The influx was so great in 1899 that on Thursdays a stable keeper came to the station in Staphorst with three wagons to drive the patients to ‘Westerd’. The business of ‘Het Staphorster Boertje’, by which self-chosen name he came to be known, went so well that he had a new house built near the station. The simple carpenter soon became a man in bonus. Winter toes, gallstones, prostate complaints, bedwetting, boils and much more. The Boertje had something against it. Stegeman also held consultation hours in Amsterdam, Leeuwarden, Sneek and other larger cities in our country. Everywhere hundreds of people came to him, seeking relief from all kinds of inconveniences. A kind of Klazien uut Zalk but a hundred years earlier.
Historian and former Staphorster Wim Coster is writing a book about his great-great-grandfather Peter Stegeman, also known as the Staphorster Boertje. He is looking for traces of this notoriety in the community
