[Last updated: 30 April 2021]
Johan Friederich Stembel (Grandfather)
Frederick Stembel (Father)
Mary Magdalene Stembel
MARY MAGDALENE STEMBEL Hoffman (c 1793 - c 1856)
How does one write a chapter describing the life of a woman who - through no fault of her own - left few footprints in history?
(Of course, most women in that era left few footprints in history(1). In that era, upon marriage a woman became one with her husband, he the doer and protector, she the helpmate. The doers got their names in the records, the helpmates were largely invisible, their presence and importance only implied.)
On May 23, 2019, I received an email from a researcher, John McGlothlin, who writes about Oregon pioneers. He wrote, "I am currently researching several of the Hoffman clan including Jacob [Mary's husband] and his son John H. I have a fair amount of information – and more on the way from different sources – but can start by telling you that Jacob and John left Indiana in 1853 with Jacob’s brother William and family and came to Oregon by wagon train. Jacob had several businesses in Jackson County, Oregon but didn't do well and moved back to Indiana in late 1858 or early 1859. Son John H. served in the Oregon militia in the Indian wars of 1854 but also returned to Indiana, ..."
Thus began a two year collaboration to research this elusive family that included a few false trails, some assumptions proved and disproved, and not one but two rewrites. It turns out our Jacob never left Indiana (it turned out it was a different Jacob Hoffman who appeared in Oregon at about the same time our Jacob would have, and disappeared from Oregon at the time our Jacob would have left), but Jacob's son, John, did make the trip. Starting with John's new information, the two of us built on the other's new discoveries until we filled in a lot of the missing information, and Mary's family emerged.
Here is their story.
Mary's Childhood
Mary Stembel was born July 31, 1793(2), most likely in her family's home on lot number 8 in Middletown, Frederick County, Maryland. While we assume she was born in her parent's home and baptized in her family's church, the fact that her baptism was never recorded in the family's church records(3) allows the possibility that she was born elsewhere.
Mary was Frederick and Esther's youngest child. Frederick was 44, Esther was 42. Because we have no church record of Mary's baptism, we don't know what name she was given at birth. Later in life she went by Mary Magdalene, but when she was confirmed in the Zion Lutheran Church in 1811 at the age of 17, her name was recorded as Annamari Stembel.
When Mary was born, she joined a full house of 4 brothers and 4 sisters (though two sisters may have died before she was born). Just two years earlier, her father had built a new two-story brick house to accommodate his growing family. It was located in the middle of town on Middletown's main street. It had a porch where the children could play, or sit and watch the stagecoaches dash through town, dodging pedestrians and the slower Conestoga wagons lumbering their way west.
By the time Mary was 12, four of her older siblings had married and moved out of the house. Even though some of her siblings were gone, it doesn't mean their large home was quiet and empty. In every census after her birth (1800, 1810, 1820) there were between 10 and 14 persons living with the Stembels. In the 1800 census, when Mary was 7, there were two other young girls and a boy her age living in the household with her. We don't know who they were or why they were present, but I'm certain Mary welcomed them as playmates.
Mary grew up in a well-to-do household. Her father was important in their small town, successful, respected, and consulted. Mary was fortunate to live in town where she could find playmates and forge friendships. She would be exposed to commerce, and watch settlers travel through town on their way west. She may have attended a private school, or had a tutor. She grew up in a large house with older siblings who probably helped her learn to read and write. Mary's father owned enslaved persons (4 in 1800, 5 in 1810) so she was probably attended to by household slaves as a child.
Married Life
On February 27, 1816(4), Mary married Jacob Hoffman, Jr. She was 22, Jacob was 25. The Hoffman's were a German-speaking family from Baltimore who took full advantage of the many fine schools a large city can support. The Hoffmans did business in Middletown and the surrounding area. At some point Jacob's father, and his family, moved from Baltimore to Frederick, eight miles east of Middletown. It appears that first Jacob, Jr. and later his younger brother, William, moved on to Middletown to find work and explore business opportunities. Their father, Jacob, Sr., also spent time in Middletown where he purchased a tanning yard from Mary's father, and may have been an occasional business associate of Frederick's.
It appears that after they married, Mary and Jacob lived with Mary's parents until 1822 when Jacob purchased a home on the lot next door. This was right after the birth of their second child. The house and property cost $2,250, so the house must have been substantial, large enough for the large family they anticipated. They may have also acquired an enslaved person after they moved into the big house, for church records show that in 1825, an infant slave named Nelson was baptized in Zion Lutheran Church. His mother was named Polly and his master was recorded as Jacob Hoffman. That Jacob Hoffman, however, could have been Jacob's father(5).
Mary gave birth to two more children after they moved to the new house. However, the Hoffmans only lived in the house for five years, for in 1827, Jacob sold the house for $1,700(6), substantially less than he paid for it. We do not know why they moved, or precisely where they moved to(7), though the 1830 census shows they were still living somewhere in Middletown. The census shows they owned one enslaved person, a male between the ages of 10 and 24 (missing was Polly and her son who was baptized in 1825, casting further doubt on whether their owner was our Jacob Hoffman).
Mary's husband, known around town as Jacob Hoffman, Jr. to distinguish him from his father, was a merchant in Middletown. Merchants in towns like Middletown - on one of the main routes to the west - meant being nimble and constantly reacting to the needs of the traffic coming through town. So Jacob probably engaged in a number of businesses over time. He was also active in the community and his church. He was Treasurer of Middletown's Christ Reformed Church from 1819 to 1825 (with a hiatus in 1823),(8) he served as Middletown's postmaster in the mid-1820s,(9) and in 1834, when Middletown became an incorporated town, Jacob was selected (either by appointment or election) to be the town's first Burgess (mayor)(10). Based on letters Jacob wrote when he was in his 60s, he was literate, thoughtful, hard-working, aware of current affairs, and compassionate.
We do not know for certain how many children Mary and Jacob had altogether. Using church and census records, we have found seven children that we are certain of, though one died as an infant.
The Move West, From Town to Farm.
After Jacob's stint as Middletown's first Burgess, the Hoffmans disappeared from the records in Middletown. Earlier family researchers found no record of them anywhere, maybe because they were the first of the Stembels to move west from Middletown to a location other than Ohio (by 1830 Mary's three older brothers had moved to Ohio, as had some of her nieces and their families).
We know Jacob's father died in 1832. Did he leave Jacob a substantial inheritance? Did the family use the money to move? But the Hoffmans showed no indication they were considering a move. Being chosen to serve as the first Burgess of a new town would seem to indicate Jacob was respected and trusted. Why leave? But they did.
We don't know how many years Jacob served as Burgess. One year? Two years? But between the day he left office and the day of the 1840 census, they moved to Indiana...first to Attica (Fountain County), then across the Wabash River to a farm in rural Warren County, Indiana.
In that 1840 census, Jacob, Mary, and four of their children (and possibly a hired hand) were living in Warren County. We know it was a farm, for the agriculture schedule showed that 3 members of the Hoffman household were engaged in agriculture, not in commerce. Their other two children were living in Attica, the closest town of any size.
What drew the Hoffmans to Indiana, specifically Warren County, Indiana, a sparsely populated agricultural county bordering Illinois? We may have a hint from a short autobiography written in 1880 by Jacobs's younger brother William(11). The autobiography shows that Jacob and William were close, even though Jacob was 11 years older than William. Later, in Middletown, they were briefly business partners. Jacob named his first-born, William.
William's autobiography relates how, in 1835, he and a business partner decided to open a store in one of the new towns growing up on the western frontier - specifically those along the Wabash River. After a visit to the area, they chose the town of Attica, a growing village surrounded by fertile agricultural land and well-to-do farmers.
William and his partner opened their store in 1835 and did well. The next year William returned to Maryland to replenish their stock. In September 1836 he loaded the new stock into wagons and headed back to Attica, accompanied by his new wife, and the family of his sister, Catherine Uhler. I assume they arrived in Attica in late November.
While back in Maryland, William no doubt told Jacob about his business success in Attica and the prosperous farms in the area. Was this what convinced the Hoffmans it was time to join the stream of families moving West in search of better lands and possible prosperity? Attica (and Warren County across the river) would be a natural choice for the Hoffman's to settle since Jacob's brother was already established in Attica.
I believe Jacob and Mary moved to Attica the next spring, for later that year, on August 30, 1837, a "William Hoffman of Fountain County" purchased three 40-acre contiguous lots in rural Warren County for $1,260. The 120 acres were placed in trust for "Mary Magdalene Hoffman of Fountain County" (this shows that Mary - and presumably the entire Hoffman family - was now living in Fountain County, presumably in Attica). This 120 acres became the Hoffman family farm and home for the next 30 years.
This transaction answered one question (When did the Hoffmans move to Indiana?), but raised new ones (Which William Hoffman bought the land? Why William and not Jacob? Why was the land put in Mary's name and not Jacob's? Whose money was it? Why were the Hoffmans buying farmland? Jacob had no known previous experience farming. Why not buy a home in Attica and open a business, something Jacob had done all of his adult life?).
