37 – Prosperity

Elise Steiger arrived in New York on 28 March 1864, on the steamship America which sailed from Bremen, and was carrying 614 passengers; it was a new ship, its maiden voyage was 24 May the previous year. Elise is the 64th passenger listed: Miss Elise Steiger, age 28, female (no profession noted), citizen of Limburg, destined for the U.S. of A. The passengers were mostly from various German-speaking locales in Europe, some from the U.S., only Elise from Limburg. She is also my only ancestor who came to America in first-class! I wrote about her house in Limburg in blog 30 "In the News." Her father was a well-off veterinarian in Limburg, so he could have afforded the first class fare for his daughter.

Steiger home in Limburg; Elise (Elizabeth) "Lizzy" Steiger in a Mona Lisa pose...

By the late 1850s steamship travel had started to take on a significant portion of the immigrant travel from Europe to New York, going from only a couple percent of travelers in 1855 to almost 45 percent by 1864 when Elise arrived, though sailing ships continued to bring immigrants until a decade later in 1874. (Cohn, p.32, Table 1, Arrivals by Steamship at New York, 1852-1876).

The front page of the New York Times of 28 March 1864 reported the arrival of the steamship America arriving from Southampton, and the 12-day old news that came with it filled 5 of the 6 columns – the ship had stopped in Southampton before the 12-day voyage over the Atlantic, perhaps to take on news and coal, but all passengers are noted as departing from Bremen. 

On the far right column of the paper was the news of a rebel assault on Paducah, Ky. Ulysses S. Grant had been given command of all U.S. armies earlier that month; Gettysburg had been 8 months earlier. The outcome of the war and fate of the union were still uncertain, but the fighting was all in the South, and apparently news was positive enough that Elise felt safe to come to America. Besides, there was war afoot in Europe: indeed, the news brought by the America included an update on the war in Denmark, and two years after Elise emigrated, her city of Limburg, part of the Duchy of Nassau, would be annexed by Bismarck's Prussia after a short Austro-Prussian war.

Elise made her way directly to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where, fifteen days after she had arrived in New York, she married 31-year-old Jacob W. Gerhard on the 12th of April. Jacob had come to America from Runkel, downstream from Limburg, in the early 1850s – no definitive ship record has been found, two sources list 1851 and 1853 as possibilities. He may have lived a while in New York City, then Milwaukee for a few years, and finally in 1861 came to Fond du Lac where he founded the Gerhard Bakery.

We only have one photo of Jacob. According to a list of photographers in Fond du Lac by date based on city directories, this may have been taken about 1872-73, when Jacob was about 40 – when the Donner Brothers photography studio was in business in Fond du Lac.

Jacob W. Gerhard, 1872-73?

Though Jacob may have met Elise in Limburg, just a short distance up the Lahn River from Runkel where he was born and raised, she would have only been about 16 when he emigrated. Jacob's younger brother Carl Jacob Gerhard had married Elise's first cousin Christiane Philippine Catharina Steiger in 1862, and they likely helped arrange the marriage. Elise was 28 and living with her father and her step-mother in Limburg, and must have been open to the adventure. The marriage license lists the two as Jacob W. Garhard and Eliza Steigar, in the presence of William Garhard and Caroline Garhard and Robt. Hoffman & Mrs. Hoffman (Jacob's brother, two sisters, and brother-in-law).

12 April 1864 marriage of "Jacob W. Garhard" to "Eliza Steiger" in Fond du Lac

Ten months after marriage Elise had a first child, Emma Gerhard. Two years later, on 28 October, 1866, they had their first son, Carl, but he only lived a few months. In 1868 another daughter, Caroline, was born. And on 3 March 1871, a son was born: Jacob Gerhard, my great-grandfather. By then the family appears to have been quite well-off: the 1870 census values Jacob's real estate at $20,000!

The 1876 "centennial" directory of Fond du Lac County shows Fond du Lac's population at 15,308, one of the largest towns in the state outside of Milwaukee which was over 100 thousand. Jacob's entry is "Gerhardt, J.W., (m5+1,2) baker, res. 396 Main-G", showing he was married with 3 children, another relative living with them, and two employees as well, owns his home at 396 Main (which is also the bakery address), and is a German. The business directory shows five bakers, all with businesses on Main Street (his surname is spelled "Gerhart" there, and brother's name is spelled "Gerhard", so his surname appears with three different spellings in this directory!).

Elise died young, at the age of 42, on 1 July 1878, and is buried alongside her baby Carl in the Rienzi Cemetery in Fond du Lac. Her oldest, Emma, was only 13, and Jacob was only 7. Jacob W. never remarried, and lived to be 74. In the 1880 census we find Jacob "Garhard", 49, a widower living with his three children, sister Caroline age 36, mother Philippine age 68, and niece Hattie Schlichter age 23: so Jacob had no shortage of help in raising the children. 

Jacob W. became a naturalized citizen in 1886; in 1885 at age 52 he applied for a passport, perhaps as a precursor to becoming a citizen, perhaps intending to travel to Germany to visit family. The passport had no photo – it wasn't until 1915 that they did – but it did have a description:

Physical description of Jacob W. Gerhard on passport application

While owning the bakery the family probably lived upstairs, but after retiring in 1895, Jacob built a large house with a barn and stable in back, which my grandmother Marie referred to as "the farm"; they also had a home on Lake Winnebago ("the Lake"). When he died in 1907, the bakery was being run by his son, and two sisters and two daughters were still living with him.

The home that Jacob built in 1897; today it is a hospital parking lot 

1912 ad for Gerhard Baking Co. 5 years after Jacob W. died

Elise Steiger came from a prosperous family living in a large house in Limburg on the Lahn river in the Duchy of Nassau. Her father was born to a blacksmith on the outskirts of Wiesbaden, attended a university to become a veterinarian, and prospered in Limburg. Elise came to America to marry a recent immigrant working his way up in the world as owner of a bakery in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where he also prospered. 

Sources

Ancestry.com. Passenger Ships and Images [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.

Clark, Christopher. 2006. Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Cohn, Raymond. 2005. The Transition from Sail to Steam in Immigration to the United States. The Journal of Economic History. 65. 469-495. 10.1017/S0022050705000161.

“Duchy of Nassau.” 2023. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Duchy_of_Nassau&oldid=1172832408. 

Holth, Joan and Allen. 1993. Gerhard: The Descendants of Heinrich Jakob Gerhard and Philippine (Zollmann) Gerhard. Houston, Texas. 

The New York Times. n.d. “TimesMachine: Monday March 28, 1864 - NYTimes.Com.” Accessed September 16, 2023. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1864/03/28/issue.html.

"United States City and Business Directories, ca. 1749 - ca. 1990", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68LQ-HYPX : 15 February 2022), J W Gerhardt, 1876.

U.S. National Park Service, Gettysburg. n.d. “Civil War Timeline - Gettysburg National Military Park (U.S. National Park Service).” Accessed September 16, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/gett/learn/historyculture/civil-war-timeline.htm.