WILLIAM FREDERICK RITTERSHOUSE, ELDEST SON

Sixty-five years ago this week, the eldest son of John William and Rosena Ritterhouse broke his leg in an accidental fall and died two days later from the "shock of [the] fracture of [his] leg." His home at the time was the Masonic Home in Wichita, Kansas.

William Frederick Ritterhouse was born, like the rest of his siblings, in Tazewell County, Illinois. According to his death certificate, he was born in Tremont, Illinois on Halloween of 1858. No doubt, he helped his father farm on land west of Pekin, Illinois. Then, as the oldest son, he would have helped his mother after his father's untimely death in 1870.

William was the first of his family to leave home and settle in Kansas. By the time William was 21, he was a farm laborer on a farm in Brown County, Kansas, near Hiawatha (according to the 1880 Census). Brown County is in northeastern Kansas approximately 375 miles from his home in Illinois. Although it may not be possible to ever know, I wonder why William went there. In 1880, he was working on the farm of Samuel Meyers. Five years later, when the state of Kansas took a census, he was working as a farmer and living with the J.D. Crook family in Hamlin, Kansas (also in Brown County). Mr. Crook was a butcher.

Probably when the rest of his family relocated to Kansas in the 1890s, William began farming in Nemaha and Marshall Counties. In October 1904, he purchased a home in Blue Rapids, at 301 N. Main where he lived with his mother. In Blue Rapids, he was the water superintendent. Later, he moved with Rosena to Scott City, Kansas, where he also served as water superintendent. (According to his death certificate, he was an electrical engineer.) He reportedly became deaf, possibly from working around the noisy machinery in the water plants.

William's Blue Rapids, Kansas, home ca. 2000


The eldest Ritterhouse child went by the name Rittershouse until World War I, when anti-German sentiments convinced him to change it. According to his niece Edna, he always stated that "Rittershouse" was the “German way”. He never married, apparently taking care of his mother until he was no longer able to. Rosena lived with him in his house in Blue Rapids and his house in Scott City. His niece, Edna, lived with them during her high school years since the schools near her stopped at the eighth grade.



Advice from “Uncle Bill” to his niece Edna in her autograph book in 1903.


In Marshall County, William (or Uncle Bill or Uncle Will as his nieces and nephews called him) was active in various patriotic/fraternal organizations. He participated in meetings at the P.O.S. of A. camp, and the Masonic Grand Lodge. He reported having a “grand good time” when he visited the Leavenworth Masonic Grand Lodge (according to the February 26, 1892 Axtell Anchor). (The Patriotic Order Sons of America (P.O.S. of A.) was "organized December 10, 1847 to preserve the Public School System, The Constitution of the United Sates and our American way of life.")William also helped organize a lodge of Odd Fellows in the neighboring town of Baileyville while he was living in Axtell.

Uncle Bill spent the last 12 years of his life in the Masonic Home in Wichita, Kansas. In 1896, the Masonic Order and Order of the Eastern Star purchased the estate of Robert Lawrence and used his former home as a retirement home for members until a fire destroyed the facility in 1916. In 1917, a new facility was constructed at the site (on the corner of Seneca and Maple), designed in the Mission architectural style. Completed in 1921, the buildings are known for their white stucco walls and red tile roof. On June 25, 1946, William fell and broke his leg. Unfortunately, he died two days later, at the age of 87, from complications from the fall. He is buried in a simply-marked grave in the Maple Grove Cemetery in Wichita in a section donated by the cemetery for the Masonic Home.

[Note: I started this post last year, but basically wrote it in June 2011 and actually posted it June 25, 2011, which is why I refer to the anniversary of his death being "this week".]

UPDATE ON "VOYAGE TO AMERICA" POST

Back in February, I wrote a post on John William Rittershaus' voyage to America. At the time I was researching and writing that post, I e-mailed the Focke-Museum in Bremen, Germany which is the port from which William departed his home country for his new life in America. The Focke-Museum explores the immigrant experience and I had read that this museum had a model of the ship William sailed to America on, the George Washington. Just recently, five months later, I received an e-mail from the museum with a photo of the model attached. Looking at this photograph, you can tell that the George Washington was not a large ship, and it is amazing that this small ship carried 186 passengers plus the crew for the six week journey across the Atlantic ocean. I had thought that the Washington was surely a steamship, but it looks like it was a three-masted sailing ship. I guess that explains why it took six weeks to travel from Bremen to New York City. The museum did not send any information about the ship or its voyages. I'm still hoping to learn more about both of those topics and if I do, I'll post further updates.

