1Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
2Census, Federal - 1870 - Mower Co., MN, town of Racine, Ancestry p.4 of 14, 4 Jun 1870. "Dwelling # 59 Family # 59
Zimmerman, Peter age 27 farmer RE=$3000 PE=$200 b. Canada
Catherine 25 Can
Anna 1 MN
Elizabeth 60 Hesse Darmstadt."3Anna Zimmerman Nelson, History of Christian and Elizabeth Zimmerman, updated, pages 32-40 of the Zimmerman History Packet received by DZStevens from J Rose on 26 Feb 2005. "This next section is an updating of the work of Anna Zimmerman Nelson, and shared with us by Fern Zimmerman of Santa Ana, California.
During the year 1832, there came into the affairs of Christian Zimmerman a simple little circumstance which changed the course of his whole life.
One Sunday afternoon, Christian and his younger brother, Henry, were sitting on a fence not far from their home, when a group of young men about their own age joined them. These young men were discussing the fact that the English Sovereign was giving away one hundred acres of land in Canada to anyone who would go there and live on it. This looked like a wonderful opportunity to these boys who worked for a few cents a day, or perhaps received only thirty dollars for a whole years work, out of which they had to furnish their own clothes, which were made by hand. It was not an unusual thing during the busy season for these boys to rise at three o'clock in the morning and thresh grain with a flail until late at night. So the Sovereign's offer of one hundred acres of land brought forth quite a discussion. Some contended that here there really might be a great opportunity. Others thought that the hardships to be endured were too great. The long and perilous journey to the new world was in itself considered dangerous, and if the trip were made successfully, the hardships to be endured after arrival were almost unsurmountable. Were there not great risks from sickness and hunger; from wild beasts and uncivilized people? So the discussion went on. The majority thought that they would like to avail themselves of this opportunity, if it were closer at hand; but that under the cir cumstances, the adventure to secure it was attended with too much sacrifice and danger. Christian was very much interested in this offer of the English Government, and finally decided that it was an opportunity which he must seize, and he made up his mind that he would go to Canada and have one of those farms. He realized that in Germany the opportunities of ever having a home of his own were not very good. Many of his friends tried to discourage him by telling him that rattle snakes and bears would kill him, and that he would never make the journey safely. The ocean voyage had to be made in sail ships at that time, and it took from six to fourteen weeks to come across the ocean. Christian could not be discouraged or turned from his purpose, and in due time made the journey.
Christian Zimmerman was born in 1800, so he was thirty-two years of age when he came to Canada and settled at Sebringsville, Ontario, Canada. His brother, Henry, came in 1837. Christian had his hundred acre farm.
The hundred acre plots were laid out in long narrow strips so that each farm would touch the highway. Christian's plot was one-fourth mile east of the present village of Sebringsville, on the south side of the road. The Buffalo and Lake Erie Railroad ran across the farm in later-. years. The old log house stood about ten rods away from the highway. When Henry came, he took a farm about fifty miles farther up the railroad.
Modes of communication and travel were difficult in those days, and it was a very easy matter to get out of touch with one's relatives. Although Henry lived only fifty miles from Christian, we know very little about his family. We do know that Henry came quite frequently to visit Christian and his family, even after Christian's death. Henry was a cabinet maker by trade, and during the long I winters he made such furniture as he could use or sell. He made a very wonderful bureau with secret drawers for keeping his money. Banks were not much used in those days, hiding places for money were always in demand. In some way or other this piece of furniture came into the possession of. Christian's son, Henry. Henry also had a table made by his uncle, Henry. It was a wonderful piece of work, and took the prize at a provincial fair or show.
We know that Christian's brother had a family. There was a boy named Dan who was a very fine penman, which was quite an accomplishment in those days'. There were also several daughters in the family.
Another person important to our family who came to Canada in 1832 was Elizabeth Knoll. Her home, Rolland discovered, was about four houses from the Zimmerman home. Whether the decision to come to Canada was mutual, or whether, as Anna Nelson recalled, their friendship on the long trip was the inspiration for their later marriage, we will never know.
Elizabeth's father had died and left the mother with a family to raise. Elizabeth had the same dream that many early colonists brought
to America ... that this was a land where one could get rich quickly and
then return home and make the lives of their loved ones easier. She
was determined to come to Canada. Her mother was very opposed to this
idea. She feared she would never see her child again. Elizabeth told
her Mother not to feel badly, that she would soon be back with a nice
little fortune to help her fatherless family. But she never went back.
Her
mother and grandmother lived to be very old, both reaching the, ripe old
age of about ninety years.In later years, she often spoke to her children about her brother, Philip,who seemed to have been an exceedingly clever and successful man. Her mother and Grandmother lived to be very old, both reaching the ripe old age of about ninety years.
Elizabeth and Christian complied with the custom of those days which was that a wedding must be announced for three successive Sundays in the church before the young people could be married. They were devoted to each other, and their wedded life was exceedingly happy. Elizabeth was a great help to her husband, not only in making a happy home for him, but also in clearing the timber from the land. She helped him pile and burn brush, and sometimes get the logs off the land. She did whatever else there was to do that a woman could do. She was always well, happy and busy, being of the industrious type of woman. She was of medium size and weight, with slightly rounded shoulders. In her later years, she became decidedly round-shouldered. Her eyes were very dark blue, and her hair a very dark brown, almost black. Her hair never turned gray, even in her last days.
Christian had brown eyes, dark hair, and very pretty rosy cheeks with a nice clear complexion, better than many women have. He was not skinny, but was a slender man of medium height and weight.
They were both devoted Christians, and had a simple, beautiful faith in God, similar to that of other Christian people-of their time. One Sundays during a heavy storm, the wind was beating the rain into the barn where the freshly threshed grain was lying. Elizabeth, after watching the storm for awhile, suggested that they had better go out and try to keep the grain dry, but Christian thought that they ought not to break God's Sabbath by doing manual labor, and suggested that God knew-that they needed the grain, and if He wished them to have it, He would save the crop without their breaking His Holy Sabbath Day. In Germany they were Lutherans, but in Canada they joined the German Evangelical Church, and in this church they trained their children in Christian living and in the doctrines of religion. All their children joined the church and led Christian lives, probably much above average.
Christian was not a very good sportsman, not having had an opportunity for such things in his youth. In Europe, this privilege was reserved for the wealthy landlords. But in Canada there was an abundance of deer for all, and other wild game was very plentiful. He seldom shot anything, even if the deer such such on his garden. One day a big deer came into the yard, and with an old, rusty gun, Christian shot it. But the gun gave him such a kick, and he felt so badly as he saw the beautiful animal lying dead before him, that he never tried shooting again.
Elizabeth and Christian built a log cabin on their place. It had two windows, and on one side an addition which they used for a summer cookhouse. This was their happy home. In the winter they would clear the land of brush and timber, and in the summer they would raise their crops. After the grain was hauled into the barn and threshed, Christian would spend an hour or two daily during the Fall throwing grain to remove the chaff.
Some years later they sold two acres of their farm, one acre for the erection of a blacksmith shop, and the other to build a tailor shop on. Then a school house was built across from the little log house and a short distance down the road. The little village of Sebringsville grew up about a quarter of a mile from the school house.
Elizabeth and Christian had a family of five boys and two girls. Henry, the oldest boy, married Mary Krusp. Adam, the second son, married Eve Hopp, and for his second wife, Elizabeth Britzius. Peter, the third boy, married 'Katherine Rhiel. Christian, the fourth boy, married Louise Nolde. Philip, who was the youngest of the family, married Ernestine Krause. Katherine, the oldest girl, married George Hopp. The younger daughter, Elizabeth (Betsie), married Christ Regal. Adam and Katherine both married into the same Hopp family and had a double wedding at Preston, Minnesota. Betsie died at the birth of her first child, the child dying, also. Philip was the youngest of the family. He was born January 10, 1851. That spring when the plum trees were in bloom, which must have been in May or June, his father died. Christian was only about 48 years old. For almost a week lie had been busy building a dam which had necessitated his standing in cold water and mud most of the time while he was at his work. This brought about his death. He was sick only three or four days. lie was buried in the Sebringsville Cemetery with a wooden tombstone on the grave, but now the exact spot of the grave is not known. Around 1890, the old cemetery, which was back of the Sebringsville church, was moved to higher ground because the graves filled with water. Such graves as had no one interested in them were abandoned. There were no relatives of Christian living there when this was done, so those who might have been interested did not even learn of the change until long after it had been made. So the body was never moved, but lies somewhere in the old cemetery which has been abandoned. Who knows, but it may also be petrified. It is an interesting fact that of the bodies moved, three or four were found to be perfectly petrified, which often happens when bodies are buried in low ground. At the time of Christian's death, the older boys were fourteen and thirteen, and Philip was only five or six months old. Very sad and lonely hours followed 'the break-up of the once so happy home.
The church formed a council of which a man by the name of John Kastner was one of the leaders. The council decided that most of tile property should go to the oldest boy, Henry, which was an English custom, and that the other boys should help Henry until they were sixteen, and go to school six months out of every year. But Henry was too young to understand and manage family affairs properly, and one of the results was that the boys had very little opportunity for education. Philip went to school only about three months out of the year, and after he was thirteen never attended school again. lie was anxious for an education, and seemed to realize its value, but he was too timid to insist that he be given the opportunity.
For more than twenty years, that school was conducted by a Mr. Hamilton. He was a school master of the old type, who did not believe in spoiling the child by sparing the rod. In the home, too, children were punished most severely, sometimes at very slight provocation. Philip has told of how a lamp chimney was broken in some way, and someone thought he could have prevented it if he had been watching the children more carefully, so he had to be whipped. Thirty-nine strokes was the punishment.
An inheritance came for Elizabeth from the old country, but a man by the name of Henry Zimmerman, no relative at all and who had no right to it whatsoever, succeeded in getting it away from her.
For a number of years, until Henry, the oldest boy, was ready to marry, the mother and family carried on the work of the farm together--.She built a large wooden barn, and made a few other improvements. Elizabeth had a little cow, "Daisy", that she kept for twenty-two years. Eventually Henry lost the family farm. In later years, he became successful in the business of selling honey.
Peter Zimmerman and his brother Christ, came to Minnesota after the Civil War ended in 1865. They worked in a shingle mill all summer in Stillwater, Minnesota. Each earned about $14.00 a week, and Peter saved about $1,000. The next spring, they went to Stillwater again, but the river was too high to work at the shingle mill, so the brothers came to Preston and found work there. Because he was afraid he would be robbed, Peter pretended to be poor, and worked his way down the Mississippi on a boat, and left the river at Winona.
Peter was a serious, quiet man with dark hair, a sandy mustache, and intense deep gray eyes. He was very proficient in reading and writing the German language, but sometimes had difficulty with English. He wanted his family to use the German language at home, but Catherine thought that this would be wrong, as they were Americans now.
Christ decided to go west and pan for gold in Montana, where he earned $7.00 or $8.00 a day. Later, during the gold rush, he moved on to Oregon. Finally, he went back to Canada where he married Louise Nolte and settled on a farm. In later years, he operated a prune orchard.
Peter stayed in Minnesota where he bought 160 acres of land in Racine township of Mower County. It was the last section to be cleared, and he paid twice as much for it as others had paid for the land around it. At the same time, he could have bought land where St. Paul now
stands for less than half of what he paid for the land he chose. He
built a three-room house with a kitchen, bedroom and a pantry. Later,
when he was courting Catherine Rhiel, he walked twenty-five miles to
Preston to see her. Another time he borrowed a buggy from old man
Felch to make the trip. Catherine had come from Canada when she was.
twenty-one, and stayed with her half-sister, Mary Long.
Peter and Catherine were married January 14, 1868, and lived in the frame house near Racine. The first winter, Catherine was so homesick that she rode to Preston in a bobsled, sitting on a box. She stayed a week and then was ready to come home.
They had six children, all born at Racine. Anna married Sam Anstett, divorced, and moved to North Dakota. George died when he was eleven. Margaret Lydia married Julius Krause, and they went to California. John William married Zora Haas, and they remained on the farm at Racine. Matilda married William Hunnerkoch of Red Wood Falls, Minnesota, and they moved to Montana. Ida (Katie) married Roy Drummond, and they lived in Austin, Minnesota.
In Canada, after Henry was married, he built a brick house for himself, but his mother continued to live in the old house. Some time later Henry sold the place to a Mr. Strasser, and then Elizabeth came to Minnesota to live with others of her children. She always grieved because 11 Henry did not succeed as well on the old place as she thought lie should have. Whatever property she may have had was lost in some way through Henry's mismanagement.
When Philip was fourteen years old, Henry, being in need of money, advised Philip to work for someone who would pay him a salary. So it came about that he was employed by an old Scotchman for six months for ten dollars a month and board and room. When the six months were up, the Scotchman paid him the salary in silver dollars. Philip carried those sixty silver dollars home six miles to Henry, who gave him seventyfive cents out of it for spending money. This was the first spending money Philip had ever had, and the first thing he bought was a comb for himself, thinking how fine it would be to have one all his very own. Then, as most boys would have done, he bought a jack-knife, and with the money he had left, lie bought a candy treat for his brothers. He was badly in need of a suit of clothes at this time, so that he could go to church and Sunday School, but that seems to have been out of the question. Adam, who was next younger than Henry, and who was now living in theUnited States at Preston, Minnesota, made a visit to Canada about this time. When he returned to the states, he brought Philip with him.
Elizabeth lived with her children in Minnesota until her death, October 18, 1888, at the Adam Zimmerman home three or four miles north of Preston. She was ill only a very short time. Early in the evening of October 18, when asked how she felt and whether she would have any supper, she replied that she did not need any supper, and that by ten o'clock she would be gone to her home in Heaven. Adam's family thought she was delirious, but really not seriously ill. Just before ten o'clock that evening, she passed quietly and peacefully away. No one realized she was going until she was gone. Then they remembered that she had said she would be gone by ten o'clock. She was 78 years and 9 months old. She is buried in the Preston cemetery, with services being held at the German Evangelical Church.
Elizabeth had a certain strain of severity in her nature which, occasionally when conditions were right, showed itself. She was a fine disciplinarian and seemed to understand human nature better than most people. She was very tidy about her person, and her room, and was quite saving. She was always fair in her dealings with her fellow-man, but she also expected them to be fair with her. She disliked pictures and statuary very. much, and used to say, "ach solcha gotza" (Oh, such idols!) To her, they suggested images, and made her think of idolatry, which was considered a sin. This probably is the reason that we have only one photograph of her, and none of her husband. She was always glad to help along any good cause, but always had so little money to spend. Something always happened to her property because of Henry's mismanagement. She said she did not care much for money for her own use, but that she would
like to have had money so that she might give to the church, and help the poor, and give wherever there was a need. She loved to go to church, but it hurt her not to have more to give.
Hers was a beautiful life of hardship, sorrow and trials, culminating in a great and glorious victory, and how can we know but that the discipline of this lower life perfected her, and made her ready for that higher service above.
"A home in Heaven; what a joyful thought
As the poor man toils in his weary lot,
His heart oppressed, and with anguish drives
From his home below to his home in Heaven."
When Rolland was in Germany in 1983, he found the church records which gave accurate facts of the early history, and these have been used.". "Peter was a serious, quiet man with dark hair, a sandy mustache, and intense deep gray eyes. He was very proficient in reading and writing the German language, but sometimes had difficulty with English. He wanted his family to use the German language at home, but Catherine thought that this would be wrong, as they were Americans now.
Christ decided to go west and pan for gold in Montana, where he earned $7.00 or $8.00 a day. Later, during the gold rush, he moved on to Oregon. Finally, he went back to Canada where he married Louise Nolte and settled on a farm. In later years, he operated a prune orchard.
Peter stayed in Minnesota where he bought 160 acres of land in Racine township of Mower County. It was the last section to be cleared, and he paid twice as much for it as others had paid for the land around it. At the same time, he could have bought land where St. Paul now
stands for less than half of what he paid for the land he chose. He
built a three-room house with a kitchen, bedroom and a pantry. Later,
when he was courting Catherine Rhiel, he walked twenty-five miles to
Preston to see her. Another time he borrowed a buggy from old man
Felch to make the trip. Catherine had come from Canada when she was.
twenty-one, and stayed with her half-sister, Mary Long.
Peter and Catherine were married January 14, 1868, and lived in the frame house near Racine. The first winter, Catherine was so homesick that she rode to Preston in a bobsled, sitting on a box. She stayed a week and then was ready to come home.
