Black Sheep?

Black Sheep with Lamb
Print, Dirk van Lokhorst, 1828-1893
Public Domain

The week 26 prompt - Black Sheep - really had me scratching my head and digging around the family tree, but no likely candidate popped up. This is not to say that there were no black sheep in the family, just that to my knowledge everyone behaved themselves more or less.

View of Driezum,  1786-1792
Carel Frederik Bendorp
Public domain.

Then, a candidate does appear, from my Facebook feed! I got a post from the group Ald Driezum, which is all about the history and families of the village of Driezum, in Friesland, Netherlands, where the Lawerman family has its roots. It was a snapshot of an advertisement that had appeared in 1868 in the Leeuwarder Courant advertising the sale of the bakery buildings in Driezum, belonging to a Thomas Lawerman. Reading through the ad I see that a Deurwaarder or Bailiff is managing the sale. So it seems that this Thomas Lawerman got into financial trouble and had to sell some of his assets. Was he an ancestor? Probably; I do have a great great grandfather Thomas Lawerman, who was a baker in Driezum and who lived at that time. So the dates stack up.

In my earlier post Misfortune I wondered about who the ancestor was who had lost the family fortune because of his horse race gambling. Was it this Thomas Lawerman, the village baker?

This clipping was sourced from De Krant van Toen, an online media archive. Oh wow, gold! I wonder what else I can find. So I type in the name Scherius and eight references pop up. One of these leads me to the story about "fighting magistrates" as it is headlined. (https://www.dekrantvantoen.nl/vw/article.do?v2=true&id=NVHN-19790529-AE0013004&vw=org&lm=scherius) This could be more what I'm looking for.

A quite hilarious scene unfolds as I read the story. A wig flies out the window, a magistrate pummels the vicar, hitting and banging his head, and grabbing the poor man's hair, shouting obscenities - du hontsvot - backend of a dog. The Vicar's name is Vechtman, or Fighting Man. Their companions rushed to separate the two men; the vicar's wife had come in to help her husband, and rounded on the magistrate, telling him where to go in no uncertain terms.

Kanselarij, Leeuwarden 1786-1792
Carel Frederik Bendorp
Public domain.

Who were these people?! The magistrate was Bonno Scherius, in the report called regder, (judge or magistrate) and possibly the same as my ancestor Bonno Scherius, Premier Clerq of the Officier van Justitie in Leeuwarden (Senior Clark to the Department of Justice in Leeuwarden). The fight occurred in 1707, and the men had had a business meeting and then shared a meal and then the trouble started. Probably too much wine or beer had flowed, at least too much to handle for Bonno Scherius and it seems he already bore a grudge against the vicar.

Bonno Scherius then sued the vicar's wife and the matter went to court, but nothing more came of it. Tempers had well and truly cooled by then and no doubt everyone involved was feeling a little sheepish about it all.