Friedrich Properties in Beaver Dam, 1873, 1890 and 1910

In the 1873 Plat Book for Dodge County, Wisconsin, our great-great grandfather Johann Freidrich owns a quarter-section, or 160 acres, of Section 22 in South Beaver Dam Township.

From the 1873 Plat Book of Dodge County showing the property boundaries of Johann Friedrich in Section 22 of the South Beaver Dam Township

In Google Earth, the boundaries as platted 150 years ago are still clearly visible, despite the property now being part of the Shaw Marsh Wildlife Refuge which extends into the green area in the upper left of the photo.

Google Earth view showing the 1873 property boundaries of Johann Friedrich's farm 

This Street View capture was taken from the southwestern corner of the property (bottom-left) looking north.

Google Street View looking north from the southwestern boundary of what what was Johann Friedrich's farm in 1873

Johann died in 1883, and in the 1890 Plat Book, his eldest son, William owns two parcels -- 80 acres in Section 14 and 10 acres in Section 15. William's father-in-law, Fred Zarwell, now owns the old Friedrich property in Section 22.

From the 1890 Plat Book of Dodge County, showing properties owned by Johann's son, William Friedrich, and William's father-in-law, Fred Zarwell

In the 1910 Plat Book, our great grandfather, August Friedrich, appears, with 90 acres in Section 14.

From the 1910 Plat Book of Dodge County Wisconsin, show the boundaries of the farm owned by August Friedrich

The property lines, including the little 10-acre parcel added to the southeast corner, are still well-defined in this Google Earth capture.

Google Earth view with the 1910 boundaries of August Friedrich's farm

In this street view capture taken mid-way up the western border looking southeast, we can see the house, still standing, where August and Lena raised their family.

Google Street view looking southeast from the middle of the western border of what was August Friedrich's farm in 1910.

Here are the boundaries of all Friedrich properties superimposed onto a satellite image with Beaver Dam Lake and the city at the top, left of center.

Satellite view superimposed with the property boundaries of Johann, William and August Friedrich's farms from the 1873, 1890 and 1910 Dodge County Plat Books. Beaver Dam is visible at the top, left of center.

Pelham Bay, World War I, and Ensign Arthur L. Friedrich

Arthur was a freshman at Lawrence College when the U.S. began sending troops to Europe in April of 1917. The small number of American volunteers eager to fight the Kaiser was a disappointment to Woodrow Wilson who, in May, made enlistment compulsory through the Selective Service Act. At the same time, he authorized a massive propaganda campaign to drum up support for American involvement in the European war. Whether or not Uncle Sam's stern demands for sacrifice had any effect on Arthur is unknown, but on June 5th, while home on summer break in Beaver Dam, Arthur "Friedrich" (he hadn't yet changed his surname to one that sounded less Hun-like) dutifully registered for the draft, along with every other American male between the ages of 21 and 30.

Notice of the first of three Selective Service registrations conducted in 1917-18.

On the registration card he lists his brother, Elmer, as his employer, and his occupation as "farmhand".

Arthur Friedrich's Selective Service Registration Card, dated June 5, 1917

In the Fall, presumably, he returns to Appleton to continue his undergraduate studies. In the 1917 Lawrence College Yearbook, The Ariel, I found several pictures of Arthur, looking proud and confident under what was then a nearly full head of well-oiled hair.

Arthur Friedrich as a freshman at Lawrence College in Appleton Wisconsin, from its yearbook, The Ariel, 1917

In a notice postmarked March 18, 1918, Arthur is notified that he had been classified and recorded in Class 1, members of which were eligible and liable for military service. Because Arthur was in good health, unmarried and without dependents, his only hope of avoiding forced conscription was to a) commit a felony or other "infamous" crime, b) prove himself "morally unfit", c) enroll in a theological or divinity school, or d) enlist. He may have looked into (c) and perhaps even stopped by Northwestern University on his way to Chicago, which is where, I'm guessing, on May 10th, 1918, he enrolled with the U.S. Naval Reserve Force as a Seaman, 2nd Class.

