mills stood.
For over 300 years the Aldemolen was a tanners' mill where oak bark was ground (also known as 'run' or 'eek' in Dutch) that was used in the tanning process to protect the hides from deterioration.
The Aldemolen on the corner of the Grote Looierstraat and Kleine Looiersstraat was demolished in 1873, so it is not possible to put the memorial stone back in its original place. By the way, the statue 'de levensvreugd' (=the joy of life), better known in Maastricht as 'the child allowance', standsthere now as well.
Fortunately, relocation was possible close to the original spot, where the Aldemolen had stood. The memorial stone has been transferred to the municipality of Maastricht.
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