As to the question of which William purchased the land: was it Jacob and Mary's 19-year-old son, or Jacob's 36-year-old brother? We know Jacob's brother was living in Attica at the time(12), and are almost certain their son was too. We can only speculate, and speculating distracts us from the bigger questions: 1. Where did the money for the $1,260 payment come from, 2. If it was the Hoffman's money, why didn't Jacob buy the land himself, and 3. Why was the land put in a trust for Mary?
This is my best guess: Jacob was excited by his brother, William's, description of Attica and the fertile farmland surrounding it, and decided to move there and start a farm. But he only had enough money for the move, and the seeds and implements needed to set up the farm, but not enough to buy the land. So Jacob and Mary went to Mary's father, Frederick, and asked for a loan. Frederick was amenable to the loan but was concerned that Jacob, who had no prior experience in farming, might be biting off too much and could fail, leaving his family, including his beloved daughter, penniless. So he agreed to make the loan, but only if the land was put in trust for his daughter. The only evidence to support this is the large amount of money Jacob and Mary had borrowed over the years from Frederick ($5,840 according to his will).
We still don't know why Jacob didn't make the purchase. He could have specified the land was to be put in trust for his wife as well as whichever William made the purchase. Was Jacob angry or resentful that his father-in-law didn't have confidence in his ability to become a successful farmer? The answer is probably something more mundane.
The Hoffmans likely spent the rest of 1837 and 1838 setting up their farm. It might have included building a house and outbuildings. We don't know what crops they grew or what animals they raised. Most farmers on the frontier had extensive gardens to feed their families. They probably didn't cultivate the entire 120 acres. We know that later Jacob mentions having orchards, sap trees for "sugar," and bee hives.
1839 might be the first year they expected to see some income. Something significant also happened that year. Jacob had part or all of his arm amputated. In a letter written to his daughter-in-law in 1858(13), Jacob alluded to the incident, "Your [operation] reminds me of the operation I submitted to nineteen years ago, with knife and saw." That would place the year of the amputation in 1839. A direct descendent confirmed the amputation, writing that Jacob had his arm removed at a time when there was "no antiseptic surgery or anesthetics." That must have been extremely traumatic for Jacob and his family (and the doctor). We don't know where this happened or what led to it. Was it an accident or a health issue? Another mystery which we will probably never find the answer to.
In late 1840, Mary's father, Frederick, died in Middletown. Frederick was wealthy and owned a lot of property. His will specified it should all be sold and the proceeds be distributed to his heirs, minus the sum he had already advanced each of them. Frederick had already advanced the Hoffmans $5,840. Considering that there were five other heirs besides Mary, and the country's economy which was experiencing a severe downturn when Frederick's assets were sold, it is possible Mary's share was small.
For the next 10 years the Hoffmans farmed their land, and watched their children grow. In 1840, William, their first-born, married, and moved to Attica. A year later their oldest daughter, Ann Elizabeth, married and also moved to Attica. The decade ended with Jacob and Mary's Fourth child, 23-year-old Jacob Francis - known as Frank - leaving home in 1849 to join the gold rush of hopefuls seeking their fortune in California.
1865 Map of Jacob and Mary Hoffman's Farm
The 1850s: It Started Out So Well…
On June 1 - the date of the 1850 census - Mary and Jacob were living on their farm. Both were in their late 50s. Their six children ranged in age from 32 (William) to 16 (John). Two sons, William and George, were living in Rainsville, a small farm town a few miles north of their farm. William was married with three children. George was single, and boarding with a family. Both described their occupation as "Merchant". In fact, they were owners of a store in Rainsville. Ann Elizabeth was married to a ferryman. They had one child, and were living near Attica. Frank was in California, and Mary Jane and John were still living with their parents on the farm.
Then, in 1851, Mary Jane got married. Then Frank returned from California. Soon after, he married too. Next, in 1853, John, their youngest child, joined his uncle William's wagon train of families moving to Oregon.
All was well with Mary and Jacob, as their younger generation moved away and entered adulthood and lives of their own.
Then, suddenly, their daughter, Mary Jane, died. She was still young, only in her middle twenties, who had recently given birth to a daughter. It came as a shock. We don't know what she died of.
About that same time, Mary Hoffman's health began to decline, slowly at first, but by the beginning of 1856, it was apparent it was something serious. Tuberculosis. She wrote her will and died that summer. Soon after her death, Frank and George began experiencing a similar decline in their health as well!
George had married in 1857 and was living in Iowa. At some point he suffered an injury which wouldn't heal, but that may have merely been masking something worse, for he died in 1859. His wife had recently given birth. He was just 37.
We have six letters from Frank to his wife in 1858 as he traveled on business from Cincinnati to New Orleans and back. He was hoping the warmer weather in the south would cure his constant cough, but he, too, had tuberculosis. He died in 1860, leaving behind a 6-year-old daughter and a wife who had just given birth to their second daughter. He was just 34.
By the end of 1860, only Jacob and three of their seven children were still living.
But death was not done with the Hoffmans. In 1853, Mary and Jacob's youngest son, John, had signed on as a laborer for his uncle's wagon train of families moving to Oregon. John remained in Oregon for a few years, then returned home in 1857. He married in 1859, had two children, then joined the Army in 1862 to defend the Union. In August 1862 his regiment began their long march to the South. John reluctantly left behind his family, including his pregnant wife. John's regiment marched and trained for months before they found and engaged the enemy at Chickamauga, Georgia, in September 1863. Meanwhile, his wife had given birth to his third child. At some point John was captured and taken prisoner. He died a year later in the notorious Confederate prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia. He is buried in the National Cemetery there.
Five Hoffmans, four under the age of 36, died before their time. It is possible they all had tuberculosis, which caused or contributed to their deaths.
Jacob and the Hoffman Farm.
When Mary (the owner of the farm) died in 1856, her will directed that her land should be put in a life estate for Jacob. He could manage, use, and profit from, but not sell the farm. At his death, the land was then to be sold, with the proceeds equally divided among their children and their heirs. Mary's will was not presented to the court for probate immediately after her death because it's contents required no immediate action. However, on April 22, 1859, three years after her death, Mary's will was presented to the court.
What changed? Why was her will entered into probate now? I believe it was because the Hoffman's were experiencing financial trouble. Their 1858 crops mostly failed(14), and George and Frank were experiencing serious health issues which impacted their ability to earn a living. Also, Jacob was 68-years-old, had lost all or part of one arm, and was in poor health. He was struggling to keep up with the demands of the farm. So, William, and Frank turned to their cousin who lived 15 miles to the north, Theophilus Stembel for help.
Theo (the name he went by) was the son of Mary's brother, John. He was raised in Middletown with the Hoffman boys, but moved with his family to Ohio when he was 17. He attended a medical college, became a physician and moved to Warren County - most likely at William's suggestion - in 1841 to set up his practice in the town of Rainsville, a few miles north of the Hoffman farm. Theo spent a few years there, but met a young lady and married her in 1845, and moved to her home in Oxford, not far from Rainsville. There he thrived as a physician, farmer, and horse trainer. In the 1860 census his real estate was valued at $10,810.
We believe Mary's will was entered into probate because William and Frank wanted to mortgage their share of the farm(15), and only by having Mary's will entered into the court records could they prove they would inherit a share of the farm when it was sold when their father died. But who would take a mortgage on land that they might not be able to take possession of for years if the mortgage wasn't paid? That someone was their cousin, Theophilus Stembel, who apparently maintained a close relationship with the Hoffmans and was willing to help them out of a jam.
Court records in 1859 show Theo paid Frank and William $210 in return for a Quit-Claim on their share. Their share was obviously worth at least twice that, so the $210 was probably a boilerplate number to cover the fact that the amount the Hoffman's needed might increase before their 1859 crops could be harvested and sold. I believe this was part of an agreement between the cousins that Theo would loan the two Hoffmans money secured by their share of the farm with the understanding that he would return their share of ownership via Quit-Claim when the loan was paid or when the farm was sold.
This is all speculation on my part, but it seems to be the simplest explanation. I see no evidence that Theophilus was trying to benefit from these transactions.
Ten days later, John also borrowed $159 from Theo in a similar manner, secured by his share of the family farm.
One reason why it is so hard to understand the Hoffman's need for money is the fact that the Hoffman brothers - at least William and George - were operating at least one store in Rainsville and reportedly doing well. Businesses in a farming town like Rainsville are acutely affected by the booms and busts of the weather and its effect on the local crops. We know the Hoffman's 1858 crops did poorly. Maybe others in the area suffered the same fate.
In 1860, the census revealed that three Hoffman households were living on the Hoffman farm. Listed one after the other were William and his family, Frank and his family, and Jacob, with his son, John, and John's new wife, Hester, living with him. This is 14 people altogether. Did they all live in one large house - maybe with an addition, or was there more than one house on the farm? William, Jacob, and John's occupation was "Farmer." I assume all three worked on the Hoffman farm. Frank's occupation was 'clerk', but I believe by this time he was largely incapacitated by the tuberculosis.
Soon after the 1860 census was taken, Frank died. Two years later John joined the Army and left the farm to fight the Confederates. He never returned, for he died as a prisoner of war in 1864. By 1865, 75-year-old Jacob was a widower, and left with only two of his seven children still living: his married daughter Ann Elizabeth Sargent, who was living north of Lafayette, Indiana, and William, whose family lived in Rainsville, a few miles north of the Hoffman farm. Jacob did everything he could, but the farm began to deteriorate, which meant each passing year the farm was worth less and less. This so worried William and the other heirs that they hired an attorney to represent them in a bid to get Jacob to relinquish his life estate and allow the farm to be sold.
