History & cultural landscape
At least it is known that he bought the Gräften- und Herrenhof Engstfeld near Halver from the von Plettenberg family together with a chamber councilor Kramer who had married into his family and who also worked in the weather department of the county.
Maria Magdalena Frowein comes from the bourgeois family of Engelbert Frowein (1616 – 1667) from Schwelm, which was very wealthy due to mining business to borrow more and more money from the Frowein family again and again. The moated castle Haus Martfeld came from the knightly noble family of Raitz von Frentz and came to the Stael von Holstein through marriage and subsequent inheritance.
“In 1659 (then had to) the heirs of Adolf Wilhelm Raitz von Frentz zu Martfeld (lease) the noble seat to Engelbert Frowein and his wife Maria Magdalena Schelkens…; they owned (by now on the moated castle) such extensive rights of lien that the heirs by knighthood hardly had any property rights.” Maria Magdalena von Ahlhausen nee Frowein thus also came into possession of the moated castle Haus Martfeld in Schwelm.
After the death of Heinrich Wilhelm von Ahlhausen, she moved there and married Wolfgang Friedrich Stael von Holstein (1646 – 1703) in 1684. "The groom is referred to as Herr zu Martfeld and Milspe, son of the deceased Robert Stael zu Steinhausen, co-lord zu Witten and the (husband of) Ursula Kunigunde Raitz von Frentz... (These) had brought the Martfeld house into the marriage, which (then ) was encumbered by her husband and the sons Franz Rudolf and Ferdinand Adrian Stael zu Holstein...."
Maria Magdalena Frowein "... lived in the house until her death in 1714, only after that her nephew was able to take possession of it again for the Stael von Holstein family .” “The tombstone in the hereditary burial of the Stael von Holstein in the Catholic Church of Schwelm states that she died on May 18th.” locks came into close contact.
Her second-born son from the first marriage to Heinrich Wilhelm von Ahlhausen, who also bore the name of his father Heinrich Wilhelm, "... married on February 12, 1698 as Alhaus von Ahlhausen on Martfeld Anna von Wenigern, daughter of the merchant Nikolaus von Wenigern zu Breckerfeld .” (Helbeck 1977/ Honselmann 1964) It can be assumed that these two then steered the fortunes of Schloss Ahlhausen on the threshold of the 18th century.