Arhur Friedrich's dog tag, showing the date of his enlistment with the Naval Auxiliary Reserve (10 May 1918) and his date of birth (12 Nov 1894). 

He may have remained a Seaman, and spent the War doing patrols on Lake Michigan. But the Navy was in desperate need of deck officers for the merchant supply ships that were shuttling troops, munitions, food and construction materials across the Atlantic. The Reserve commanders were told to keep an eye out for promising candidates and to refer them for officer training. Arthur was among those chosen, and in the Fall of 1918 he traveled to New York and reported to the Deck Officers' School at Pelham Bay.

Arthur is in there somewhere among the 520 graduates in Class 15 of the USNRF Deck Officer's School at Pelham Bay, NY. Dec, 1918.

The training consisted of an intensive eight-week program in Navigation supplemented with lectures on Seamanship, Ordnance, Anti-Submarine Warfare, Semaphore and Signalling. This was long before satellites and GPS, and officer training was almost entirely devoted to reading charts and navigating using only a sextant, compass and chronometer.

Week 1	Monday:	The Compass.
	Tuesday:	The Compass continued and Polaris.
	Wednesday:	Uses and descriptions of Parallel Rulers, Dividers, the Lead, Sounding Machine and Log.
	Thursday:	The Chart.
	Friday:	The Sextant.
	Saturday:	Fixes, Angles by Bearings and Sextant.
Week 2	Monday:	Examination.
	Tuesday:	Latitude and Longitude.
	Wednesday:	Dead Reckoning, Plane and Traverse Sailing.
	Thursday:	Middle Latitude Sailing.
	Friday:	Mercator Sailing.
	Saturday:	Great Circle Sailing and the Chronometer.
Week 3	Monday:	Examination.
	Tuesday:	Definitions relating to the Celestial Sphere
	Wednesday:	Time-Solar, Mean and Conversion of.
	Thursday:	Sidereal Time-Right Ascension.
	Friday:	The Nautical Almanac.
	Saturday:	Correction of Observed Altitudes.
Week 4	Monday:	Examination.
	Tuesday:	The Line of Position.
	Wednesday:	Latitude by Meridian Altitude of the Sun.
	Thursday:	Azimuths of the Sun Altitude of the Sun.
	Friday:	Marc St. Hilaire Method by a Sun Sight.
	Saturday:	Marc St. Hilaire Method by a Sun Sight.
Week 5.	Monday:	Examination.
	Tuesday:	Planets and Star Identification.
	Wednesday:	Latitude by Meridian Altitude of a Star. Latitude by Polaris Altitude of a Star.
	Thursday:	Marc St. Hilaire Method by a Star Sight.
	Friday:	Longitude by Chronometer Sight of Sun (Time Sight).
	Saturday:	Longitude by Chronometer Sight of Sun (Time Sight).
Week 6	Monday:	Examination.
	Tuesday:	Longitude by Chronometer Sight of a Star.
	Wednesday:	Examples on Time Sights (Stars and Sun).
	Thursday:	Latitude by Ex-meridian Altitude of the Sun.
	Friday:	Latitude by Ex-meridian Altitude of the Sun).
	Saturday:	Finding Watch Time of Local Apparent Noon.
Week 7	Monday:	Examinations.
	Tuesday:	Compass Error by an Azimuth.
	Wednesday:	Correcting Longitude by a Factor.
	Thursday:	The Navigators' Routine (Day's Work at Sea).
	Friday:	Day's Work.
	Saturday:	Day's Work.
Week 8	Monday:	Day's Work.
	Tuesday:	Day's Work.
	Wednesday:	Day's Work.
	Thursday:	Compass Adjustment.
	Friday:	Final Examination.

Arthur's training began on November 4th, and though I'm sure they all made a show of disappointment when Armistice was declared just a week later, I'm guessing most of the cadets in his class were secretly happy to be denied the opportunity of going to war. Being a Naval deck officer with the Merchant Marine was a dangerous assignment. Statistically, one's chances of dying in a war are higher for mariners than for any other branch of the service, and the merchant mariners suffered more than most in World War 1. Six USARF ships were torpedoed and sunk while Arthur was studying at Pelham, and twelve of his classmates were killed.

