The Sticht surname is one that is still found in East Perry County. I will be looking at some characters in today’s post that may or may not have been the original Stichts to show up in this area. This post is one of those that may pose just as many questions as it offers up answers.

First of all, let me point out that our German Family Tree has two Sticht men who appear to be the original Sticht’s in Perry County. Those two are named Johann Herman Sticht and Johann Heinrich Sticht, so you can see that it might be real easy to confuse these two. I am not going to say much about Johann Herman because the focus of my story in on the other Sticht, however, a family tree on Ancestry.com gives some undocumented evidence that Johann Herman immigrated to this country in 1866. We find this John Sticht in the 1870 census living in the Brazeau Township with a wife and child.

That Sticht, according to our German Family Tree, had just the one girl who was listed in the above census, so that Sticht family tree does not have any branches that carry on the Sticht surname.

Let’s take a look at the other Sticht. Johann Heinrich Sticht was born on January 4, 1844 in Lamstedt, Germany. He was the son of Johann and Sophia (Buck) Sticht. I located his baptism record from the parish in Lamstedt.

One of the first questions this post will pose is when Johann Heinrich came to America. There is some speculation that he arrived in this country aboard the ship, Carl, which arrived in New Orleans in 1866. That ship has a person whose name looks like Heinrich Schutt on its passenger list. Some say that this is actually Johann Heinrich Sticht.

Let me say this about that ship. I think that other than the ships that carried the original Stephanite immigrants in 1839, the ship, Carl, was the next most significant ship to carry passengers that settled in Perry County. That ship carried a whole lot of people who originated from the Hanover region in Germany that ended up living around here. If Johann Heinrich Sticht was indeed a passenger on the Carl, then he was on the same ship as the woman that would eventually become his bride. Also, if he came to this county in 1866, then perhaps we should be able to find him in the 1870 census living in Perry County. However, I was unable to find him in that year’s census…only the Johann Herman Sticht.

Let’s turn our attention to the woman who became Johann Heinrich’s wife. Her name was Maria Tietje. Or was that her name? Our German Family Tree gives her name as Maria Detjen. So, the spelling of Maria’s name is another question posed by this article. Not only that. There is also a question about Maria’s birthday. The GFT says she was born on May 8, 1842. I found a baptism record for a Maria Tietje who was born on May 8, 1841 in Scheezel, Germany. If this is the woman who married Johann Heinrich Sticht, then she was born in 1841, not 1842.

The baptism record above says Maria’s parents were Johann Friedrich and Margaretha (Gebken?) Tietje. There was a Maria Tietje who was a passenger on the ship, Carl. She is listed on the next page of that passenger list after the page including Heinrich Schutt.

If Maria Tietje settled in Perry County right away after her arrival, then perhaps we should be able to find her in the 1870 census also. However, like was the case with Johann Heinrich Sticht, I was unable to find her in that year’s census.

That leads us up to the event that led me to write this story in the first place. Johann Heinrich Sticht married Maria Tietje on April 13, 1873, so today would be the special 150th anniversary for this couple. The church marriage record for this pair is found in the books of Salem Lutheran Church in Farrar. You can see that this record spells Maria’s surname as Dietje.

The surname Tietje or Dietje is another example of how some spellings of names were changed in America. One such common change that was made was from a “T” to a “D”. We have seen this T/D change in previous posts about people with the name Tanz or Danz. The spelling of certain others who settled in Perry County eventually had their surname transformed to Detjen when their original surname may have been spelled differently. I honestly do not know if this Maria Tietje was related to the others with the name, Detjen.

Our German Family Tree lists 5 children born to Johann Heinrich and Maria. When the 1880 census was taken, we find the Sticht’s had 4 children, a daughter followed by 3 sons. All of the Sticht children have their baptism records at Salem Lutheran Church in Farrar.

After this census entry, there was one more daughter born in 1881. Then we experience about 20 years of not knowing what went on with this family because we cannot view the 1890 census. All indications are that they remained in the Farrar area. It is in 1900 when we will finish this Sticht story. First of all, in April of 1900, Johann Heinrich Sticht died at the age of 56. Below is the death record for him from the Salem, Farrar books. The term wassersucht given as his cause of death is translated as dropsy.

Johann Heinrich apparently died before the 1900 census was taken. In the entry shown here, we see Maria Sticht described as a widow. She was living with 2 sons and a daughter (who is displayed on the next census page which I chose not to place here because it is unreadable). They were still living in the Salem Township.

Then, later that same year, in September, Maria Sticht died at the age of 58 (59 if you use the 1841 date of birth). I will also display her death record from Salem which does not give a cause of death.

Both Johann Heinrich and Maria are buried in the Salem Lutheran Cemetery in Farrar, but neither one has a gravestone photo on Findagrave.

This past Palm Sunday, Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg had just one confirmand. That young man carries the surname, Sticht, giving evidence that the Sticht name has not disappeared from East Perry County. That young man almost certainly descended from one of the sons of today’s Sticht couple.