Jacques Bisseux, SV/PROG

According to Pieter Coertzen's book - he came from Picardie - arrived in Table Bay on ship VOSMAAR in Oct 1696, settled in Cape Town as a baker, married first Marie le Fevre (? -1700) [but this date contradicts the possibility that she was the Marie le Fevre, daughter of Paul le Fevre, who died on the ship in 1696 - Sharon] , and second - in 1700, Isabeaux Pochox (Elizabeth Posseaux). He had 5 sons and 2 daughters, 1 son having been born in Europe, and the other on board ship. [also contradicted by Boucher below. Sharon 2016] Coertzen, Pieter. 1988. Die Hugenote Van Suid Afrika 1688-1988: Cape Town, Tafelberg.

..Two of the five survivors among the Vosmaar's passengers were the baker Jacob Bisseux and his son Pierre, elder brother of the boy Paul who died on the voyage. Pierre Bisseux was christened in Middelburg on February 17, 1694 and Paul on November 26, 1695. The latter was thus less than a year old at the time of his death. A third brother, Jacob, was baptized in the Zeeland capital on January 7, 1691. Their mother was Marie Lefebvre. Was this the daughter of Paul Lefebvre and Marie Taillefert? It is possible, although she is not described as a married woman in the log of the Vosmaar. Bisseux remarried Elisabeth Pochox (Pochot) in 1700 and in the same year an inventory of the goods formerly owned by Marie Lefebvre was drawn up. If Bisseux ’s first wife survived the voyage, then there were two Marie Lefebvres on the Vosmaar.

Jacob Bisseux apparently entered the United Provinces by way of Lille. He was enrolled as a member of the Walloon church in Middelburg on August 21, 1689, but may first have abjured at The Hague two years previously. He came from Picardy, perhaps from Chery-les-Pouilly, north of Laon. A Jacob Bisseux is known to have fled from this village by 1686. His possessions came into the hands of Nicolas Hochet and others after his departure and it is evident that this refugee harvested wheat, a circumstance in keeping with his known trade. A Marie Bisseux from the nearby Guise district abjured at Haarlem early in 1687 and an Abraham Bisseux in the following year. The Haarlem congregation contained many refugees from Picardy. It is an interesting coincidence that the nineteenth-century Protestant minister Isaac Bisseux, born at Leme, near Vervins in the Aisne department of France on September 4, 1807, should have devoted his life to missionary activity in the Cape region of early French settlement with which his namesake and fellow-Picard was associated.

• Boucher.M (1981). French speakers at the Cape: The European Background. Pretoria, UNISA (Search, using the individual Chapter Name below, to download each as a pdf):
  • CHAPTER EIGHT Cape settlers IV: from Burgundy to Picardy pp226-228