The Huber Family History
It was spring in Baden,
Germany in the early 1800’s but this year they were not working
the fields and planting the
seeds they had saved from last year. Those seeds, the peas, beans,
turnips, lettuce, carrots,
beets, cabbage, onions and the wrinkled potatoes were being packed
with their belongings for the
long journey to the “New World”. They had also carefully wrapped
cuttings from their favourite
fruit trees and flowering shrubs to enjoy at their new home. Lilacs
were among them and each
spring you can still see them blooming along country roads where a
long time ago a tiny log house
was once snuggled among them. It is said a lilac growing at your
door brought good luck. They
would need a lot of luck in the days ahead.
They were young and strong and
excited. They were in their mid twenty’s. They likely
already had their lifelong
sweethearts chosen and were waiting to reach dry land to marry. Some
were married by the ship’s Captain
on the journey but most waited until they reached the New
World. Michael and Scholastica
waited.
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The intrepid travellers were
Scholastica Graf, her brother Sebastian, her mother Rufina
and her “intended” Michael Huber. Her father, Bartholomus
Graf, had died in 1814, when Scholastica was only 3 years
old. (He may have been in Napoleon’s army, as his
brother also died that year. It is entirely possible.) After getting
their passports in order and receiving permission from the Royal
Government to leave the Baden area of Germany they bade their
farewells to neighbours, friends and family. They loaded their
bundles and wooden chests in the |
wagon while the horses stood
patiently waiting to begin the trip north to the sea. The railway
wasn’t completed until 1850,
so they began their long journey by plodding along the ancient
country roads. Then they
waited, probably at the Port of Bremen, Germany for the crew of about
seventeen to ready the vessel
to the Captain’s specifications. The fare was about 50 Gulden (gold
pieces) to hopefully get them
to the Port of New York in about six weeks time, maybe even
sooner with a good wind and a
bit of luck or maybe even as long as three months! It had
happened.
It was thought the Hubers came
with the Kroetsch’s in 1841 on the barque Pauline as
noted on the half page of
family history by Sister Mary William (Kroetsch) When I saw the
Passenger List of the
“Pauline” on which the Kroetsch family had sailed in 1841 it did not
include any of our ancestor’s names.
Then I found Michael and Scholastica were married here in
September 1836, so there was
the evidence, the Grafs and Michael Huber were here before the
Kroetsch family. The “Pauline”
was newly built in 1839, which means they did not sail on that
beautiful sailboat on which
Captain Meyer had set speed records not even attained later by steam
ships.
Our “intrepid travellers”
departure date has eluded me so far, but come they did! If only
they had kept a diary! I
imagine though their great anticipation while waiting most likely at the
Port of Bremen would be tinged
with a little sadness, they would most likely never again see
those friends and relatives
they were leaving behind, and never set eyes on their fatherland again.
That old familiar way of life would
be gone forever. What would the New World look like?
Everything seemed ready, they
were at long last about to set sail. The Captain called out,
“All hands to sailing
stations!” The members of the crew scattered. “Hoist the jib and raise
mains’l,” he commanded. They
were on their way to a new life and could not resist looking
back at the old, .... one last
time. “Auf Wiedersehen!”
The boat would be about thirty
feet wide and one hundred feet long. Most of the time
passengers were required to
remain below in the foul air and cramped quarters because the crew
was always very busy topside
with their chores among the crates, coils of rope, folded sailcloth
and the other accoutrements.
Anyway it was very cold outside most of the time. Oh how they
prayed for the sight of the
New World.
I have heard the voyages were
miserable. There was much rain, wild storms and high
winds for those 6 weeks before
they made safe landfall in North America. I cannot even imagine
the ‘hardship’ on board a ship
of that time. It certainly was no pleasure cruise. The food was
scarce and not very tempting.
Six weeks must have seemed very long. They were at the mercy of
the weather and the skill of
the crew.
One thing for sure, there was
absolutely no privacy, they were just elbow to elbow with
about one hundred and seventy
strangers. The “Thunderbox” was the only toilet on board. It was
described as a box built out
over the rail, where you sat in plain view. A “drop off” into the sea!