Eventually Jacob agreed to this in return for $600, and the farm was put up for sale for not less than it's appraised value ($35/acre = $4,200). It didn't sell at that price, so it was re-appraised in November 1868, and it sold for the new appraised value ($30/acre = $3,600) in January 1869. Theophilus appeared in Court where he Quit-Claimed his share of the farm back to William, and the sale was finalized.
By now Jacob had moved off the farm and was probably living in Rainsville with William's family, though possibly in a home of his own (William and his wife owned properties in Rainsville).
On February 9, 1869, Jacob wrote a memo in Rainsville acknowledging the receipt of the $600 payment for relinquishing his ownership of the farm, and signed it. There had been a question of whether Jacob died in 1867 or 1869. This memo signed and dated by Jacob shows he was still alive in 1869.
Jacob's dated memo for the record, with his signature.
Jacob died on August 14, 1869, presumably in Rainsville. He was said to have been buried in the Rainsville Cemetery (but no headstone has been found there), joining his wife, their daughter, Mary Jane, and son, George.(16)
The Hoffman Family Cemetery
In her will, Mary directed that a quarter-acre of their farm, located "on the mound", should be set aside as a family cemetery, to be used for "the family connection" only. She wrote this in April 1856, months before her death. I assume she wished to be buried there. Did she want the cemetery created for her burial, or was someone dear to her already buried in that location?
We don't know when Mary and Jacob's youngest daughter, Mary Jane, died, but we know her husband remarried in late 1857, so Mary Jane most likely died sometime before or just after Mary wrote her will. Her death was particularly heartbreaking because she was so young (~25) and had a young daughter. She was also the Hoffman's first child to die after reaching adulthood. I believe there is sufficiant evidence to believe she was initially buried on the Hoffman farm.
In the Rainsville Cemetery there is a small plain headstone with only "M. J. Bateman" engraved on it (see photo later in this chapter). I am reasonably certain this M. J. Bateman is our Mary Jane Bateman for a couple of reasons. First, in my opinion, this plain headstone showing only a name but no dates of birth and death is more appropriate for a person buried in a private family cemetery where the person is already known, than in a public cemetery where a full name and dates of birth and death define who is buried there. Second, we have been told that the bodies buried in the Hoffman family cemetery were eventually re-interred in the Rainsville Cemetery, which explains why her headstone is now there.
The next burial in the Hoffman family cemetery would have been her mother, Mary. There is little doubt this was where she was buried since she is the one who formalized it in her will.
Who else might have been buried there? The next death in the family was their son, George, who died in 1859. George's wife, Margaret, was from Iowa, where she and George lived after they married. After his death she moved back to her family's home there. As George's wife and the mother of his child - a child who might want to see a visible reminder of his father when he got older - Margaret most likely considered having George's body shipped to Iowa for burial, but we have no record of any George Hoffmans fitting his birth and death dates buried in her home county. I believe the cost of shipment and burial might have been more than she, a young widow with a young child, could afford. So it seems logical that George was also buried in the Hoffman family cemetery.
The next family member to die was Frank, who died in 1860. A descendant of Frank's wrote that Frank was buried first in Attica and then re-interred in a cemetery in his wife's hometown of Fort Wayne. That descendant tended to use Attica as the location of the Hoffman farm for convenience, so I believe Frank was first buried on the farm, knowing his remains would soon be moved to Fort Wayne. Buying a plot in an Attica cemetery for a temporary burial seems illogical.
There is one more possible burial in the family's cemetery: Louis A. Hoffman, William's infant son who died in 1863. It would be logical to have him buried in the family's cemetery.
Creating a family cemetery on a farm would seem to presume that the farm would remain in the family for a few generations. But Mary's will specified that the farm was to be sold after Jacob's death, and the proceeds split between the heirs. One wonders what Mary thought would happen to the cemetery when the farm was sold.
She probably didn't foresee three of her sons dying young, and the remaining son showing no interest in farming. One could assume that at least one of the four sons would purchase the farm from the estate and keep it in the family. But that wasn't the case, and eventually the farm was put up for sale. But first the bodies in the family cemetery had to be reinterred. A private cemetery on the land would significantly reduce the farm's value, so the bodies had to be removed. We're told that the bodies were reinterred in Rainsville's cemetery, but as yet, no records of their reburial in the there have been found confirming it. The only physical evidence of this is the headstone of Mary Jane Bateman. However, sitting right next to her small, plain headstone is another, larger, more ornate headstone with "Mary" engraved on the face, and "LITTLE BIRDIE" on the back (see photo later in this chapter). On the Find-A-Grave website featuring this headstone, the person who created the page explained "This child's headstone has no surname or dates but was found next to M J Bateman, thus the surname might be Bateman." I believe the inscription, LITTLE BIRDIE, led the writer to conclude it was the headstone of a child, but why would the Batemans erect such a large headstone for a child when the headstone for it's mother was so much smaller? Plus we have no record of the Batemans having a second child. In fact there is a much more logical possibility: that this is the headstone of Mary Stembel Hoffman. The lack of a full name and dates of birth and death on the headstone indicates to this writer that this headstone was first erected in the Hoffman's private family cemetery.
This lack of records is not unusual for a smalltown cemetery in the mid-19th century with few burials at the time of our reinterments, but it would be nice to know for sure that this is where Mary Jane and Mary are buried.
I believe we can assume that all of the bodies in the farm cemetery were moved at the same time, and that George and Louis were buried close by. A visit to the cemetery would be helpful to see if there are empty burial plots next to these two headstones that might contain the other remains. We are also told that Jacob was buried in the Rainsville Cemetery after he died in 1869, but there is no marker for him either.
Mary Jane Hoffman Bateman, and (presumed) Mary Stembel Hoffman's headstones (front and back) in Rainsville (Indiana) Cemetery.
Note: These are not to scale. Mary Jane's headstone is much shorter.
Mary and Jacob Hoffman's seven children:
A. William Frederick Hoffman (1818-1913). William was born February 13, 1818, and baptized in Middletown's Christ Reformed Church on April 10th. He was the Hoffman's first born, and likely named for his father's younger brother and his mother's father. William grew up in Middletown where his mother's Stembel family was well-established and well-to-do, and his father was a merchant and active in the community. His father was selected to be the town's first Burgess when William was 16.
William's parents lived with his mother's parents until William was four, when his father bought the house next door. William probably had a good education for the time, an advantage of living in town. I suspect William's father put him to work in his businesses at an early age to learn how to manage stores, which benefited him in later life.
Sometime between 1835 and 1840, the Hoffman family moved to Attica, Indiana. I believe they made the move in the Spring of 1837, for in August of that year land was purchased in his mother's name and her residence was given as Fountain County, Indiana (where Attica is located). It is possible William arrived in Attica before his family by joining his Uncle William's wagon train of supplies from Maryland to his store in Attica in the fall of 1836. William would have been expected to help take care of the oxen, help clear the roads, watch over the supplies, etc. This theory is bolstered by the fact that William eventually married a girl who also made that trip with her family.
Once in Attica, 19-year-old William would have sought employment, most likely in his uncle's store. On May 19, 1840, he married Catherine Anna Uhler, his first cousin (the daughter of his father's sister). Catherine grew up in Baltimore and had come to Attica with her family on the 1836 wagon train that brought her uncle William's supplies from Maryland to Attica when she was 15.
Soon after their marriage, William's cousin, Theophilus Stembel, moved to Warren County from Ohio. This couldn't have been a coincidence. Theo was a young doctor, in his middle 20s, who was looking for a town who needed a doctor, and we believe William, or his parents, recommended Rainsville, a small, but growing, farming community north of their farm. Theo moved to Rainsville where he practiced medicine for a few years, then met and fell in love with the daughter of a patient, who lived in the town of Oxford, a few miles north of Rainsville. Theo married her in Rainsville in 1845, but after a year or so, they decided to move his practice to her hometown of Oxford. Theo and the Hoffmans remained close even after they moved.
I believe William's greatest desire was to become a merchant like his father once was, to own a store of his own in a growing town. Instead, his family inexplicably acquired a farm when they moved to Indiana, and William was needed to help his father set up the farm and make it productive.
In 1848, William and his brothers, George and Frank, and purchased two lots in Rainsville, lot #49 and the north half of lot #50, for $300. Lot #49 had a store on it, which the brothers took over. Rainsville was a small farm village that was laid out in 1833, by Isaac Rains, who had built a mill there the previous year. The day after they purchased the store, William and his brothers purchased Rainsville lots #51, #54, #67, #69, #70, #71 for just $40. These were likely unoccupied lots that the brothers purchased for investment. It soon worked out for them because in October of the next year, they sold lot #51 for $170, and lots #54 and #67 for $45.
1877 map of Rainsville's Lots.
Two years later, the 1850 census shows that William and George were no longer living on the farm, but had moved to Rainsville. Both gave their occupation as "Merchant." The third partner, Frank, was absent, for he had gone to California to find gold.
