Johannes "John" Benkelman

1836 - 1917  (80 years)

• Name	Johannes "John" Benkelman  [1, 2, 3, 4]
  Nickname	John
  Birth	3 Apr 1836	Schneiderhof, Waldhausen Parish, Welzheim, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany   [1, 3, 4]
  Gender	Male
  Death	18 Jan 1917	Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin   [5, 6]
  Notes	Johannes Benkelmann was referenced as applying to emigrate to North America in 1850 by Schenk, Trudy and Froelke, Ruth The W?rttemberg Emigration Index Salt Lake City: Ancestry, Vol. 5. 1988. 240 p. Source Code 8057.8, p 14. Also indexed with hims were Johann Adam and Catharine Benkelman (1851) and Johan Georg Benkelman (1850). Census records indicate he emigrated in 1852, though German church records show that actually "ist 1851 ausgewandert." BonnieMargaret Jacobs wrote that Johannes, at the age of 15, made the journey to America with his older brother, Adam, and Adam's new wife, Catharina Schaufele. When the three of them left, they not only had to receive a release from the authorities that they had no outstanding debts, they also were required to have someone remaining in Germany to act as guarantor for any unknown debts that might later be discovered. Eldest brother Friedrich act as guarantor for Adam, whereas Johann Georg Stager, a citizen and farmer in B?rtlingen, was the guarantor of Johannes. Johannes arrived in Hamburg to depart for the United States a few days later than Adam and Catherine, June 23, 1851 versus June 19, but BonnieMargaret assumed they travelled on the same ship, (p. 81). He is said to have stayed in New York for some period, presumably with Adam and Catherine, before later leaving for Milwaukee, Wisconsin with another brother, Leonard. Leonard later moved to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, whereas Johannes remained near Milwaukee, in Rock County. It was here that John was married in 1857, and from census records it is apparent he and Sarah moved to several other states before returning to Wisconsin. He was a Private in Captain John Hauser's Company D, 48th Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry from February 1865 to November 1865. His declaration for pension dated February 22, 1907 describes him as 6 feet an one-half inches tall, light complexion, gray eyes and brown hair. His occupation was shown as blacksmith. BonnieMargaret writes that John and Sarah moved from Rock County sometime after the birth of daughter Minnie, going northwest to Columbia County where they were live out the rest of their lives, settling first in Marsalla and later in Lewiston. After John could not longer farm, due to rheumatism, they retired to the town of Portage. (p. 108). The following article appeared in the Cass City Chronicle four months before John's death. An obituary was not located, however. Cass City Chronicle Friday, September 29, 1916 Mrs. M.M. Schwegler left Tuesday for Portage, Wisconsin to visit her brother, John Benkelman, who is in feeble health. Mrs. Schwegler is expected to remain there two weeks. (Research): Census Information: 1860 Census Illinois, Wayne County, DuPage, P.O. Wayne Station Page 358 2630 2681 John Binkleman 24 M Blacksmith $2000 $300 Wittemberg Sarah Binkleman 26 F Penn Emma Binkleman 2 F Ohio Louisa Binkleman 1 F Ohio Wm. Keech 24 M Blacksmith Penn 1870 Federal Census Wisconsin, Columbia County, Marcellon, P.O. Randolph Enumerated 1 June 1870 Page 21, Stamped 213 166-172 Benkelman, John 34 M W Farmer $1000 $428 Wertemburg Benkelman, Sarah 36 F W Keeping House Pennsylvania Benkelman, Franklin 6 M W At home Iowa Benkelman, Minnie A 4 At Home Wisconsin Divina, Mary 25 F W At Home Wertemburg 1880 Federal Census Census Place:Marcellon, Columbia, Wisconsin Source:FHL Film 1255420 National Archives Film T9-1420 Page 17 RelationSexMarrRaceAgeBirthplace John BENKELMAN Self M M W 44 W?rttemberg Occ: Blacksmith And Farmer Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: W?rttemberg Sarah J. BENKELMAN Wife F M W 45 PA Occ: Keeping House Fa: PA Mo: PA Franklin BENKELMAN Son M S W 16 IA Occ: At Home Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: PA Minne BENKELMAN Dau F S W 13 WI Occ: At Home Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: PA Leonard J. BENKELMAN Son M S W 7 WI Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: PA Cora E. BENKELMAN Dau F S W 3 WI Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: PA 1910 Census Wisconsin, Columbia County, Portage City, Ward 1 Enumerated 18 Apr 1910 SD 2 ED 26 Sheet 4B 220-37-38 Benkelmann, John Hd M W 74 m1 52 Ger-German Ger-German Ger-German Benkelmann, Sarah Wf F W 75 m1 52 7/2 Pa Pa Pa Benkelmann, Frank Son M W 46 S Iowa Ger/German Pa Laborer Odd Jobs Benkelmann, Lenard Son m W 45 Wd Wisc Ger/German Pa Laborer Odd Jobs Benkelman, John Jr Grandson M W 14 S Wisc Wisc Wisc Benkelman, Myrtle Granddtr F W 10 S Wisc Wisc Wisc
  Person ID	I11982	Strong Family Tree
  Last Modified	13 Feb 2021

