This post will be different. I usually begin a post with a birthday or wedding anniversary. This post begins with the arrival of a ship in New Orleans on November 7, 1853. That means today would mark the 170th anniversary of that event. I did begin by looking for events that took place on November 7th, and I noticed that several search results referred to a person’s arrival in America on that date aboard the ship, Ella. I proceeded to locate the passenger list for that ship. A portion of that list is displayed below.

Once I saw the names, Koch, Koenig, and Haertling on this list, I figured I had a story to tell today. The last story I published was another one of those stories in which I mentioned the Koch-Koenig-Haertling neighborhood near New Wells. I concluded that the above passenger list may help explain how that neighborhood developed.

I am not going to follow individuals through their lives from cradle to grave today. Instead, I hope to give a more general description of several of the people that appear on the above passenger list. But before I get started with that, let me say that I did not spend so much time looking on Ancestry.com for information for this post. Instead, I used two other major sources, one of which is brand new to our research library. At our recent immigration conference, some new binders were introduced to us by Ken Craft. Ken received an amazing document that has been compiled by our friend and incredible researcher who lives in Germany, Timm Yamnitz. That document has been titled the Passenger Arrival Index (PAI). Ken Craft took that document, made some necessary copies, and placed it in a set of binders that we now have in our library.

There is an important feature of this resource which attempts to list people who settled in our area according to the passenger lists of the ships on which they traveled to get here. That feature is the Family Search identification number for each of the people listed in this resource. I decided to use Family Search today utilizing these identification numbers. Below is a portion of a page from those binders that list the Koenig’s. I have highlighted the Family Search identification numbers in the column on the left for the Koenig’s that were aboard the Ella.

I am going to begin with Andreas Koenig (K2Q2-893). By using Family Search, I found Andreas’s baptism record from the church in Korbussen, Germany. It indicates his parents were Christian and Marie (Kirmse) Koenig. Please note that the name, Magwitz, can be found in the sponsors’ column.

Andreas married Christina Haertling (K2Q2-8ST), another name on the above Ella passenger list. For some reason, Christina’s ID number is found on Family Search, but is not included in the PAI. This couple was married in Uniontown in 1854. This Koenig couple become part of the New Wells Koch-Koenig-Haertling neighborhood. Below is the baptism record for Christina Haertling. Her parents were Andreas and Maria (Albrecht) Haertling. This record is also from the parish in Korbussen.

The next Koenig name on the list is Valentin Koenig (KNS7-4H1). His baptism record is also found in the books of the Korbussen parish. He had the same parents as Andreas, so those two were brothers.

Valentin seems to have vanished after getting to America. I find no evidence of him in our German Family Tree.

The other Koenig on the passenger list is Friedrich Koenig (K1W2-FWD). I located Friedrich’s baptism record. It is from the same church books as the other Koenig’s, but his parents are listed as Gottfried and Rosina (Wunderlich) Koenig.

Once in this country, Friedrich married Marie Hecht in 1861 and lived in Farrar.

Now, let’s take a look at the other Haertling on the passenger list, Maria (K8SV-YMX). She is said to have been baptized at Korbussen, but I cannot display an image of her record. She was a sister of Christina Haertling. Maria married Gottfried Koch, another passenger on the Ella, in 1854. They were married at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Gottfried was said to be the son of Andreas and Christina (Krug) Koch and also baptized in Korbussen. Gottfried and Maria lived in the Koch-Koenig-Haertling neighborhood near New Wells.

We will now look at Johanna Hopfer (K2Y5-N19). She was baptized in Nischwitz, Germany. Here is an image of her baptism record, which states that she was the daughter of Michael and Maria Rosina (Brauer) Hopfer.

Johanna married Herman Eggers in 1854 at Trinity, Altenburg. This couple lived in Altenburg during their lives.

Now we will look at the 2 Baunach girls on the list. Family Search says Anna Baunach (2WNV-LP5) was the daughter of George and Christine (Schmidt) Baunach from Steinsdorf, Germany. I am unable to display a baptism record. Anna married Johann Ludwig in 1854 at Grace, Uniontown, and that couple lived in the Pocahontas area. They are buried in the small New Jerusalem Cemetery (also called the Ludwig Cemetery) outside Pocahontas.

Anna Baunach (9QCD-2S7) was Sophia’s sister. She married Herman Gerth in 1856 at Grace, Uniontown. That couple lived in the Pocahontas area also They are buried at Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Pocahontas.

Christian Magwitz (L7J3-N5Z) was the son of Michael and Christina (Kirschner) Magwitz. He is yet another one who was from Korbussen, Germany. After arriving in Missouri, he married Caroline Hornemann. This couple was married at Grace, Uniontown on the same day that Sophia Baunach married Johann Ludwig in 1854. Christian and Caroline lived their lives in Farrar.

The other name listed amidst all the others was Sebastian Hermann. He is not found in our German Family Tree. I did find a death record for a Sebastian Hermann who died in St. Louis.

There you have it. This group of travelers arriving on this date in 1853 mostly settled in the New Wells and Farrar areas. So many of them were about the same age, and so many were from Korbussen, Germany. I will add that there was another Koenig that arrived later in 1866 who was married to a Haertling and settled in the Koch-Koenig-Haertling neighborhood, but I’m too tired to continue writing, so that’s all folks.