The 1850s started out well for William. The brothers' store was thriving. William served as Rainsville's postmaster for a year or so. He and his brother, George, continued to buy and sell lots in Rainsville through 1853. That's when Frank married and moved to Attica. Then in 1857 George traveled to Iowa where he married and took up residence there. At this point it appears William was the brother entrusted with overseeing the store and the brothers' properties (or he may have bought them out). However, events in the Hoffman family were about to intervene in his life.
In 1855, William's mother's health began to fail, and in 1856 she died of tuberculosis. His sister, Mary Jane, also died about this time. Soon after, his brother, George suffered an injury and health issues in Iowa, and returned to the farm to recover, but he died there in 1859. At the same time, William's brother, Frank, developed a nagging cough, and when it didn't improve, tuberculosis was suspected. He, too, decided to return to the farm, hoping to recover. With all this going on at the farm, and his father needing help tending the farm, William, and his family, moved back to the farm as well.
Thus, the 1860 census shows William and his family were back on the Hoffman farm. His occupation was Farmer. He was helping his father and youngest brother keep the farm going. We don't know who was managing the store in William's absence, though we have a hint from a history of Warren County published in 1883. It says that a "Hoffman and Nern" operated a business in Rainsville during the war (assumed to be the Civil War)(17). I assume that William partnered with someone named Nern (a John Nern was mentioned on the same page) who ran the store in William's absence.
The 1860 census shows that William's wife had given birth to four children by then, but only 2 were still living...and only one of the two was living with them, Elizabeth, age 6. We later found that the missing child was Anna, who was 2 in 1860. Anna did show up in the next census (1870), but Elizabeth (now 16 if living) was missing! Elizabeth never appeared in the censuses again. Anna appeared in every census after that until her death at the age of 80. William and Catherine had nine known children in all, though we have strong evidence that they had another child who died soon after birth and never showed up in any records(18). Five of their children lived to adulthood.
In 1860 William's father turned 70. His age and the demands of farming were wearing him down. Frank had just died, and now with the sudden deaths of two of his brothers, only William and John were left to help Jacob on the farm. In August 1862 John enlisted in the Union Army and left the farm to fight in the Civil War. Now, only William and his father were left to work on the farm. William longed to return to running his store. Finally, William, his sister Ann Elizabeth, and the heirs of William's deceased siblings implored their father to relinquish his interest in the farm so it could be sold. Eventually Jacob agreed, in return for a $600 payment. Once that was agreed to, Jacob left the farm and moved to Rainsville. William had the bodies in the family cemetery re-interred in the Rainsville Cemetery, and put the farm up for sale. The farm sold in January 1869. William's father died seven months later.
A year later, the 1870 census shows that William and his family were living in Rainsville. William was owner of a dry goods store. I assume it was the same store he opened earlier with his brothers. He was 52 with five children living at home. His real estate was valued at $2,000, and his personal estate was valued at $7,000, most likely reflecting his store's inventory.
In 1874, William, thru an assignee, sold two Rainsville lots to his wife (#19 and the south half of #48). I'm not sure if that is significant. Catherine appears to have been more involved in William's finances than most wives of that period, even representing him at times in legal affairs.
The decade of the 1870s saw one of the deepest depressions in our nation's history, in fact the Panic of 1873(19) was called the Great Depression until the 1930s depression supplanted it. Banks failed, over 100 railroads went bankrupt, businesses closed, unemployment surged, wages were cut, demand for goods plummeted, and poverty soared. It appears William's store either went bankrupt or he sold it, for in the 1880 census William's occupation was "Gardner." I assume he was growing food to feed his family. Other occupations on the same census page in Rainsville were "Tramp' and "Rag Dealer," reflecting the desperate times the town was experiencing. However, two of William's children were school teachers, and one was a physician, so I assume William's family was better off than some.
The 1890 census is unavailable so we don't know if William eventually recovered and reopened his store or not, but sometime between 1880 and 1900, William and Catherine left Rainsville and moved to Benson, Nebraska, to live with their son, Edward. Benson was a small town near Omaha. William was 82, Catherine was 79. The census shows she had given birth to 9 children, 4 of which were still living. On February 4, 1904, Catherine died in Benson. She was buried in Omaha's Mount Hope Cemetery.
After his wife's death, the 1910 census shows that William had moved to Los Angeles and was now living with another one of his sons, Frank (Francis). He died there on May 11, 1913. He was 95. He is buried in Angelus Rosedale Cemetery, in Los Angeles.
William and Mary Catherine Hoffman's children:
I have not found a census record for them in 1900 so I don't know if they accompanied Frank's parents to Nebraska or not, but by the 1910 census they had moved to Los Angeles where Frank's carpenter skills were no doubt in high demand. He was still living in Los Angeles in the 1920 and 1930 censuses; however, no occupation was recorded. Carrie died in 1923. In the 1930 census, 79-year-old Frank was shown living with his daughter, Ethel, a 52-year-old, single, schoolteacher. Frank died December 22, 1936. He was 85. Two of their three children were public school teachers.
Since the 1890 census records were destroyed in a 1921 fire, we don't have a census record to show where Arthur was living at the time, but fortunately for us, he married that year, and his marriage license shows he was living in the city of Phoenix, then the capital of the Arizona Territory (Arizona didn't become a state until 1912). Phoenix already had a population of more than 5,000. Arthur's marriage license, however, was issued in Cortez, Colorado. Cortez was a small town of less than 200 people. It had recently been designated as the county seat of the newly created Montezuma County, located in the extreme southwest corner of the state.
Arthur was 32. His bride, Martha Alice Caviness, was 33. She went by the name Alice. The marriage license listed Alice's residence as Mancos, Colorado, a settlement just east of Cortez, with a population of 332. One wonders what brought Arthur to tiny Mancos frequently enough to meet and court Alice.
Alice had an interesting background. She was born in 1857 in remote San Saba County, Texas, a county located in the middle of the state. In 1860, three years after her birth, the entire county had a population of just 913 (98 of which were slaves). In 1868 her family moved to New Mexico, then a year later, they moved again. This time they moved north to a ranch in remote south-central Colorado (Huerfanos County), where they were living when the 1870 census was taken. Alice was 12. Sometime after the census was taken, they moved again, west to another ranch in equally remote LaPlata County. The ranch was located along the Los Plata River. There they farmed, and raised cattle and horses.
The Caviness's ranch was on land recently opened to settlers when the Ute Indians living in southern Colorado were more or less forced to cede part of their reservation to the government(22). Alice later told her granddaughter stories of how the Utes would try to steal the ranch's horses and cattle, and how the family dealt with it. No doubt the Utes resented losing their farmland and hunting grounds to the new intruders, and the ranchers resented the Ute's tricks and thievery of their livelihood. In any case, this is where Alice and her family were living at the time of the 1880 census. Alice was 22 and single, living with her parents and four younger siblings. A year later, Alice married Henry Lee in nearby Parrott City (a large mining town at the time, but now a ghost town). We're not sure what happened to this marriage, but Alice married again in September 1885, to George Wood. Again, we don't know what happened to that marriage, but in 1889 Alice married again, to William Madden. Evidently this marriage also failed, for in 1890, Alice married again, to Arthur. This marriage lasted.
At the time she married Arthur, Alice had two daughters from her previous marriages. After their marriage, Alice and her two daughters moved to Phoenix with Arthur. In 1896 they had a son, William James Hoffman. Three years later, Arthur moved his family to Humboldt, Arizona (Yavapai County). Humboldt (now named Dewey-Humboldt) was a thriving mining town of about 1,000 people, about 75 miles north of Phoenix. In the 1910 census, Arthur's occupation was Carpenter. There is evidence Alice and Arthur had two other children, Little Jack (buried in the Humboldt cemetery), and a daughter, Minnie.
Arthur died in March 1917. He was buried in the old Humboldt cemetery. Alice remained in Humboldt where she died in March 1934 at the age of 77. She was buried next to Arthur. On the Find-A-Grave(23) website entry for her burial, there is a list of Alice's 14 siblings!
On September 3, 1885, Edward married Susan Roop in Lancaster County, Nebraska. Susan was 22 and, like Edward, was born in Indiana. Soon after they wed, they moved to Kansas where they had a daughter, Beatrice. Later they moved to Benson, Nebraska, where they had another daughter, Louise. In the 1900 census, Edward was employed as a government clerk. They were still living in Benson at the time of the 1910 census where Edward was working as a railroad postal clerk.
Sometime after the 1910 census, Edward and his family moved west, to Los Angeles, where he continued to work as a railroad postal clerk. His two daughters, now adults, were still living with them in their home on W. 61st Street. Beatrice, the oldest, had married and was now divorced and working as a private secretary. Louise, 23, was still single and working as a secretary. The next census, in 1930, shows that Beatrice had moved away, but Louise was still single and living with her parents. She was now a stenographer. Her first name was recorded in the census as "Druell." Edward was still working as a postal clerk at the age of 70.
Susan died in 1938. Edward remained in Los Angeles where he died nine years later in 1947. Both are buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
B. Ann Elizabeth Hoffman (1820-1894). Ann was born on June 17, 1820, in Middletown, Maryland, and baptized in Middletown's Christ Reformed Church.
