Emigration - who, when, where from?
From Frankenhausen to Kiel
The emigrants´ family in Kiel
From Kiel to the U.S.
Today
Emigrants to America and their
origins (chart)
Ships from Hamburg to New York
Emigration happened at first in the middle of the 19th century and then fourty years later between 1890 - 1895 and the actors came from different Teuthorn families.
The first to emigrate were in 1848 Dr. med. Johann Christian David (*1795), and his son Heinrich Ottomar Theodor (*1821), Ökonom/studied farmer, both from Frankenhausen. Daughter Pauline (*1833) followed in 1859.
The two youngest sons of Carl Friedrich Teuthorn, who then lived as a haulage contractor in Leipzig/Sachsen, were the next ones to start the journey. Friedrich Philipp Bernhard (1820-1868) took part in the German revolution 0f 1848/49 and emigrated 1851. He later had a bookshop in Boston. Julius Adolph Dankegott (1824-1880) followed him 1854 to Boston. This branch of the family ended with the 3rd generation when in 1972 lokomotive engineer Nathaniel Chester Teuthorn died in Quincy / Mass.
Two generations later - Atlantic voyage had changed from sailing ship to steamship - four children of Wilhelm Friedrich Otto Teuthorn emigrated from Kiel/Holstein to Chicago. What them relates to the Boston brothers and the Frankenhausen family is their common but very early ancestor Jacob Teuthorn, mayor in Frankenhausen, who had lived there 200 years earlier (see table: Emigrants to America / origins ).
Recently I found traces of Teuthorns also in the region of Maule in
Chile. So obviously there was also emigration to South America.
But I´m still missing more details.
As a descendant of the branch of Teuthorns which continued to live in Germany
(-->Emil) I concentrate my description on those Teuthorns who
had lived in Kiel for three generations, i.e. since 1836
when Wilhelm Günther Teuthorn, common forefather of American and
German family, moved there. The exact reasons for emigration from his birth
town Frankenhausen to Kiel /
Dukedom of Holstein are not known. They may have consisted in the need of
gaining an open field for his profession as a surgeon [1].
This is more likely than the today´s pattern of love and following marriage
in Kiel.
In July 1836 Wilhelm Günther Teuthorn became burger by the traditional
procedure of swearing the burger´s oath and he entered the guild of
barbers and surgeons. So he had become one of the masters who were priviliged
to exercise their trade by the Guild Letter / Zunftbrief which duke Friedrich
had signed in 1638. It restricted the number of masters to five. By this means
a certain economical prosperity was garanteed.
His son Wilhelm Friedrich Otto Teuthorn apparently lived in poorer conditions.
My grandfather Emil often mentioned his poor old parents, whom he felt obliged
to support with dollars from America. Friedrich Otto worked as a barber. He
had to nourish six children.
The oldest of them was Louisa/Luise who was followed by the sons Otto
and William/Wilhelm, the daughters Minna and Petra and
the youngest son Emil. A graphic
may improve your imagination of complicated family relationship!
In the chapter of places (Orte) I give several descriptions of Kiel with emphasis
on the 19th century, also an abstract in English. I recommend the (still not
translated) part of town life / städtisches
Leben in Kiel with illustrations of old houses of the historic Faulstraße,
where the Teuthorn Family lived at that time.
Otto is said to have been the first who started the jouney. He is said to
have emigrated "when Kaiser Wihelm II. came to power" [2].
But this historical event will not have been the reason for his emigration.
He certainly was not a political refugee. Louisa, William, Petra and Emil
followed until 1895. Minna stayed in Kiel.
When Emil emigrated in 1895 he lived together with Otto and William during
his first year in Chicago. Afterwards he took an independent way. Otto stayed
in Chicago and became ancestor of the actual und numerous Teuthorn families
in the U.S.
Whether William did as well is not sure. His traces disappear.
The children sent dollars to support their old parents in Kiel. There exist
photographs of all of them
(except Petra) before they started to America, and when Emil, the 15 year
old youngest brother, arrived the three brothers had temselves portrayed together
in Chicago.
Otto (1868-1935)
is the ancestor whose "gene" further exist in the branch of family that
until now continues living in the U.S. His son Kurt (1900-1974) is the
link to them.
