Information board Chapel Smuggling Route

On this board you can read the short history of the Elsakker domain and its chapel

Everyone can organize their thoughts, recall memories or commemorate something in the chapel.

Here you see the Sacred Heart Chapel in the Elsakker and a memorial stone in the chapel. This recalls the marriage between Lauwers and Dupret in 1920. The Elsakker domain forest dates back to the 16th century when it was part of the property of the Stift van Thorn (a monastic community in Dutch Limburg). The first steward of the area was Wouter van Elsakker, who was buried in the church of Meerle after his death in 1588. After the French invasion of 1794, the formal abolition in 1797 ended the abbey and principality of Thorn. Thorn was first annexed by France and after the Vienna Congress it became a municipality in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The domain De Elsakker came into the hands of Mr. Jan Petrus Eeltjens from Breda. He stayed in the villa along the Chaamseweg until his death in 1860. The estate passed to the Dupret-Bruggeman family from Brussels by inheritance. After the death of Mrs. Dupret in 1899, the property was divided. The Elsakkerbos and the villa along the Chaamseweg fell into the part of Mr. William Lauwers-Jeanne Dupret. Lauwers rebuilt the villa in 1904. The older generation of Meerle still talks about the villa and the estate of Lauwers.