They had six children, all born at Racine. Anna married Sam Anstett, divorced, and moved to North Dakota. George died when he was eleven. Margaret Lydia married Julius Krause, and they went to California. John William married Zora Haas, and they remained on the farm at Racine. Matilda married William Hunnerkoch of Red Wood Falls, Minnesota, and they moved to Montana. Ida (Katie) married Roy Drummond, and they lived in Austin, Minnesota."4Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), ch. 3; pp. 12 &13, Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission. "Peter Zimmerman and his brother Christ, came to Minnesota after the Civil War ended in 1865. They worked in a shingle mill all summer in Stillwater, Minnesota. Each earned about $14.00 a week, and Peter saved about $1,000. The next spring, they went to Stillwater again, but the river was too high to work at the shingle mill, so the brothers came to Preston and found work there. Because he was afraid he would be robbed, Peter pretended to be poor, and worked his way down the Mississippi on a boat, and left the river at Winona
Peter Zimmerman, my father's third brother, lived near Racine. Minnesota on a farm, but died
while he was yet in the prime of life, with cancer of the large intestine. He left a wife and family of five
children; four girls and one boy."5Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Ch 6; p. 5. "Many changes have coma into the Peter Zimmerman family in these last twenty years. Peter was
married to Katherine Rhiel. After Peter's death Katherine and her only son, John, who was in his teens at
the time of his father's death, carried on the work of the farm for a while. Then the son married Zora
Haas, and took over the farm with its beautiful home. Katherine died in 1902. Now at the time of this
writing the son, John Zimmerman is an elderly man. His wife has been dead for some time. He has sold
the old home and lives in Rochester, Minnesota. His daughter Ruth, who is an instructor in art in
Rochester, lives with him. He has three boys. Rolland, the oldest, is the twin brother of Ruth, and has a
very nice farm near Racine, Minnesota. Vernon is a biology instructor at Appleton High School,
Wisconsin. Lloyd, the youngest, is also a farmer and has a farm near Racine, Minnesota. John himself
has retired from active farm work."6Census, Federal 1880, Racine, Mower, Minnesota. "Name: Peter Zimmerman
[Pieter Zimmerman]
[Pieter]
Age: 36
Birth Year: abt 1844
Birthplace: Canada
Home in 1880: Racine, Mower, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Kate
Father's Birthplace: Hesse
Mother's Birthplace: Hesse
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Cannot read/write:
Blind:
Deaf and dumb:
Otherwise disabled:
Idiotic or insane:
View Image
Household Members: Name Age
Pieter Zimmerman 36
Kate Zimmerman 35
Anna Zimmerman 10
George Zimmerman 9
Lydia Zimmerman 7
John Zimmerman 3
Matilda Zimmerman 1."7Ancestry.com.
8Ancestry.com, kdallenpr family tree - obituary. "#1 Obituary
Died at his home, Mr. Peter Zimmermann, aged 50 years, 6 months and 4 days. Mr. Zimmerman was one of our early and most respected citizens, and a hard worker until about three years ago, when his health failed him, and although he suffered much he complained not. He leaves a wife and five children, many friends and neighbors, to mourn his loss. He was a member of the Evangelical Church and a zealous worker. Funeral servicee were conducted by Rev. Schmids and Rev. Goetz. We sympathize deeply with the family in their sort affliction.
#2 Obituary
Mr. Peter Zimmerman, brother of Mr. Phillipp Zimmerman, aged 51 years, and a native of Canada, died on Tuesday morning, February 16, of cancer of the bowels. Mr. Zimmerman was an upright citizen, an excellent neighbor and friend, and has lived in Racine for many years. The funeral took place in the Evangelical Church of which he was a member, on Thursday at 10 o'clock, Rev. G. B. Goetz officiating." spelling errors are as in original.
1Ancestry.com. Source did not want to be listed.
2Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
3Census, Federal - 1870 - Mower Co., MN, town of Racine, Ancestry p.4 of 14. "Dwelling # 59 Family # 59
Zimmerman, Peter age 27 farmer RE=$3000 PE=$200 b. Canada
Catherine 25 Can
Anna 1 MN
Elizabeth 60 Hesse Darmstadt."4Obituary, 28 May 1902. "28 May 1902
Catharine Zimmerman was born Nov. 9, 1844 at Sebringville, Canada. At 21 years of age she came to Preston, Minn., and the following year was married to Peter Zimmerman; they located at Racine, Minn., where she lived until her death, May 28, 1902. Sister Zimmerman lived a consistent Christian life, and was a loving wife and mother, a devoted member of our Church, and requested that $100 of her estate be given to the Orphan Home and the cause of missions. Eight weeks ago she was stricken of diabetes. She suffered very much, but bore it patiently until her peaceful end at the age of 57 y., 6 m. and 16 d. She leaves 1 son, 4 daughters, 4 grandchildren, 4 brothers, 3 sisters and others. One son and her husband preceded her to that better world, the latter eight years ago. The funeral was held by the writer who was assisted by Rev. A. Geyman from Preston, and by Bro. H. O. Harbough of the M. E. Church.
F. H. Draeger." Posted on the Ancetry.com family tree of kdallenpr.
1Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission.
2Census, Federal 1880, Racine, Mower, Minnesota.
1Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
2Census, Federal - 1880 - Island, Washington Terr., Whidby & Camain Islands, ED # 37, p.14 of 23, 12 Jun 1880. "Cris" is head logger at a logging camp on Whidby & Camain Islands, Washington. His nephew, John Hopp is in his unit.
3George S. Zimmerman, Biography of Christian Zimmerman, written 1974-75, privately circulated. "The following story was written by Christian's son George:
Biography of Christian Zimmerman, brother of Peter Zimmerman
by George S. Zimmerman written at age 90, 1974, 1975
This story begins in spring of 1868, when father was 20 years old. He had been
working in Minneapolis, Minnesota in flour mill and woolen mill during winter
1867-1868. He wanted to go west so traveled down Mississippi River to mouth of
Missouri River. Voyage was by boat . As money was scarce with him, he took job
on river boat going up Missouri River to Fort Benton Montana. One of his jobs
was to load wood into boats boilers.
As they neared Fort Benton at a wood loading dock, he saw where a white man
delivering wood on steamboat dock, was murdered and scalped. His clothes were
stolen from his body and he was left laying by the wood dock.
At Fort Benton he took a job driving a team of mules hauling freight to
Helena, Montana. This was the winter of 1868-69. This was a bitter cold job and
he suffered greatly.
In the spring of 1869 or 1870 he quit the teamster job at Helena. He met a
man by the nane of Thomas Cruse. They took up a mining claim together and
started working it at Nelson Creek.
This was a very lawless country. Father never carried a gun in his entire life.
They worked this claim together. At night thieves would come and rob sluice
boxes. There was lots of gun play around. Father was used to this rough life.
But one morning he had had enough. He rolled up his blankets and started West.
He left everything to his partner, Thomas Cruse. He never went back or
remained in contact with Mr. Cruse.
After six months or a year, he learned that Thomas Cruse had struck it rich.
He had quit the country for good and never regretted it. Lawlessness was
everywhere. Would he be the next one to be scalped, or murdered by white men if
he tried to protect his property at night. Before he left, he never signed any
release papers with Thomas Cruse for his half of original claim.
He traveled westward, working his way an opportunity afforded. He landed in
Palouse country of South East Washington at harvest time. After Harvest, he
worked his way down the Columbia River basin to Portland, Oregon. Just how long
it took him, we have no record. How long he stayed in Portland and later the
Mt. St. Helens area, we have no record.
It was a rainy, cold winter and he took down with chills and fever. In Portland
he met a man who advised him to go to Puget Sound country around Tacoma or
Seattle. The chills and fever left him in this salt water country.
The first winter he and his partner fished for salmon and packed them in salt
for boats that came into Seattle Harbor. How long he worked at this, I do not
know.
The next record we have, he and another partner went up into Canada's Peace
River Country and took up a mining claim. Just how well he fared there is not
known.
When I (George Zimmerman) was quite a small boy, I remember we had a
teacup 1/3 full of gold nuggets from this undertaking.
He then returned to Puget Sound and secured work in a logging camp on Whidby
Island getting out logs for California bound log rafts. The company for
which he was working went bankrupt and for his accumulated wages he took
title to 40 acres of timber believed to have been on Vashon Island. He
worked long enough in the timber industry to learn business. Logging was
done by ox team. He went out and purchased 3 or 4 yoke of oxen and was
in the logging business.
We have his old time book which indicates he began logging June 12th
1877. We also have his old legal records that show he purchased a lot at
Third and Bell Streets in Seattle and kept it until he had moved to
Yamhill, Oregon during 1887. This land is now part of the Seattle Center
Worlds Fair Complex.
The 1880 U.S. Census show Zimmerman Logging Company with 12 people
working. It shows fathers age as 31. The census also shows a Chinese Cook
and Oilers.
He left to go up Missouri River in 1868 and logging in 1877. These 9
years are very sketchy, and few positive dates can be set.
In 1910 he sold the family farm 2 miles North of Yamhill Oregon to me. He
then built a new house on a hill just to the North of this farm, that he
had purchased in 1887 from the John J. Burton Estate, the original
homesteading family of this land.
In 1929 a man stopped at Zimmerman Bros. Elevator on Railroad East of
Yamhill where my brother, Edward Zimmerman was working. He said his name
was William A. Jackson and be had lived in Helena, Montana. He wanted to
know if the Zimmermans here had been in Helena, Montana in the very early
days. He said in 1914 there was a suit to clear title of land held by Thomas
Cruse in Partnership with Christian Zimmerman who could not be located,
and was presumed dead.
My brother Ed took the man home and fed him, for Mr. Jackson was down on
his luck. Ed then asked his father if he had ever been in Partnership
with Thomas Cruse in Helena, Montana. Yes he had been a partner and the
strike that made Thomas Cruse a Multi-Millionare was made after Father
had left.
Christian Zimmerman had never told his four sons of his life in Montana
until this time in 1929. He had never contacted Thomas Cruse. He never
realized that for years he still owned a share in a very large mining
operation near Helena, Montana.
My Father, Christian Zimmerman died August, 1934 at Yamhill Oregon." p. 5&6 of Zimmerman Family History Packet received 26 Feb 2005.4Gordon N. Zimmerman, Song of Yamhill, Binford & Mort Publishing, 2005; Library of Congress # 2005007854, p. 8 - 11.
5Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission. "Peter Zimmerman and his brother Christ, came to Minnesota after the Civil War ended in 1865. They worked in a shingle mill all summer in Stillwater, Minnesota. Each earned about $14.00 a week, and Peter saved about $1,000. The next spring, they went to Stillwater again, but the river was too high to work at the shingle mill, so the brothers came to Preston and found work there. Because he was afraid he would be robbed, Peter pretended to be poor, and worked his way down the Mississippi on a boat, and left the river at Winona...
Christ decided to go west and pan for gold in Montana, where he earned $7.00 or $8.00 a day. Later, during the gold rush, he moved on to Oregon. Finally, he went back to Canada where he married Louise Nolte and settled on a farm. In later years, he operated a prune orchard."6Census, Federal 1900. "Line 10 Dwelling # 71 Family # 71 Farm # 5 Owned
Zimmerman, Christ head b. Aug 1848 age 51 m18 yrs Can(FR) Ger Ger nat. 1866 citizen 34 yrs OCC: Farmer
Louise N. wife Apr 1857 43 18 Can (Fr) Can Can 1884 16 7 chil b/4 liivng
Frank B son Feb 1883 17 Can(Fr) Can Can 1884 16
Samuel G son Feb 1885 15 OR Can Can
Christ P son Aug 1886 13 OR Can Can
Edward son Jun 1891 9 OR Can Can."7Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #1. received from J. Rose 18 Feb 2005.
8Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #1.
9Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #1.
10Julie post on website dianneandpaul.net , 18 Feb 2005. "Perth Co. 1882 Marriages - p. 10 of 11
9441-82 Christian Zimmerman, 33, farmer, Ontario, Washington Territory, USA, s/o Christian & Elizabeth, married Sophia Louisa Nolte, 34, Ellice twsp., same, d/o George & Louisa, witn: Daniel Zimmerman of Gore of Downie & Maria Zimmerman of Minn. USA, 30 March 1882 at Ellice."11Rec'd from J. Rose - 18 Feb 2005, Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #3. "Perth Co. 1882 Marriages - p. 10 of 11
9441-82 Christian Zimmerman, 33, farmer, Ontario, Washington Territory, USA, s/o Christian & Elizabeth, married Sophia Louisa Nolte, 34, Ellice twsp., same, d/o George & Louisa, witn: Daniel Zimmerman of Gore of Downie & Maria Zimmerman of Minn. USA, 30 March 1882 at Ellice."
1Gordon N. Zimmerman, Song of Yamhill, Binford & Mort Publishing, 2005; Library of Congress # 2005007854, p. 9.
2Census, Federal 1900, North Yamhill, Yamhill, Oregon, ED # 169; p. 4. "Line 10 Dwelling # 71 Family # 71 Farm # 5 Owned
Zimmerman, Christ head b. Aug 1848 age 51 m18 yrs Can(FR) Ger Ger nat. 1866 citizen 34 yrs OCC: Farmer
Louise N. wife Apr 1857 43 18 Can (Fr) Can Can 1884 16 7 chil b/4 liivng
Frank B son Feb 1883 17 Can(Fr) Can Can 1884 16
Samuel G son Feb 1885 15 OR Can Can
Christ P son Aug 1886 13 OR Can Can
Edward son Jun 1891 9 OR Can Can."3Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #1. received from J. Rose 18 Feb 2005.
4Gordon N. Zimmerman correspondence, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. "December 15, 2007
Dear Dianne
One time you asked me about the story given to me by Rolland Zimmerman. He stated that he had a letter written by Anna Zimmerman in 1905. It stated Johann Christian came to Canada in 1834 from Altheim, Germany. No state was given. It stated their town had a church with a very high steeple. Rolland wrote to the central Lutheran church in Germany and asked what Lutheran church in (a town named Altheim) in Germany had a very high steeple in 1834. He got a reply back that there were three (such) churches with a very high steeple in 1834,
With this information Rolland went to Germany and visited the first two on the list. (In) these two Altheims in different states no Zimmermans could be found. He then hired another interpreter and went to Altheim in the state of Hessen. There was a note on the parrish door saying (the pastor) would be back in one hour. So Rolland went to the town cemetery. He found Zimmermans all over the cemetery. He went back to the parrish house and was told by the young pastor that there were no Zimmermans that were attending church there at that time. Rolland told him about all the Zimmermans in the cemetery. (The pastor) advised he had only been there a short time and the name was unfamilair to him.
Rolland and his interpreter were crestfallen. All the time and money he had spent on this project were for nothing. Just as he got to the front gate of the little yard a car drove up. It was the former pastor. When he was asked if there had ever been any Zimmermans in that church Rolland said (the pastor) replied, "Zimmermans - you have eight to ten women in this church that were grbornen Zimmermans, probably more than any other family if you go back a few generations." This is probably as so many male children were killed in the war.
I was in Altheim in 1985. I visited the church and was entertained in the home of Johan Christian and Elizabeth Knoll, two doors up the street. I will never forget that day.
...
Gordon Zimmerman.". Gordon gave the birth year for Louisa 1857.
From correspondence received 21 Nov 2005.5Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #1.
6Julie post on website dianneandpaul.net , 18 Feb 2005. "Perth Co. 1882 Marriages - p. 10 of 11
9441-82 Christian Zimmerman, 33, farmer, Ontario, Washington Territory, USA, s/o Christian & Elizabeth, married Sophia Louisa Nolte, 34, Ellice twsp., same, d/o George & Louisa, witn: Daniel Zimmerman of Gore of Downie & Maria Zimmerman of Minn. USA, 30 March 1882 at Ellice."7Rec'd from J. Rose - 18 Feb 2005, Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #3. "Perth Co. 1882 Marriages - p. 10 of 11
9441-82 Christian Zimmerman, 33, farmer, Ontario, Washington Territory, USA, s/o Christian & Elizabeth, married Sophia Louisa Nolte, 34, Ellice twsp., same, d/o George & Louisa, witn: Daniel Zimmerman of Gore of Downie & Maria Zimmerman of Minn. USA, 30 March 1882 at Ellice."
1Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #1. received from J. Rose 18 Feb 2005.
2Gordon N. Zimmerman correspondence, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. "December 15, 2007
Dear Dianne
One time you asked me about the story given to me by Rolland Zimmerman. He stated that he had a letter written by Anna Zimmerman in 1905. It stated Johann Christian came to Canada in 1834 from Altheim, Germany. No state was given. It stated their town had a church with a very high steeple. Rolland wrote to the central Lutheran church in Germany and asked what Lutheran church in (a town named Altheim) in Germany had a very high steeple in 1834. He got a reply back that there were three (such) churches with a very high steeple in 1834,
With this information Rolland went to Germany and visited the first two on the list. (In) these two Altheims in different states no Zimmermans could be found. He then hired another interpreter and went to Altheim in the state of Hessen. There was a note on the parrish door saying (the pastor) would be back in one hour. So Rolland went to the town cemetery. He found Zimmermans all over the cemetery. He went back to the parrish house and was told by the young pastor that there were no Zimmermans that were attending church there at that time. Rolland told him about all the Zimmermans in the cemetery. (The pastor) advised he had only been there a short time and the name was unfamilair to him.