ROSINA -- PART 3

In researching these Rosina blogs, I was intrigued to find I had pictures of most of the houses Rosina lived in. It's not EXACTLY accidental since I'm thrilled if I can find the actual place and, especially, the actual house where an ancestor lived. So, I seek these places out and, naturally, take pictures of them. The intriguing thing (to me) is that Rosina is pretty much the only ancestor for whom I have a trail of homes.

Of course, since I don't know where Rosina came from in Germany, I don't have a picture of her home there. Odds are good, though, that it still exists. At least as I've visited the cities, towns and villages of Germany, I've seen many, many homes that are at least 200 years old.

The first house that I have pictures of that Rosina MIGHT have lived in is located in Tazewell County, Illinois, a few miles east of Pekin. The attached picture was taken in 1919. I honestly have some doubts as to whether this was the house the Ritterhouses lived in. I'm no student of historical architecture, but, to me, this house does not look like it could have been built in the 1860s. Nevertheless, it is fairly certain that the Ritterhouses lived in a house at this site. And this particular house has not changed significantly in the past 90 years, except for the addition of beautiful trees and flowers and a front porch.




From Tazewell County, Illinois, Rosina and her family moved to Marshall County in northern Kansas.
Rosina bought a farm of 80 acres just a few miles south of the Nebraska border. The legal description of the land was S1/2 SE1/4, Section 3, Township 3, Range 10. Rosina apparently farmed this land from October 1890 to early 1899. I'm not absolutely certain this was her farm. I visited the site in 1994 and as near as my parents and I could follow the township map, these ruins were on the property identified in the land records. They certainly looked like they could be 90 years old!




I'm not sure where Rosina moved after selling her land (several of her children had purchased land in Marshall and neighboring Nemaha Counties), but in 1904, William bought a house in Blue Rapids, Kansas (still in Marshall County) and Rosina moved in with him. At this point she was over 70 years of age. The house was located at 301 N. Main St. They lived in this house about 15 years while William worked as an engineer at the city water works. From 1914 to 1916 (I think), Rosina's granddaughter, Edna Ritterhousee lived with them while here while she attended the Blue Rapids High School. In April 1919, he sold the house and they moved out to western Kansas, settling in Scott City.




For some reason, in 1919, William and Rosina moved to southwest Kansas, nearly to the Colorado border, where William worked for the City of Scott City as their "stationary engineer". This was definitely sparsely populated area. Despite Scott City being the county seat, the population at that time was under 1500. They lived there several years until William's health apparently failed, and he moved to Wichita to live his final years in the Mason's Home. They were still living in Scott City at the time of the 1925 Kansas Census.







As nearly as I can tell, the last house that Rosina lived in was in Colorado Springs. She apparently went to live with her daughter, Anna, when William could no longer take care of her. Anna lived with her husbands, first Ed Nolte and then William Ebright in Colorado Springs at 1011 N. Corona. According to Rosina's death certificate, this house was where she died.

ROSINA -- PART 2

I apologize to Rosina and to anybody who is following my blog for my procrastination in continuing Rosina's story. In the process of writing Part 1, I realized, once again, how many questions there are about Rosina's life, and especially about her early life. I became determined to learn something more and spent my time researching her online. I've even written to the Tazewell County (IL) Genealogical Society for help in researching her life in Tazewell County. Alas, I have not learned anything new yet. So, first, here in Part 2, I'm going to list the "facts" I "know" about Rosina and where I learned about them.

1. The first I heard about Rosina was from my Great Aunt Edna. Edna lived with her Grandmother Rosina in 1914 and 1915 when she was a freshman and sophomore in high school (since the little town her family lived in didn't have a school past ninth grade). Aunt Edna did not know (or remember) Rosina's maiden name, but she said that "Rosina. . . came to New York City from Germany when she was 20 yrs. old. She worked as a maid."

2. Next I found the record of the marriage of "Rosa Cramer" to William Rittershouse in Tazewell County, Illinois on October 18, 1857. (Note: No ages were given in the record.)

3. In the 1860 census, William and Rosina are listed as living in Tremont Township, Tazewell County, Illinois. Rosina's age is given as 26 which would mean she was born about 1834.

4. Although I'm sure the Ritterhouses were living in Tazewell County in 1870, I have not been able to find them in the 1870 federal census. So, the next time Rosina appears in the census is 1880. By this time, she is married to Joseph Vandorn. The record of the marriage of "Rosa Ritterhouse" (or maybe Rittenhouse) and Joseph Vandorn is available at the Tazewell County Court Records. They were married on November 13, 1877. The Elm Grove Township, Tazewell County, Illinois, 1880 census lists "Rosina Vandorn" as being 45 years old which would mean she was born about 1835.

