The Cloeck/Kloek families have lived in the Netherlands for nearly a thousand years. It is not that the Netherlands as we know it today have existed a thousand years, but they are present on the territory, which is now part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, since 1052.
The full name of the first known Cloeck is even known, Guillaume Clouck. Together with two men, five women, and four children (all Cloucks) he is in Maastricht arranging his transport to Noviomagum (Nijmegen). This transport is by way of the river Meuse. For the time being this is the last we hear from them; some 200 years later they show up again.
Riquines Cloeck, born about 1290, marries a daughter of Riquines Ploech and Yzenbela van Palude in 1320. With this a second noteworthy Cloeck is known. About both Guillaume Clouck and Riquines Cloeck nothing else is known, only that Riquines is mentioned as citizen of Arnhem in 1358.

The first Cloeck to establish himself outside the Liemers is Johan Cloeck, son of Godert Cloeck and Aleid Spaen. He leaves for Kampen in 1416, where he laid the foundation of what was to be the Kloek bulwark in the Netherlands in the 21st century. An attempt was made to count his descendants, but it is impossible to even make a rough estimation, as too much information is lacking.
The second Cloeck to migrate from the Liemers is Hendrick Cloeck. Hendrick Cloeck laid the foundation for the Cloecks of the Amsterdam patriciate. The genealogy of Hoorn, after Overijssel / Gelderland the most extensive one, originates from Amsterdam. Thanks to these two Cloecks 70% of all the Kloeks known nowadays are registered.

The Cloecks in Amsterdam cause a furore, are co-founders of the VOC (United East India Company), are several times one of the “Heeren XVII” (Lords Seventeen, governers of the VOC), invested in the reclamation of the Beemster, and held numerous posts, usually as regents, aldermen or bailiffs. Pieter Janszoon Cloeck, a brother-in-law of Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (famous poet and playwright), has about 1615 the largest law practice of Amsterdam, and is a representative of the city of Amsterdam to prince William II.

The most notable Kloek is a Kloek of our times. Hendrikus Kloek, born 30 July 1900 in Hoorn, and son of Jacob Kloek and Gerritje van Kalken. He is the only one to deserve the title of Famous Kloek. In 1936 he sets up a salt trade; in the history of Amsterdam there were numerous soap and salt makers with the name of Cloeck, but they all had a capital of their own and relatives who could steer them through difficulties.

Hendrikus Kloek was a selfmade man, didn’t have a starting capital, and began an enterprise that could only succeed by means of an enormous perseverance, and an unbroken self-confidance. He extended his firm “Kloek-Zout” to a medium-sized enterprise, and was put to the test when the Germans occupied our country in 1940.

From the minutes taken during the three visits of Hendrikus Kloek to Seyss Inquart, Reichskommissar for Hitler in the Netherlands, it appears that he fought like a lion for his staff, and wanted them to be registered as indispensable for running his enterprise. He saved them from employment in the German war industry, and could keep his enterprise in operation all through the war, with the exception of the winter of 1944-1945.

Hendrikus Kloek died 9 May 1963 at the age of 62.