An earlier Stembel family researcher believed that Ann Elizabeth married a Joel W. R. Marsh in 1842 in Frederick County, Maryland. Unfortunately, that turned out to be incorrect. Evidently there were two Ann Elizabeth Hoffmans living in Middletown in the 1840s, both about the same age. The Ann Elizabeth Hoffman who married Joel Marsh was not Mary Stembel Hoffman's daughter.
Ann Elizabeth went by the name Elizabeth, or "Lizzie" by her family. When she was about 17, she moved to Warren County, Indiana, with her family in the mid-to-late 1830s. She wasn't living with her parents on their farm in the 1840 census. I suspect she was living in Attica, possibly with her uncle William. He was living a few houses from George Sargent, father of Elizabeth's future husband. A year later Elizabeth married Elisha Sargent in Fountain County, where Attica was located(24).
In the 1850 census, Elizabeth and Elisha were living near Attica. Elisha was a ferryman. His real estate was valued at $3,000. They had a son, Walter F. Sargent, age 7. Ten years later they were living in Oxford (Benton County), just north of Rainsville. Elisha was a Justice of the Peace and his real estate was valued at $3,487. His personal estate was valued at $750. Their son was working on a farm nearby.
In 1870 they had moved north to Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Elisha was a grocer. His real estate was valued at $3,000 and his personal estate was valued at $1,500. Ten years later they had moved to the nearby town of Battle Ground in the same county. Elisha was a farmer.
Battle Ground was the site of the "Battle of Tippecanoe" where, on the morning of November 7, 1811, the Shawnee leader, Tenskwatawa, called "The Prophet," attacked General William Henry Harrison's troops. General Harrison's troops eventually prevailed. General Harrison was given the nickname, "Tippecanoe" after this decisive battle and used it to win the presidency in the 1840 election.
Elizabeth died on December 4, 1894, at the age of 74. She is buried in the Justus Cemetery in Oxford, Indiana. We don't know when Elisha died or where he is buried.
C. George Franklin Hoffman (1822-1859). George was born in Middletown, Maryland, on December 4. 1822. He was baptized May 11, 1823 in Middletown's Christ Reformed Church. He had a brother 4-years older than him and a sister who was two years older. In his mid-teens his family moved from the town of Middletown to a farm in rural Indiana. It must have been hard to leave friends behind and move to a rural farm 600 miles away where making new friends might be difficult.
I assume George and his older brother were quickly put to work on their family's new farm. It was all new to them. Living on a rural farm where neighbors are few, it appears the three oldest boys, William, George, and Frank, became close and worked well together, for in August, 1848, the three brothers, bought 8 lots in the nearby town of Rainsville. This purchase appears to have been partly a future investment and partly a chance to open a business of their own, for one of those lots had a store on it. There is strong evidence that George was the leader of this effort and was the one who initially ran the store. A history of Warren County says that in 1845 George F. Hoffman was licensed to sell general merchandise. In 1850 Mr. Hoffman took his brother for a partner. At this time (c1853) the Hoffman brothers were doing a big business(25). I assume the brother that George took in as a partner was William, though all three brothers owned the property. In the 1850 census, both George and William were living in Rainsville and both described their occupation as Merchant. The census showed George owned real estate worth $1,400. This was the store and the lots he bought with his brothers. George and his brothers continued to buy and sell lots in Rainsville through 1853.
In a letter written in February 1856, his brother Frank mentioned that George was planning to go to Iowa in the coming spring. It turns out that George went there to visit the woman he eventually married, Margaret McCarns.
About the time of that visit, George's mother became infected with tuberculosis and her health failed. She died that August. Some time before, or possibly after, Mary's death, George's younger sister died as well. These two events foreshadowed what was to come.
On April 22, 1857, George married Margaret in a small town outside Davenport, Iowa. It appears he met her when her parents, or a relative, lived in Rainsville(26). George and his wife decided to remain in Iowa rather than move back to Indiana. Margaret gave birth to a boy in 1858, Charles W. Hoffman.
In March of the same year, George's father received a letter from a Dr. McCarns that George was very ill and his recovery was doubtful. Later letters indicate that George did recover, but was crippled. George moved back to the Hoffman farm, accompanied by his wife and newborn child, hoping he would recover faster there. Here is how his brother, Frank, described George in a letter written to his wife in June 1858: "I never was so shocked as was at meeting [George]. He can barely hobble on crutches... George seems resigned and Maggie is all patience and attention to him. He will be a cripple for life but will probably be able to go without crutches. I do not think his lungs are much affected, and then, few think he may yet be healthy. Their Little boy, George W., is as puny as Fannie [Fannie was Frank's first child] was. She [Margaret] is raising him with the bottle but thinks she may be able to nurse him before long."
The fact that Frank mentioned George's lungs indicates the family was aware of the chances that others in the family might be suffering from the tuberculosis that Mary died from. Frank, who wrote the letter, was certainly exhibiting symptoms of the disease. Sadly, George did succumb to whatever he was suffering from sometime in 1859, probably late in the year. It seems likely he was buried in the family cemetery on the Hoffman farm, with his mother. After George's death, Margaret moved back to Iowa with her two-year-old child, moving in with her parents. George's son died in 1865 and was buried in the Argo Baptist Cemetery in Argo, Iowa. Margaret eventually remarried.
We are reasonably sure that George's body was eventually re-buried in the Rainsville Cemetery prior to the sale of the Hoffman farm in 1869, but there is no headstone or record of his burial there.
D. Jacob Francis (Frank) Hoffman (1826-1860). Frank was born on September 2, 1826, in Middletown, Maryland, and baptized two months later in the family's Christ Reformed Church. Frank grew up with two older brothers and an older sister. Eventually a younger sister and brother followed. When he was about 10 his family moved from Middletown to a farm in rural western Indiana. The change in environment from living in town to the quiet of a rural farm must have been disconcerting. But Middletown was on a major road to the west, so Frank may have accepted that someday his family would join the westward flow.
From the time he reached adulthood Frank seemed always on the go. In late 1848(27) he left home to join the gold rush that swept the nation. In the 1850 census he was living and working in Sacramento, California. He was 24-years-old, single, and working as a clerk. The journey to California in the late 1840s was an arduous and dangerous trip. However, soon after the census was taken Frank apparently returned to his home in Indiana, another arduous trip. This was probably in the fall of 1850 or spring of 1851, for in April 1851, Frank joined his two brothers in purchasing a lot in Rainsville, a small town a few miles north of the farm. In a history of Warren County, Frank was was on a list of businessmen in Rainsville, but it did not indicate what year or years. I assume it reflected his involvement in the Hoffman sons' store there. In December 1851, Frank, now living in Attica it seems, signed over his power of attorney to his brother, George. A grandson recalls that Frank made more than one trip to California, and a return to California may be why Frank signed over his power of attorney, but a second trip has not been confirmed.
On May 10, 1853, Frank married Susan Catherine Wines in Susan's home town of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Susan's father was an engineer for the Wabash and Erie Canal(28), which ran through Attica. I assume Susan's father spent time in Attica as part of his job. I believe Susan's father and the canal had a role in their meeting. It appears Frank and Susan went to New York shortly after their marriage(29). A honeymoon? Frank and Susan initially set up household in the Attica area, which is where their first child, Fannie, was born. I believe Frank worked in Attica for a year or two. Letters he wrote from that era show he was a procurer of produce and other staples, but also hired out as an agent. However, this required Frank to be away from home a lot, so Susan and Fanny moved to the Hoffman farm for support and companionship. Later Susan decided to move back to her home in Fort Wayne where her mother, a widow, lived. According to a letter from her mother, she was having s nearby house cleaned and repaired for Susan's return. She said it would be ready for her about October 28 [1857]. We assume that's when they moved. That, then, became Frank's new home, as well.
About this time Frank began experiencing a troublesome cough. Letters he wrote in early 1858 describe his trip from Cincinnati to New Orleans via a river steamboat. He was hoping a warmer climate would help (it did). Once he arrived in New Orleans he wrote about his observations of the city, it's beauty, it's energy, and its unhealthy environment ("It is the filthiest place I ever saw without any exception"). He described the slave markets ("Some of them contain from four to five hundred slaves of every description; but instead of their being ragged and dirty, as most persons suppose, they are all "dressed to fit". The males are dressed in blue cloth with well polished shoes or boots, fine white shirts, standing collars, black silk cravats and stovepipe hats The females in good Calico, Delaine, etc., and if handsome you will find them dressed in silk with jewelry to match. This is something after the fashion of exhibiting cattle and horses at the fairs in the north when they bedeck them with ribbons for the occasion."). He was a keen observer, and he shared his observations with his wife who was back in Fort Wayne in the midst of winter. Unfortunately, he was having trouble finding work that didn't require his returning north. I believe he strongly suspected he was infected with tuberculosis by then.
Sometime in 1859 Frank's condition worsened and he moved back to his family's farm. His wife and child accompanied him. There he encountered his older brother, George, also suffering from a serious health issue (it might also have been tuberculosis). Frank's illness had made it nearly impossible for him to work and he needed money, so he signed over his share of the family farm to his cousin, Theophilus Stembel, in return for a loan. In late 1859, Frank's brother, George, died. Soon after, Frank found out his wife was pregnant with their second child.