Two of Arthur's classmates from the officer's training program at Pelham Bay, cadets William Stillman and Chester Cubberly, who were killed when their ship, the S.S. Frederic R. Kellog, was torpedoed by a German submarine in 1918.

Most, if not all the cadets, chose to continue their studies at Pelham. But it must have been hard, working toward a commission now made redundant by the war's end, remaining on base while the city all around them celebrated the victory. They even worked through their Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Armistice must have have taken some of the wind out of their sails.

Arthur completes the program at the end of December and earns rank of Ensign, the Navy's lowest officer rank and the equivalent of 2nd Lieutenant in most other branches of the service. In a letter I have, dated December 31st, 1918 and signed by Lt. Commander George E. Beckwith, Arthur is ordered to report directly to the Supervisor of the Naval Auxiliary Reserve Force at the Municipal Ferry Terminal, South and Whitehall Streets, New York City, "for such duty as he may assign to you." Arthur writes to the supervisor and requests a 10-day leave of absence to settle matters at home.

Lieutenant Commander George E Beckwith who was pulled from retirement to supervise the Naval officer training program at Pelham Bay, New York. His signature appears on the letter granting Arthur Friedrich his commission as Ensign and assigning him to shore duty at the Municipal Ferry Terminal. 

On January 6th, Arthur writes again to his USNRF Supervisor, requesting an additional six days leave to insure his undergraduate studies at Lawrence College won't be interrupted by his duties. The tersely-worded denial of extension is postmarked January 11 and mailed under standard postage to Beaver Dam, so Arthur may very well have been absent without leave for several days before, finally, reporting for duty in New York.

View of New York City's financial district showing the U.S. Naval Auxiliary Reserve Force's headquarters at the Municipal Ferry Terminal where Arthur was assigned between January and March, 1919.

On March 20th, 1919, after only two months at the Naval Auxiliary's Municipal Ferry Terminal headquarters, he's relieved from active duty and ordered "to immediately proceed to [his] home at R.F.D. #5, Beaver Dam Wisconsin," which he does without delay. He arrives home at 5:15 P.M. and wastes no time in requesting the compensation due to officers travelling under orders, of eight cents per mile.

The following summer, the Navy Department's Bureau of Navigation planned for a series of "summer cruises, in order to afford officers an opportunity to qualify for transfer to a Class where they will be eligible for confirmation in rank." Arthur apparently took advantage of the opportunity, because on November 1st, 1921, he was transferred from Class 3 to Class 6 and his rank was confirmed. The confirmation qualified him to receive the Victory Medal and Clasp due to Naval officers serving in World War 1. The application was filed, but the medal and clasp, if he ever received them, were either lost or discarded.

On May 9th, 1922, Arthur is honorably discharged from the U.S. Naval Reserve Force with the rank of Ensign. As far as we know, he was never recalled to active duty.

Our family Webb and its connection to Shakespeare

Our Frederick-Grohndorff pedigree has only four or five generations in America. The rest is in Europe, the Russian Steppes, Africa, Gondwanaland, the primordial sea, several generations of supernovae, and the Big Bang. I've followed the paper trail to the 1850's, and tracked their emigration from Germany, Prussia, and Bohemia. But to go further would require that I get off the couch. The internet is big, but the universe is even bigger, and the larger story of our family history is in languages I don't speak, in handwriting I can't decipher, and in libraries far, far away. So to keep myself amused, I sometimes stray to side branches connected to our family tree only by marriage. Our parents and grandparents, and most of our great aunts and uncles married within the clan of recent immigrants from north and central Europe. But a few were a bit more adventurous.

Our great aunt, Clara Alma Friedrich, married Edward Charles Taylor. And her cousin, William Friedrich married Edward's sister, Maude Taylor. Edward and Maude were children of George Alexander Taylor and Martha Minerva Webb. The Taylor line has been in America since at least 1630, and the Webb line has been here longer than the Pilgrims.

