You will be reading the story of a man who would be celebrating a special bicentennial birthday today. He was also one of the original immigrants who was part of the Gesellschaft that arrived in America in 1839.

According to our German Family Tree, Carl August Barthel was born on October 5, 1826 in Frankenberg, Germany. Several family trees on Ancestry.com say that he was born in 1827, but I think the GFT is correct about the year of his birth. Family Search gives him a birthday for the year, 1826, also. The Barthel family joined the Gesellschaft, and in November of 1838, they left Germany aboard the ship, Johann Georg. Unfortunately, there is a problem with finding Carl on the passenger list for that ship when it arrived in New Orleans in January of 1839. We find his Barthel family, but Carl is not included. In the image shown below of a portion of that passenger list, the Barthel family is boxed in with a yellow highlighter. It has been speculated that Carl was the person listed higher up on the passenger list that is also highlighted.

The book, Zion on the Mississippi, lists Carl in the Barthel family, but I am not able to show an image from that book today because I am not in Altenburg.

Carl’s family was one which chose to remain in St. Louis and not settle in Perry County. However, we do not find Carl living with his parents in the 1850 census. At the age of 24, Carl was living in the Daniel Holste household. Daniel is called a laborer, and Carl also likely had a job doing some sort of labor in St. Louis.

Carl would get married later in 1850, so let’s take a look at the woman who became his bride. It should not take long because I was unable to locate much information about her early life. Her name was Louise Wagner, who was born on May 17, 1831, I was only able to determine the name of her father, Louis Wagner. I think her mother’s first name began with an “H”, and it may have been Henrike. I found evidence that Louise was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Louise is found in a rather interesting place when the 1850 census was taken. She is listed in the image below.

This is the same image in which we found Carl Barthel. Her mother, H. Wagner, along with her 2 daughters, Louise and Catherine, were also living in the Daniel Holste household. So, it is not difficult to determine how Carl became acquainted with Louise.

Carl Barthel married Louise Wagner on January 20, 1850. The church marriage record for this wedding is found in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis. We can take a look at that marriage record below. In this image, it says that the witnesses were Carl Gottlieb Barthel and Henrike Wagner – the parents of the bride and groom. By 1850, Triniity had built its first church sanctuary, so it is possible that this wedding took place in that church.

The St. Louis marriage record shown here indicates that it was Rev. C.F.W. Walther who officiated at this wedding.

Family Search list 10 children born to Carl and Louise. According to our German Family Tree, the first 5 children were baptized at Trinity, St. Louis. I was unable to determine where the later children were baptized. There were 2 sets of twins born to this couple. By the time of the 1860 census, the Barthel couple had 4 children in their household. The first set of twins born in 1858 did not live long and are not found in this entry. Carl, who is now called Charles, was listed as a gardener.

It is possible that Charles served in the Union Army during the Civil War. I found several Civil War records for men named August Barthel, and a few for men named Charles Barthels, but I am not sure if any of them are records for the character in today’s story. When the 1870 census was taken, there were 8 children in the Barthel household. The last 2 children was another set of twins. Charles is once again called a gardener.

The last regular census in which we find Charles Barthel is the one taken in 1880. The same 8 children are included in this entry. One of the twins, Edward, has his name snuck in between the last two rows, as if he was missed and included later. Charles had the same occupation.

The Barthel family cannot be seen in the 1890 census because those census records were destroyed in a fire. However, we find a Charles Barthel in the 1890 Veterans Schedule for St. Louis. It is somewhat doubtful that this is the correct Charles Barthel. It is a bit suspect because, even since it was a St. Louis entry, it says this Charles Barthel served in the Kentucky Cavalry. That is a bit hard to believe.

Charles Barthel died in 1899, so he did not make it into the 1900 census. We can view his St Louis death record below. It is a bit hard to read, but it does say that he was 73 years and 11 months old at the time of his death, and that age gives support to the fact that Charles was born in 1826.

Louise Barthel is found as a widow in the 1900 census. She is listed as the head of her own household and living by herself, but right above her entry, you will see that of her son, Henry Barthel, and his family.

The last census in which we find Louise is the one taken in 1910. She was included in the household of William Ripley, who had married Louise’s daughter, Bertha, one of the twins.

Louise Barthel died in 1911 at the age of 79. Senility is given on her death certificate as her cause of death . It says she was born in Kentucky, and her father’s name was Louis Wagner. Bertha Ripley was the informant on this document.

Both Charles and Louise Barthel are buried in the Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis, and each of them have entries on Findagrave.com, but neither of them have a gravestone photo.

Today, we wish one of the original Stephanite immigrants, Carl August Barthel, a Happy 200th Birthday.