David Hermann - Arrived - Part 2

Part 2 - A Life in Wisconsin
If you missed part one of the story, go here . . .

Note, this post has been revised. The original David Hermann article has been updated and more information has been added. Because of its length, it has also been split into two parts with most of the new information in this part.

David Hermann was born in 1838 near the Baltic Sea in the Principality of Mecklenburg. His family and ancestors were of the peasant class and of very modest means. Life was probably very hard for them and advancement in that society was unlikely. In 1860, he married Anna Rohde and two years later, the two of them, along with their firstborn child, boarded a ship and sailed for America. They would travel from New York to Wisconsin and settle in the south-central part of the state.

Farm buildings from the Hermann farm in the Town of Verona, Wisconsin;
they are no longer in use but still standing in this 2011 photo.

The Flow of Information

A little over a year ago, in a post titled New Discoveries are Delightful, I wrote the following: "my genealogy research is pretty casual these days." I went on to say how I was running out of information and was content to sit back and take it slow. I also acknowledged that "new stuff shows-up." Those thoughts were all pretty genuine but what I did not realize was that just around the corner, a massive amount of family history was waiting for me. First, some background information,

When I wrote that post, in January of 2011, this blog was only about three months old and I had yet to write any posts on individual family members. It would not be until February of 2011 that I would write my first post on one of those family members - the Goldner Family.  That was followed a couple of months later with a post on the Peterson / Moe Family. Both of those two talked as much about the process as the families themselves.

Green County Historical Society

David Hollister & the Hollister Family (3)

Part Three - The Next Generations
If you missed Part 2 of the story, go here . . .
If you missed Part 1 of the story, go here . . .

By the 1880's David Hollister, along with a number of his grown children, where living in western Iowa, near the Nebraska border. There were also a few children who stayed back in Wisconsin. Some farmed and some had other occupations and a few moved on to other places. The Hollister clan would grow and multiply in Iowa and David would live out his life with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren nearby.

Wedding photo of Hiram, the son of Niles Hollister

David Hollister & the Hollister Family (2)

Part Two - Across the Midwest
If you missed Part 1 of the story, go here . . .

David Hollister was born in newly settled western New York in 1802. His parents might have been John Hollister and Elizabeth Van Scoter. He first married Celinda Giddings, the widow of his brother Abraham. They lived in Pennsylvania and Indiana but Celinda would die around 1841. In those days, death was common and almost expected. The living would carry on and as a matter of survival, most widowed spouses would remarry. David was in his 40s with a family in tow, but as you will read below, there would be another beginning as he had not even reached the halfway point of his long life.

Wisconsin Territory about the time the Hollisters came to the state.
Settlement was limited to the south and along Lake Michigan.
Indian tribes still occupied areas north of the Wisconsin River.

David Hollister & the Hollister Family (1)

Part One - Connecticut and New York

Note: I have updated this series a few times as more information has become available about David Hollister and his family. Now, in 2025, I made the decision to split the original three-part series into four parts with new information in all four parts. This will allow me to continue to grow and refine these posts as more information is obtained.

David Hollister's lifespan encompassed most of the 19th century. He was born about 1802 in New York and died 101 years later in 1903 in western Iowa. He spent a good part of his life on the move, pioneering in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and finally Iowa. David's life is fairly well documented but up until now, his exact ancestry has been elusive. There are at least 40 Hollister families in New York in the 1810 census and since children's names are not given, it has been hard to tell who David might belong to. In addition, the Hollister lineage in Colonial America is well known but David does not show up in that body of work either. Recently, an online source has provided a possible ancestral line and I will list that here but beware, it has yet to be verified.

Captain John Hollister built this house in Glastonbury in 1649. It has been noted
that he lived across the river in Wethersfield and probably rented out this house.
Later, Hollister would claim it as their ancestral home and live in it for generations.

Jurgen Goth - Short Biography

Jurgen Christian Goth, Mecklenburg Exodus

The underdeveloped and unenlightened principality of Mecklenburg saw large numbers of its population flee during the 19th Century. Some came to Dane County, Wisconsin including two sets of my Great-Great Grandparents. One was David Hermann and family and the other was Jurgen Goth and his wife, Maria Fredericka Grandt. It seems unlikely that the two families knew each other in 'Old Country' but two of David's children would marry two of Jurgen's children, creating a strong family connection in America.


Jurgen Goth and Marie Fredericka Grandt

Frederick "Fritz" Ostenberg - Short Biography

Frederick Ostenberg, German Immigrant

Several of my German immigrants came to southern Wisconsin around the middle of the 19th Century. One of the first to arrive was Frederick Ostenberg from Elberfeld, Kingdom of Prussia. Frederick was born in 1816 and was the son of Heinrich Dietrich Ostenberg (b.1785, d.1860?) and Elizabeth Strackbein (b.1790, d.?). The Strackbein family has been traced back another seven generations to Hen, who died in 1475. Elberfeld is a village in eastern Germany in an area historically known as the Rhineland. By the time Frederick was born, the Rhineland was under the control of Prussia, which by then had become the most powerful of the German Principalities. Heinrich and Elizabeth reportedly had six children, of whom two would come to America. To date, no other information about the life of the Ostenbergs in Elberfeld has been found and the family has not been traced past Heinrich.

Both the Frederick (section 9) and Charles (section 16 & 17) Ostenberg
farms can be seen in this partial 1873 map of the Town of Blue Mounds,
Wisconsin. Also, in the upper left corner is an advertisement for
"C. Ostenberg, Dealer in Dry Goods, Groceries, etc."

Ralph Holcomb - Short Biography

Ralph Elliot Holcomb - Supreme Sacrifice

The reality is, I don’t know much about Ralph Holcomb. I am including this with the short biographies but the article is really about his funeral. He died in 1919 as a casualty of the First World War. Ralph Elliot Holcomb was born on October 9th, 1898 to Reuben T. Holcomb and Amber Fessenden. His parents were in Monticello, Wisconsin for a couple of years and then moved to Monroe. Reuben served as the elected Clerk of Court for Green County beginning in 1896 so it might be assumed that Ralph was born in Monroe. The Holcombs built a house on the 800 block of West Russell Street in the 1890’s (now the 900 block of 10th Street). At that time, they were living at the edge of town on Monroe’s northwest side. The house still stands today, though it has been substantially altered.

Ralph Elliot Holcomb