George Alexander Taylor (1845-1885), father of Edward Charles Taylor (husband of Clara Alma Friedrich), Leipsig Cemetery, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. The inscription refers to Company A of the Wisconsin 17th Infantry, with which George served during the U.S. Civil War.

Vine Taylor (1780-1859), grandfather of George Alexander Taylor, Beaver Dam City Cemetery, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin

Oliver Taylor (1748-1797), father of Vine Taylor, Hartland, Windsor County, Vermont

Samuel Taylor Jr. (1716-1800), father of Oliver Taylor, Hartland, Windsor County, Vermont

Samuel Taylor Sr. (1688-1734), father of Samuel Taylor Jr., Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts

John Taylor came to America with the British Navy in 1630, and died at sea in 1645. He had a grandson, Orthniel Taylor, who fought with the Colonial Army against the British in the American Revolution. Orthniel was a step-brother of Samuel Taylor Sr., whose headstone appears above. 

The mother of the two Taylors that married into our family, Martha Minerva Webb, has an American pedigree that's even longer. No Webb descendant has yet bothered to post pictures of their headstones, but someone did post a picture or Martha and her immediate family.

The family of Charles Douglas Webb and Laura Deborah Berry, taken about 1889. Standing, left to right: Charles Curtis Webb and his wife, Mary Calkins, Martha Webb Taylor, Minnie, Willard, and Lynn Burr Webb.

Everyone in the picture, with the exception of Laura Deborah Berry (the scary bald lady on the right), was a first cousin of William Shakespeare. And when Martha's son, Edward, married our great aunt Clara, that made us, at least by marriage, first cousins of the bard -- or "Bill", as we may now call him. Her daughter, Maude, married William Albert Friedrich, our first cousin twice removed but, frankly, I don't know what that makes us. Second cousins, eleven time removed, perhaps? 

Cousins, as you know, share a common grandparent. Shakespeare, like most people, had four and the Webbs have a bloodline relation to all but one of them. Shakespeare's two grandmothers were sisters, his parents were cousins, and his family tree looks like kudzu. 

In 1533, in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warkwickshire, England, Henry Alexander Webb (that's the 9th great grandfather of the old man in the photo above) married Grace Arden. Grace's brother, Robert, was married to Henry's sister, Mary, and Henry's other sister, Abigail, married a man related to neither of them: Richard Shakespeare -- which was fortunate, because their grandson, William, was already dangerously close to being born with eleven toes.

Warthe Bruch

I recently came upon some old maps of the Warthebruch, the swampy region in northwestern Poland from which our Grohndorff ancestors emigrated in 1854. Karl Ludwig, the greatest of the great grandparents I've found so far in the Grohndorff line, listed Cocceji-Neudorf as his residence when he filed for emigration with the Prussian authorities for East Brandenburg. The village is too small to be found on most maps, but its location can be pinpointed by typing its modern, Polish name into Google Earth. Try it using voice recognition: Krzyszczyna.

Cocceji (or Coccey as it appears on these old German maps) may be only marginally easier to pronounce. Wikipedia suggests kok-'tse-yi, which to my ear sounds more Navajo than German. It was created in 1775 as a Prussian colony named for Samuel von Cocceji, a chancellor of King Frederick II. King Frederick, better know as Frederick The Great, was granting exemptions from taxes and military service to settlers in the region, and possibly land as well, in exchange for turning the swamp into farmland. Our Grohndorff ancestors may have been among the first wave of immigrants hoping to improve their standing.

The population of Cocceji reached a peak in 1801 which, coincidentally, is the very same year our 3rd great-grandfather Grohndorff was born. In that year, the census counted 243 inhabitants and 36 homes. Its 38 farms were owned by only two families -- the von der Ostens of Smogór (which sounds like a name invented by J.R.R. Tolkien), and the von Waldows of Lubniewice (citing Wikipedia, not Monty Python) -- so it's unclear where the colonists stood in the class hierarchy. Karl Ludwig is listed as an eigentuemer when he emigrates, indicating he owns property and isn't dependent on wages for his living. But there may be some legal distinction that ranks him lower than a landholder. In any case, it's likely the Grohndorffs had been in Cocceji for at least a generation, perhaps two, long enough to have played an important role in the reclamation efforts that made the Warthebruch agriculturally productive.

