Werner Adolph von Haxthausen (11 October 1744 â 23 April 1823) was a princely-episcopal Paderborn drost (bailiff/administrative governor) in the district of Lichtenau.
He was a grandfather and, like his mother-in-law Luise von Westphalen of Heidelbeck, a godparent of the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, who inherited his hunting whistle.
His father was Caspar Moritz von Haxthausen, and his mother was Christiane Theresia, Baroness von der Asseburg. Werner Adolph von Haxthausen first married Maria Anna von Westphalen of Heidelbeck (1754âÂÂ1772). Their daughter Maria Therese Luise (born 1772) became, through her marriage to Clemens-August II von Droste zu Hülshoff, the mother of the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Maria Anna (Marianne) â the poetâÂÂs biological grandmother â died early in 1772, so in 1773 Werner Adolph entered a second marriage with Maria Anna von Wendt of Papenhausen. Since this marriage produced 14 more children, it is referred to as the âÂÂlarge generationâ of the von Haxthausen family. His sons Werner von Haxthausen and August von Haxthausen, in particular, became well known as the center of the Bökendorf circle of Romanticists.
The painter Ludwig Emil Grimm described Werner Adolph as âÂÂa man of about eighty years, still vigorous, straightforward, sometimes even coarse; he had a true knightly physiognomy, a noble head, with a beautiful nose.â In 1820, Friedrich Eduard Beneke wrote: âÂÂThe old man is almost eighty years old, very lively, good-natured, a kind of old-French education combined with Low German simplicity, often very comically, very talkativeâ¦âÂÂ
Werner Adolph became known through the novella Die Judenbuche by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, which is considered part of world literature. His son, August Franz von Haxthausen, in 1818 wrote the historical basis for it: a story of a murder case in the Prince-Bishopric of Paderborn, written as âÂÂliterally true,â in which the Drost von Haxthausen acted as the presiding judge in 1782. Contrary to the literary depiction, Werner Adolph was not yet the Drost of the Paderborn district of Lichtenau in 1787. He officially took over the office only upon his fatherâÂÂs death on 19 April 1783. However, he had probably already been âÂÂadjunctedâ (assigned) to his father Caspar Moritz beforehand. The Drost referred to in the âÂÂoriginal JewâÂÂs Beechâ could also have been Werner Adolph.
The Paderborn Court and State Calendar lists him in 1787 as a chamberlain of the Electoral Palatinate. In 1794, he served as a deputy of the knighthood of the Prince-Bishopric.
Werner Adolph married Marianne von Westphalen of Heidelbeck in 1770 (born 1754, died 1772). The couple had one daughter:
After the death of his first wife, he married Maria Anna (Marianne) von Wendt of Papenhausen in 1773 (born 15 May 1755; died 24 September 1829). The couple had several children:
The sisters Anna, Ludowine, and Ferdinandine met in the so-called âÂÂBökendorf Fairy Tale Circle.â This circle was a source for the well-known fairy tale collection by the Brothers Grimm.