It is not often that I run across a wedding that took place 200 years ago, but that is the case with today’s post. Since the German Lutherans in this area did not arrive in the United States until 1839, that means that such a wedding must have happened in Germany before the immigration. Although this couple’s marriage date is found in our German Family Tree, I do not know the source that enabled that date to show up in that document. 

Johanna Christiana Poppitz was the bride in the 1824 wedding. Christiana was born on November 28, 1805. Family trees on Ancestry.com say she was born in Rochlitz, Germany, while our GFT says she was from Pürsten, Germany. I will add that according to the map below, Both Rochlitz and Pürsten are found near Seelitz, Germany.

The groom was Christian Gottfried Schlimpert. I was unable to determine an exact date for his birth, but it must have been around 1804 because he is listed as being 35 years old on the passenger list of the ship, Copernicus, when he arrived in 1839. That passenger list also says he was from Bernsdorf, Germany, which can also be found on the above map.

As I said before, I have no document to prove it, Christian Gottfried Schlimpert married Christiana Poppitz on February 1, 1824. The marriage must have taken place in a parish located in the vicinity shown on the above map, perhaps in Seelitz. This couple had 4 children before they departed for America in November of 1838. Those 4 children are listed on the passenger list for the Copernicus shown below.

Their youngest child named Ernst has a black cross behind his name on this list. That symbol indicates that the person died at sea while on the ship. A death record that was later included in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church says that Ernst Schlimpert died while at sea. That record is in a part of that congregation’s books that were said to be from the Seelitz community in Perry County. Their pastor, Rev. Buerger, left Perry County shortly after the Altenburg Debate in 1841.

Christian Gottfried Schlimpert was a significant character involved in several early issues in the Perry County community. For one thing, Christian Gottfried’s name can be seen as one who signed the deposition document for the removal of Rev. Martin Stephan who was kicked out of Perry County at the end of May in 1839 because of a scandal. That document is found in the book, Zion on the Mississippi.

Christian Gottfried Schlimpert was also mentioned in Zion on the Mississippi as being one of the people who was chosen to assign parcels of land to the immigrants in Perry County.

Christian Gottfried’s involvement in that land business was going to lead to some legal difficulties not long after this because not only would Christian Gottfried die in 1840, but Bimpage also died early on, and Rev. Keyl took a call elsewhere in the near future. 

Christian Gottfried Schlimpert died in May of 1840. His death record is also found in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church even though he was a member of Rev. Buerger’s congregation in Seelitz. That death record is displayed here.

This left Christiana Schlimpert as a widow. She would marry again in 1841. Her second husband was Gottfried Schmidt, another immigrant who travelled to America aboard the Copernicus. He is listed as being 36 years old on the passenger list below. He was a blacksmith from Paitzdorf. If he was 36 years old, he must have been born around 1803.

Gottfried Schmidt married Christiana Schlimpert on April 27, 1841. The church record is found in the books of Trinity, Altenburg and is pictured here.

We can also view a civil record for this wedding.

Our German Family Tree lists 3 children born to this pair. I will point out that one of their children, Jacob Schmidt, was the father of the Schmidt twins and Agnes Schmidt, who were highlighted in yesterday’s post. When the 1850 census was taken, we find the Schmidt’s with 2 children. Their first child had died in infancy. Gottfried was a blacksmith.

Gottfried must have died in the 1860’s. There is no death record for him in the Trinity books as a result of his death occurring during the years of the “Koestering Hole”. I found a Christiana Schmidt in the 1870 census, and her age is what it should be, but I am not 100% sure this is the right person. In this household there was an Ernestine with 3 young children, and I could not find any of these names connected to the Schmidt/Schlimpert/Poppitz families.

I am more confident that the 1880 census entry shown below includes the correct Christiana Schmidt. She was 74 years old, and living with her was a 12 year-old girl, Catherine Renn, who was said to be adopted. 

I am pretty sure that young girl was Catherine von Roenn, whose parents had died before 1880. Catherine had been born and baptized in New Wells.

Christiana Schmidt died in 1890 at the age of 84. There is a church death record for her in the Trinity books, but there was also a death record from Perry County that I will display here.

Both Gottfried and Christiana Schmidt are almost certainly buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg, but Findagrave.com has no entry for either of them.

So, today we celebrate the bicentennial wedding anniversary of Christian Gottfried Schlimpert and Christiana (Poppitz)(Schlimpert) Schmidt. Other marriages have taken place in Perry County that involve a Schlimpert marrying a Poppitz, a Schlimpert marrying a Schmidt, and in today’s case, a Poppitz who eventually married a Schmidt. Oh, what a tangled web I have to unravel on some days.