It was difficult work, clearing the land, digging ditches, excavating canals and building up levees. The lower reaches of the Warthe, swamp land too stubborn to be reclaimed, is today a national park and wildlife refuge, and on its website is an historical anecdote about the frustrations of the settlers tasked with draining the marshes. Their frequent applications for permission to emigrate were turned down by a defiant Frederick The Great, who responded with his conviction that they were building a "New World" of their own. The settlers responded by assigning names like "New York" and "Florida" to the patches of dry land they'd manage to wrestle from the river.

Fragment of a map, probably dating from the first half of the nineteenth century, of the region of the Warthebruch around Cocceji where our Grohndorff ancestors origniated. Below is a satellite view of the same region.

Several of these place names can be found preserved on the map above, which I've clipped and enlarged below. It's a fragment of a larger map that probably dates to the early nineteenth century. Below and to the left of Cocceji (highlighted) I've found: Havana, Anapolis, Philadelphia, Hampshire, Florida, Mariland, Saratogo and Quebeck. Though I haven't found a "Green Bay", "Fort Howard", "DePere" or even a "Wisconsin" among them, perhaps one or two were suggested, perhaps even longingly, by one of our great grandparents.

Enlarged portion of the map above showing Cocceji and the reclaimed marshlands in its vicinity. The map preserves some of the names given by the colonists in subtle refutation of King Frederick's conviction that they were building a "New World" in the Warthebruch. 

A map I find even more compelling dates from the 1890's, and is so highly detailed it even shows the positions of houses and other structures in and around Cocceji. One of them is likely the home where our great-great-great grandfather, Karl Ludwig Grohndorff, was born. 

Map dating from the 1890's showing the region of the lower Warthe River, just east of where it meets the Oder. Cocceji, the village from which our Grohndorff ancestors originated, is very close to the center of the map.

Enlarged portion of the above map showing property lines and locations of houses and other structures in and around Cocceji.

According to our great aunt Leonor, Karl Ludwig was an only child. He was 54 at the time he emigrated, and his parents were likely dead. There was no one but our 2nd great grandfather, Carl Friedrich Grohndorff, also an only child, who stood to inherit the farm. He was fifteen at the time and (lucky for us) chose to emigrate with his father. Once settled in Wisconsin, Carl Friedrich fathered William Gustav by Caroline Smith, in 1870. William, in turn, with the crucial help of his wife, Lillian E. Blodgett, fathered Edyth Lillian Grohndorff in 1897.

Where we were in the U.S. Civil War

Our Frederick ancestors had been in the country only a few years when the U.S. Civil War broke out. Franklin Pierce was the U.S. president when Joachim and Elizabeth Holtz stepped off the boat in New York in May of 1854. He was still president in August, when Karl and Caroline Grohndorff disembarked. The newly-elected president, James Buchanan, hadn't yet fanned the flames of Southern secession when Jacob and Dorothea Moll arrived in April 1857. But when Johann Friedrich and Dorothea Hensler arrived in December of 1858, the country was falling apart. Their first years in America were under presidents that historians have consistently ranked among the worst. I'm sure they wouldn't have believed so at the time, but our ancestors were also privileged to have lived during the administration of a president whom all historians agree was among the best.

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated in March of 1861, less than seven years after the first of our great grandparents left The Grand Duchy of Mecklenberg for the United States of America. It's unlikely they would have voted in the 1860 election, but in Wisconsin, as in most of the mid-west states, there was almost unanimous support for Lincoln. The Germans that now constituted the majority in most of these states' counties had only recently emigrated from a homeland they would have known as a loose confederation of aristocracies. Many had even grown up in bondage. They would have understood better than most Americans the advantages of holding the Union together, and would have equated the Southern secessionists with the manor lords and barons they'd once served.