Susan gave birth to their second child in June, 1860. Frank died on September 22, 1860. After his death, Susan moved back to Fort Wayne to live with her mother. A descendant says Frank was first buried in a cemetery in Attica, but I believe it is more likely he was buried in the family's cemetery on the farm. His body was later re-interred by his wife in Fort Wayne's Lindenwood Cemetery, to be closer to his family. Susan never remarried. A descendant described her life after her husband's death: "At various times she taught school, worked in the Pension Office, was the first and only woman ever to be employed in the Fort Wayne Post Office, was the first Librarian of the Public Library in Fort Wayne in 1894, and she was the first woman Notary Public in the United States". She died on December 16, 1922, and is also buried in Lindenwood Cemetery
Frank and Susan Hoffman's children:
Effingham died in 1921. Nine years later the 1930 census showed that 75-year-old Fannie was now living in Santa Ana, Orange County, California. She was living with her son, Francis Williams, and his wife. Her marital status was listed as M[arried]. Fannie died in 1941, in Los Angeles. Effingham is buried in Fort Wayne's Lindenwood Cemetery, Fannie is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Los Angeles.
In 1884 Elizabeth married Charles Howard Wordon, a local man about her age. Over the next 10 years Elizabeth gave birth to four children, two boys and two girls. Sixteen years after they married, they were still living in Fort Wayne at the time of the 1900 census. Charles was a lawyer. This census presents a mystery, however. The 1900 census asks wives how many children they have given birth to, and how many are still living. Elizabeth reported she had given birth to only three children, all of whom were still living. In fact, we know she had given birth to four children by 1900, but the fourth, Anne - born in 1894 - was evidently not living with them in 1900. However, ten years later, all four children - including Anne - are present in their household in the 1910 census. But in that census, when asked the same question, Elizabeth says she has given birth to FIVE children and all five are still living, even though only four are listed. Even stranger is the fact that all four of those children listed were born prior to the 1900 census, so why did they tell the census Elizabeth had given birth to only three children in 1900? I'm not sure what to make of this. The 1910 census also shows that Elizabeth's widowed mother was living with them, as well as a maid. Charles occupation was bank president.
Elizabeth and Charles were still living in Fort Wayne in the 1920 census, and Charles was still a bank president. Now comes another mystery. Charles died on February 4, 1930, two months before the 1930 census, yet in that census he was recorded as alive and head of the household. Elizabeth died four years later, in Gary, Indiana. She and Charles are both buried in Fort Wayne's Lindenwood Cemetery.
E. Mary Jane Hoffman Bateman (1829- ?). Mary was born on August 7, 1829, in Middletown, Maryland. She was baptized in the Christ Reformed Church on May 16, 1830. In the late 1830s her family moved to Warren County, Indiana, where she married Clarkson Bateman on April 1, 1851. Mary was 21, Clarkson, 28. A year later they had a child, Ella.
However, after the birth of Ella in 1852, we have no information about Mary Jane's family until December 1857 when her husband remarried. Did Mary Jane die or was there a divorce? In an October 1867 court filing, Mary Jane was described as deceased, but there was no mention of when she died. If we make two assumptions, 1. that left with a young child to raise alone, Clarkson would begin looking for a new wife sooner rather than later, and 2. finding a wife willing to take on someone else's child, then arranging a marriage, would take about a year. Using those assumptions, we put Mary Jane's date of death in a window between the middle of 1854 and the end of 1856. Did Mary Jane die suddenly, of an accident or disease, or did she die of the consumption (tuberculosis) which bedeviled so many other Hoffmans?
There is a tombstone pictured on Rainsville Cemetery's Find A Grave page with only a name, "M.J. Bateman" (see photo above). Since there is no date of birth or death on the stone, we don't know for sure if this is Mary Jane Hoffman Bateman, but it seems highly likely. Many of the Hoffmans are said to be buried there. Next to M.J. Bateman's plain headstone is a much larger, more weathered, headstone with the top apparently broken off, with just the name "Mary" on the front, and "Little Birdie" on the back. I originally assumed this was a second child of Mary Jane's, who died young, but had lived to be old enough to develop a personality and a matching nickname before she died. I thought maybe Mary Jane might have died giving birth to this child, and the baby was given Mary's name as a remembrance. However, on reconsideration, I believe it is far more likely that this headstone is Mary Jane's mother's headstone, moved from the Hoffman family cemetery when she was re-interred in Rainsville. This is based partly on the fact that this headstone has no last name or dates of birth and death, something not needed in a family's private cemetery, and partly on the fact that a child would not have a headstone so much larger and ornate than their mother. I also believe Mary Jane was also initially buried in the Hoffman cemetery based on the brevity of information and artwork on her headstone.
In the 1860 census, Ella was living with her father and his new wife in Attica. On October 7, 1867, Clarkson Bateman, on behalf of Ella, joined the Hoffman heirs who signed a petition asking that the Hoffman farm be sold, now that the farm was falling into disrepair. In the 1870 census, after the farm was sold and they received Ella's inheritance, the Batesmans were living in Goshen (Elkhart County), Indiana. Clarkson's occupation was "Grocer."
F. Henry Fenton Hoffman (1833-1833). Henry was born May 10, 1833, and baptized in Middletown's Christ Reformed Church on August 8, 1833, but he died soon after (September 9, 1833). He is buried in Christ Reformed Church's cemetery, but his grave has been lost.
G. John H. Hoffman (c1834-1864). John was born about 1834 (28)in Middletown, Maryland. We do not know why his birth and baptism were not recorded in their church records like all of his older siblings. His father was a local merchant who had just been selected to be the first Burgess (mayor) of Middletown.
Sometime before 1837, John's family moved from Middletown, to a farm in western Indiana. John was about three when they moved. In the 1840 census they were living on their farm in Warren County, Indiana. In the 1850 census he was 16-years-old, one of only two of the Hoffman's children still living at home. His occupation was given s Farmer. Three years later John signed on to accompany a group of immigrants organized by his uncle William and other families who were moving to northern Oregon, via the Oregon Trail(32). After some harrowing experiences, documented by his uncle in his diary, they arrived in Oregon near the town of Jacksonville in the late fall. Oregon researcher, John McGlothlin, provided me with information about John's activities in Oregon. After a year working locally, John joined the Oregon mounted volunteer militia (Co A, 9th Regiment) who were engaged in a war with the local Indians. Later he served as a packer for the militia. We assume he spent most of the rest of his time in Oregon working various jobs. Sadly, John's mother died while he was in Oregon. John returned to Indiana in the summer of 1857(33).
After John returned, he began courting a local girl, Hester Ann Sylvester. They planned to marry in late 1858 or early 1859, but his father's crops did poorly that year and money was tight, so they had to postpone their wedding until later in 1859. They finally wed on December 4th. Hester was 19, John was 25. Hester was born in Port Clinton, Ohio. A year later they had their first child, a daughter, Laura, followed by a son, James(34).
In the meantime, our country split in two as some southern states left the union and then war broke out. By the middle of 1852 John decided he had to join the Union forces to reunite our country. He signed up to serve for three years with the Indiana Volunteer Infantry (Co C, 86th Regiment) even as he learned his wife was pregnant with their third child.
On the day John H. Hoffman enlisted in the Indiana Volunteer Infantry, his life changed forever. That day was August 13, 1862. On, or about, that day John traveled to Camp Tippecanoe near Lafayette, Indiana, where John was given a physical (he was described as 6' 0", blue eyes, fair complexion, and light hair). His Company (Company C, comprised of men from Attica and Fountain County) trained there for about two weeks, then went by rail to Camp Carrington in Indianapolis, where their regiment was mustered in on September 4. Five days later his regiment was sent to Cincinnati to protect the city from possible attack. The attack never materialized and the next day Company C, as part of the 86th Regiment, crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky where they waited for boats to take them down the Ohio River to Louisville.
On September 27 they reached Louisville and disembarked. Within days they began their long march south, toward Nashville, Tennessee. John's regiment was essentially untrained, and woefully ill-equipped for the rigors of the march and skirmishes ahead. John's regiment marched to Perryville, 60 miles southeast of Louisville, but closer to 90-100 miles along the winding dirt roads of Kentucky. There they met the enemy for the first time, but it was a skirmish rather than a battle, and the 86th was not greatly involved.
After meeting the enemy for the first time, they continued their march south. On to Danville, Stanford, Crab Orchard, Mt. Vernon, the Wild Cat Hills, then a return to Mt. Vernon, marching every day in all kinds of weather, sleeping on the ground. From Mt. Vernon they marched to Somerset, Kentucky, where the rigors of the 200+ miles of marching, sleeping on the ground, poor food, and lack of water finally caught up with those who had made it this far.
That night, October 24th, six inches of heavy snow fell onto the troops who were sleeping on the ground with no tents. The heavy snow snapped off large tree limbs, which fell on the exhausted troops (35). This pushed the regiment beyond their limit.
A temporary hospital was immediately set up in Somerset where medics treated the ones they could, and sent those they couldn't to hospitals in Bowling Green and Louisville, both about 100 miles away. On November 1, 1862, John Hoffman was sent to the hospital in Bowling Green to be treated - for what? We don't know. John spent about a month there and was then transferred to the hospital in Louisville sometime before January 1863 (according to the Company's Muster Rolls)(36). John did not re-join his regiment until sometime before March 1863 (again, according to the Muster Rolls). All told, he spent about four months recovering. Whatever put him in the hospital, it must have been serious.
