I almost decided not to write today’s story. I ran into a roadblock that usually gets me to look for someone else to become the main character. The two main characters in the story I tell today, as far as I could tell, are not found in any family tree currently on Ancestry.com, and that usually stops me dead in my tracks. However, since the two members who are part of today’s highlighted marriage were both part of the Gesellschaft that arrived in America in 1839, I decided to forge ahead. I am glad I did, because I found what I consider a very interesting story that I do not think has been told about the early days of those immigrants.

As I eventually discovered, there were some fascinating similarities that exist between not only today’s highlighted couple, but also some other individuals who were connected to them. One common thread is that almost all of the folks that I will discuss in this story came to this country aboard the ship, Olbers, which was also the ship upon which the leader of the immigration, Rev. Martin Stephan, travelled. The other commonality is that most of those same passengers were from the city of Leipzig in Germany. I will start with the pair that led me to this story which also led me down so many rabbit holes.

August Heinrich Doederlein was born in the early years of the 19th century. If you use the age that appears on the Olbers passenger list, he must have been born in about 1805 or 1806. He is called a 33 year-old merchant from Leipzig on this list.

Apparently, August Doederlein was involved in the organization of the Gesellschaft in Germany. He is listed next to another Leipzig resident, Friedrich Wilhelm Barthel, called an economist. He was the treasurer for the Gesellschaft. A passage from the book, Zion on the Mississippi refers to the influence these two men, along with F.A. Boehlau, had on the organization.

Along with August on that ship was the woman who would soon become his wife. Her name was Rosa Caroline Mathilde Schuetz, who was born on May 30, 1801. That date is one which is calculated from her age given on her death record. If that is correct, she was about 38 years old when she came to America. However, she is called a 33 year-old woman from Leipzig on the Olbers passenger list.

Let me take you down one of the rabbit holes I looked into. Mathilde had a brother who also travelled aboard the Olbers, although he is not listed next to her on the passenger list. Julius Schuetz is called a 36 year-old man from Leipzig on that list. The list does not say it, but he was one of several men called candidates in the immigration, such as the man right below him on this list, Gottlob Kluegel. A candidate was a man who had received the education necessary to be a Lutheran pastor, but had yet to receive a call.

Sadly, Julius Schuetz died shortly after arriving in St. Louis on June 10, 1839. The fact that he died in St. Louis indicates that he did not join the immigrants that settled in Perry County in May of that year. He also died just a few weeks after Rev. Martin Stephan was banished from the colony in Perry County as a result of scandal.

Just a few weeks after Julius’s death, his sister, Mathilde married August Doederlein on June 30, 1839. That marriage took place in St. Louis. The church record for that wedding is found in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in that city. At that point in time, that congregation did not have a church building of their own. The marriage record says that the wedding took place in the lower room of the Episcopal church. I have to display this record in two images. These are the first marriages recorded in that congregation’s books. The Doederlein/Schuetz wedding was #3.

We can also view a civil record for that event. Rev. Otto Herman Walther was the pastor of Trinity at the time, and we see his name on this form.

This list of marriages led me down another rabbit hole. Another wedding took place on June 30, 1839 at Trinity. Johann Jacob Goenner married Rosine Juliane Winter. When we return to the Olbers passenger list, we find these two names as well. Lo, and behold, both of them are listed next to one another, and they are both from Leipzig. Also, we discover that Jacob Goenner was another candidate. It looks to me like this pair had intentions of getting married in America before they made the trip, thus being listed as if they were travelling together.

The St. Louis marriage record shown below for this couple is found right next to the one for August and Mathilde.

Jacob Goenner went on to be a teacher in St. Louis, and not much later, he became a teacher at the Log Cabin College in Altenburg. His story was told in the post, Finally a Paid Professor.

We now return to August and Mathilde. That couple spent a short time living in Perry County after they married. When the 1840 census was taken, we find them in an entry from Perry County. There was only the two of them listed on that form. Since the Doederlein entry is near that of a Darnstaedt and Pastor Buerger, I think they might have lived in the Seelitz vicinity, but like s few others from that area, they might have moved to Frohna not long after that.

The Doederlein’s had a child born in 1842, and that child’s baptism record is found in the books of Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. A translation we have for this record says this was their first son, but 2nd child. Perhaps they had a previous child that had died.

The Doederlein’s must not have remained in Perry County long. Beginning in 1845, Mathilde was the sponsor for several baptisms that took place at Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis. I was not able to find the Doederlein’s in the 1850 census. It does not take long to discover that a name such as Doederlein can easily be butchered by a census taker, so I might have missed them. I do know that this couple must have had at least one more child, a daughter named Mary.

August Doederlein died in 1858. He must have been in his 50’s when he died. I located probate papers associated with the August Doederlein estate. The image below shows the first page of the papers. It is signed by Edward Schroeter, John Schuricht, and Ernst Leonhardt. Those are 3 surnames found amongst the Gesellschaft immigrants.

I don’t know why it fascinates me so much, but I decided to post an image showing the signature of Mathilde Doederlein which shows up on so many of those probate papers.

I was also unable to find the widow, Mathilde, in the 1860 census, but I did find her in the one taken in 1870. She was living with her daughter, Mary.

We find Mathilde in an 1875 city directory for St. Louis. The address given for her was located not far from where Trinity Lutheran Church was found on Lombard St. in those days.

That was also the year that Mathilde died at the age of 73, almost 74. Her death record is found in the books of Trinity, St. Louis.

Mathilde has an entry on Findagrave.com for the Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis, but there is no gravestone photograph.

I am going to take you down one more rabbit hole. There was yet another wedding that took place on June 30, 1839. That wedding took place in Perry County. Traugott Schlimpert married Rosina Poppitz, a couple that would live in the Seelitz area. Rosina’s brother, Christlieb Poppitz, married Justine Noennig in 1842, but then Christlieb died in 1843, leaving Justine as a widow. Justine would get married again in 1844. Her next husband was…..(drum roll)….Jacob Goenner, whose wife had also died in 1843. I not only went down this rabbit hole, but it intersected with another rabbit hole.

Just for your information, there were other rabbit holes I went down that either ended up empty or I chose not to include them in this story because it was getting too long. And, just a side note. When I left this morning to go out to breakfast, there was a rabbit in my yard. I chose not to follow it to its hole.