A marriage took place between two prominent German Lutheran families in St. Louis on this date in 1854.  One has to be careful to identify the correct individuals participating in this wedding because this was not the first marriage between members of these two families.  In this case, the groom was Johann Fuerchtegott Schuricht and the bride was Anna Susanna Tirmentstein.  Earlier, in 1846, Johann Traugott Schuricht had married Anna Maria Tirmenstein.  Of the seven Schuricht children, four of the boys had the first name of Johann, and the only girl had the first name of Johanne.

The Schurichts came to America aboard two different ships.  The parents with their younger children made the voyage on the Olbers.  Three older children came on the Copernicus.  One of the sons who traveled on the Copernicus and then up the Mississippi River aboard the steamboat, Rienzi, died and was buried somewhere along the banks of the river.  That story was told in the post, Buried on the Bank.  Here are the passenger lists for the Schuricht family.

The Tirmenstein family was also aboard the Olbers.  Here are their names on that passenger list.

The patriarch of the Schuricht family was a weaver; the patriarch of the Tirmenstein family was a coppersmith.  I may have to look into that youngest son of the Tirmensteins who is called Martin Stephan Paulus (with the Stephan crossed out), but not today.  That fascinates me.

All indications are that the Schuricht family remained in St. Louis and did not spend any time in Perry County.  However, the Tirmenstein family apparently came here for a short while.  A few church records in Perry County contain their names, but it was not long before they returned to St. Louis.  Even though the Schuricht and Tirmenstein families became very connected, their ancestral homes in Germany (Wallbach for the Schurichts and Dresden for the Tirmensteins) were not near one another.  It may be that these two families may have become friends on their voyage across the Atlantic.

Here is an image of the marriage record of Fuerchtegott and Maria.

The pastor shown here was Rev. F. Wyneken.  Pastor Wyneken was the second president of the Missouri Synod, serving from 1850 until 1864.  I do not have a photograph of Fuerchtegott, but I did find one of Anna Susanna.

It did not take long for Fuerchtegott to establish a home in St. Louis because this newspaper photo and its caption talk about his home being built in 1856.

The Ozark Expressway that is mentioned is what became Interstate 55.  The red arrow on this map shows where this home was once located.

The 1860 census indicates that Fuerchtegott Schuricht operated the Saxony Mills.  That business was located where the blue arrow is on this map.  That business was located on Lombard Street, just one block away from where the first church sanctuary of Old Trinity Lutheran Church was located on the same street.  As you can see, it is not far from where you find Busch Stadium and the Gateway Arch nowadays.  The Schuricht mansion was not far from where Old Trinity is now located in the Soulard area.

Here is the 1860 census.

In an 1875 drawing/map of the St. Louis area, we find the Saxony Mills included.  It is indicated by #24.  It looks like they had buildings on both sides of the street.

In the caption for this map, we see this entry.

Fuerchtegott was in business with a man named Leonhardt.  You can find that name showing up often in the Old Trinity church records along with plenty of Schurichts and Tirmensteins.

The Saxony Mills business met the same demise as the Schuricht Mansion.  Here is an account that I found online describing its fate.

Fuerchtegott and Susanna would have seven children that lived to adulthood, only one of which was a boy, who was Johann Fuerchtegott Schuricht, Jr.  We have this photo of the six daughters of this couple.

Anna Susanna died in 1900; Fuerchtegott died in 1917 at the age of 93.  They are both buried in Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis.

Interstate 55 put an end to both the Schuricht home and their business.  If you travel through this part of St. Louis on that highway, now you might imagine how this part of town was once the stomping grounds for the family that began with this Schuricht/Tirmenstein marriage in 1854.  I will be attending a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game this week, and I will likely park within a block or two of the location where the Saxony Mills business was located.  I’ll have to find somebody there to tell this story.