When John finally returned to his Company, his regiment was camped at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 30 miles southwest of Nashville. They had been camped there since the first of the year, after the Battle of Stone's River in which the 86th had lost fully half of their troops due to death, severe injury, and capture (27%!). The Army of the Cumberland (of which the 86th was a part) remained in Murfreesboro until June 23rd when it marched 35 miles to McMinnville. They camped there for another two months until September 3rd, 1863, when they were directed to take control of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
On September 3, the 86th marched out of McMinnville toward Chattanooga, via Jasper and Bridgeport, Alabama, where they crossed the Tennessee River, then on to Whiteside (back in Tennessee). They were now just 15 miles from a town in Georgia, Chickamauga, where the Confederates under General Bragg were waiting. The Army of the Cumberland, and Indiana's 86th met General Bragg's troops in one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. The battle commenced September 19th and lasted two days. On the second day, September 20th, John Hoffman was captured by the Confederates.
John was now a prisoner of war. If we assume he was treated the way the Union prisoners captured at the Battle of Stone's River nine months earlier were treated, he, and the many other Union soldiers captured in the battle, were first taken to Atlanta, sometimes marching and sometimes by rail, with little to eat. When traveling by train they were either crowded into cramped spaces or found themselves on cars of war material, or on exposed flatcars. As cargo goes, prisoners and their well-being were the lowest priority. The Confederates had a war to fight. From Atlanta (we assume) John was taken to Richmond, Virginia, where he arrived September 29th for processing and confinement in Richmond's infamous Libby Prison. The prisoners captured at Stone's River were also taken to Richmond, but they were eventually paroled and were allowed to return home, but prohibited from rejoining the fight. John was not so lucky. On November 24 he was hospitalized for diarrhea, and two weeks later sent to a POW prison in Danville, Virginia. During this time, the South was constructing a new, large POW prison down south in Andersonville, Georgia, to relieve the overcrowding in the prisons up north. Andersonville Prison opened in February 1864, and at some point, probably not long after it opened, John was sent there. Andersonville prison may have been new, but the conditions were just as bad as the infamous prisons up north. To be fair, conditions for the people in the south were bad also. The Union Armies were confiscating and destroying anything that could benefit the Confederate armies, including food. The Union also had a war to fight.
On July 3, 1864, John was admitted to the prison hospital for an unknown condition, according to the Confederate's Prisoner of War Records. We do not know if he got better and returned to the prison, or if he was too sick to recover, because those same records tell us that on September 30, 1864(37), John Hoffman died of pneumonia, one of the nearly 13,000 POWs who died at that prison alone. He is buried in the Andersonville National Cemetery (Section H, Row 10123).
POW John H. Hoffman's grave in Andersonville National Cemetery, Georgia.
We do not know when John's wife, Hester, received word of his death. We assume she was aware that her husband had been captured and was now a prisoner of war, but did she know where he was being held? Was she informed when he was moved to Danville and then Andersonville? Hester was left with three young children, all under the age of four.
After John's death, she did not remarry for 14 more years. In 1869, Hester received John's share of the sale of the Hoffman farm. Her inheritance was reduced because John had mortgaged part of his share to Theophilus Stembel, but Theophilus agreed to take only the amount of the loan and just one dollar in interest. In the 1870 census, Hester and their three children were living near the town of Williamsport, in a modest house owned by Hester (the census shows she owned real estate valued at $250, and her personal estate was valued at $700). A woman of similar age was living with them, possibly a relative or boarder. Neither woman reported an occupation.
Hester finally married again. On December 8, 1878, Hester married William Bartlett. William was a 59-year-old farmer in Benton County. This was also his second marriage. He had at least four children but two were adults. He brought at least one of the two remaining children to live with them, Lucindo (Cynthia), age 15. However, a year-and-a-half later, William died, and in the 1880 census, Hester was once again recorded as a widow. Her three children were living with her, all were employed. Her step-daughter, Cynthia, age 17, was also living with them. Hester never re-married after that. In 1902, Hester applied for a military pension based on John's service during the Civil War(38). She died in 1913 and is buried in the Martindale/Mounds Cemetery in Pine Village (Warren County).
John and Hester Hoffman's children:
The 1870 census shows that her widowed mother had purchased a house near Williamsport (Warren County). Another young woman was also living with them. Laura was attending school according to the census. In 1878, Laura's mother remarried. Laura was 16. Her new father was 59-years-old and brought his 15 year old daughter, Cynthia, to live with them. Laura never knew her father, and Cynthia had recently lost her mother. A year and a half later, Laura's new step-father died. It must have been a difficult time for Laura and Cynthia, as well as Laura's mother.
Ten years later, the 1880 census shows that 19-year-old Laura was living with her widowed mother near Rainsville (Warren County). She was a school teacher. Two years later she married 28-year-old William Martindale. In 1884, they had their first child, a son, Jesse. A year later a second son, Jay, was born. William was a farmer. They lived near Pine Village (Warren County). Sometime between the 1910 and 1920 censuses, they moved to Los Angeles. Laura died there on January 25, 1928. William died in 1931. There is reason to believe they are both buried in Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California, but a search of the cemetery using the findagrave.com website did not find a record of them there(39).
According to his death certificate, John never married. He lived in the Attica area all his life. He mainly worked as a laborer. John died February 5, 1932, of pneumonia and the flu. He was 69. He is buried in the Martindale/Mounds Cemetery in Pine Village where his mother was buried.
1. "Under the legal doctrine known as coverture, a married woman in Great Britain's North American colonies and later in the United States had hardly any legal existence apart from her husband. Her rights and obligations were subsumed under his. She could not own property, enter into contracts, or earn a salary. Over several decades, beginning in 1839, statutes that enabled women to control real and personal property, participate in contracts and lawsuits, inherit independently of their husbands, work for a salary, and write wills were enacted...Usually, concerns for family integrity and protecting a household from economic crisis, rather than a liberal conception of the role of women in society, motivated these changes. Change came in piecemeal fashion. As late as 1867 a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois in Cole v. Van Riper noted that "It is simply impossible that a married woman should be able to control and enjoy her property as if she were sole, without practically leaving her at liberty to annul the marriage". According to one analysis, the legislation came in three phases—allowing married women to own property, then to keep their own income, then to engage in business—and advanced more quickly in the West, exactly like female suffrage did." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_Women’s_Property_Acts_in_the_United_States, downloaded March 19, 2021.
2. Even though there is no record of Mary's birth or baptism in her family's church's records, a great-great grandson of Mary's wrote a short biography of Mary and Jacob. [see Charles James Wordon. "Stembel-Hoffman-Wines family: four short biographies." Written about 1948. Included are reasonably accurate dates and many valuable recollections from the memory or recollections of others. "Wines and Hoffman papers (S1456)" housed in the Indiana State Library.] He appeared to have many of the dates that we are missing, possibly from family Bibles, which were an important possession of families who could afford one. This is where they entered dates of births, marriages, and deaths. The Bibles were expected to be handed down through generations.
3. There is no record of Mary's birth and baptism in her family's church records. It seems inconceivable that her parents would not have had her baptized. Her parents had every one of their previous children baptized. Why don't we have a church record of Mary's baptism? She may have been baptized in another nearby church, but I checked the records of the two most likely alternatives but did not find her. Then I went back and checked the Zion Lutheran Church records again - in the years I expected her birth and baptism, and I noticed something strange. I found that the number of births/baptisms (both were usually recorded together) recorded in the year Mary was born (1793) and the year after, were sharply lower than the previous and following years. Here are the number of births recorded by year:
1790 - 32
1791 - 21
1792 - 23
1793 - 6
1794 - 7
1795 - 9
1796 - 19
1797 - 31
The handwriting for the years with fewer entries was also different. I assume the person responsible for making those entries in those years failed to record all the birth/baptisms. Thus, I believe Mary was baptized, but her birth/baptism was not recorded in the church records for some reason.
Mary is almost certainly the mysterious 17-year-old Annamari Stempel who was confirmed in the Zion Lutheran Church on June 2, 1811. This would put her date of birth in the 1793-4 range. This assumes her last name was really Stembel, and thus a daughter or relative) of Frederick. Two years later Annamari again appears in the list of the church's communicants, "Anamari Stempel," three names below "Fridrich Stempel, Sr." in the list. The next time Frederick Stembel, Sr. appears in the list of communicants was on Whitsuntide (May 26), 1822. He was listed first. Listed next was "M.M. Hoffman." This must be Mary Magdalene, who married Jacob Hoffman in 1816.
4. Charles James Wordon. 'Short Biographies of Jacob Hoffman Jr., Mary M. Stembel Hoffman, Frank Hoffman, and Susan Wines Hoffman.' Written about 1948. Included in: "Wines and Hoffman Family Papers. S-1456." Housed in the Indiana State Library.
5. There are reasons to doubt that this was our Jacob Hoffman. Jacob's father was also named Jacob Hoffman and also lived and worked in the Middletown area. Both Hoffman's were members of a different church and neither had ever appeared in the Zion Lutheran church records before. In addition, we know there were other Jacob Hoffmans scattered about Frederick County at the time.