A fair number of our ancestors were in their 20's and 30's between 1861 and 1865, and one would expect to find at least a few of them on the Union Army's muster rolls. Our great grand uncle, Charles William Friedrich, was 16 in 1861 and just young enough to evade the draft. His father, our great x3 grandfather, Johann, was 41, and just old enough to be safe from the recruiters. Among those eligible was Fred Holtz, who would have been 34 when war broke out. Fred, however, was "a cripple", and deemed unqualified for combat. His brother John Holtz, our great-great grandfather, was 32, and though I've found several union soldiers with the name "Johann Holtz" or similar, none can be unambiguously linked to him. The same is true for his younger brother, Friedrich. If either of them were soldiers, they enlisted late and didn't see action. The men their sisters married also seem to have avoided combat. In fact all the men in the Holtz line spent most of the war years making love, not war. Our great grandmother, Arthur's mother, Lena, was among the first of the war babies, born August 22nd, 1861.

Lena's mother, Anna (Moll) Holtz, had brothers, and brothers-in-law, who did register for the draft. But only one, the youngest, seems to have served.  Christian Joachim Moll volunteered with the Union on February 28th, 1865. He was mustered into Company C of the 51st Wisconsin Infantry and was assigned duty in St Louis, Warrensburg, and along the Pacific Railroad. The regiment lost 16 men – all from disease. Christian himself was a casualty, and suffered an abdominal hernia from causes lost to history. He is mustered out 6 months later, on 19 Aug 1865. After his death in 1906, his wife continued to collect a war pension of $8 per month until her own death in 1919.

U.S. Civil War Roster of the 51st Regiment Infantry of Wisconsin Volunteers, with Christian Moll mustered in February 28th and mustered out August 19th, 1865.

Our Holtz-Radeloff Great-Great-Great-Great (4x) Grandparents

In December (2015) I posted pictures of some very old headstones that turned out to be those of our third great grandparents, George and Elizabeth Holtz. You'll of course recall that George and Elizabeth had a son, John, whose union with Anna Moll (and survival of a cross-Atlantic voyage in 1854) produced a daughter, Lena, who in turn married Johann August Friedrich, which led to the birth of Arthur Lester who married Edyth Lillian Grohndorf and inspired the creation of this blog. George (Joachim) Holtz was born in 1797 and Elizabeth Radeloff in 1804, and both were probably christened in the parish church of Dreveskirchen in Blowatz, a municipality of what was then the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg.

The church in Blowatz (Dreveskirchen)

The Dreveskirchen parish records have recently been scanned, published, and indexed, by the LDS, and I've been happily browsing through their 694 pages. They go all the way back to 1740 and should, if the Holtz's and Radeloff's were natives, contain the baptismal, marriage and death records of George and Elizabeth's parents and grandparents, pushing the family tree back at least another two generations.

Title page from the Dreveskirchen Parish Records, 1740-1786

So far, I've found the marriage record for George's parents, and the birth record for Elizabeth's father. The wedding of our 4th great grandparents, Johann Christian Holtz and Margarethe Elizabeth Lütjen, took place at Dreveskirche on November 10th, 1780. Our 4th great grandfather, Hans Joachim Radeloff, was baptised at Dreveskirche on February 1st, 1769. The names of his parents (our 5th great grandparents!) appear to be Johann Radeloff and Anne Viek Steinhagen. Among the godparents listed for the young Hans Joachim are, possibly, his namesakes: Hans Brinkman and Johann Joachim Radeloff. I can't make out the third name, but she appears to be the latter's wife.

Marriage record of Johann Christian Holtz and Margarethe Elizabeth Lütjen, Dreveskirche, 10 Nov 1780.

Baptismal record of Hans Joachim Radeloff, Dreveskirche, 1 Feb 1769.

The records go back even further, another 30 years. I'm still trying to reconstruct the genealogies. But no matter how far back I go, I think I'm safe in assuming that I'll find no princes or princesses there. Our lineage is thick with serfs and peasants. The House of Mecklenburg had dominated the aristocracy in the region since the 12th century. But we should be proud that our lineage persevered through the Middle Ages intact, and (hopefully) untainted by the privileged dynasties which the revolutions in Europe and America were (at least partially) successful in abolishing.