Rolland and his interpreter were crestfallen. All the time and money he had spent on this project were for nothing. Just as he got to the front gate of the little yard a car drove up. It was the former pastor. When he was asked if there had ever been any Zimmermans in that church Rolland said (the pastor) replied, "Zimmermans - you have eight to ten women in this church that were grbornen Zimmermans, probably more than any other family if you go back a few generations." This is probably as so many male children were killed in the war.
I was in Altheim in 1985. I visited the church and was entertained in the home of Johan Christian and Elizabeth Knoll, two doors up the street. I will never forget that day.
...
Gordon Zimmerman.". received 21 Nov 2005
The "17" is on Catherine's tombstone.
1Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #1. received from J. Rose 18 Feb 2005.
1Christian Zimmerman Family Sheet #1. received from J. Rose 18 Feb 2005.
2Gordon N. Zimmerman correspondence, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. "December 15, 2007
Dear Dianne
One time you asked me about the story given to me by Rolland Zimmerman. He stated that he had a letter written by Anna Zimmerman in 1905. It stated Johann Christian came to Canada in 1834 from Altheim, Germany. No state was given. It stated their town had a church with a very high steeple. Rolland wrote to the central Lutheran church in Germany and asked what Lutheran church in (a town named Altheim) in Germany had a very high steeple in 1834. He got a reply back that there were three (such) churches with a very high steeple in 1834,
With this information Rolland went to Germany and visited the first two on the list. (In) these two Altheims in different states no Zimmermans could be found. He then hired another interpreter and went to Altheim in the state of Hessen. There was a note on the parrish door saying (the pastor) would be back in one hour. So Rolland went to the town cemetery. He found Zimmermans all over the cemetery. He went back to the parrish house and was told by the young pastor that there were no Zimmermans that were attending church there at that time. Rolland told him about all the Zimmermans in the cemetery. (The pastor) advised he had only been there a short time and the name was unfamilair to him.
Rolland and his interpreter were crestfallen. All the time and money he had spent on this project were for nothing. Just as he got to the front gate of the little yard a car drove up. It was the former pastor. When he was asked if there had ever been any Zimmermans in that church Rolland said (the pastor) replied, "Zimmermans - you have eight to ten women in this church that were grbornen Zimmermans, probably more than any other family if you go back a few generations." This is probably as so many male children were killed in the war.
I was in Altheim in 1985. I visited the church and was entertained in the home of Johan Christian and Elizabeth Knoll, two doors up the street. I will never forget that day.
...
Gordon Zimmerman.". received 21 Nov 2005
Gordon corrected Emma's date of death.
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp. ED86, 436 D. "Zimmermon, Philip self age 29 Can Darmstadt Darmstadt Occ: Farmer
Ernestine wife 27 Prussia Prussia Prussia Keeping House
Anna dau 5 MN Can Prussia
Julius son 3 " " "
Albert son 2 " " "
Larson Chris other 23 Norway Nor Nor works on farm."2Census, Federal - 1900 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp ED 37.
3Census, Federal - 1910 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp. ED 35, p. 1B, 30 Apr 1910.
4Census, Federal - 1920 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Village, p. 10A, 9 Jan 1920.
5Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
6Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
7Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission. "p.10 For more than twenty years that school was conducted by a Mr. Hamilton. He was a school master of the old type, who did not believe in spoiling the child by sparing the rod. In the home too, children were punished most severely in those days, sometimes at very slight provocations. I have heard my father tell of how a lamp chimney was broken in some way. It was thought that he could have prevented it if he had been watching the children more cautiously, so he had to be whipped. Thirty-nine strokes was the punishment. Nowadays we would consider such treatment beyond all reason, and some people think that one should not punish a child at all. A generation or two makes a great change in people‟s thinking. ...
When my father was fourteen years old, Henry being in need of money, advised him to work for someone who would pay him a salary. So it came about that he was employed by an old Scotchman for six months for ten dollars a month and board. When the six months were up the Scotchman paid him the salary in silver dollars. My father carried those sixty silver dollars home six miles to Uncle Henry, who then gave him seventy five cents out of it for spending money. This was the first spending money that my father had ever had and it is interesting to note how he spent it. First he says he bought a comb for himself thinking how fine it would be to have one all his very own. Then as most boys would have done he bought a jackknife, and with what money there was left he bought candy to treat his brothers. He was badly in need of a suit of clothes at this time so that he could go to church and Sunday school, but that seems to have been out of the question. My Uncle Adam, who was next younger than Henry, and who was now living in the United States at Preston, Minnesota, made a visit to Canada about this time; and when he returned he took my father with him. From this time on my father earned his own living either by working for his brothers or some of their neighbors during the summer, and in the winter time he worked in the pine woods in Minnesota.
p.11 My father was working for his brother Peter when he met Emetine Krause, to whom he was married February 18, 1874. The Krause farm joined the Peter Zimmerman farm on the east.
The PHILIP
ZIMMERMAN Obituary
Philip Zimmerman,
the youngest of seven
children, was born in
Ontario, Canada, January
10, 1851. His father,
Christian Zimmerman,
died when Philip was
five months old. At the
age of 14 it was
necessary for the boy to
earn his own living, and
he found employment on
the farm of a kindly
Scotchman, Robert
Murray, at ten dollars a
month. An older brother
had earlier left for
Minnesota and Philip
followed him. Philip's
first job was working for
Dr. Von Lochen of
Preston driving the
doctor's team and caring
for them. The following
winter, at the age of
sixteen, he joined a crew
of lumberjacks in the
pine woods along the
Mississippi.
In 1874 he married
Ernestine Krause of
Racine. They made their
home near Fairmont,
Minnesota. For two
successive years a plague
of grasshoppers
destroyed their entire
crop, so they abandoned
their farm and returned to
Spring Valley.
They settled on what is
known as the Zimmerman
Homestead, the farm 3½
miles northwest of Spring
Valley, where Mr. and Mrs.
Jack Briggs have been
living. Philip placed his
building on a hill above
Deer Creek, close to a large
spring which served for
years as a refrigerator.
As the children grew old
enough to help with the
work, more land was
acquired until the original
160 became 360 acres. For
the Zimmerman's and their
seven children this was the
good life known by the
early settlers of our
community. They "broke"
(cleared) the land, planted
crops, raised chickens and
stock. They slept on cornhusk
mattresses in summer
and feather beds in winter.
They canned from two to
four hundred quarts of fruit
yearly and made twenty
gallons of sauerkraut. They
boarded the crew of "Irish
paddies" who laid the track
for the Great Western
railroad across their farm
and built the high trestle.
There were picnics in the
"Jensen woods" and on the
winter evenings, visiting
back and forth with their
good neighbors, the Thayers, the
Hesses, and the Churchills. In
winters with the sleigh, in summer
with the "surrey with the fringe on
top," they drove every Sunday to the
first Methodist Church of Spring
Valley.
In 1924, friends and neighbors
celebrated the golden wedding
anniversary of the Zimmerman's.
Mrs. Zimmerman passed away in
1926, but Mr. Zimmerman reached
the age of 90, passing away in 1941.
Of the seven children three are
living, Annie, Alice, and Fern. In
1905 Annie, the oldest child married
a Methodist minister Fred Nelson.
They are now retired and live in Los
Altos, California. In 1899, Julius
left for western Montana and
worked with the sheep-herders and
cattlemen, an era of the early west
known today as "cowboy days."
In 1906, Albert married Anna
Thompson and farmed in the
Buckwheat Ridge community,
retiring to Spring Valley in 1946.
Edward married Tressie Tabor in
1913 and took over the old home
form, for his father retired that year
and moved to the northeast part of
Spring Valley. Minnie first taught
high school, then did graduate work
and became the librarian at Winona
State Teachers College. Alice and
Fern taught for twenty years in
Cloquet High School, Minnesota.
They now make their home with a
92-year old uncle, Julius Krause, in
Santa Ana, California.
Chap.3; p. 11
"(My father Philip Zimmerman had) a very quiet lovable disposition. I cannot remember of ever seeing him angry. He always displays that quiet even temperament under all circumstances and would rather take a little abuse than quarrel with anyone. He has always been very fond of his children and when they were small played with them a great deal. When they were big enough to help him he tried to make work easy by telling stories or experiences that he had had. He was a very good story teller, and like his mother has an exceptional instinct for analyzing end understanding human nature. I have often been surprised how well he could judge the character of people whom he did not know just by talking with them a few moments, and he seldom he judged wrong. He always made his living by working on a farm, but would like to have had a chance to study medicine. He did spend one winter studying with a doctor, but there was no opportunity for him to continue with such a course."." Philip at school in Canada; Philip coming to MN; Philip's obituary; Philips personality.8Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, My Family pp. 1-7. "Chapter 3 MY PARENTS Page 1 MY PARENTS
My parents, Mr. and Mrs. Philip Zimmerman met for the first time at the home of my father's brother, Peter Zimmerman, one summer when they were both helping him harvest his crop. She was 18 and he nearly two years older. The Peter Zimmerman farm joined my grandfather Krause's farm on the west and it was the custom for neighbors to help each other during the harvest time. The grain was all bound by hand in those days, and my mother had had lots of experience in out-of-door work, so she was an excellent hand at binding sheaves. Four years later, February 18, 1874, they were married. They celebrated their Golden Wedding at their home in Spring Valley, Minnesota, February 18, 1924. At the time when they were married there was no church in the community, so they were married in the Middle Branch School House, which still stands, and still serves as a public school building. My mother's girl friend, Lisa Gahringer, was ready to marry a young man by the name of Warner about the same time, so arrangements were made for a double wedding. Rev. Hilcher of the German Evangelical Church officiated. The little school house was well filled and the wedding was a happy affair. As long as my mother lived at home with her parents she had to be her father‟s hired man, doing all kinds of hard work outside, which was not usually done by women. She had to help haul rock for making the foundations of the farm buildings, and as there were quite a number of these, and the foundations were large and high, rock hauling became a task which seemed to have no end. There was a house, a barn, a granary, a wood shed, a stone millhouse, and numerous other smaller buildings. Then too, there was wood to haul and cut, and manure to haul and spread, and of course, the regular work of the farm was always crowding on, such as the seeding, harvesting, thrashing, plowing, corn husking, and all the many other tasks that had to be done on the farm. With all this kind of work she had to help. It seemed that grandfather would never do a thing without taking her along. There was always lots of hard work, and never any time for pleasure, or doing the things that one liked to do. Vacations were unheard of in those days. My mother was very fond of all kinds of fancywork and sewing. Quilt piecing was quite a craze at that time, but there was never any time for anything like that in my grandfather's home. I have heard my mother tell of trying to piece quilt patches after she was supposed to be in bed. It was too bad that she could not have had an opportunity to do some of the things she 1iked to do, and that girls should have the opportunity of doing. She says she was glad to marry as it meant an opportunity for her to do as she liked and a measure of' freedom from a hard life.
After the wedding my parents went to Martin County in western Minnesota to live. Here they bought a 160 acre farm. It was a piece of prairie land with no buildings on it, and lay a mile or so to the east or northeast of my father's sister‟s farm, known as the old Hopp place. A few miles to the southwest there was an 80 acre homestead for sale. It had a little house on it and as my parents needed a house right away, and land was quite cheap, they decided to buy this 80 acre place a1so. This little house became their first home, and is the house in which I was born. The little house was almost square with the front door near the southeast corner, and a wooden step at the entrance. On the side opposite to the front door was a chimney and back door which opened into a 1ittle shed where one could store fuel, and it also served to keep the northwest winds from blowing the snow in during the winter. The house had just one main room in it. In the northeast corner was a narrow stairway leading to an attic. The floor had a trap door leading into a cellar, which was just a dug-out place under the house. My father dug out enough to make a cellar and then he boarded it up with two by six inch planks.
In 1930, when I visited my father, we drove up to Martin Co. to see the little house. It was about one hundred miles straight west from the place where my father now lives. We found the little house in very good condition and inhabited. The place was owned by wealthy land owners of Welcome, and
renters were living on it. The little shed on the west side had been made into a kitchen, but otherwise very little change had been made. The cellar was still walled up with the two by six inch plank which my father had put in nearly fifty years before. The narrow little stairway for going up into the attic was still there, and the windows and doors were the same. How glad I am to have had this opportunity of seeing the house, because in February 1932, less than two years after we visited it, it burned down and its burning created considerable sensation because it probably was the oldest or at least one of the oldest houses in the country. The following clipping came out in the Welcome paper:
House Burns on Jarchow Farm
“The residence on the old Jarchow farm, four and a half miles north of Welcome, was destroyed by fire early today. Loss was estimated at $1,200. Alfred Goerndt, the tenant was at St. Paul with a load of hogs at the time of the fire. The origin had not been determined today. The farm, consisting of 120 acres, is owned by the Welcome Investment Company. It was once operated by Henry Wohlenhaus. The house was a small structure built many years ago.” The house stood on the northeast corner of the homestead. A couple of rods to the northeast of it my father had built stables for his cattle, and even today the weeds grow rank there showing where the stables once stood. The homestead was about twenty miles west of Winnebago, which was then the most important village in that country, and about eight miles northwest of the present town of Fairmont and three or four miles north of the present town of Welcome. The place is on the left side of the present highway, as you drive out to the north of Welcome, and a mile or more to the south of Elm Creek. Elm Creek was a small stream in those days, except in the spring of the year. It flowed through low marshy land to the east. A mile or two east of the homestead the marsh land looked like a great lake in the spring of the year. As one looks over the farms on which my father was starting his married life, the arrangement does not seem very convenient or encouraging, but no doubt it he had stayed there he would have bought and sold unti1 he succeeded in having his land all in one place. One day my father was returning from his sister‟s place, and as he was crossing the Elm Creek Flat he noticed a great many silver poplar shoots just out of the ground, perhaps five or six inches high. He reached down and pulled up about four by the roots and took them home. When my mother saw them she was delighted, and taking her spade she planted them in a row south of the house. They grew, and today they stand there, tall, stately, and beautiful, as monuments to her efforts. She also planted several rows of willows on the north side of the place, some of the stumps and shoots of which are still there. It was customary to plant trees on the north side of the house and barns because it afforded a shelter and protection from the winter storms. The country is level with frequent little lakes or low lands, and no timber anywhere. Consequently everyone planted a few trees near his home, and today wherever there is a home it is surrounded by a few hand-planted trees.
About a quarter of a mile from the little house where my parents started housekeeping lived their nearest neighbor, a family by the name of Schwartz; and about a mile and a half to the northeast lived my father's sister, Mrs. George Hopp. (Katherine Zimmerman Hopp) The grasshoppers had eaten up the people‟s entire crop the year before my parents moved to Martin County. No one could remember of such a thing ever happening before.
Their coming was a mystery. People could not understand where they came from or where they went. My father, like the rest of the farmers there, had faith in the country and sowed the seed again and tilled the soil hoping for a crop. The grasshoppers had left early in the fall, but before they 1eft, they had laid their eggs, and when the warm weather came the following spring there seemed to be millions of baby hoppers every where, who devoured every green thing. Even the leaves of the trees and bushes were not left unmolested. The only green plants not entirely destroyed were the garden-pea vines. It would not be possible to describe the desolation that they left behind. For weeks the people had not one green thing to eat. In those days there were no canned vegetables or fruit. Everyone craved food of this kind, and it was not to be had. This was the summer before I was born. My mother said that she had an unnatural appetite for vegetables, but there seemed to be no way to supply this much needed food. Then one day a letter came from Grandpa Krause saying that he was sending a wagonload of cabbage and rutabaga. My father drove in a lumber wagon to Winnebago, a distance of twenty miles to get these supplies. Mother said she could hardly wait for him to return. When he reached the railroad station and inquired about his supplies he was told that they were there, but when the depot agent went to get them they could not be found. Somebody had stolen them. Father hated to go back home with the wagon empty. He knew mother would be terribly disappointed, but there was nothing else to do. When she found out the truth she wept as if her heart would break. Pioneer life was never easy, but this was almost beyond endurance. When the crop was all devoured the grasshoppers left. People then had great hopes for a crop the coming year, because the grasshoppers left without laying their eggs. The following spring everybody put in another crop. How beautiful the fields looked, and what a wonderful harvest was promised! Then, suddenly one noticed the sky to the southwest getting dark and at first thought that a storm was gathering. Then suddenly, as the first few dropped down on the fields people realized what was happening. It seemed as if there were millions and millions of them. For several days they darkened the light of the sun; and again they ate the entire crop. Not a blade of grass or green thing was left. This made the third crop that had been destroyed by them. We know now that they visited the greater part of the central Western States, and that the crops in all these states were devoured in the same manner. People became discouraged. They had nothing to eat and no money to buy with. Where were they to get the seed to sow another crop? And if they did so would the grasshoppers appear again? Such were the questions that people were asking themselves everywhere. The price of land dropped to almost nothing. My father who had had six or seven hundred dollars to start with now had nothing. My parents decided to sell what they could and come back to grandpa Krause's place and help in the harvest fields. The grasshoppers did not molest that part of the state. It seemed that they visited only the prairie sections. I was a baby then, not a year old, and my aunt Anna, who was visiting us took me back to southeastern Minnesota to my grandparent„s. My father and mother followed soon afterward. They drove down in a wagon, and mother says that it was a hard experience because there were so few places where one could stay over night. Before sundown they were tired of driving and wanted to stop for the night, but as they could find no place to stay, kept on driving. Houses were long stretches apart. Finally when it was nearly eleven o'clock at night, they saw a little light in the distance and drove toward it. When they reached it and inquired if they might stay there until morning the lady hesitatingly refused. Mother was just too weary to go on, and as she spoke to my father, the lady of the house heard her voice, so she called out into the darkness and said “If you have a lady with you I will be glad to have you stay. I thought there were two men, but I would not send a lady on.” “Come and stay.” How glad they were to stay, and how grateful my mother was to her ever after. She told my parents that her husband was away, and that she was afraid to have strangers stay unless there was a lady with them.