I wonder if anyone brought
their own ‘chamber pot’ but then there was absolutely no
privacy “tween deck” or “zwei
deck” anyway. The wooden sleeping bunks, which were about
two feet wide and six or seven
feet long and stacked to the ceiling were your only allotted space
for families to make do with.
No walls or partitions, no bathing facilities and the smell was
unbelievable. In fact they
said you could see it when the ships docked, a haze of stench hung
around the vessels!
On one of the voyages a
beautiful hand carved statue of Mary accompanied the devout
passengers. It was carved of
two pieces of tree trunk joined at Mary’s waist. When the wicked
storms lashed the sail boat
and tossed it about in the Atlantic, Ignatius Weiler the carver of the
life sized statue, held on
tight to protect it and was no doubt imploring Mary to protect them all.
The statue is in St. Boniface
Church, Maryhill, on the right side as you enter. It has been
repainted by a nun and is so
very beautiful. Everyone should make a visit to St. Boniface Church
on top of the hill in Maryhill
just to see it.
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After anchoring a long way
out from New York harbour they had to wait for the “pilot” to board to take the
sailboat into the Port of New York. I have not found records so New York is
just the most likely Port for German immigrants. Here they
disembarked and made their way up the Hudson River and travelled
to Albany and the newly opened Erie Canal system. That leg of
the journey was another one hundred fortyfour miles, and then the canal
trip was three hundred and sixty three miles to Lockport NY at four
miles an hour top speed by mule barge. There they crossed the
Niagara River at Black Rock to Fort Erie Canada. Following an old
Indian and deer trail which was becoming a sort of road, they made
their way to Hamilton, through the Beverly swamp at Dundas, Galt and on
to Rottenburg, (Maryhill) Waterloo Township. This part of their
journey took another 6 weeks. The Niagara area had mills,
wagon builders and supplies the new arrivals could buy and
the people there took in settlers, weary as they would be, in exchange
for news from across the Atlantic and just |
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to “ visit.” Perhaps they
bought their own wagon and pair of oxen and whatever else they
deemed necessary and could
afford, while in the Niagara area before continuing on to Waterloo
Township by wagon pulled by
the very slow moving Oxen at three miles an hour or so. They
would have come along the east
side of the Grand River, and on towards Guelph, instead of
across at Freeport and into
“Berlin,” (Kitchener) where thirty-five families now lived.
In those days travel by road
was nothing less than bone-jarring on account of the ruts,
bumps, stumps, puddles and
other obstacles that blocked a smooth safe passage. So imagine the
relief when in the late 1830’s
some of the main roads were “paved” with 3-inch oak planks.
They became “toll roads” and
the funds were used to maintain them. The idea then spilled over
into New York State. I wonder
if “Toll House Cookies” were sold at the gate there when the toll
was paid? There was not a Tim
Horton Coffee Shop but maybe the tollkeeper’s wife had a pot of
coffee ready for the
“passerby,” a welcome break for travellers. But the oak timbers on those
roads did not last very long
and maintenance was high. Probably when Michael and Sebastian
came through, there were
stretches of “corduroy” roads, where cedar logs were laid across the
swamps and bogs. Not long ago
on the way to Sauble Beach, north of Hanover, in the Grimston
area , I remember driving on
“corduroy” and bumping along and thinking what it would be like
with those hard wagon wheels
of steel or wood. The area is very swampy and recently that road
bed was raised a good five
feet above the swamp and is a solid gravel road now. But riding in a
horse-drawn wagon would have
been a really bone rattling experience, I can well imagine.
