Ouderkerk aan de Amstel / Amstelland / Aemstelle

A.J. van der Aa's Aardrijkskundig Woordenboek der Nederlanden, pt. 6 (1846: 678) mentions the finding of a baptismal font here; an excerpt from the book informs that a Jan Wagenaar had seen it with his own eyes in 1756 in the cemetery in Ouderkerk; the church was rebuilt from the ground up in the year 1756 along the south side, as it began to sink; on this occasion an ancient baptismal font of hewn gray stone, decorated in the front with the images of Apostles or Saints, was discovered in the ground; and some old coffins, being cut trunks of trees with round lids. I saw the baptismal font and one of the coffins fit for a child here on the eleventh June of the year 1766. Rev. Welle wrote in 1875: "Also then was found the original baptismal font. It was hewn of gray stone and decorated with the images of Apostles or Saints. What a landmark of the highest archaeological value! It was still kept here in the last half of the last century. Where has it gone? All the searches made by me have been in vain.” J.C. van der Loos's Kergeschiedenis van Amstelland, in Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis van het Bisdom van Haarlem (1912: 410) reports a lost baptismal font in the church of Ouderkerk in Amstelland (old name Aemstelle). The above sources/references were provided by Pol Herman in a communication to BSI (e-mail of 31 January 2022), who is continuing in his investigations. None of the sources include or suggest a dating for the elusive font decorated with figures of the Apostles.