My parents spent the rest of the summer working in the harvest field. When there was no more work to do my father went back to Martin County and traded the homestead for a team of' horses, and sold the farm for seventy-five dollars. After having disposed of what few things he had, he hitched his horses to a wagon and returned to my grandpa Krause‟s place, where my parents spent the winter. The next spring they bought a one-hundred-and-sixty acre homestead for twelve and one-half dollars per acre. This is the place where my brother Edward now lives. They broke up some of the land where there was no timber, cleared off the trees from another portion, and at the end of one year they raised two thousand bushels of wheat from sixty-eight acres, and sold it for one dollar per bushel. That made it possible for them to pay for one-half of their land in one year. They never again had such a crop. After that first year the chintz bugs bothered the crops for several years, then there were a number of years of drought, and then prices were not very good, and so something always interfered; but each year they always made their living and a little bit more. By raising horses, cattle, and hogs, there was always something that could be turned into money at the end of the year, even if the crops were not very good. As far as we know my father was the first person who ever owned this farm and lived on it, though it had been a homestead.
When he bought it there were many beautiful springs on it, especially along the central valley running through the place from north to south. The largest springs were close to Deer Creek. On the bank below, where my Brother Edward's barn now stands, were the remains of' an old hut where someone, probably Mike Duffy, had lived for a time without owning the land. Deer Creek was a large stream in those days with an abundance of good fish in it. We seldom crossed it in the early days. The vegetation along Deer Creek and near the springs close to Deer Creek was so thick that one could hardly walk through it. Wild plums, wild grapes, choke cherries, wild gooseberries, wild currants, black haws, hop vines, wild cherries, and wild crabapples were to be found in great abundance. There were lots of black walnuts and butternuts, and hazel brush grew just everywhere. Among the thick vegetation one could find numberless varieties of shrubs, flowers, and trees. The stately beautiful elm, the box-elder, the basswood, ironwood, black walnut, butternut, and several varieties of oak were a few of the most common trees to be found there in those days. Wild flowers grew just as if there were one immense flower garden which extended everywhere. I have never 1ived anywhere where one could find such a great variety of flowers. Among the most common were the columbine or honeysuckle, the lady slipper, both yellow and purple, the goldenrod, the red lily, 1ack-in-the-pulpit, the fire ball, blood root, star of Bethlehem, wild cucumber, several kinds of violets and daisies, also buttercups and cowslips, and hundreds of others which I cannot now mention. No matter where yon looked along the roadside pretty faces of flowers were always there to greet you. Before the snow was completely gone the crocuses began to appear, and different kinds of flowers kept coming on all summer, and when the snow came in the fall it would seem that nature was not half through blooming, and was trying to crowd a great surplus of blossoms into the last of the season before snowy weather came on. Wild animals common in those days were the timber wolf, a small grey wolf something like a coyote only larger, the cottontail rabbit; the badger, striped gopher, and a few other small animals. We also bad rattlesnakes in the early days, but I never saw one because they were soon killed off. The prairie chicken and mourning dove were there in great abundance. Their call used to fill me with wonderment. I once found a prairie chicken's nest on my way home from school, in which there were seventeen eggs. How surprised I was at the big nest full of eggs, and how the old mother hen was fluttering around to detract my attention from the nest. There was a great variety of birds; more than in any other place in which I have lived. The robin stayed with us all summer, also the cat bird, the finch, and many others that I cannot now mention. We also had the chicken hawk and the crow. How little a place all these birds played in our life, then, but now they seem so important, as one thinks back to childhood days.
In the spring of the year, and any time during the summer when there were heavy rains Deer Creek
would overflow, and water would back up into the slough on my father's place. At such times the slough had quite a sufficiency of water of its own. The result was exciting for us. How the water would roar, and thunder, and carry on sometimes for several days. At such times the entire flat across Deer Creek would be under water and part of the Duffy Flat also. In those early days the land across Deer Creek was not pastured but was one great mass and tangle of wild vegetation so thick one could not walk in it without difficulty. Very well do I remember the many and sometimes almost hideous noises that emerged from those woods at night. Scarcely was the sun down when the night hawk made his appearance with his peculiar swishing cry; a little bit later came the call of the whip-poor-will. I used to wonder what kind of a bird he was, and why he never got tired, and why he was not afraid to make so much noise in those lonely woods. The bull frog too, added his hideous croaking during a part of the year, and could be heard ever so far. One might think that he was a tremendous fellow by the amount of noise he could make. The fireflies used to appear in great numbers, and on a dark night were very interesting. They never made any noise but were just appearing everywhere. You could never see them but their lights might appear in your hair or at your hands or feet. It was great fun to try to see them or follow them by their lights. In the fall and winter we always heard the howling of the wolves that seemed to come there for some reason. These woods always had a fascination for me, and I learned to love all these noises, even the howling of the wolves. Now I often wish that I could hear all these sounds over again. What a wild, beautiful music it would be. One often does not appreciate fully the wonderful grandeur of nature until one is without it for a while. In later years cattle were pastured here and destroyed the beautiful wildness. But even then; the water, the banks with their trees and shrubs hanging over the water's edge, and the big stately trees were always inspiring. This home of my childhood certainly was a beautiful spot, beautiful beyond description in those early days before all the natural wildness was destroyed. While my father was in the land office making arrangements to buy this piece of land another man came in to buy the same place. My father had beaten him by less than an hour. Many times since, we have rejoiced that he was not an hour later on that memorable day. My father kept adding to his farm until he had four hundred acres, which was almost more than he could manage, but he wanted sufficient land to keep his boys busy and with their help he handled it quite nicely.
The house that my father built on this place was a rectangular building a story-and-a-half or two stories high. The upper story was not plastered for a number of years. The downstairs had one large room which was used for kitchen, dining room, and living room. There was also a pantry and bedroom where my parents slept. I slept in a trundle bed while I was real small. During the day this was shoved, under my parents' bed, and when it was bedtime it was rolled out and used. As soon as we were no longer babies we slept in wooden beds upstairs between feather beds in winter time. How lovely and warm these kept us in spite of the fact that the room was quite cold. In the summer time we slept under quilted quilts. For some reason my mother abandoned the idea of father beds altogether except while we were small children. The mattresses were home made. Bed ticking was sewed up leaving a slit in the center of the top; then the mattress was filled with corn husks. This had to be stirred and leveled every day. Making beds was not so easy a task as nowadays. The house was built on a hill or knoll less than a quarter of a mile from the spring. For a few years we carried all our water from the spring. Then came a season of years with a continual program of building and improving until we had stables for horses and cows, a granary, corn cribs, a barn, two wells, sheep sheds, chicken house, hog house, machine shed, and the house itself had to be added to several times; and finally when I was a young lady my folks rebuilt it completely, making a lovely big modern house of thirteen or fourteen rooms. What is now the front room of Brother Edward's house was the kitchen and living room of the old rectangular house. His front bedroom was the bedroom where my parents slept and where my trundle bed was kept. What is now the
cellar hall was our pantry in the old house. The north half of what is now Edward's front porch was an enclosed summer kitchen and porch and woodshed. Many a time I have stood by that east window and looked out toward Mt. Tom and watched the wind blow the snow over the fields, longing to go out and play; but mother would so often say “It is too cold today, you had better not go out.” and the following day the snow would still be blowing; in fact many of the winter days were too cold and stormy for playing outside. While we were children our sport in winter time was sliding down hill on sleds, or making snow men, or snow houses, and in the summer time we played along the springs and creeks picking flowers or gathering pretty stones, or building little dams, or playing in the sand. But usually there were so many chores to do that when we were through with these we were glad to come to the house with the grownups. I remember one spring an unusual thing happened. A great abundance of warm rain came with the spring thaw. The result was a flood. The ice was lifted out of the creek bed for some distance up the stream, broken up into curious shapes, and carried and piled all over the Duffy Flat and our slough in tremendous heaps. Some piles projected up as high as a house, making the most wonderful display of ice that I have ever seen. It was a grand sight, and it took several weeks for all this ice to melt. It gave us unusual sport for a while. For a. number of years we raised our own sugar cane and had it made into sorghum. Cane was planted and cared for like corn, and while it was growing looked very much like a corn field. When it was ready to harvest the leaves were stripped off the stalks, then it was cut off near the ground and tied into bundles. These bundles we hauled to our neighbor, a Mr. Felch, who knew how to make sorghum. He had two rollers with a large square container underneath them. These rollers were made to turn by a horse pulling on a switch-pole to which he was hitched, and slowly he walked around in a circle. The switch-pole kept the rollers going. The cane was put between the rollers and the raw juice ran into the big square container below. The cane juice had to be boiled and skimmed several times until there was produced the thick golden-brown sorghum. The sorghum was put into barrels or kegs with faucets on them and put into the cellar or granary. Woe to the little youngster who turned on the faucet of the sorghum barrel and neglected to turn it off properly; because under such circumstances the sorghum would run down on the cellar floor, and not only be wasted but badly stick up the dirt floor of the cellar. We always used kerosene lanterns to work about the place after dark in those days, and if we drove anywhere on a dark night someone had to hold the lantern to try to light the way. In the house we used kerosene lamps. I remember the candle, but it was not in common use in those days. It had been replaced by the kerosene lamp. My grandparents had several molds for making candles but they hung in the cellar-way unused. Keeping the lantern and lamp globes clean was quite a task. No matter how careful one might be there was always danger of breaking them either while you were washing them, or if they were not properly rinsed they might break when the lamp was lighted. These globes had to be washed every day. Another task that was very tiresome was washing milk pails. They were made of wood and had to be scrubbed every day. The idea was to keep them white. When the first tin pails were used we thought it was a wonderful improvement over the old wooden pails. Wooden wash tubs too, were replaced by galvanized ones. That too was a great help because the wooden tubs would often have to stand with water in them for a few hours to swell them before they were ready to use.
But pioneer days always come to an end and so it was here. The country was soon settled up. Woods were cut down and the land cleared for crops. Roads and bridges were built. Little schoolhouses and churches dotted the country everywhere. And as the younger children of the family came to their teens they knew little or nothing about the early days except what was told them. When my parents were
first married they always used a wagon to get from place to place; but by the time I was eight or nine years old we always had a nice buggy. I remember one of the last of these buggies had a top with a fringe around it. We thought it was very beautiful. About this time instead of the large working horses we had one team of 1ighter weight horses for the buggy. We also had a single carriage for one horse. In winter time we had a cutter and sleigh bells when we did not want to use the bob sled. I remember well the first automobile that came into the country. I was a young lady then. All horses were afraid of it. When the owner met anyone he had to drive to the side of the road and stop until the team of horses had passed, because it was so easy to."9Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, p.40.
10Philip Zimmerman Family Bible, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
11Philip Zimmerman Family Bible.
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp. ED86, 436D. "Zimmermon, Philip self age 29 Can Darmstadt Darmstadt Occ: Farmer
Ernestine wife 27 Prussia Prussia Prussia Keeping House
Anna dau 5 MN Can Prussia
Julius son 3 " " "
Albert son 2 " " "
Larson Chris other 23 Norway Nor Nor works on farm."2Census, Federal - 1900 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp ED 37.
3Census, Federal - 1910 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp. ED 35.
4Census, Federal - 1920 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Village, p. 10A, 9 Jan 1920.
5Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
6Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
7Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), My Family p. 1, Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission. "Chapter 3 MY PARENTS Page 1 MY PARENTS
As long as my mother lived at home with her parents she had to be her father‟s hired man, doing all kinds of hard work outside, which was not usually done by women. She had to help haul rock for making the foundations of the farm buildings, and as there were quite a number of these, and the foundations were large and high, rock hauling became a task which seemed to have no end. There was a house, a barn, a granary, a wood shed, a stone millhouse, and numerous other smaller buildings. Then too, there was wood to haul and cut, and manure to haul and spread, and of course, the regular work of the farm was always crowding on, such as the seeding, harvesting, thrashing, plowing, corn husking, and all the many other tasks that had to be done on the farm. With all this kind of work she had to help. It seemed that grandfather would never do a thing without taking her along. There was always lots of hard work, and never any time for pleasure, or doing the things that one liked to do. Vacations were unheard of in those days. My mother was very fond of all kinds of fancywork and sewing. Quilt piecing was quite a craze at that time, but there was never any time for anything like that in my grandfather's home. I have heard my mother tell of trying to piece quilt patches after she was supposed to be in bed. It was too bad that she could not have had an opportunity to do some of the things she 1iked to do, and that girls should have the opportunity of doing. She says she was glad to marry as it meant an opportunity for her to do as she liked and a measure of' freedom from a hard life."8Philip Zimmerman Family Bible, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
9Philip Zimmerman Family Bible.
10Philip Zimmerman Family Bible.
11Philip Zimmerman Family Bible.
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp. ED86, 436D. "Zimmermon, Philip self age 29 Can Darmstadt Darmstadt Occ: Farmer
Ernestine wife 27 Prussia Prussia Prussia Keeping House
Anna dau 5 MN Can Prussia
Julius son 3 " " "
Albert son 2 " " "
Larson Chris other 23 Norway Nor Nor works on farm."2Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
3Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
4Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), Ch 6; p 2, Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission. "In the year 1935 on Monday
the eleventh of November my brother Julius, then living in Spring Valley, Minnesota passed away. A few
days previous to this, he had been leading a young heifer along the paved highway. She was a rather
unruly animal and finally succeeded in throwing him on the edge of the pavement. The result of this was
a broken rib and a punctured lung. He was taken to Rochester, Minnesota, and put under the care of the
Mayo doctors, but lived only a short time. ... He
was fifty nine years old and was living with my father at the time. He had never married."5Census, Federal - 1880 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp. ED86, 436D.
6Philip Zimmerman Family Bible, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
7Philip Zimmerman Family Bible.
1Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
2Philip Zimmerman Family Bible, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
3Philip Zimmerman Family Bible.
1Census, Federal - 1900 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp ED 37, p. 8B, Jun 1900.
2Census, Federal - 1910 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp. ED 35, p. 1B, 30 Apr 1910.
3Census, Federal - 1920 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Village, 10A, 9 Jan 1920.
4Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
5Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
6Gordon N. Zimmerman correspondence, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. "December 15, 2007
Dear Dianne
One time you asked me about the story given to me by Rolland Zimmerman. He stated that he had a letter written by Anna Zimmerman in 1905. It stated Johann Christian came to Canada in 1834 from Altheim, Germany. No state was given. It stated their town had a church with a very high steeple. Rolland wrote to the central Lutheran church in Germany and asked what Lutheran church in (a town named Altheim) in Germany had a very high steeple in 1834. He got a reply back that there were three (such) churches with a very high steeple in 1834,
With this information Rolland went to Germany and visited the first two on the list. (In) these two Altheims in different states no Zimmermans could be found. He then hired another interpreter and went to Altheim in the state of Hessen. There was a note on the parrish door saying (the pastor) would be back in one hour. So Rolland went to the town cemetery. He found Zimmermans all over the cemetery. He went back to the parrish house and was told by the young pastor that there were no Zimmermans that were attending church there at that time. Rolland told him about all the Zimmermans in the cemetery. (The pastor) advised he had only been there a short time and the name was unfamilair to him.
Rolland and his interpreter were crestfallen. All the time and money he had spent on this project were for nothing. Just as he got to the front gate of the little yard a car drove up. It was the former pastor. When he was asked if there had ever been any Zimmermans in that church Rolland said (the pastor) replied, "Zimmermans - you have eight to ten women in this church that were grbornen Zimmermans, probably more than any other family if you go back a few generations." This is probably as so many male children were killed in the war.
I was in Altheim in 1985. I visited the church and was entertained in the home of Johan Christian and Elizabeth Knoll, two doors up the street. I will never forget that day.
...
Gordon Zimmerman.". received 21 Nov 2005.7Gordon N. Zimmerman correspondence. received 21 Nov 2005.
Gordon added the place of death.8Philip Zimmerman Family Bible, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
1Census, Federal - 1900 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp ED 37, P. 8B, Jun 1900.
2Census, Federal - 1910 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Twsp. ED 35, p. 1B, 30 Apr 1910.
3Census, Federal - 1920 - Fillmore Co., MN, Spring Valley Village, p. 10A, 9 Jan 1920.
4Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
5Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
6Gordon N. Zimmerman correspondence, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. "December 15, 2007
Dear Dianne
One time you asked me about the story given to me by Rolland Zimmerman. He stated that he had a letter written by Anna Zimmerman in 1905. It stated Johann Christian came to Canada in 1834 from Altheim, Germany. No state was given. It stated their town had a church with a very high steeple. Rolland wrote to the central Lutheran church in Germany and asked what Lutheran church in (a town named Altheim) in Germany had a very high steeple in 1834. He got a reply back that there were three (such) churches with a very high steeple in 1834,
With this information Rolland went to Germany and visited the first two on the list. (In) these two Altheims in different states no Zimmermans could be found. He then hired another interpreter and went to Altheim in the state of Hessen. There was a note on the parrish door saying (the pastor) would be back in one hour. So Rolland went to the town cemetery. He found Zimmermans all over the cemetery. He went back to the parrish house and was told by the young pastor that there were no Zimmermans that were attending church there at that time. Rolland told him about all the Zimmermans in the cemetery. (The pastor) advised he had only been there a short time and the name was unfamilair to him.
Rolland and his interpreter were crestfallen. All the time and money he had spent on this project were for nothing. Just as he got to the front gate of the little yard a car drove up. It was the former pastor. When he was asked if there had ever been any Zimmermans in that church Rolland said (the pastor) replied, "Zimmermans - you have eight to ten women in this church that were grbornen Zimmermans, probably more than any other family if you go back a few generations." This is probably as so many male children were killed in the war.
I was in Altheim in 1985. I visited the church and was entertained in the home of Johan Christian and Elizabeth Knoll, two doors up the street. I will never forget that day.
...
Gordon Zimmerman.". From correspondence received 21 Nov 2005.7Gordon N. Zimmerman correspondence. From correspondence received 21 Nov 2005.
1Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
2Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
3Gordon N. Zimmerman correspondence, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. "December 15, 2007
Dear Dianne
One time you asked me about the story given to me by Rolland Zimmerman. He stated that he had a letter written by Anna Zimmerman in 1905. It stated Johann Christian came to Canada in 1834 from Altheim, Germany. No state was given. It stated their town had a church with a very high steeple. Rolland wrote to the central Lutheran church in Germany and asked what Lutheran church in (a town named Altheim) in Germany had a very high steeple in 1834. He got a reply back that there were three (such) churches with a very high steeple in 1834,
With this information Rolland went to Germany and visited the first two on the list. (In) these two Altheims in different states no Zimmermans could be found. He then hired another interpreter and went to Altheim in the state of Hessen. There was a note on the parrish door saying (the pastor) would be back in one hour. So Rolland went to the town cemetery. He found Zimmermans all over the cemetery. He went back to the parrish house and was told by the young pastor that there were no Zimmermans that were attending church there at that time. Rolland told him about all the Zimmermans in the cemetery. (The pastor) advised he had only been there a short time and the name was unfamilair to him.
Rolland and his interpreter were crestfallen. All the time and money he had spent on this project were for nothing. Just as he got to the front gate of the little yard a car drove up. It was the former pastor. When he was asked if there had ever been any Zimmermans in that church Rolland said (the pastor) replied, "Zimmermans - you have eight to ten women in this church that were grbornen Zimmermans, probably more than any other family if you go back a few generations." This is probably as so many male children were killed in the war.
I was in Altheim in 1985. I visited the church and was entertained in the home of Johan Christian and Elizabeth Knoll, two doors up the street. I will never forget that day.
...
Gordon Zimmerman.". received 21 Nov 2005.4Social Security Death Index.
1Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN."2Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, 5 of 14, 8 Jun 1880. "Name: George Hoff
[George Hopp]
[George Hopp]
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1831
Birthplace: Alsach
Home in 1880: Fraser, Martin, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Sarah Hoff
Father's Birthplace: Alsach
Mother's Birthplace: Alsach
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Household Members:
Name Age
George Hoff 49
Sarah Hoff 39
John Hoff 19
Jacob Hoff 17
Matilda Hoff 15
Emma Hoff 13
George Hoff 11
Henry Hoff 9
Lydia Hoff 7
Catherine Hoff 5
Maggie Hoff 4m."3Ancestry.com, New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957
about George Hopp
Name: George Hopp
Arrival Date: 10 Oct 1854
Estimated birth year: abt 1830
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Port of Departure: Le Havre, France
Destination: New York
Place of Origin: France
Ethnicity/Race/Nationality: French
Ship Name: Robt Parker
Search Ship Database: Search the Robt Parker in the 'Passenger Ships and Images' database
Port of Arrival: New York
Line: 22
Microfilm Serial: M237
Microfilm Roll: M237_146
List Number: 1375
Port Arrival State: New York
Port Arrival Country: United States."4Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1875 - Martin, Fraser
p. 3 1875. "Line 3 Family #34
Geo Hopp 44 M France France France
C " 36 F Canada Germany Germany
John " 13 M MN France Canada
J. 12 " " " "
Til " 10 " same
Emma " 8 "
Geo. 6 M
Henry 4 "
S 1 F."5Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
6Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1885 - Fillmore, Carrolton, 1865 state Census. "# 94
George Hopp
Catharine "
John "
Michael "
Albert "."7Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1885 - Fillmore, Carrolton, 21 Sep 1857. " George Hope
[George Hopp]
Age: 27
Census Date: 21 Sep 1857
County: Fillmore
Locality: Township 103
Birth Location: France
Gender: Male
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1830
Race: White
Line: 13
Roll: MN1857_2." George appears with his brother John Hopp age 25.8Ancestry.com, Civil War Draft Registration, 1 Jul 1863. "Name: George Hopp
Residence: Carrollton, Minnesota
Class: 1
Congressional District: 1st
Age on 1 July 1863: 34
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1829
Race: White
Marital Status: Married
Place of Birth: Germany."9Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, p.5, Jun 1880.
10C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
11Ancestry.com, Minnesota Death Index. "Name: George Hopp
Death Date: 5 Feb 1914
Death County: Martin
State File Number: 007801
Certificate Number: 007801
Certificate Year: 1914
Record Number: 137297."12Ancestry.com, Minnesota Marriages. "Name: George Hopp
Gender: Male
Birth Place: France
Marriage Date: 3 Aug 1858
Marriage Place: Preston, Fillmore, Minnesota
Spouse's Name: Cathrina Zimmerman
Spouse Gender: Female
Spouse Birth Place: France
Father's Name: George Hopp
Mother's Name: Margrett Hopp
Spouse Father's Name: Christian Zimmerman
Spouse Mother's Name: Elizabeth Zimmerman
Event Type: Marriage
FHL Film Number: 1316808."
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154. "Name: George Hoff
[George Hopp]
[George Hopp]
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1831
Birthplace: Alsach
Home in 1880: Fraser, Martin, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Sarah Hoff
Father's Birthplace: Alsach
Mother's Birthplace: Alsach
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Household Members:
Name Age
George Hoff 49
Sarah Hoff 39
John Hoff 19
Jacob Hoff 17
Matilda Hoff 15
Emma Hoff 13
George Hoff 11
Henry Hoff 9
Lydia Hoff 7
Catherine Hoff 5
Maggie Hoff 4m." Katherine is no longer living.2Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
3Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1875 - Martin, Fraser
1875 - p.3. "Line 3 Family #34
Geo Hopp 44 M France France France
C " 36 F Canada Germany Germany
John " 13 M MN France Canada
J. 12 " " " "
Til " 10 " same
Emma " 8 "
Geo. 6 M
Henry 4 "
S 1 F."4Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission. "Chapter 3; p. 2 - About a quarter of a mile from the little house where my parents started housekeeping lived their nearest neighbor, a family by the name of Schwartz; and about a mile and a half to the northeast lived my father's sister, Mrs. George Hopp
Chap 6; p. 7 - My father's sister, Katherine, who married George Hopp, had a family of five children. Of these I knew Cousin George Hopp the best. He was a very dear cousin and attended the University of Minnesota while I was attending Hamline University, and I saw him a great deal. He became an exceptionally successful lawyer and banker and traveled abroad a great deal in connection with his business. In 1943 while he was living in Northfield, Minnesota, he passed suddenly away one February morning from a heart attack; leaving a wife and two children. We were sorry to lose this cousin, but such is the way of life. The other children in the Hopp family were John, Jacob, Mati1da and Kathrin. They visited us occasionally when I was a child and my folks lived on the farm. In later years however, they all moved to the state of Washington and we were not in touch with them, so I know very little about them now. George Hopp, the father of these children married again and had a second family, but I do not know them. Strictly speaking this family would not be related to us."5Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1885 - Fillmore, Carrolton, p.1865. "# 94
George Hopp
Catharine "
John "
Michael "
Albert "."6Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, p. 5, Jun 1880.
7Ancestry.com, Minnesota Marriages. "Name: George Hopp
Gender: Male
Birth Place: France
Marriage Date: 3 Aug 1858
Marriage Place: Preston, Fillmore, Minnesota
Spouse's Name: Cathrina Zimmerman
Spouse Gender: Female
Spouse Birth Place: France
Father's Name: George Hopp
Mother's Name: Margrett Hopp
Spouse Father's Name: Christian Zimmerman
Spouse Mother's Name: Elizabeth Zimmerman
Event Type: Marriage
FHL Film Number: 1316808."
1Gravestone. "Preston Methodist Cemetery lists 2 children which I believe were from George and "Catherine" Hopp - "John Gestorben (died) Sep 28, 1860 After 9 Monts & 24 tage (days)."
1Ancestry.com, One World Tree.
2Gravestone, Methodist cemetery, Preston, MN. "Preston Methodist Cemetery - Sohn von G. & C. Hopp
Michael Gestorben Jan. 10, 1863 Alter 1 Yahr, 4 mont &27 tage Sohn von G. & C. Hopp" The very next grave is Elizabeth (Britzius) Zimmerman, Katherine's mother."3Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983. "Twins born in 1861. Michael died in infancy, John grew up."
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, 5 of 14, 8 Jun 1880. "Name: George Hoff
[George Hopp]
[George Hopp]
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1831
Birthplace: Alsach
Home in 1880: Fraser, Martin, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Sarah Hoff
Father's Birthplace: Alsach
Mother's Birthplace: Alsach
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Household Members:
Name Age
George Hoff 49
Sarah Hoff 39
John Hoff 19
Jacob Hoff 17
Matilda Hoff 15
Emma Hoff 13
George Hoff 11
Henry Hoff 9
Lydia Hoff 7
Catherine Hoff 5
Maggie Hoff 4m." last name is wrong on census.2Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
3Census, Federal - 1880 - Island, Washington Terr., Whidby & Camain Islands, ED # 37, p. 14, 12 Jun 1880.
4Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983. "John was a twin with Michael."
5Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1875 - Martin, Fraser
p.3 1875. "Line 3 Family #34
Geo Hopp 44 M France France France
C " 36 F Canada Germany Germany
John " 13 M MN France Canada
J. 12 " " " "
Til " 10 " same
Emma " 8 "
Geo. 6 M
Henry 4 "
S 1 F."6Census, Federal - 1930 - King County, Washington, Seattle, ED # 84; Ancestry p. 103 of 104. "Line 18 Olympia Place Household 791
Hopp, John Head rents $60/mo Radio age 68 S MN Alsace-Lorraine Canada Occ: Gold Miner
Matilda E. Sister 64 same None
Katherine Sister 54 " "."7Census, Federal 1920, Seattle, King, Washington. "Name: John Hopp
Age: 58
Birth Year: abt 1862
Birthplace: Minnesota
Home in 1920: Seattle, King, Washington
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Head
Marital Status: Single
Father's Birthplace: France
Mother's Birthplace: Canada
Home owned: Own
Able to read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
Occupation: Manager of a gold mine
Household Members: Name Age
John Hopp 58
Mattie E Hopp 49
Kathalyn Hopp 39."8Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1885 - Fillmore, Carrolton, p.1865. "# 94
George Hopp
Catharine "
John "
Michael "
Albert "."9Ancestry.com, Washington Death Index 1940 - 1996.
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, 5 of 14. "Name: George Hoff
[George Hopp]
[George Hopp]
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1831
Birthplace: Alsach
Home in 1880: Fraser, Martin, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Sarah Hoff
Father's Birthplace: Alsach
Mother's Birthplace: Alsach
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Household Members:
Name Age
George Hoff 49
Sarah Hoff 39
John Hoff 19
Jacob Hoff 17
Matilda Hoff 15
Emma Hoff 13
George Hoff 11
Henry Hoff 9
Lydia Hoff 7
Catherine Hoff 5
Maggie Hoff 4m." Last name wrong on census.2Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
3Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1875 - Martin, Fraser
p.3. "Line 3 Family #34
Geo Hopp 44 M France France France
C " 36 F Canada Germany Germany
John " 13 M MN France Canada
J. 12 " " " "
Til " 10 " same
Emma " 8 "
Geo. 6 M
Henry 4 "
S 1 F."4Census, Federal - 1900 - King Co., Washington, Seattle, Ward 8; ED# 115; Ancestry p. 29 of 34. "Line 27 809 Warr --e Dwelling # 280 Household # 318
Hopp, Emma R Head b. Jul 1867 age 32 S MN Ger Canada OCC: Nurse rents
Matilda E. Sister b. May 1865 35 S " " " Nurse
Katherine Sister Nov 1875 24 S " " " School Teacher
Roomer from Sweden."5Census, Federal - 1930 - King County, Washington, Seattle, ED # 84; Ancestry p. 103 of 104. "Line 18 Olympia Place Household 791
Hopp, John Head rents $60/mo Radio age 68 S MN Alsace-Lorraine Canada Occ: Gold Miner
Matilda E. Sister 64 same None
Katherine Sister 54 " "."6Census, Federal 1920, Seattle, King, Washington. "Name: Mattie E Hopp
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1871
Birthplace: Minnesota
Home in 1920: Seattle, King, Washington
Race: White
Gender: Female
Relation to Head of House: Sister
Marital Status: Single
Father's Birthplace: France
Mother's Birthplace: Canada
Able to read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
Occupation: Nurse for a private family
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members: Name Age
John Hopp 58
Mattie E Hopp 49
Kathalyn Hopp 39."7Census, Federal - 1900 - King Co., Washington, Seattle, Ward 8; ED# 115; Ancestry p. 29 of 34.
8Ancestry.com, Washington Death Index 1940 - 1996. "Name: Matilda E Hopp
Date of Death: 9 Sep 1951
Age: 86
Estimated birth year: abt 1865
Gender: Female
Certificate: 15848."
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, 5 of 14. "Name: George Hoff
[George Hopp]
[George Hopp]
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1831
Birthplace: Alsach
Home in 1880: Fraser, Martin, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Sarah Hoff
Father's Birthplace: Alsach
Mother's Birthplace: Alsach
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Household Members:
Name Age
George Hoff 49
Sarah Hoff 39
John Hoff 19
Jacob Hoff 17
Matilda Hoff 15
Emma Hoff 13
George Hoff 11
Henry Hoff 9
Lydia Hoff 7
Catherine Hoff 5
Maggie Hoff 4m." Last name wrong on census.2Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1875 - Martin, Fraser
p.3. "Line 3 Family #34
Geo Hopp 44 M France France France
C " 36 F Canada Germany Germany
John " 13 M MN France Canada
J. 12 " " " "
Til " 10 " same
Emma " 8 "
Geo. 6 M
Henry 4 "
S 1 F."3Ancestry.com, One World Tree.
4Ancestry.com, Washington Death Index 1940 - 1996.
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, 5 of 14. "Name: George Hoff
[George Hopp]
[George Hopp]
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1831
Birthplace: Alsach
Home in 1880: Fraser, Martin, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Sarah Hoff
Father's Birthplace: Alsach
Mother's Birthplace: Alsach
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Household Members:
Name Age
George Hoff 49
Sarah Hoff 39
John Hoff 19
Jacob Hoff 17
Matilda Hoff 15
Emma Hoff 13
George Hoff 11
Henry Hoff 9
Lydia Hoff 7
Catherine Hoff 5
Maggie Hoff 4m." Last name wrong on census.2Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
3Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
4Census, Federal - 1900 - King Co., Washington, Seattle, Ward 8; ED# 115; Ancestry p. 29 of 34. "Line 27 809 Warr --e Dwelling # 280 Household # 318
Hopp, Emma R Head b. Jul 1867 age 32 S MN Ger Canada OCC: Nurse rents
Matilda E. Sister b. May 1865 35 S " " " Nurse
Katherine Sister Nov 1875 24 S " " " School Teacher
Roomer from Sweden."5Census, Federal - 1930 - King County, Washington, Seattle, ED # 84; Ancestry p. 103 of 104. "Line 18 Olympia Place Household 791
Hopp, John Head rents $60/mo Radio age 68 S MN Alsace-Lorraine Canada Occ: Gold Miner
Matilda E. Sister 64 same None
Katherine Sister 54 " "."6Census, Federal 1920, Seattle, King, Washington. "Name: Kathalyn Hopp
[Kathlyn Hopp]
[Kathadyn Hopp]
Age: 39
Birth Year: abt 1881
Birthplace: Minnesota
Home in 1920: Seattle, King, Washington
Race: White
Gender: Female
Marital Status: Single
Father's Birthplace: France
Mother's Birthplace: Canada
Able to read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
occupation: none
Household Members: Name Age
John Hopp 58
Mattie E Hopp 49
Kathalyn Hopp 39."7Census, Federal - 1900 - King Co., Washington, Seattle, Ward 8; ED# 115; Ancestry p. 29 of 34.