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And
so they rolled into the little community of Rottenburg, now Maryhill which had been
seeing settlers arrive from Alsace/Lorraine and the Germanic states since
the early 1830's. Michael and Scholastica were married on the 5th of September in 1836, likely
in the little log school house which was also served
as the church. It had been built in 1834/35. Upon arrival many of the
settlers worked as “Taghloeners” day labourers, for 50 cents a day, and a
day was from sunrise to sunset which could mean 16 or 17 hours in the
spring. They could save for a few years before buying their own land. The
Mennonites who were here since about 1805 welcomed the labourers, they
needed the manpower to clear the 60,000 acres of land, and they made
them welcome. |
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The German Company Tract had
been drawn up on 23 July 1805. Daniel and Jacob Erb
registered their title to
60,000 acres on the 24 July 1805 and promptly proceeded to register
various parcels of 448 acres
each to the respected assigned owners, in the next three days. Lot 77
in the German Company Tract
was a parcel of 448 acres sold by Daniel and Jacob Erb to
Abraham Erb on July 20, 1805.
Lot 77 was not sold again until 1843, so Michael Huber was in
fact the first owner of 80
acres of this lot drawn up in 1805. In the 1838 Census, I see Michael
was already living on lot 77,
maybe sooner than that as he was married in 1836. I wonder if he
had siblings who came from
Peter’s Township, Franklin County PA and bought Lot 78 beside
him? Did he come with them and
then met Scholastica? Probably not as Michael was born in
“Germany” as it said on all
his records here, if only we knew where in Baden Germany we could
search records there. Baden
covers a very large area.
The only “Family Tree”
information I had was Sister Mary William’s nine lines on half a
page, saying ‘from oral
tradition’ both sets of Great Grandparents came over in 1841 on the ship
Pauline from Bamberg Germany
to Bamberg Ontario. and settled on the Joseph Huber
Centennial Farm. This is not
so. Michael was here and on Lot 77 at Freiburg near Maryhill on
the Census of 1838 and had
been married two years earlier here in Waterloo Township. Joseph
Huber bought his own farm.
Michael’s son in law John Kieswetter had the original Michael
Huber farm. So you see I just
sort of made up a story around what I know from records and
reading, but it does give you
a very good idea of “The Way They Were.”
On History Television’s
“Scattering of Seeds” the family of Martin and Kunigunda
Kroetsch were featured and
they did apply for permission to leave in 1841. His letter to Royal
Government of Royal Franconia,
Department of the Interior, March 22, 1841, said “I petition
the Royal Government to please
give orders to the County Court in Hohlfeld to release the
already signed passport for me
and my family for the trip to Bremen and North America, -
signed - flour mill operator -
Martin Kroestch, Kotzendorf. Captain Meyer and the Ship Pauline
sailed on 14th of June 1841. It apparently
was a horrible trip. They made it.
I am keeping the record of
these neighbours on Lot 78, the Hoovers of Pennsylvania just
in case someday I do find a
connection to them and Michael Huber/Hoover.
Here is a copy of the document
settling the estate of the late Christian Hoover of Peter’s
Township PA on 11th of March 1835, as I wrote it
out from the old leger in the Rare Book Room
of the University of Waterloo,
Book # 69 page 161. Punctuation etc is copied as was:
“A memorial to be registered
of a certain bargain and Sale was made the eleventh day of March
in the year of our Lord one
thousand eighteen hundred and thirty-five between John Hoover and
Dolly his wife, Martin Hoover
and Mary? His wife. Christian Hoover, Jeremiah Seuseny and
Catherine his wife. Late
Catherine Hoover Abraham Hoover and Mary? his wife Samuel Hoover
Jeremiah Hoover and John
Whitmore and Martha his wife Late Martha Hoover? Queens? At
Law and legal representative
of the estate of Christian Hoover Late of Peter’s Township Franklin
County State of Pennsylvania
in the United States of America. Deceased for and in consideration
of the sum of five hundred
Dollars Lawful money of the said United States to them in hand will
and truly paid at or before the
ensealing and sealing of said indenture by Jacob G? Erb of
Waterloo Township Halton
County District of Gore in the Province of Upper Canada Yeoman
the receipt whereof is
acknowledged in said indenture Whereof the paid John Hoover and others
the Grantors of the first part
do hereby forever acquit and forever discharge the paid Jacob Reb
Have granted bargained sold
aligned released transferred and confirmed and by said indenture
Do grant bargain sell alien
release transfer and confirm unto him the said Jacob Reb his heirs and
assigns forever all those
following Described Parcels or Tracts of Land situate lying and being in
Waterloo Township Halton
County District Gore and province of Upper Canada Aforesaid in
Block Number Two of Gore
district said province being composed of lot number Seventy -eight
and the eastern half of lot
number 149 and were butted and bounded or maybe otherwise known
as follows that is to say
Beginning for lot number seventy eight at a post marked 77/48 being the
South west angle of said lot
thence north sixty-four degrees and thirty minutes West ninety-two
chains and Twenty Links thence
south sixty four degrees and thirty minutes nine chains Forty
four Links thence south
twenty-five Degrees and twenty minutes East twenty three chains and
six links to the place of
beginning. Containing by measurement four hundred and forty eight
acres.
