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Hochepied Family of Smyrna

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Mavi Boncuk | Nicholas de Hochepied was born about 1524 in Antwerp, Belgium.

Over the next 100 years the family descendants moved through Prussia into Holland where after 4 generations Daniel Jean de Hochepied, was born in 1657, the son of a dutch merchant in Amsterdam, and then crucially about 1678, he travelled to Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire (now Izmir in Turkey) to take the post of Dutch Consul and as such met and married his wife Clara Catharina Colyear in Constantinople. [1] By promoting the interests of Leopold I (1658-1705), German Emperor and King of Hungary, he acquired on the 8th April 1704 the title of baron, which was transmissible to his heirs of both sexes for his efforts at the Treaty of Karlowitz in freeing Austrian prisoners and slaves, which accounts for the manacles on their Coat of Arms. From then on the de Hochpied dynasty will live comfortably as the western aristocracy Dutch Consuls, wealthy merchants, land owners and farmers in Smyrna for the next 218 years.

After the death of his father the Baron, Daniel Alexander takes over the post of Consul General in Smyrna and in 1741 is raised to Count (equal to an Earl in UK) by the newly crowned Marie Thérèse, Empress of Germany and Queen of Hungary. By now the family have at least 5 great houses 4 in Smyrna and 1 in Sevdiköy with farm lands, now Gaziemir in south east Izmir, and several surrounding the Dutch Embassy in Smyrna.

(pictured De Hochepied Residence Seydiköy) 

Most levantines left after 1922, some stayed, however it would appear that although the de Hochepied family lived some way out of Smyrna, (about 10Km SE in Sevdiköy now Gaziemir) allegedly, a band of marauding turkish robbers took advantage of the upheaval and attacked and burnt the house sparing nothing. The family now moved to a place in Buca (Boudja), a sub district of Izmir, where Count Edmond dies in 1929. His son, Danielle Jaques Edmond, now Count, and dutch Consul in Istanbul, spends time in various places then retires to end his days in 1972 with his 3rd partner Ruth Gretzler in Munich, Germany. However he is interred in a memorial in the catholic part of the Feriköy Cemetery in Istanbul along with his first wife and son both of whom predeceased him. The rest of the family retire to England, France and Holland.

The peak of the de Hochepieds influence was probably 100 years earlier, but now the family was drawing to a close and crumbling just like their houses and property, Apparently none left now. Danielles son Wilhelm known as Wimmy and the last of the line, never marries and dies relatively young before his father in 1956, and with him the end of the line of Counts.

A great books of these events in Smyrna in 1922 would be 'Paradise Lost' by Giles Milton. and 'Levant' by Philip Mansel.

[1]Daniël Jean DE HOCHEPIED, son of Johan Baptist DE HOCHEPIED and Geertruyd SPIEGEL, was born on 14 November 1657 in Zuiderkerk, Amsterdam, Holland. He was a Consul of the Nederlands in Smyrna. He had the title 'Created Baron by Léopold, 1st Emperor of Germany and Hungary in 1704'. He married Clara Catharina COLYEAR on 17 September 1679 in Constantinople, Turkey. He died on 10 November 1723 in Smyrna, Turkey. Clara Catharina COLYEAR, daughter of Justinus COLYEAR (1624?-1688?) and Marie ENGLEBERT (1628?-1688?), was born on 11 May 1662 in Gravenhage, Holland. She died on 13 August 1733 in Smyrna.


de Hochepied Ancestry  and Ancestry map

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