8Ancestry.com, Washington Death Records. "Name: Kathryn Hopp
Gender: Female
Birth Date: abt 1875
Death Date: 20 Nov 1958
Age at Death: 83
Death Location: Des Moines, King, Washington
Father: George Hopp
Mother: Catherine Zimmerman
Record Source: Washington State Death Records."
1Forrest Zimmerman, Zimmerman Family Tree, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. One night about 1958, Dianne had been asking her dad about the Zimmerman family. Forrest got out a large piece of drafting paper and methodically laid out the whole family beginning with Christian Zimmerman and Elizabeth Kneil, Forrest's great-grandfather. The tree covers five generations. There are a few blanks. Apparently they didn't keep up too well with the family of Forrest's great-uncle, Henry Zimmerman. There are 175 names on the tree. Forrest drew it from memory. The funny part is this. Forrest never wanted to have anything to do with his cousins. Dianne only remembers meeting one of them ever.
2Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983. "(Henry) always lived in Canada. He was a large man. Started farming but lost farm. He then went into bee business, having as high as 400 swarms. He made good from the sale of honey for a long time.
Canadian custom (adopted from Engand) expected oldest son to care for parents. When he lost his porperty his mother, Elizabeth, went to stay with her son at Preston, Minnesota."3Census, Canada - 1901 - Ontario, Elgin (West/Quest), Aldborough, ancestry p. 85 of 111. "line 22 29 31
Zimmerman, Henry head feb 16 1835 66 b. O>R Evangelical Occ: Bee-Keeper own acct
Mary E. wife Mar 31 1834 67 Ger imm: 1846 Evan.
Albert son Aug 2 1874 26 O>R Meth. Artist - employed 12 mos, earnings: $900."4Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission. "Chap. 1; p. 4 After Henry was married he built a brick home for himself, but my grandmother continued to live in the old house. Sometime later Henry sold the place to a Mr. Strasser and my grandmother cvame to the United States to live with some of her children (most were living in Minnesota.) She seemed to be grieved because Henry did not succeed as well on the place as she thought he should. Whatever property she may have had was lost in some way through Henry's mismanagement.
Chap 3; p. 12 - My father's oldest brother Henry lived near Sebringville,Ontario, Canada for quite a number of years after he married. Then he moved onto a farm at Downie, four miles from Stratford, and then later into the town of Rodney. In his old age he came west to be with his children and lived in Watsonville, california. His wife died in January, three months before they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, which was to have taken place April 9, 1906. A year or two later, at the age of 73, Uncle Henry passed quietly away, there being no apparent cause of his death except old age.
1952 Update
Chap. 6; p. 3 - All of Uncle Henry's children except Albert, the youngest, who went to Australia, came to the
state of Washington, usually about the time they were of age and from there scattered to various parts of
the West. Edward, the next to the youngest in this family of eight children is the only one now living.
For many years he lived in Watsonville, California where he was the operator of a creamery of which he
owned half interest. When Uncle Henry first came to California, he made his home with this son until the
death of his wife. Some years later when ill health began to trouble Edward a bit, he sold his interest in
the creamery and moved to Vallejo, where he took a job with the government. Then because of his age he
gave up his government job and became the caretaker of the Presbyterian Church of which they were
members. Later on account of failing health they moved to Cloverdale, California. They bought a nice
Zimmerman Family History and Stories by Mrs. F. C. Nelson
Chapter 6 Updated to 1952 Page 4
home there and are living there now. Of late, he is an invalid, suffering from a stroke which was brought
on by a fall. It has affected his ability to talk and move about. It makes one feel sorry to see him carry
this kind of a cross, but he never complains about anything and just makes the best of it. He has two
daughters, Lucille and Iva, who now have families of their own. Both girls attended San Jose State
College. Lucille after graduating taught school for five years before her marriage to Edwin Schleuter.
She now lives in San Anselmo, California. She has two children, Bill and Gary. Iva, after doing college
work in San Jose, went into training at Merritt Hospital in Oakland and graduated from there in 1938.
She is married to Louis Jacobsen and lives in Salem, Oregon. She has three children, Roger, Carol, and
Shirley.
John, the oldest in Uncle Henry's family, lived in eastern Washington on a large wheat farm.
Death came to him in 1938 at the age of eighty-two of a heart attack. He had two daughters, Blessing and
Margaret. Blessing is the only one now living of John's family.
I never became much acquainted with Dan, Peter, or Will and know very little about them except
that Dan lived in or near Everett, Washington; that he had no children and that he died of heart trouble in
1936 at the age of seventy-eight.
Will developed a tumor of the brain which brought on other complications and caused his death in
1932 at the age of 69. He had one son, Sidney, who lives in Seattle.
Peter lived in Everett, Washington. He had four children, Henry, Edna, Clarence and Albert. He
passed away in 1933 at the age of seventy-two. He was confined to his bed for a long time before his
death with a creeping paralysis.
Lydia married Will Rice who taught school near Watsonville, California, when they first came to
California. Later he secured a job in a government office and they lived in Oakland, California most of
the time, where they bought a nice little home. They left the Methodist Church where they were attending
and became very devoted Christian Scientists. She passed away in 1948 at the age of seventy-nine.
Death was caused by cancer of the kidney. They never had any children. It was here that Uncle Henry's
wife died while on a visit with her daughter Lydia, but she is buried in Watsonville.
Mary Ann, the older of the two girls, was married to Otis Schleuter, who had a position as
trainmaster with the Santa Fe Railroad Co., for whom he worked for over fifty years. He is now retired
and lives in Cloverdale, California. It was here that Mary Ann passed away in 1950 from cancer of the
liver, at the age of eighty-four. After the death of Uncle Henry's wife, Mary Ann, who was then living in
New Mexico, came and got her father that he might live with her. So it came about that Uncle Henry died
and is buried in New Mexico.
Albert is the youngest in the family. He left the old home in Canada, and went to Australia, where
he acquired a fortune in the exporting and importing business, most of which he lost in World War II in
the trouble with Japan. He had two children, George and June. He died in 1936 at the age of sixty-two."5Ancestry.com, MessageBoard - kdallenpr, Sep 26 4:16 AM GMT.
6Anna Zimmerman Nelson, History of Christian and Elizabeth Zimmerman, updated, pages 32-40 of the Zimmerman History Packet received by DZStevens from J Rose on 26 Feb 2005. "This next section is an updating of the work of Anna Zimmerman Nelson, and shared with us by Fern Zimmerman of Santa Ana, California.
During the year 1832, there came into the affairs of Christian Zimmerman a simple little circumstance which changed the course of his whole life.
One Sunday afternoon, Christian and his younger brother, Henry, were sitting on a fence not far from their home, when a group of young men about their own age joined them. These young men were discussing the fact that the English Sovereign was giving away one hundred acres of land in Canada to anyone who would go there and live on it. This looked like a wonderful opportunity to these boys who worked for a few cents a day, or perhaps received only thirty dollars for a whole years work, out of which they had to furnish their own clothes, which were made by hand. It was not an unusual thing during the busy season for these boys to rise at three o'clock in the morning and thresh grain with a flail until late at night. So the Sovereign's offer of one hundred acres of land brought forth quite a discussion. Some contended that here there really might be a great opportunity. Others thought that the hardships to be endured were too great. The long and perilous journey to the new world was in itself considered dangerous, and if the trip were made successfully, the hardships to be endured after arrival were almost unsurmountable. Were there not great risks from sickness and hunger; from wild beasts and uncivilized people? So the discussion went on. The majority thought that they would like to avail themselves of this opportunity, if it were closer at hand; but that under the cir cumstances, the adventure to secure it was attended with too much sacrifice and danger. Christian was very much interested in this offer of the English Government, and finally decided that it was an opportunity which he must seize, and he made up his mind that he would go to Canada and have one of those farms. He realized that in Germany the opportunities of ever having a home of his own were not very good. Many of his friends tried to discourage him by telling him that rattle snakes and bears would kill him, and that he would never make the journey safely. The ocean voyage had to be made in sail ships at that time, and it took from six to fourteen weeks to come across the ocean. Christian could not be discouraged or turned from his purpose, and in due time made the journey.
Christian Zimmerman was born in 1800, so he was thirty-two years of age when he came to Canada and settled at Sebringsville, Ontario, Canada. His brother, Henry, came in 1837. Christian had his hundred acre farm.
The hundred acre plots were laid out in long narrow strips so that each farm would touch the highway. Christian's plot was one-fourth mile east of the present village of Sebringsville, on the south side of the road. The Buffalo and Lake Erie Railroad ran across the farm in later-. years. The old log house stood about ten rods away from the highway. When Henry came, he took a farm about fifty miles farther up the railroad.
Modes of communication and travel were difficult in those days, and it was a very easy matter to get out of touch with one's relatives. Although Henry lived only fifty miles from Christian, we know very little about his family. We do know that Henry came quite frequently to visit Christian and his family, even after Christian's death. Henry was a cabinet maker by trade, and during the long I winters he made such furniture as he could use or sell. He made a very wonderful bureau with secret drawers for keeping his money. Banks were not much used in those days, hiding places for money were always in demand. In some way or other this piece of furniture came into the possession of. Christian's son, Henry. Henry also had a table made by his uncle, Henry. It was a wonderful piece of work, and took the prize at a provincial fair or show.
We know that Christian's brother had a family. There was a boy named Dan who was a very fine penman, which was quite an accomplishment in those days'. There were also several daughters in the family.
Another person important to our family who came to Canada in 1832 was Elizabeth Knoll. Her home, Rolland discovered, was about four houses from the Zimmerman home. Whether the decision to come to Canada was mutual, or whether, as Anna Nelson recalled, their friendship on the long trip was the inspiration for their later marriage, we will never know.
Elizabeth's father had died and left the mother with a family to raise. Elizabeth had the same dream that many early colonists brought
to America ... that this was a land where one could get rich quickly and
then return home and make the lives of their loved ones easier. She
was determined to come to Canada. Her mother was very opposed to this
idea. She feared she would never see her child again. Elizabeth told
her Mother not to feel badly, that she would soon be back with a nice
little fortune to help her fatherless family. But she never went back.
Her
mother and grandmother lived to be very old, both reaching the, ripe old
age of about ninety years.In later years, she often spoke to her children about her brother, Philip,who seemed to have been an exceedingly clever and successful man. Her mother and Grandmother lived to be very old, both reaching the ripe old age of about ninety years.
Elizabeth and Christian complied with the custom of those days which was that a wedding must be announced for three successive Sundays in the church before the young people could be married. They were devoted to each other, and their wedded life was exceedingly happy. Elizabeth was a great help to her husband, not only in making a happy home for him, but also in clearing the timber from the land. She helped him pile and burn brush, and sometimes get the logs off the land. She did whatever else there was to do that a woman could do. She was always well, happy and busy, being of the industrious type of woman. She was of medium size and weight, with slightly rounded shoulders. In her later years, she became decidedly round-shouldered. Her eyes were very dark blue, and her hair a very dark brown, almost black. Her hair never turned gray, even in her last days.
Christian had brown eyes, dark hair, and very pretty rosy cheeks with a nice clear complexion, better than many women have. He was not skinny, but was a slender man of medium height and weight.
They were both devoted Christians, and had a simple, beautiful faith in God, similar to that of other Christian people-of their time. One Sundays during a heavy storm, the wind was beating the rain into the barn where the freshly threshed grain was lying. Elizabeth, after watching the storm for awhile, suggested that they had better go out and try to keep the grain dry, but Christian thought that they ought not to break God's Sabbath by doing manual labor, and suggested that God knew-that they needed the grain, and if He wished them to have it, He would save the crop without their breaking His Holy Sabbath Day. In Germany they were Lutherans, but in Canada they joined the German Evangelical Church, and in this church they trained their children in Christian living and in the doctrines of religion. All their children joined the church and led Christian lives, probably much above average.
Christian was not a very good sportsman, not having had an opportunity for such things in his youth. In Europe, this privilege was reserved for the wealthy landlords. But in Canada there was an abundance of deer for all, and other wild game was very plentiful. He seldom shot anything, even if the deer such such on his garden. One day a big deer came into the yard, and with an old, rusty gun, Christian shot it. But the gun gave him such a kick, and he felt so badly as he saw the beautiful animal lying dead before him, that he never tried shooting again.
Elizabeth and Christian built a log cabin on their place. It had two windows, and on one side an addition which they used for a summer cookhouse. This was their happy home. In the winter they would clear the land of brush and timber, and in the summer they would raise their crops. After the grain was hauled into the barn and threshed, Christian would spend an hour or two daily during the Fall throwing grain to remove the chaff.
Some years later they sold two acres of their farm, one acre for the erection of a blacksmith shop, and the other to build a tailor shop on. Then a school house was built across from the little log house and a short distance down the road. The little village of Sebringsville grew up about a quarter of a mile from the school house.
Elizabeth and Christian had a family of five boys and two girls. Henry, the oldest boy, married Mary Krusp. Adam, the second son, married Eve Hopp, and for his second wife, Elizabeth Britzius. Peter, the third boy, married 'Katherine Rhiel. Christian, the fourth boy, married Louise Nolde. Philip, who was the youngest of the family, married Ernestine Krause. Katherine, the oldest girl, married George Hopp. The younger daughter, Elizabeth (Betsie), married Christ Regal. Adam and Katherine both married into the same Hopp family and had a double wedding at Preston, Minnesota. Betsie died at the birth of her first child, the child dying, also. Philip was the youngest of the family. He was born January 10, 1851. That spring when the plum trees were in bloom, which must have been in May or June, his father died. Christian was only about 48 years old. For almost a week lie had been busy building a dam which had necessitated his standing in cold water and mud most of the time while he was at his work. This brought about his death. He was sick only three or four days. lie was buried in the Sebringsville Cemetery with a wooden tombstone on the grave, but now the exact spot of the grave is not known. Around 1890, the old cemetery, which was back of the Sebringsville church, was moved to higher ground because the graves filled with water. Such graves as had no one interested in them were abandoned. There were no relatives of Christian living there when this was done, so those who might have been interested did not even learn of the change until long after it had been made. So the body was never moved, but lies somewhere in the old cemetery which has been abandoned. Who knows, but it may also be petrified. It is an interesting fact that of the bodies moved, three or four were found to be perfectly petrified, which often happens when bodies are buried in low ground. At the time of Christian's death, the older boys were fourteen and thirteen, and Philip was only five or six months old. Very sad and lonely hours followed 'the break-up of the once so happy home.
The church formed a council of which a man by the name of John Kastner was one of the leaders. The council decided that most of tile property should go to the oldest boy, Henry, which was an English custom, and that the other boys should help Henry until they were sixteen, and go to school six months out of every year. But Henry was too young to understand and manage family affairs properly, and one of the results was that the boys had very little opportunity for education. Philip went to school only about three months out of the year, and after he was thirteen never attended school again. lie was anxious for an education, and seemed to realize its value, but he was too timid to insist that he be given the opportunity.
For more than twenty years, that school was conducted by a Mr. Hamilton. He was a school master of the old type, who did not believe in spoiling the child by sparing the rod. In the home, too, children were punished most severely, sometimes at very slight provocation. Philip has told of how a lamp chimney was broken in some way, and someone thought he could have prevented it if he had been watching the children more carefully, so he had to be whipped. Thirty-nine strokes was the punishment.
An inheritance came for Elizabeth from the old country, but a man by the name of Henry Zimmerman, no relative at all and who had no right to it whatsoever, succeeded in getting it away from her.
For a number of years, until Henry, the oldest boy, was ready to marry, the mother and family carried on the work of the farm together--.She built a large wooden barn, and made a few other improvements. Elizabeth had a little cow, "Daisy", that she kept for twenty-two years. Eventually Henry lost the family farm. In later years, he became successful in the business of selling honey.
Peter Zimmerman and his brother Christ, came to Minnesota after the Civil War ended in 1865. They worked in a shingle mill all summer in Stillwater, Minnesota. Each earned about $14.00 a week, and Peter saved about $1,000. The next spring, they went to Stillwater again, but the river was too high to work at the shingle mill, so the brothers came to Preston and found work there. Because he was afraid he would be robbed, Peter pretended to be poor, and worked his way down the Mississippi on a boat, and left the river at Winona.
Peter was a serious, quiet man with dark hair, a sandy mustache, and intense deep gray eyes. He was very proficient in reading and writing the German language, but sometimes had difficulty with English. He wanted his family to use the German language at home, but Catherine thought that this would be wrong, as they were Americans now.
