In the State of Hessen, between Witzenhausen and Münden, the Werra river crosses a wide valley, with fertile countryside and wealthy villages, surrounded by a woods-covered mountain range that forms, at least since the 6th and 7th centuries, a border between two German tribes. The lowsaxons came from the West and the North, the Thuringers, later integrated with the Francs of Hessen, from East and South. In this region we find the village of Bischhausen, near Witzenhausen. (1)

In the Middle Ages, the voyagers from Allendorf to Münden were forced to pass through this place, so it was just natural that a settlement grew up here, at a height that protected it from the circundating water and marsh. Later, a castle was built. When? We don’t know. The name of the village seems to indicate a bishop as founder, probably the archbishop of  Mainz, but it is also possible, that it only means that the taxation of the place went to the episcopal treasury. If we go back to the time of the evangelization of  the region, we see that the place cannot hold this name prior to the 8th century. St. Boniface was invested as bishop in 722 and as archbishop of Mainz in 748. It is probable, that Charlemagne referred to Bischoffshausen on the Werra, when he donated a whole village to the convent of Hersfeld: Biscofeshusun. In 1141 we found two Bischoffshausen on a transfer of titles of Markolf, archbishop of Mainz: “Bischoueshusen” and “Biscopeshusen”. The fact that Bischoffshausen was the see of an archpriest indicates a narrow relation with the church of Mainz. 

It is likely that the locations on the right side of the Werra river belonged to Low Saxony. The Duke Albrecht of Brunswick was made prisoner in the battle of Wettin (1263) and had to transfer to Hesse eight castles at the Werra bank to recover his liberty. It is not documented, but it is very probable that Bischoffshausen was one of them. The chronics mention Allendorf and Witzenhausen, without making a detailed mention of the others.

It is in this period of unrest when the known founder of the Bischoffshausen family, named on the village at the foot of the Badenstein, makes his appearance. The lineage is of low-saxon origin and comes from Alhusen, near Hoya, by the Weser river. The name of the knight was Willekin of Alhusen, mayor of the Duke Albrecht the Great of Brunswick. He administered the region of Oberwald (south of Hannover) with seat in Göttingen until 1264. Later on he was governor in Hannover and finally again in Göttingen. He already used the coat of arms with the eaglehead. His most relevant action was the capture of archbishop Gerhard I of Mainz. After this dignatary of the church had plundered the area of Friedland, he was defeated and taken prisoner by Willekin near Bollstedt, loaded with booty. Gerhard was maintained prisoner in Brunswick, until he had paid his rescue.

Willekin’s wife was a von Wohlendorf (place nearby Rethem), whose family was a branch of the extendend lineage von Nienburg. According to the usage of that time, their sons were named Heinrich von Nienburg, Segeband von Wohlendorf and Willekin von Alhusen. The last one was monk in the monastery of Loccum. From documents dated 1265 and later, we know that Willekin (I) sold his properties in Low Saxony. Since as early as 1291 we find his son Segeband established in Bischoffshausen, with properties important enough to impulse his descendents to adopt the name of the place, we can suppose that it was the intention of Willekin to migrate with his family to the Werra region that was under his administration.

Segeband married the daughter of Hermann IV of Uslar, lord of Gleichen, nearby Göttingen. The son of both is beeing mentioned in 1312 as Hermanus de Biscoppeshusen sive de Woldendorpe, but as from 1313 only as “de Biscoppeshusen”. He sold the last properties of his granfathers family in the North of Low Saxony. On September 12th of 1372, the brothers Segeband, Willekin and Hermann von “Bischofishusin”, sons of Hermanus and Sophie von Lülfshausen, together with Heinrich von Kreuzberg and the brothers Otto and Heinrich von Stockhausen, obtained the concession of the castle, for 35 marcs of silver. On September 13th of 1379 the concession was converted in an hereditary feudal right, awarded for loyalty defending militarily the rights of their lord.

There was reiterative warfare during several centuries. The Duke Otto the One-Eyed took and plundered the castle in 1411. Hermann, son of Hermann and grandson of Segeband, died 1422 in Duderstadt, as a prisoner of war. The disappearence of the village of Neuenrode, where the family acquired feudal rights in 1350, ratified in 1417 and extended in 1440 to Berge and Hebenshausen, is related to permanent feudal conflicts. The borders of the family’s fiefs where cause of frecuent rubbings with the house of Brunswick (later of Hannover) during the whole 16th century. The 30-year-war had specially disastrous consequences. The castle of Altenstein, bought by the family in 1438, was destroyed in the first years of the war. In July 1623 the whole region was devastated by the army of Tilly. Succesively, several armies crossed the area, plundering it. In 1632, a Croatian brigade took the mayors of Witzenhausen, Allendorf and Eschwege and Otto Wilke von Bischoffshausen as hostages, to obtain a recue of 30.000 “taler”. Otto died the same year, in prison. Other armies crossed the region between 1636 and 1640. The recovery of part of the properties, even devastated, was hard, slow and complicated. Hans Heimard von Bischoffshausen had to sell the castle of Altenstein and use his “peculium castrense” and the dowry of his two wives for this purpose. As from 1644 he brought in to Neuenrode his brother Adam Wilke. Adam Wilke had served as cavalry captain under the French flag, after the army of Bernhard of Weimar was absorbed by the French army. In Lorraine he married Claudine de Mousson and through their descendents the family lives on. Hans Heimard and Adam were sons of Otto Wilke and Margarethe von Butlar. Serious problems arouse between the widow and the sons of Adam Wilke and the family of the only daughter of Hans Heimard, once the brothers died, in 1660, related to the use of Neuenrode.