6. The Early History of Middletown, Maryland. by George C. Rhoderick, Jr., Middletown Valley Historical Society. York Graphic Services, York, Pennsylvania, 1989. P. 91. ISBN 0-9623594-9-1
7. In the 1830 census, Jacob's household was entered on the same page as Mary's sister, Elizabeth (Levy), and Jacob T.C. Miller, the husband of Mary's niece. Both lived in town. Two entries away from Jacob's was a Michael Beckinbaugh, who owned Middletown's lots #17 and #18 (according to the book, "The Early History of Middletown, Maryland" by George C. Rhoderick, Jr.). These lots were on Middletown's main east-west street, on the west side of town. So we can assume the Hoffmans were living on the same street as Mary's parents, but a few blocks west of them.
8. Maryland German Church Records, Vol. 1: Christ Reformed Church, Middletown, Frederick County, 1770-1840. Translated and edited by Rev. Frederick S. Weiser, Noodle-Doosey Press, Manchester, MD, 1986.
9. List Of Post Offices In The United States With The Names Of The Post-Masters,... Washington: Way and Gideon, Printers. 1828.
10. Rhoderick. p. 13.
11. "A Life Sketch" by William Hoffman. Autobiography. 5 pages. Self published. Jacksonville, Oregon. 1883. Copy in Oregon Historical Society Research Library, 1200 SW Park Avenue, Portland, OR 97205.
12. ibid.
13. Letter. 6 September 1858 written at the Hoffman farm in Warren Township, Warren County, Indiana. From Jacob Hoffman, Jr. to his daughter-in-law, Susan Wines Hoffman, presumably living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. "Wines and Hoffman papers (S1456)" housed in the Indiana State Library.
14. "My garden did not do well, with the exception of beans. Nearly all failed to do well. Fruit. we have very little, not ten bushel of apples in the two orchards. We have had sweet potatoes for the last four weeks. Wm. sold about 15 bushel in Attica at $2.00 per bushel. They do not produce so well as expected. The corn crop will not be more than half." Letter dated September 6, 1858, from Jacob Hoffman, Jr., to his daughter-in-law, Susan Hoffman.
15. A document presented to the Common Pleas Court in the February 1859 Session is written to sound like William and Frank were selling the entire farm to Theophilus Stembel via a Quit-Claim deed (my file name for this document is "LP Doc 12d.docx"). This was clarified in Court later (see my file named "1867-February--LP Doc 12a-b-c-d-e-f.docx"). William and Frank were only selling their share of the farm, which they, or their heirs, were guaranteed to receive by their mother's will.
16. We have no hard proof that Jacob was buried in the Rainsville Cemetery, or that his wife and son, Mary and George, were reinterred here. There are no markers showing their graves, and the cemetery records for that era are incomplete, we are told.
17. Counties of Warren, Jasper, and Newton, Indiana: Historical and Biographical. F. A. Battey & Co., publishers. Chicago. 1883. p. 111.
18. "In a letter from Jacob Hoffman to his daughter-in-law, Susan Hoffman, written April 21, 1858, Jacob writes: "Since I wrote you, Charley came to me one morning and informed me that he had another little brother. The children are all in a glee on account of little bubby."
Charley is most likely William's son, Charles H. Hoffman, b. 1854. We have no record of a child born to William and Catherine in 1858, but there is a 4 year gap between Arthur (b. 1856) and Edward (b. 1860), in which a 1858 birth fits nicely.
19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1873.
20. Counties of Warren, Jasper, and Newton, Indiana: Historical and Biographical. F. A. Battey & Co., publishers. Chicago. 1883. p. 153.
21. Originally Charles was said to be buried in the Rainsville Cemetery according to the Find a Grave website, but he has been removed from their records. I'm not sure why, but Rainsville is the most logical cemetery for him to be buried. His burial has not been found in any of the other area cemeteries.
22. Like many treaties and land cessions between Native Americans and the U.S. Government, the Native Americans in this case had little leverage in the negotiations, and the government agents were less than up front with the Indians as one historian put it. For more information, see https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/brunot-agreement. (visited 03/19/2021).
23. www.findagrave.com has a database of all known cemeteries in the U.S. Most of the cemeteries have a record of all those buried there, and a large percent of the tombstones have been photographed. Much of this work has been done by volunteers, and it is ongoing.
24. In the 1840 census, George Sargent had a son aged 20-30 in his household (Elisha was 29), and William Hoffman had a female aged 20-30 living in his household (Elizabeth was 20).
25. Counties of Warren, Jasper, and Newton, Indiana: Historical and Biographical. F. A. Battey & Co., publishers. Chicago. 1883. p. 110.
26. Counties of Warren, Jasper, and Newton, Indiana: Historical and Biographical. F. A. Battey & Co., publishers. Chicago. 1883. p. 111.
27. In August 1848, a partnership of Frank, William, and George purchased a piece of land in Rainsville. When they sold that land two months later (October 1848) only William and George were listed as sellers. Frank was missing.
28. The "Finding Aid" paragraph describing the manuscript: "Wines and Hoffman papers (S1456)": Biographical Note. Housed in the Indiana State Library
29. Letter. November 3, 1853. Written by Frank Hoffman in Attica to his mother-in-law in Fort Wayne, Indiana. "Wines and Hoffman papers (S1456)" housed in the Indiana State Library.
30. His date of birth is based on his age in the 1850 census which asked for the age of the person as of June 1, 1850.
31. Where was Elizabeth born? Her grandson, Charles Wordon, was very specific when he said she was born in Fort Wayne, but a month later the 1860 census placed Frank, Susan, Fannie and Elizabeth on the farm in Warren County. Would Susan travel from Fort Wayne to Warren County with a month old newborn? Why would she? I assume Frank and his family were at the farm because Frank's TB was worsening (he died a few months after the census was taken). Wordon writes that Frank "died at his father's farm near Attica while visiting there". If true then Frank's TB was not serious at the time of the census, so why is his family, including his newborn daughter, at the farm?
32. William kept a diary of his journey west on the Oregon Trail. That diary can be found online at http://archive.rvgslibrary.org/Diary/Hoffman.html. (Last downloaded on March 19, 2021). This page has a link to a transcript of the diary. William mentions John Hoffman in the October 5, 1853, entry.
33. Those who served in the Oregon militia were not paid for their service. A local man began urging Congress to reimburse the volunteers, but it was a slow process. In January 1857, John decided to give a family friend power of attorney to apply for his pay, then sold his rights to that money to the same person, rather than wait until the pay was authorized. This sounds like someone who was planning to leave the area soon. This leads us to believe John left Oregon in early 1857 and arrived home that summer.
34. We do not know the exact dates when John and Hester's three children were born, in fact their birth dates are a muddled mess. In 1900, the census taken that year asked everyone their age, and t he month and year they were born. All three children were still living at the time, separtely. Each provided their census agents the month and year they were born. Here are the three answers: December 1862, January 1862, and March 1862! Three births in 12 months is not possible. To add to the confusion, two of them gave ages that conflicted with the month and year they said they were born. Worse, for two of the three, we have an actual date of birth from their death certificate, but those dates do not agree with the dates they gave in the 1900 census.
Next, I looked at their ages in the 1870 census - the first census taken after their birth. Their ages are 9, 8, and 7. Ages for children on the first census after their birth are usually more accurate than ages in later censuses, since these ages are usually supplied by their parents, and the dates are fresh in their memories. I'm content using these 1870 census ages as an estimation of their date of birth for now, but we are still left with the fact that in this case there is a narrow window for when they were born. John and Hester married on December 4, 1859, and John joined the army on August 13, 1862, and left home almost immediately for minimal training and then quickly off to the south. All three children had to have been conceived in that period of about 44 months.
35. A book titled The 86th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry: A narrative of its service in the Civil War of 1861-1865. By Barnes, Carnahan, and McCain, and Thomas. Published in Crawfordsville, Indiana, by the Journal Co. in 1895, provides a fascinating day-by-day description of what John and the 86th encountered (suffered?). The book has been digitally scanned and can be downloaded as a pdf file from Archive.org. It is in the American Libraries/Emory University Library collection but requires a lot of clicks to find. A better way to find it is to do a Google search for "Indiana Volunteer Infantry 86th Regiment" and look for the result with a URL to Archive.org.
36. National Archives. These were supplied to me by researcher, John McGlothlin.
37. John's service records includes a note saying he died on September 30, not the October 1 date that some records show. The note says a request for the incorrect records to be corrected has been made, but it appears the records were never corrected.
38. National Archives. This was supplied to me by researcher, John McGlothlin.
39. Laura was initially buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, but two days after her husband died, that cemetery's records show her remains were sent to Valhalla Memorial Park for reinterment. We presume that's where her husband was to be buried, and he wanted his wife to be buried next to him.
40. This is the date of birth shown on John C.'s death certificate, but that date was supplied by someone who was not a close relative, someone who did not know where John's mother and father were born. So, this date is suspect, as are the other dates of birth we have for John and Hester's two other children.
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Copyright. Oren Stembel, STEMBEL FAMILY HISTORY PROJECT (familyhistory.stembel.org).