Christ decided to go west and pan for gold in Montana, where he earned $7.00 or $8.00 a day. Later, during the gold rush, he moved on to Oregon. Finally, he went back to Canada where he married Louise Nolte and settled on a farm. In later years, he operated a prune orchard.
Peter stayed in Minnesota where he bought 160 acres of land in Racine township of Mower County. It was the last section to be cleared, and he paid twice as much for it as others had paid for the land around it. At the same time, he could have bought land where St. Paul now
stands for less than half of what he paid for the land he chose. He
built a three-room house with a kitchen, bedroom and a pantry. Later,
when he was courting Catherine Rhiel, he walked twenty-five miles to
Preston to see her. Another time he borrowed a buggy from old man
Felch to make the trip. Catherine had come from Canada when she was.
twenty-one, and stayed with her half-sister, Mary Long.
Peter and Catherine were married January 14, 1868, and lived in the frame house near Racine. The first winter, Catherine was so homesick that she rode to Preston in a bobsled, sitting on a box. She stayed a week and then was ready to come home.
They had six children, all born at Racine. Anna married Sam Anstett, divorced, and moved to North Dakota. George died when he was eleven. Margaret Lydia married Julius Krause, and they went to California. John William married Zora Haas, and they remained on the farm at Racine. Matilda married William Hunnerkoch of Red Wood Falls, Minnesota, and they moved to Montana. Ida (Katie) married Roy Drummond, and they lived in Austin, Minnesota.
In Canada, after Henry was married, he built a brick house for himself, but his mother continued to live in the old house. Some time later Henry sold the place to a Mr. Strasser, and then Elizabeth came to Minnesota to live with others of her children. She always grieved because 11 Henry did not succeed as well on the old place as she thought lie should have. Whatever property she may have had was lost in some way through Henry's mismanagement.
When Philip was fourteen years old, Henry, being in need of money, advised Philip to work for someone who would pay him a salary. So it came about that he was employed by an old Scotchman for six months for ten dollars a month and board and room. When the six months were up, the Scotchman paid him the salary in silver dollars. Philip carried those sixty silver dollars home six miles to Henry, who gave him seventyfive cents out of it for spending money. This was the first spending money Philip had ever had, and the first thing he bought was a comb for himself, thinking how fine it would be to have one all his very own. Then, as most boys would have done, he bought a jack-knife, and with the money he had left, lie bought a candy treat for his brothers. He was badly in need of a suit of clothes at this time, so that he could go to church and Sunday School, but that seems to have been out of the question. Adam, who was next younger than Henry, and who was now living in theUnited States at Preston, Minnesota, made a visit to Canada about this time. When he returned to the states, he brought Philip with him.
Elizabeth lived with her children in Minnesota until her death, October 18, 1888, at the Adam Zimmerman home three or four miles north of Preston. She was ill only a very short time. Early in the evening of October 18, when asked how she felt and whether she would have any supper, she replied that she did not need any supper, and that by ten o'clock she would be gone to her home in Heaven. Adam's family thought she was delirious, but really not seriously ill. Just before ten o'clock that evening, she passed quietly and peacefully away. No one realized she was going until she was gone. Then they remembered that she had said she would be gone by ten o'clock. She was 78 years and 9 months old. She is buried in the Preston cemetery, with services being held at the German Evangelical Church.
Elizabeth had a certain strain of severity in her nature which, occasionally when conditions were right, showed itself. She was a fine disciplinarian and seemed to understand human nature better than most people. She was very tidy about her person, and her room, and was quite saving. She was always fair in her dealings with her fellow-man, but she also expected them to be fair with her. She disliked pictures and statuary very. much, and used to say, "ach solcha gotza" (Oh, such idols!) To her, they suggested images, and made her think of idolatry, which was considered a sin. This probably is the reason that we have only one photograph of her, and none of her husband. She was always glad to help along any good cause, but always had so little money to spend. Something always happened to her property because of Henry's mismanagement. She said she did not care much for money for her own use, but that she would
like to have had money so that she might give to the church, and help the poor, and give wherever there was a need. She loved to go to church, but it hurt her not to have more to give.
Hers was a beautiful life of hardship, sorrow and trials, culminating in a great and glorious victory, and how can we know but that the discipline of this lower life perfected her, and made her ready for that higher service above.
"A home in Heaven; what a joyful thought
As the poor man toils in his weary lot,
His heart oppressed, and with anguish drives
From his home below to his home in Heaven."
When Rolland was in Germany in 1983, he found the church records which gave accurate facts of the early history, and these have been used.". "At the time of Christian's death, the older boys were fourteen and thirteen."7Ancestry.com, 1901 Census.
8Gordon Zimmerman phone call 12 Nov 2005.
9Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn. This source says Henry died in New Mexico where he was living with his daughter Mary Ann.
10Gordon Zimmerman phone call 12 Nov 2005. Anna Marie Zimmerman Nelson in her Zimmerman History says This Henry Zimmerman is buried in New Mexico.
1Ancestry.com. California Death Index for son, Edward, lists surname as Kruspe.
2Census, Canada - 1901 - Ontario, Elgin (West/Quest), Aldborough, ancestry p. 85 of 111. "line 22 29 31
Zimmerman, Henry head feb 16 1835 66 b. O>R Evangelical Occ: Bee-Keeper own acct
Mary E. wife Mar 31 1834 67 Ger imm: 1846 Evan.
Albert son Aug 2 1874 26 O>R Meth. Artist - employed 12 mos, earnings: $900."3Ancestry.com, Travel info for John Dennstedt family. "1840s - The Dennstedt and Krusp families came from Grossengottern, Sachsen, Deutschland to Ellice Township, Perth County, Ontario, which is about 18 miles west of the railroad town of Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Grossengottern is NE of Frankfurt am Main and North of Gotha. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro%C3%9Fengottern
The following is a summary of written memories by Fred Dennstedt (son of Charles Dennstedt, oldest son of John E. and Minnie [Krusp] ):
1863-64 - John E. Dennstedt and Wm. Krusp (probably cousin to his wife, Wilhelmina) and their families took a journey. They:
1. drove a team and wagon to Port Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
2. They sold the team and wagon
3. Crossed the river via ferry to Port Huron, Michigan
4. From there took a train to Chicago, Illinois and on to LaCrosse, Wisconsin
5. Steamboat to Winona, Minnesota
6. Train to St. Charles, Minnesota
7. Stage to Preston, Minnesota8. Arrived October, 1864
Also according to Fred, John E. left a half-brother, named Christ, in Seberingville, Ontario, Canada. Sixty years later (~ 1904) he moved to Hale, Michigan. He had four boys: George, John, Sam, and William. William was in Tawas City, Michigan in 1967.
1863 - The Kleimenhagen Family and Clara Schmidt came from Schmalkalden District, Thuringen State, Deutschland about 1863. Herrenbreitungen, Fambach (Parish), Estate Winne are little villages surrounding Schmalkalden, and just south of Gotha.One story is that Clara came with girlfriends, landing in New York and taking the train across the country to the Preston, Minnesota area.
Another story is that she came with the Kleimenhagen family possibly as a maid/mother’s helper. The rest of Clara Schmidt’s family stayed in Germany according to her obituary.
Johanna Kleimenhagen became John E. Dennstedt’s wife after Minnie died.Clara Schmidt became the wife of Charles Dennstedt (son of John E.)
1888 – John E. Dennstedt, his wife and unmarried children moved to Winfield Township, Renville County, Minnesota.
Dennstedt - Johann Ernst and Johann Gerhardt Dennstedt were first cousins. According to Dale Bast these men crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to America in ~ 1845 in their own homemade sailboat. (Seems almost impossible) They took up residence in Ellice Township in southwestern Ontario in the vicinity of what was to become the village of Wartburg.
They established themselves and sent word back to Grossengottern that they should come to the new land. Johann Friedrich (father of Johann Ernst), his wife, Anna Maria and sons George Heinrich (17), Friedrich Wilhelm (5) and Christian Dennstedt (1) and several other families (including Kruspe) came and established farms. They all continued to prosper. Sometime around 1860 a rift begins to appear in the families. No one knows the reason for the rift and split, but in 1864 Johann Ernst Dennstedt and William Krupse pack up their families and journey to Minnesota. Then George Heinrich Dennstedt moves his family to Waterloo County. No contact was maintained and the split became final. One hundred plus years later we are trying to reconnect.
William Kruspe, who emigrated to Minnesota with John Ernest and Minnie Dennstedt, is thought to be a brother-in-law. Records cannot be found to verify this. On early census records and in the cemetery in Preston, his mother is given as “Christena Kruspe”. This would more likely make him a first cousin to Minnie.
First cousins probably married sisters. Dale’s research indicates that the parents of Maria Louisa Elizabeth Kruspe (1822-1909) were John G. Kruspe (c. 1788-1861) and Anna Maria (c. 1791-1873). Elizabeth married Johann Gerhardt Denstedt about 1852.
I found a marriage index notation that indicates that they were also the parents of Wilhelmina “Minnie” Kruspe (c.1832-1868). Minnie married Johann Ernst Dennstedt. This same notation gives a marriage date of November 16, 1852 for Minnie and John E. Dennstedt.
Both families had children in 1853, possibly the first Dennstedt people born in North America.
The following is a summary of written memories by Fred Dennstedt (son of Charles Dennstedt, oldest son of John E. and Minnie [Kruspe] ):
1863-64 - John E. Dennstedt and Wm. Kruspe (brother-in-law, probably brother to his wife, Wilhelmina) and their families took a journey. They:
1. drove a team and wagon to Port Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
2. They sold the team and wagon
3. Crossed the river via ferry to Port Huron, Michigan
4. From there took a train to Chicago, Illinois and on to LaCrosse, Wisconsin
5. Steamboat to Winona, Minnesota
6. Train to St. Charles, Minnesota
7. Stage to Preston, Minnesota
8. Arrived October, 1864
Also according to Fred, John E. left a half-brother, named Christ, in Seberingville, Ontario, Canada. Sixty years later (~ 1904) he moved to Hale, Michigan. He had four boys: George, John, Sam, and William. William was in Tawas City, Michigan in 1967.
1863 - The Kleimenhagen Family and Clara Schmidt came from Schmalkalden District, Thuringen State, Deutschland about 1863. Herrenbreitungen, Fambach (Parish), Estate Winne are little villages surrounding Schmalkalden, and just south of Gotha.
One story is that Clara came with girlfriends, landing in New York and taking the train across the country to the Preston, Minnesota area.
Another story is that she came with the Kleimenhagen family possibly as a maid/mother’s helper. The rest of Clara Schmidt’s family stayed in Germany according to her obituary.
Johanna Kleimenhagen became John E. Dennstedt’s wife after Minnie died.
Clara Schmidt became the wife of Charles Dennstedt (son of John E.)
1888 – John E. Dennstedt, his wife and unmarried children moved to Winfield Township, Renville County, Minnesota.
For more detailed information on the Dennstedt Families with pictures and much old history, see the book published by Dale Bast entitled “West of Grossengottern” published in 1992. His address in 2003 is:
125 Windemere Crossing, Stratford, ON, CA N52 649.
Phone: 519-271-8829. email: dbast@orc.ca ."4Annie Marie Zimmerman Nelson, Zimmerman Family History and Stories;forward by Allan Leslie VanLehn, Unpublished work (c) 2008 by (ALVL), Ch. 6, p. 4, Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. excerpts copied with permission. "It was here that Uncle Henry's
wife died while on a visit with her daughter Lydia, but she is buried in Watsonville."
1Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN."2Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, 5 of 14, 8 Jun 1880. "Name: George Hoff
[George Hopp]
[George Hopp]
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1831
Birthplace: Alsach
Home in 1880: Fraser, Martin, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Sarah Hoff
Father's Birthplace: Alsach
Mother's Birthplace: Alsach
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Household Members:
Name Age
George Hoff 49
Sarah Hoff 39
John Hoff 19
Jacob Hoff 17
Matilda Hoff 15
Emma Hoff 13
George Hoff 11
Henry Hoff 9
Lydia Hoff 7
Catherine Hoff 5
Maggie Hoff 4m."3Ancestry.com, New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957
about George Hopp
Name: George Hopp
Arrival Date: 10 Oct 1854
Estimated birth year: abt 1830
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Port of Departure: Le Havre, France
Destination: New York
Place of Origin: France
Ethnicity/Race/Nationality: French
Ship Name: Robt Parker
Search Ship Database: Search the Robt Parker in the 'Passenger Ships and Images' database
Port of Arrival: New York
Line: 22
Microfilm Serial: M237
Microfilm Roll: M237_146
List Number: 1375
Port Arrival State: New York
Port Arrival Country: United States."4Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1875 - Martin, Fraser
p. 3 1875. "Line 3 Family #34
Geo Hopp 44 M France France France
C " 36 F Canada Germany Germany
John " 13 M MN France Canada
J. 12 " " " "
Til " 10 " same
Emma " 8 "
Geo. 6 M
Henry 4 "
S 1 F."5Zimmerman History Packet Received from J. Rose 26 Feb 2005, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. This booklet was assembled by Rolland Zimmerman after his visit with his family to Altheim in 1983.
6Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1885 - Fillmore, Carrolton, 1865 state Census. "# 94
George Hopp
Catharine "
John "
Michael "
Albert "."7Census, Minnesota Territorial and State, 1849- 1905 - 1885 - Fillmore, Carrolton, 21 Sep 1857. " George Hope
[George Hopp]
Age: 27
Census Date: 21 Sep 1857
County: Fillmore
Locality: Township 103
Birth Location: France
Gender: Male
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1830
Race: White
Line: 13
Roll: MN1857_2." George appears with his brother John Hopp age 25.8Ancestry.com, Civil War Draft Registration, 1 Jul 1863. "Name: George Hopp
Residence: Carrollton, Minnesota
Class: 1
Congressional District: 1st
Age on 1 July 1863: 34
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1829
Race: White
Marital Status: Married
Place of Birth: Germany."9Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, p.5, Jun 1880.
10C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
11Ancestry.com, Minnesota Death Index. "Name: George Hopp
Death Date: 5 Feb 1914
Death County: Martin
State File Number: 007801
Certificate Number: 007801
Certificate Year: 1914
Record Number: 137297."12Ancestry.com, One World Tree.
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, 5 of 14.
2Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN."3C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
4Ancestry.com, One World Tree.
1Census, Federal - 1880 - Martin Co., MN, Fraser Twsp ED154, 5 of 14. "Name: George Hoff
[George Hopp]
[George Hopp]
Age: 49
Birth Year: abt 1831
Birthplace: Alsach
Home in 1880: Fraser, Martin, Minnesota
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Sarah Hoff
Father's Birthplace: Alsach
Mother's Birthplace: Alsach
Neighbors: View others on page
Occupation: Farmer
Household Members:
Name Age
George Hoff 49
Sarah Hoff 39
John Hoff 19
Jacob Hoff 17
Matilda Hoff 15
Emma Hoff 13
George Hoff 11
Henry Hoff 9
Lydia Hoff 7
Catherine Hoff 5
Maggie Hoff 4m." Last name wrong on census.2Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN."3C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
1Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN."2C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
1Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN."2C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
1Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN."2C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
1C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
2Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN." Sarah says she has birthed 6 children, 5 are living. The other five are listed on this census. Rueben is not.
1Census, Federal - 1900 - Martin Co., MN ED171 p.1A. "Hopp, George head Sep 1830 age 69 b. Ger m. 23 yrs
Sarah wife Apr 1846 54 MA m. 23 yrs 6 ch born/5 living
George M. son May 1869 31 MN
Maggie dau Sep 1879 20 MN
Esther dau Jul 1882 17 MN
Mary dau Jun 1884 15 MN
Gracie dau Jul 1886 13 MN
Alice dau Mar 1891 9 MN."2C. Sexton Family Tree, Ancestry.com.
1Frank D. Walker, Derrick Family History, Wheeler, TX - 22 FEB 1957, Derrick, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
2Nyman, Ina - various papers.
3Census, Federal - 1850 - Green Co., Wi, town of Spring Grove, Ancestry p. 16. "Line 7 Dwelling # 100 Household # 104
F H Derrick age 27 farmer b. NY
Harriet " 29 U Canada
Theodore " 2 WI
Franklin " 1/12 WI
Mary Boslow 53 New Brunswick real estate value $1000." Living next door is FHDerricks brother Alonzo Derrick & family.
In the next house is FHDerrick's Uncle Nathaniel B. Condon.
Living with the Condons is FH's Uncle Morris Derrick.4Census, Federal - 1880 - Green Co, WI, Spring Grove, Film T9-1428, p. 194C.
5Fleming, Bell TenEyck, History of Old Clarence. ""The old village plot was located on land in Section 2, which was first settled by Wm. Sherry in the spring of 1841...
"Clarence was known in those days as Tenneyville. It was later named Clarence in honor of Squire Derrick, the name of the town from which he came ...
"Morris Derrick, brother of Squire Derrick, kept a small stock of groceries and liquors ...