Adam Wilke and Claudine de Mousson had five sons and two daughters. One of the sons, Johann Esaias (his grandfather was Esaias de Mousson) was lieutenant colonel of the imperial army and had a distinguished participation in the liberation of Ofen (Budapest) from the Turcs, in 1686. He died in combat as commander of Widdin, Bulgaria, in 1690. Johann Kasper, another promising army officer, returned to Germany after two years in turkish captivity, and was murdered a short time later. The oldest one, Johann Philipp, was officer of the army of the Duke Friedrich of Brunswick-Hannover and later court marshall of the Duke Albrecht of Saxony-Coburg. He took residence in Neuenrode. Married to Sabine von Berlepsch, the family name continued through his son Ernst von Bischoffshausen.

With the time, the name of the village was deformed and reduced to Bischhausen, even when the name Bischoffshausen continued to be used in official documentation until the beginning of the 18th century, when the use of the shorted name became common also between members of the family. However, in certificates and document signatures the name continued appearing in his original form and as from late 18th century the family uses only the ancient name.

Ernst von Bischoffshausen studied at the University of Marburg and was court marshal and counselor at the court of Saxony-Meiningen. He was married to Julianne von May. His oldest son, Friedrich August von Bischoffshausen, officer of the army of Hessen, died young, but left five kids from his marriage to Dorothea Agnes Sophie von Graugreben. His two sons reached the rank of general in their military carriers, but died without descendents. Karl Ernst was major general and leaded a regiment of George III (king of England and Hannover) during the Independence War of the United States. Mordian Gustav was lieutenant general of Hessen and he was who rebuilt and brought to his highest splendor the residence of the family in Neuenrode. The youngest son of Ernst, Johann Adolf Ferdinand, is the ancestor of all the present members of the family. Major general of Hessen and marshal of the court of Kassel, he married Antoinette Philippine von Freudenberg. The son of both, Wilhelm von Bischoffshausen, was the father of  Karl (Mordian Karl) and Gustav (Gustav Karl), founders of the two big family branches.

Karl, lord of Bischoffshausen and Berge, was bruigade inspector of the British army and his descendence come fron his first marriage, to Elisabeth Bartlett (Southampton, 1805). His youngest son, August Ernst, emigrated to the United States and his descendents (not absolutely documented yet) live in Elizabeth, N.J., Blaine, WA, and other places in the U.S.A. One of them, Robert von Bischoffshausen, died in action in Vietnam in 1964, as American soldier.

One of his grandsons, Erich von Bischoffshausen, officer of the Prussian army, went to Chile with an official mission to restructure the chilean army at the end of the 19th century. Here, he married Hermine Lütjen, grand-daughter of Gustav, the younger brother of Karl. The youngest of his daughters, Luz von Bischoffshausen, died in Valparaiso, Chile, in December 1997, without descendents. Another grandson of Karl, Werner von Bischoffshausen, traveled to the United States. There he met and married a young German girl, staying for ever in the New World. A grandson of Werner, Bruce von Bishoffshausen, was shot down over Germany as USAF bomber pilot during WW2. Other descendents of Richard live still in Texas. The other living descendents of the restant seven sons of Karl live in several German cities: Berge, Giessen, Francfort/Main, etc.

Gustav, lord of Neuenrode and Hebenshausen, was married to Theodore von Wedemeyer. They had 9 children in 17 years of marriage, from which only a few survived up to adult age. After the death of Theodore, he married Elisabeth Friedrich. On June 26th, 1852 he embarked at Hamburg on the “Alfred” to emigrate to Valdivia, Chile,  with his second wife and the five children of his second marriage. He settled near Puerto Varas and died there 1860.

His oldest son from his first marriage, Gustav Franz, lord of Neuenrode, married to Sophie von Eschwege, emigrated also to Chile. He embarked on June 15th 1854 at Hamburg on the “Grasbrook” with wife and six children. He bought the property “Roble”, near Valdivia. Due to differences with his stepbrothers, he added a second “h” to the family name. For this reason, his descendents use the name “von Bischhoffshausen”. Today, there are eleven legitimate male descendents living in Chile, all grandsons, great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons of his son Jorge (Georg) von Bischhoffshausen, married in Osorno, Chile, to Ida Hubenthal. A younger brother of Georg, Ernst, served as officer in the Chilean army and died 1880 during the war against Peru and Bolivia. 

The second son of Gustav Karl, Julius von Bischoffshausen, lord of Hebenshausen, moved to the Austro-Ungarian Empire. Officer of the imperial-royal army, he married in Vienna to Maria von Schlutius and bought properties in Nagy-Bossany. After the death of his first wife, he married to Klothilde Baroness Zessner von Spitzenberg. One of his geat-grandsons, Hans Bischoffshausen (the use of the prefix “von” is legally prohibited in Austria), was one of the most wellknown Austrian contemporary painters. A great-granddaughter of Julius, Klothilde von Bischoffshausen, married to Martin Ilacqua, died 1998 in Australia. Another of his descendents, Werner von Bischoffshausen, lives in Kassel.

The families of the two sons of the second marriage of Gustav Karl developed mainly in Valparaiso, the descendents of George, and in the province of Llanquihue (South of Chile), the descendents of Ferdinand. From this branch, there are also von Bischoffshausen living in Australia (Horst von Bischoffshausen and his sons Carlos, Mauricio and Horacio) and in Peru (Juan Manuel, Otto, Gustavo, Jorge and Alfredo von Bischoffshausen and their children).
 

(1) Source: "Burgen, Schlösser und Herrensitze im Gebiete der unteren Werra – Heft 2" von Heinrich Lücke, Verlag von H. Lücke, Parensen (b. Nörten i.Hann.), 1924