Ida Ponts (February 12th, 1712 - January 29th 1744, Echt) was the eldest daughter of the knacker Mathijs Ponts from Hoensbroek and an alledged Bokkenrijder. She was convicted together with her husband in 1744.
Personal life
Ida Ponts was the eldest daughter of Mathijs Ponts (c. 1690) and Barbara Bemelmans (July 12th 1684), who got married on May 26th 1711. Ida was born just under 9 months later, likely on February 12th; that is the same day she was baptised. She has likely been named after her grandmother. Ida is oldest of nine children; together with her four younger brothers (Johannes, Peter, Hendrik, Matthias and Reiner) and three younger sisters (Gertrudis, Maria, Margaretha) she grows up in Hoensbroek in the Akerstraat. As young lady she earns her own living by working as a maid on farms. She has two children, but it is uncertain whether she has had them with her husband, or before the marriage. In Ramaekers & Pasing we read that they were a girl from around two years of age, and a boy of three months old. The girl is able to be raised until her 18th off the costs of the alderman's bench, and the boy ends up being persecuted as Bokkenrijder in a later trial. He is also known as Johannes Honoffs.
Ida's brothers become knackers like their dad, and she herself marries in 1741 at age 29 to an illegal knacker (a knacker without a licence): the nine year younger, named Johannes Honoffs, not be to confused with their later son. (Knackers families often married eachother.) They lived together in St. Joost, a village which belongs to Echt. Johannes is born around 1720 as son of Peter Honoffs and Anna Gertrude Ponts, also from a family of knackers. He has at least two brothers; Willem Honoffs and Hendrik Honoffs. In October he is arrested and under torture he names his own wife as suspect.
Ida's family also gets hit by the Bokkenrijdertrials. Her father, Mathijs Ponts, who had been arrested on April 10th 1743 as alledged leader, together with her brother Peter and sister Maria. All three were executed on November 12th 1743. Ida's brother Johannes becomes persecuted and hanged on August 14th the Rekem. Their brother Hendrik fled as of January 1743.
Arrest and trial
Ida gets arrested on October 18th 1743; her brother Johannes was dead by then and her father, brother Peter and her sister Maria had been captured for a few months at that point in Hoensbroek. On January 13, 18 and 20th she is interrogated under torture, and accuses almost fifty accomplices. They're primarily knackers, because the families knew eachother very well. On January 29th 1744 she is executed together with her husband Johannes in Echt, when she is only 31 years of age.
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