"In 1840 Rudolphus Derrick settled on Section 2 in the town of Spring Grove. He bought 1200 acres of land and was one of the leading men of his time. He built a log house west of the bluff where he lived until his death. He was Justice of the Peace for many years. His log house served as a court house. His son, Franklyn Derrick, father of Frank Derrick, built the house on the hill...
"Jacob Ten Eyck, my grandfather, came from Canada and bought 540 acres of Rudolphus Derrick. He built a house just west of the Clarence bridge on the south side of the road.
The log house that grandfather built had no doors or windows -only places cut for them and blankets were hung up at the door. (There was no saw mill.) All slept in the loft, or up stairs reached by a ladder, and after all were up, the ladder was drawn up so the wolves could not reach them. Kate (daughter of Jacob) said she could see wolves everywhere, their eyes shining in the dark ... Kate was the first white child born in Clarence ...
"Grandmother Ten Eyck was an invalid in the latter part of her life. She never tired of relating incidents of the early settlements. Especially of Peter Emel, the Frenchman, and his Indian wife, who often called. They would follow Mrs. Ten Eyck to the chamber, cellar, or garden, when she would supply them with meat or other eatables. She told of the herds of deer that bounded through the brush and thicket that then surrounded the place, and of the wild turkey that came and gobbled near the door, feeding from the corn they found. Kate Taylor said she could remember seeing 30 deer at one time.
"Before there was a bridge, Grandfather Ten Eyck built a canoe out of logs in which he brought the people across the river that had no other way. Later, a bridge was built but every winter it would wash out. Frank Derrick says that once when it had gone out they built a raft of logs and had a couple of pulleys in which ropes were run. They would take hold of the rope and pull the raft to their side, then all would get on, the smallest children were made to sit down and the older ones would manage the raft. It would float down with the current as far as it could go, and then they would pull on another rope to bring them to the other side. He says many a morning they went to school that way and as he thinks of it now, he wonders how it happened none of them drowned...
"Sugar River received its name from the white sand that could be seen through the water.
"An old cemetery used in the days of Clarence is located on Section 2 opposite the Searles place. A private graveyard is located on the original purchase of R. H. Derrick.
"In the spring the Indians camped along the Sugar River. They came to fish and hunt. The men and women walked, their tents and other things were fastened to long poles. One end was held up by the pony and the other dragged on the ground. One winter there was a sickness among them and nothing to eat. Someone came and told Grandfather Ten Eyck and he sent word back for them to bring their ponies and he would help them. They came and he loaded their ponies with meat, vegetables, bread and straw. The children that died, they hung up in the trees down near the bridge where the park is now. They were left there through the winter and the next spring they came for them, but they never came again to camp."
""The old hotel and barn were destroyed by fire and the post office was discontinued in 1857 and who can tell what became of the many, many homes and business places. Everything is gone where was once this beautiful village of Clarence and now laid out in fields of farm land and farm homes."." The excerpts from this source come from various papers copied and given to me in 1985 by Ina Nyman. They are parts of the book that she copied. There were no page numbers given.6Beckwith, Helen, Clarence, written abt 1936. "The Half-Way Tree
"This tree is a burr oak standing south of HWY 81 on land once owned by Charles A. Warner...His son well remembers the Indian chief who twice a year with some members of his tribe camped on the bank of the Sugar River where it flowed through Warner land... When [the son] was a little boy, about 1867, he can remember the Indian chief standing at the door of his father's blacksmith shop, where he had come to get a gun and some other things repaired, and saying, 'You no cut that tree!' and pointing to the burr oak, which still stands alone. The Indian then explained to Mr. Warner that the tree marked for the Indians the point which was one half way between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.
The Indians walking single file, one foot directly in front of the other, had worn the trail down through the sod. The tree was then about the size of a stove pipe. The bark was hacked in many places by Indian tomahawks. One year during an unusual drought nearly all the leaves died. At another time the tree was found one morning stripped of all its leaves by grasshoppers. Mr. Warner promised it should stand and it has. The Indian trail wound from the northeast to the southwest. Mr. Warner, coming home one day, announced that the Indians were quite accurate, as the middle point had been located at Magnolia."." Ina Nyman excerpted these paragraphs from Beckwith's article and sent them to me.7Franklin H. Derrick Will, Copy in Personal Files of Dianne Z. Stevens. "Know all men by these presents, that I, Franklin H. Derrick, of the City of Brodhead, Green County, Wisconsin, being of sound mind and memory, and mindful of the uncertainty of human life, do make, declare and publish, this my last will and testament, in form and manner following, hereby revoking all former wills by me made.
First.- I desire and direct that all of my just debts and my funeral expenses and the cost of administering my estate shall be paid in full, that a suitable monument shall mark my last resting place, and that a marker shall be erected at a cost not exceeding fifty dollars, at the grave of my deceased father and mother.
Second.- I give, devise and bequeath to my wife, Mary A. Derrick, the entire use of all of the residue of my estate both real and personal during her natural lifetime; and in case such use shall not be sufficient to provide for her maintenance and comfort I desire and direct that such portions of the principal of said residue as shall become requisite for her maintenance and comfort shall be appropriated and used for that purpose.
Third.- I will and direct that all of the residue of my entire estate that shall remain after the death of my said wife shall be divided into five equal shares; and I give, devise and bequeath the same to my children as follows, to-wit: to my sons Theodore J. and Levi F. one half of one share to each; to my sons Franklin R., Paul E., and my daughter Harriet L. Lamson one share to each; to my grandsons Frank T. Balis, Robert H. Balis and Ernest Balis one ninth of one share to each; to my granddaughters Hattie Belle Livingstone and Mabel Walker one sixth of one share to each; and to my granddaughter Flora L. Stevens one third of one share.
Provided however that any amout which may hereafter be paid by me or out of my estate by reason of my signature to any note or notes as surety for my said son Franklin R. Derrick shall be computed as a part of my estate and of said residuary legacy to my said son Franklin R.
Fourth.- I nominate and appoint my said son Franklin R. Derrick to be the executor of this, my last will and testament, and I authorize and direct him, as such executor to compound, compromise and settle all claims in favor of and against my estate, and to sell and convey by good and sufficient deed or deeds and real estate of which I shall die seized, without obtaining any license from court therefore, and to pay over the legacies and residue as above provided, in money.
In witness whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal this twenty-third day of February A. D. Nineteen Hundred three.
Franklin H. Derrick (Seal)
The foregoing written instrument, all on two half sheets, was signed and sealed by Franklin H. Derrick, the testator therein named, and was by him declared to be his last will and testament, on the day of the date thereof, in the presence of us who hereunto sign our names as witnesses, at his request, in his presence, and in the presence of each other.
Mabel Dodge
Burr Sprague." Copy received from Ina Nyman.8Jack Taif Spencer and Robert Abraham Goodpasture, Genealogy and History of the Derthicks and Related Derricks, Eight Centuries of the Derthicks and Related Derricks..., Gateway Press, Inc. Baltimore, 1986., p.449. "It is recorded that Franklin H. Derrick bought the homestead after his father died in 1860 and that the property was farmed by his sons Theodore and Levi. However, Theodore joined the army in 1865 and Levi moved on to the town of McCracken in Rush County, Kansas. Franklin H. continued to farm in Green County until he retired in 1883, but most likely (to judge from the sale records), it seems that he was probably in a different location than the old Derrick homestead."
9Jack Taif Spencer and Robert Abraham Goodpasture, Genealogy and History of the Derthicks and Related Derricks, Eight Centuries of the Derthicks and Related Derricks..., p.482. "Loranda (FH's mother) kept Scott until he became a young man. After this, she went to live with Franklin Derrick who had built a large home on the hill north of the old log home. Loranda resided here until 1872, when Franklin moved to Monroe, Green County. This city was the county seat and Franklin had been elected sheriff."
10Jack Taif Spencer and Robert Abraham Goodpasture, Genealogy and History of the Derthicks and Related Derricks, Eight Centuries of the Derthicks and Related Derricks..., p.488-489. "Quoting from the History of Green County (1901):
Franklin H. Derrick was 14 years of age when he came with his parents to Wisconsin and he has lived continuously in Green County since that time, with the exception of two years which he spent in California engaged in mining. He crossed the plains in 1850, taking five months to make the journey. In 1852 he returned home by way of the isthmus and on a sailing vessel to New Orleans, where he took a steamer for Cincinnati. He farmed until 1883, when he retired. Mr. Derrick attended the district school one winter after coming to the West. He lived at home until his father's death, when he bought the entire homestead of four hundred acres, but has since sold it.
Mr. Derrick and Miss Harriet Boslow were married November 18, 1846. She was the daughter of John and Mary (Condon) Boslow, and became the mother of seven children: Theodore James, Franklin R., Levi F., Mary L., Harriet L., Flora L., and Paul E. Theodore James lives at Jolly, Texas; he married Mrs. Ellen Purdy. Franklin R. lives at Brodhead, and is the husband of Miss Belle Moore. Levi F. married Miss Mary Simmons, and lives at McCracken, Kansas; they have two children, Edna and Maud. Paul E. married Miss Adeline Bowen, and lives in the city of New York. Mary L. married John C. Balis, and both are dead; they were the parents of six children (Franklin T., Robert, Ernest, Mary L, Hattie, and Mabel). Flora L. died at the age of two years. Mrs. Harriet A. Derrick died October 22, 1871, at the age of 49. She was a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. Derrick married Mrs. Mary A. Northrup, September 17, 1872. She was thw widow of Sylvester Northrup and the daughter of Sanford Williams. Mr. and Mrs. Derrick are members of the Methodist Church, where he serves on the board of trustees. He was formerly a Republican, but is now a Prohibitionist. He was sheriff from 1873 to 1875, and a chairman of the town board a number of terms. He was a member of the Brodhead Lodge, I.O.O.F., No. 123, in 1867. He has a good home in Brodhead, and is reckoned among the leading citizens in the town and county.
Since Green County is famous to this day as a great center of cheese production, it is interesting that some of the Derricks were prominent in this business."11Jack Taif Spencer and Robert Abraham Goodpasture, Genealogy and History of the Derthicks and Related Derricks, Eight Centuries of the Derthicks and Related Derricks..., p. 489. "Since Green County is famous to this day as a great center of cheese production, it is interesting that some of the Derricks were prominent in this business more than a century ago. The first cheese factory in Brodhead was put in operation 20 May 1879 by J. W. Westlake, proprietor. Later, a stock company was organised in 1883 by seventeen stockholders, including Paul and Franklin H. Derrick. The latter was treasuer of the company, whild Paul was the salesman. The factory was located in the northwest corner of Section 11. In its early operations it used 5,000 pounds of milk per day."
12Census, Federal - 1870 - GreenCo., Wisconsin, Spring Grove, p, 20 of 32, 6 Aug 1870. "Line 30 Dwelling # 148 Household # 148
Derrick, F.H. age 46 farmer Real Estate = $15,000 b. NY
Harriet 48 Canada
Theodore 22 farmer WI
Frank 20 in school WI
Mary 17 in school WI
Levi 15 in school WI
Harriet 13 in school WI
Peter 8 in school WI
Lorinda 78 NY."13Ancestry.com, message board post, 2002. "From Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin, publ. 1901- page 355-356
FRANKLIN H. DERRICK, of Brodhead, Green county, is a retired farmer, and is passing his last days in this beautiful little inland city. He has lived a useful life, worked hard, and is now enjoying a competence for which he has rendered an honest equivalent in brain and brawn.
Mr. DERRICK was born in Erie county, N.Y., Jan. 26, 1824, and is a son of Rodolphus D. and Lorinda (Sheldon) DERRICK, natives of Vermont and New York, respectively. Eight children were born to them, of whom two are now living: Franklin H.; and Elvira, the widow of Levi DERRICK, of Henderson, Neb. The father was a farmer, and during his active years cleared several heavily timbered farms in his native State. He came to the West in 1838 to make his home, though he had already been out two years before and bought land in Green county, Wis. In 1840 he broke land on this farm, and the following year moved his family to it, and made it his home as long as he lived. He died in 1860, at the age of sixty-seven, and his widow died fourteen years later, at the age of seventy-seven, lacking one month. He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and in his mature years, a leading man in his community. He was one of the three county commissioners in Green county at an early day, held several town offices, and was on the county board at different times. His father, Ephraim DERRICK, was a native of Vermont, of English lineage. He was a Revolutionary soldier, and drew a pension. He died in New York at the age of seventy-seven. His grandfather, John DERRICK(1), born in England in 1833, came to America in 1674, and died at the age of one hundred and eight years. The maternal grandfather of the subject of this article was William Sheldon. He was a farmer in New York, reared a family of eleven children, and reached the age of seventy-five.
Franklin H. DERRICK was fourteen years of age when he came with his parents to Wisconsin, and he has lived continuously in Green county since that time, with the exception of two years which he spent in California engaged in mining. He crossed the Plains in 1850, taking five months to make the journey. In 1852 he returned home by way of the Isthmus, and on a sailing-vessel to New Orleans, where he took a steamer for Cincinnati. He farmed until 1883, when he retired. Mr. DERRICK attended the district school one winter after coming to the West. He lived at home until his father's death, when he bought the entire homestead of four hundred acres, but has since sold it.
Mr. DERRICK and Miss Harriet A. BOSLOW were married Nov. 18, 1846. She was the daughter of John and Mary (Condon) BOSLOW, and became the mother of seven children, Theodore James, Franklin R., Levi F., Mary L., Harriet L., Flora L., and Paul E. Theodore James lives at Jolly, Texas; he married Mrs. Ellen Purdy. Franklin R. lives at Brodhead and is the husband of Miss Belle Moore. Levi F. married Miss Mary Simmons, and lives at McCracken, Kans.; they have two children, Edna and Maud. Paul E. married Miss Adeline Bowen, and lives in the city of New York. Mary L. married John BALIS, and both are dead; they were the parents of six children, Franklin T., Robert Ernest, Mary L., Hattie and Mabel. Harriet L. married Junius T. LAMSON, and lives at Orleans, Neb.; they have four children. Flora L. died at the age of two years. Mrs. Harriet A. DERRICK died Oct. 22, 1871, at the age of forty-nine. She was a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. DERRICK married Mrs. Mary A. NORTHUP, Sept. 17, 1872. She was the widow of Sylvester Northup, and the daughter of Sanford Williams. Mr. and Mrs. DERRICK are members of the Methodist Church, where he serves on the board of trustees. He was formerly a Republican, but is now a Prohibitionist. He was sheriff from 1873 to 1875, and was chairman of the town board a number of terms. He has a good home in Brodhead, and is reckoned among the leading citizens in the town and county."14FamilySearch.com - International Genealogical Index of North America, internet.
1Frank D. Walker, Derrick Family History, Wheeler, TX - 22 FEB 1957, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
2Census, Federal - 1850 - Green Co., Wi, town of Spring Grove, Ancestry p. 16, 19 Sep 1850. "Line 7 Dwelling # 100 Household # 104
F H Derrick age 27 farmer b. NY
Harriet " 29 U Canada
Theodore " 2 WI
Franklin " 1/12 WI
Mary Boslow 53 New Brunswick real estate value $1000."3Census, Federal - 1870 - GreenCo., Wisconsin, Spring Grove. "Line 30 Dwelling # 148 Household # 148
Derrick, F.H. age 46 farmer Real Estate = $15,000 b. NY
Harriet 48 Canada
Theodore 22 farmer WI
Frank 20 in school WI
Mary 17 in school WI
Levi 15 in school WI
Harriet 13 in school WI
Peter 8 in school WI
Lorinda 78 NY."4FamilySearch.com - International Genealogical Index of North America, internet.
5Olsen, Wayne, PAF file: Boslow_Anc_Stevens.paf, rec'd via EMail 0n 14 APR 2002.
6Olsen, Wayne, PAF file: Boslow_Anc_Stevens.paf.
7FamilySearch.com - International Genealogical Index of North America.
1Frank D. Walker, Derrick Family History, Wheeler, TX - 22 FEB 1957, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
1Frank D. Walker, Derrick Family History, Wheeler, TX - 22 FEB 1957, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
1Frank D. Walker, Derrick Family History, Wheeler, TX - 22 FEB 1957, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
2Nyman, Ina - various papers.
1Hattie Bales photo Album. This album cites name as "Leslie Charles Palmer".
2Hattie Bales photo Album.
1Frank D. Walker, Derrick Family History, Wheeler, TX - 22 FEB 1957, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
2Hattie Bales photo Album.
1Nyman, Ina-letter to Dianne Stevens dated 2/26/1984, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
2Nyman, Ina - various papers.
3Social Security Death Index.
1Frank D. Walker, Derrick Family History, Wheeler, TX - 22 FEB 1957, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711.
2Nyman, Ina - various papers.
3Veith, Michele, Ged-com file imported 17 MAR 2002. file titled "Leslie".
1Stevens, Dianne Z., Stevens Family History, Personal files of Dianne Z. Stevens, 1301 Reetz Road, Madison, WI 53711. Assembled from various sources.
2Nyman, Ina - various papers.