Otto arrived in Chicago in the beginning of the 1890's with no knowledge
of English. He taught himself to read American papers and learned to speak
basic English in order to assimilate more readily into his new homeland.
He met German-born Auguste Janssen in a German club and the couple was
married and had two sons, Ottie and Kurt. Ottie died young
but Kurt went on to become a lawyer and candidate for Alderman.
Otto built a house on Janssen Street in North Chicago which remained in
the family for 80 years. It was a gathering place for the family. And
in the memories of the grandgrandchildren generation it remained as a
place that provided many fun and exploration.
William (1870-1946)
immigrated 1891. From the passengers´ list of the steamship Scandia
[3] which started 1891/10/10 from
Hamburg to NY we know that he travelled on tween deck without relatives.
Fannie Nugent had no further news from him and ignored where he had lived,
whether he had had family or not. In the meantime I found census data
which I still have to make use of. His wife was Marie and he run a grocer's
shop in Chicago.
Louisa (1866-1942)
arrived in NY May 26, 1892. She married Willy Prellberg and they had 3
sons. John and William were married but only William had a daughter. Emil,
the youngest, had two sons, but after Louisa´s death Fannie Nugent,
who had given me this information in seventies, lost contact. Emil's youngest
son is Alan PRELLBERG. We recently managed to come in contact.
The oldest, John, is a watch-maker and owns a jewlry shop in Guttenberg,
New Jersey.
Petra (1875-1943)
came in the middle of September 1892. She was the beloved sister of Emil
and always was sweetly remembered by her children Anna and Fannie (whom
I visited 1970 and 1972 in New York and Tom´s River). Petra married
John Hessel. Since her marriage she lived in Hoboken N.J.
Emil visited them in Hoboken 1904. He travelled on the German vessel Moltke
- from Hamburg 24.8.1904 to NY 2.9.1904 - and from the ship manifest we
know that he visited his brother in law in Hoboken. During that time he
already lived in South West Africa. So he apparently took advantage of
a visit to Germany arranging his journey back to Windhuk via NY.
Their daughter Anna (1899- >1981) was a teacher and never married.
Fannie (1901- >1981) probably was a secretary (but I´m not quite
sure). She didn´t have own children, married the widower Ernest Henne
and raised and loved his chidren like her own. After his death she maried
John Nugent. But she already was a widow again when I visited her. Anna
& Fannie then were very healthy nice old ladies, in spite of their
age always with a lot of activities. I understood, when they were younger
they had almost regular contact to the family of Louisa.
Emil (1880-1959)
left Germany Sept 9th 1895 by steamship Palatia from Hamburg and arrived
in NY Sept 22th 1895. He stayed only for 4 years, at first in Chicago
and later in NY and then went on to his final destination, Windhuk - German
Southwest Africa at that time, today´s Namibia. (see his biography)
"As we now have found the missing link from today´s
American Teuthorns back to their roots in Kiel, Germany, it will be rather
interesting how the German and American Teuthorns actually live within our
global but small world." When I wrote this after having started intensive
family research in 2001, I missed knowing Alan, Louisa 's grandson. But I
was lucky and happy that he found me by this website's information. Since
his visit and our common travel trough Germany in May 2007 we got a better
mutual knowlledge of living at both shores of the Atlantic. So there probably
will be a commonly written Prellberg-Teuthorn Family Story at this
site.
©Peter Teuthorn, 2001 / 2007
(Also see Emigrants to the U.S., a
list of all known emigrants in chronological order)
[1]Wilhelm Günther was not a Dr. med. - as I had supposed
earlier - but a surgeon, which at that time was not an academic profession,
but a skilled trade.
[2] Wilhelm II. became Prussian King and German Kaiser exactly
on June 15th. 1888. 1890 was the year when Chancellor Bismarck resigned
and Wilhelm II. took direct government influence.
[3] The information is as follows:
Wilh. Teuthorn, age 20, from the state of Holstein, living in Kiel, commercial/Kaufmann,
travelling on tween deck without relatives, destination New York, passengers
number 01.0009, passage number A1891.0353, beginning the journey 10.10.1891,
ship´s name Scandia, steamship, company: HAPAG.
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