  
  

  Father	Johann Leonhard Benkelmann,   b. 6 Feb 1796, Schneiderhof, Waldhausen Parish, Welzheim, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany d. 24 Feb 1848, Schneiderhof, Waldhausen Parish, Welzheim, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany (Age 52 years)
  Mother	Maria Dorothea St?hle,   b. 5 Jan 1800, B?rtlingen, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany d. 22 Oct 1853, Transit to America, Lost At Sea (Age 53 years)
  Marriage	20 Nov 1822	Schneiderhof, Waldhausen Parish, Welzheim, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany   [1, 3]
  	BonnieMargaret and her husband Bruce visited Germany in September, 1980. In a letter to Ben and Avis dated October 13, 1980, she shared the following information "Then we were on to B?rtlingen, where Adam and Catherine were married. The church there was built in 1484 and is one of the most beautiful we saw anywhere. I decided to see the village of Breech--for no particular reason except I that I'd heard Elsie Anthes speak of it and it had turned up in various records. WE had no real family association there--but it was nearby. What a stroke of dumb luck! Without that decision we might never have found the Schneiderhof, where Adam and his siblings were born and lived until they emigrated. The Schneiderhof is not a town and is not on any map. It's just a cluster of about 4 houses and supporting buildings, just down and across the road from Breech, and if you were looking away for just a second, you'd miss the sign to it. I cannot tell you my excitement! ...There is nothing new there. Adam would recognize it as if he had never left. The tools and equipment are there as they have been for who knows how long. It is surrounded by orchards (apples) and small plots of vegetables. B?rtlingen is on a hill and is lovely with good views. The Schneiderhof is on top of the world, looking out on miles of hills and valleys and villages. It is incrediably beautiful. Again I found myself out in some cabbage patch, trying to explain to some farmer that this was my family heimat (home)...Clearly Americans are accepted as eccentric and harmless!...Vocabulary doesn't reach the beauty of that hilltop and its vistas out over hazy valleys, looking at other hills where red tiled houses form little villages. I can just imagine it at night--looking out over perhaps two dozen sparkling little villages on other hills around. One climbs from B?rtlingen to the Schneiderhof. But going down the back side of the mountain, through dense forest, the trail winds back and forth across the mountain into Waldhausen--which the Schneiderhof also looks down upon. This is the trip the family took to get to church, and probably to work." In her 1981 unpublished manuscript, BonnieMargaret noted that only the top floor of the Benkelmann home shows from the road leading in. The house is three stories high on the back side, two stories high in the front. It was built in 1733, by the state, to provide housing for state licensed artisans who were not allowed in the town as guild craftsmen. Apparently it gained its name from its first inhabitants, since the name literally means "the place of tailors." The official state description of the Schneiderhof in 1845 states that it was a place with 22 Evangelical residents, lying on the mountain top about one-half an hours walk from Waldhausen. The rents were paid to the city of G?ppingen, in 1845 twelve of those residents would have been Leonhard and Dorothea and their 10 living children, others would have included Leonhard's widowed mother and some of her children by Herr Heller, and likely their families. The land was described as rocky and and lying on a mountainside, "even today it is impossible to use machinery to work the land" and that the "people who lived there would have to have outside work." The house itself lies on the very crest of the mountain, with the house built on the downside of the mountain, overlooking Waldhausen. A very small patch of is on the level crest at the top of the mountain. When BonnieMargaret visited the home in 1981, she said it had four or five dwellings in all, and barns and sheds nearby the house and in the orchards. Just west of the house stands the old Bauernhaus, perhaps the homestead of Leonhard's maternal grandparents. The fields to the south were planted in potatoes and turnips, the high production crops that all of southern Germany turned to in the early 1800's. Beyond the westernmost buildings were apple orchards, beautiful and well tended. (pp. 68, 69 and accompanying photos). BonnieMargaret also noted that German life centered in the family. Even today we're told that day to day life included few close relationships with people outside the family. Certainly they were cordial and friendly with neighbors and cooperating artisans, but the joy of living was carefully protected within the walls of the home. Country people had no protection but each other, and the trusted "other" were kinsmen. Unlike the towns that were structured to protect the citizens from difficult times, the country folk were on their own, in good and bad times. Parents carefully nutured the bonds of affection and caring, and though they may have experienced the sibling rivalry that modern children do, it was not expressed in the German home, where only mutual caring and