John Hoover Samuel
Hoover
Dolly x her mark Hoover Jeremiah Cession
Martin Hoover Jeremiah Hoover
Mary Hoover Catherine x
her mark Hoover
Christian Hoover John Whitmore
Abraham Hoover Martha Whitmore
Mary Hoover
There was a seal by each name
and one on the bottom
At least we know the father of
these Hoovers was Christian late of Peter’s Township
Franklin County PA and it was
his estate they had settled when selling this land among them.
There was John and Dolly,
Martin and Mary, Christian, Abraham and Mary, Samuel, Jeremiah
and Catherine and Martha was a
Huber married to John Whitmore and Mr Cession’s wife
Catherine Huber was deceased.
Hoover is the English translation of Huber. Some of these names
were repeated in later generations,
for instance Martha, Christian and of course Mary. So were
these people cousins of
Michael? was Elizabeth [Huber] Lambrix a sister of Michael’s? It is a
thought, but a very large
puzzle and not likely so as Michael was Roman Catholic and had been
born in Germany. Elizabeth was
Roman Catholic too. I am keeping this information though,
just in case. The historian at
Halter House Museum in Maryhill says they must be connected but
we couldn’t find proof.
To help each other in the
intense manual labour in those days before machinery was
available, family and
neighbours got together to share the work and had “Bees”“ for everything
from logging, ploughing, house
and barn raising, sheep shearing, quilting, apple schnitzing, corn
husking, and threshing. And
after the Bees were the “sprees,” whiskey was cheap and the
women cooked up bountiful
feasts for these gatherings. It was also an excuse to visit and
socialize. Michael Huber
formed “Hoover and Company” with Sebastian Graf and the two
would work together, but I had
no idea this was our Michael Huber when I first saw that entry in
the records at Maryhill.
“Hoover” just did not click with me.
The first indication that
Michael Huber/Hoover and the Grafs were here was actually
their marriage document of 1836.
The Census for 1838 tells us how many souls under the head
of the household but no names,
so this took some figuring out! They could have all lived in the
very little house that had the
stone fireplace all along one wall and where the hook for hanging
the cook pot still hung from
the ceiling in 1956.
This small building was still
on the property in 1950's. when Jon Bos from Holland
bought it for wife Johanna and
daughters Anne and Elsa. It was described to me by Anne Fay
who grew up on that property.
The ‘little house’ would have given them immediate shelter while
building the larger log house.
This seems very likely. Anne saved two pieces of broken glass
found buried behind that
building. One had blue on it the other was ornate bubbly glass. Was this
the remains of Scholastica and
Rufina’s dishes?
Lot 77 is not far from the
corner where the thriving village of Freiburg the rival of
Maryhill was located. It even
boasted a post office which Maryhill did not have until later and
that is when Freiburg lost out
and eventually no longer existed. The Freiburg corners are now
Spitzig Road across from
Durrant Road and the Maryhill/Bloomingdale Rd now known as St.
Charles Road. No sign of a
“ghost village” at all, just a woodlot on the East corner. It is for sale
now, May 2003, who will the
next owners be?