consideration were approved and encouraged. Names and birthdates for this family were from the Waldhausen Parish Kirchlichen Familienregister Band I, Blatt 244, Dekanat Welzheim, Schw?bisch Gm?nd. BonnieMargaret noted that all the family information shown on pages 95 and 96 of her book were certified by Pastor Rau of the Ev. Pfarramt Waldhausen to be the complete record of the family of Johann Leonhard Benkelmann, with the exceptions of the dates of death, which were included by BonnieMargaret from other sources. They had one stillborn child, neither name or sex listed, on 4 July 1838. She also noted that they were married on November 20, but the year was illegible. The family register for the family of Georg Friedrich St?hle and wife, Anna Maria Leins shows that Maria Dorothea was the fifth of their 15 children. She was married at the Schneiderhof on 20 Nov 1822, approximately 10 months after the birth of eldest son Friedrich.
  Documents » Slide Show		Benkelmann, Johann Leonhard and Dorothea (St?hle), Church Family Registry (German), page two German Church Family registry, second page, which lists the fifteen children born to Leonhard and Dorothea. Four of these children died young, the twelfth child was stillborn ("todgeborenes"), and the remaining 10 children all emigrated to the United States between 1849 and 1873.
  		Striffler-Benkelman Annual Labor Day Family Reunion, 1936 Newspaper article In the mid 1850's, in Erie County, New York, two sons of Jacob & Otilla Striffler married two Benkelman sisters. Shortly after their marriages, the couples moved to the Michigan frontier, many of their brothers and sisters following them. The two families remained intertwined for subsequent generations. At a reunion of the Henry Striffler family in 1930 it was decided to enlarge the scope of the reunion to include descendants of Henry, Jacob, Joseph, Christian, John and Susan Striffler. Members and "in laws" of these families first gathered at the Assembly grounds in Sebewaing for a reunion in 1932. As the Benkelman-Striffler family had remained very close over the years, all branches of the Benkelman family were invited to their Sixth Reunion, and since that time it remained a joint event. This articles from the 1936 "Cass City Chronicle" details one of the earliest joint reunions. Attended by over 170 family members, the reunion was held on the John Striffler homestead northeast of Cass City, with attendees travelling from Ontario, Ohio and many places in Michigan. President W.D. STRIFFLER presided at a business meeting in 1936, and Harry HUNT, Mrs. S.G BENKELMAN (the former Mary Striffler), and Mrs. Ben SCHWEGLER (the former Joanna Mark) were elected officers for the ensuing year. The first volume of the STRIFFLER-BENKELMAN BROADCAST was published for the September 1936 reunion.
  		Striffler-Benkelman Reunion 1954 Handbill Handbill advertising the annual Striffler-Benkelman Reunion, 1954, featuring Cass City's Main Street. At the fiftieth Striffler-Benkelman Reunion in 1981, Ruth Schenck Esau recalled a time when on Main Street, the owners of the newspaper, a farm implement store, both meat markets, the grocery store, paint store, insurance agency, funeral home, and photography studio were all members of the Striffler-Benkelman clan; not to mention a bank teller, many clerks, the music teacher, and many of the town's farmers.
  		Striffler-Benkelman Reunion Photo, 1961 Group Photo fromthe 30th Striffler-Benkelman Reunion, held September 4, 1961 at the Cass City Evangelical Church, founded by members of the Striffler and Benkelman families
  		B?rtlingen, Germany B?rtlingen 1683/1685 im Kieserschen Forstlagerbuch
  Family ID	F35	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Sarah Jane Keech,   b. 24 Aug 1834, Pennsylvania d. 28 Nov 1921, Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin (Age 87 years)
  Marriage	7 Jun 1857	Emerald Grove, Rock County, Wisconsin   [2, 5, 7]
  	BonnieMargaret Jacobs writes that their first three children, Emma, George and Louisa, all died of fever (p. 107), Emma first, who was a few month past her fourth birthday, George died a month later, still just a baby, and then finally Louisa, some five months later, at age 3 and 1/2. BonnieMargaret also noted that "The Benkelmans of Portage are buried in Silver Lake Cemetery, but the only record of that is with the cemetery sexton. None of the graves bears a marker. (p. 112).
  Children	1. Emma J. Benkelman,   b. 24 Jun 1858, Ohio d. 6 Nov 1862, Iowa (Age 4 years)   2. Louisa Benkelman,   b. 2 Sep 1859, Ohio d. 11 Apr 1863, Iowa (Age 3 years)   3. George Benkelman,   b. 8 Aug 1862, Iowa d. 8 Dec 1862, Iowa (Age 0 years)   4. Franklin C. Benkelman,   b. 16 Feb 1864, Iowa d. Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin   5. Minnie A. Benkelman,   b. 28 Aug 1866, Lima Center, Rock County, Wisconsin d. Feb 1901, Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin (Age 34 years)   6. Leonard Josiah Benkelman,   b. 12 Oct 1872, Lewiston, Columbia County, Wisconsin d. 8 Feb 1952, Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin (Age 79 years)   7. Cora E. Benkelman,   b. 26 Jun 1876, Columbia County, Wisconsin d. 18 Jun 1904, Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin (Age 27 years)
  Family ID	F5022	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	13 Feb 2021

  
  

• Event Map		Birth - 3 Apr 1836 - Schneiderhof, Waldhausen Parish, Welzheim, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany Marriage - 7 Jun 1857 - Emerald Grove, Rock County, Wisconsin Death - 18 Jan 1917 - Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Sources

  [S469] Williams, Dorothy Ball--Family Researcher (dotwfl@comcast.net) 3331 Southwest Villa Place, Palm City, FL 34990 ; based in part on BonnieMargaret Benkelman Jacob's unpublished typescript, THE FAMILY BENKELMAN. [S667] RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project, (The WorldConnect Project is a set of tools, which allow users to upload, modify, link, and display their family trees as a means to share their genealogy with other researchers. The program used to day has a genealogy of its own. RootsWeb announced the launch of the World Connect Project on November 10, 1999 after staff members and users submitted 5.5 million records during a four-week beta-testing period. The WorldConnect Project continues to grow, and as of January 2004 had more than 312 million records. GEDCOM is an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunications. It is a file format developed by the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). It provides a flexible and uniform format for exchanging computerized genealogical data, and allows you to share files with other researchers who may not use the same genealogy program.), Henderson, Harold (hhsh@earthlink.net) "Ancestor Exchange!" Versin 2009-05-20 ; http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=hendersonscholes (Reliability: 3). [S1610] Jacobs, BonnieMargaret McDonald "The Family Benkelman" Unpublished Manuscript, 276 pages, October 1981 Version, (Copy owned by Barney Benkelman, Helena, Montana; which he xeroxed and sent to Melinda McLemore Strong in San Antonio, Texas), p. 95 (Reliability: 3). [S311] Bonnell, Kathy Brandt (kbonnell@byu.edu) "G?ppingen, W?rttemberg, Germany and surrounding villages" http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=kbonnell, (RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: G?ppingen, W?rttemberg, Germany and surrounding villages. This database is one large family tree; everyone is connected by birth or marriage. Many of the families were inputted from the family books which were compiled by the pastors of each village beginning in 1808. Villages include Heiningen, Bartenbach, Gruibingen, Faurdau, Schlat, Hattenhofen, Eislingen, Holzheim, Auendorf , D?rnau, Bezgenriet, Ebersbach , Maitis, Gammelshausen, B?rtlingen, Boll, and others. Kathy Brandt Bonnell work directly from German records to the computer.). [S492] Peck, Edward Arthur THE TEN BENKELMANS WHO EMIGRATED TO AMERICA Ca. 1850s AND CERTAIN OF THEIR DESCENDANTS, 1982. [S1610] Jacobs, BonnieMargaret McDonald "The Family Benkelman" Unpublished Manuscript, 276 pages, October 1981 Version, (Copy owned by Barney Benkelman, Helena, Montana; which he xeroxed and sent to Melinda McLemore Strong in San Antonio, Texas), p. 111 (Reliability: 3). [S1610] Jacobs, BonnieMargaret McDonald "The Family Benkelman" Unpublished Manuscript, 276 pages, October 1981 Version, (Copy owned by Barney Benkelman, Helena, Montana; which he xeroxed and sent to Melinda McLemore Strong in San Antonio, Texas), p. 107, citing Civil War pension records #351090, Apirl 20, 1886, refiled Jan 24, 1917 for widow's benefits, petition #1091985, Certificate No. 830682. (Reliability: 3).