5.
In the probate records, Rosina was referred to and signed her name as "Rosa Ritterhouse" (or sometimes Rittershouse). Later, for the court papers after her marriage to Joseph VanDorn, she was referred to as either Rosa Van Dorn or Rosina Van Dorn.

6. Marshall County, Kansas, land records show that "Rosina Van Dorn" bought land in October 1890, and that she sold that land in March 1898.

7. In the 1900 census, Rosina is listed as "Clara Ritterhouse" with her age at 70, her year of birth as 1830 and her place of birth "unknown". Then, in the 1905 Kansas census, she is recorded as "Rosina Van Dorn" at the age of 72. The 1910 census calls her "Racina Ritterhouse". It lists her age at 77 and states that she had 9 children, 8 of whom are still living. The 1915 Kansas census is really confused, calling her "Vandorn Ritterhouse" and listing her age as 78.

8. According to the 1920 federal census, "Rose Riterhouse" [sic] immigrated in 1852 and received her naturalized citizenship in 1860. And the 1925 Kansas census said "Rosina Vandorn" was 92 years old.



9. Her Colorado death certificate states her name as "Rozena Van Dorn" which is also how it appears on her tombstone. Her daughter Anna gave the information that's on the death certificate. Rosina was living with Anna at 1011 N. Corona, Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the time of her death. The house still stands. Her birthdate is given as April 8th, 1931 on the death certificate, but they mean 1831. Her death date is given as January 31st, 1931. And it gives her age as 99 years, 9 months and 23 days. She died of bronchial pneumonia, after a six day illness. Anna gave her birthplace as "Germany". She gave the name of Rosina's father as "______ Cramer" but didn't know the maiden name of her mother. Rosina is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.

That's the "facts" as I know them. Anyone have anything else to add to the facts or any Rosina stories to tell?

ROSINA -- PART 1

In honor of Women's History month, it's only right that we talk about Rosina. Rosina Kramer Ritterhouse Vandorn was the wife of John William Ritterhouse and mother of the seven Ritterhouse kids who were our first generation American-born Ritterhouse ancestors, as well as mother to another daughter by her second husband. Rosina lived a very long life and traveled a long way in the journey of her life.

There are many questions about Rosina's early life, but we pretty much know where all she was the last 75 years of her life! There is some controversy over when she was born. Some of the family believe that she lived to be nearly 103 years old, being born April 7, 1828 and dying February 27, 1931. Throughout her life a wide array of ages was given to the census takers. According to her death certificate (for which information was given by her daughter Anna) she was born April 8, 1831. (Her actual death date was January 31, 1931, so she most likely lived to be 99 years and 9 months.)

We know that she was born in Germany and died in Colorado Springs, Colorado -- a mind-boggling distance to travel in the days before airplanes and interstate highways. But, we do not know where Rosina was born. One cousin told me that Rosina was from around Strasbourg (which is actually in France), but she also told me that Rosina was born near the Stuttgart Castle. I am unsure which is the correct immigration record for Rosina. There are several Ros???? Kramers who were born around 1830 and immigrated in the 1850s. If the 1920 census information is correct, Rosina immigrated in 1852. The closest match to Rosina that I've found so far is a "Rosette Kraemer" who arrived in New York City aboard the ship Marmion. This Rosette was 20 years old and hailed from "Bavaria". There was a Rosina Kraemer born in Hambruecken, Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany, which is about 60 miles from Stuttgart. I'm inclined to believe this is the area Rosina came from even though I doubt that the Rosina Kraemer that I have a record of is "our" Rosina since she died as a child.

(Note: Unfortunately I didn't finish this post last week and haven't had a chance to work on it, so I'm going ahead and posting this as Part 1. I'll try to post a Part 2 tomorrow.)

HOME IN TAZEWELL COUNTY

Three years ago, I made a trip to Tazewell County, Illinois. My goal was to visit William Ritterhouse's grave. He's buried in the Miars Cemetery which is about five miles outside the small town of Pekin. We were lucky to have some of the members of the Tazewell County Genealogical Society assist us. They had already prepared some information for us and had it waiting at their wonderful library. This included a couple of maps of the county which showed not only where Miars Cemetery was located, but also where William's farm was located. One of the members even drove us to the cemetery. She even stopped by the Pekin Cemetery to show us the grave of Pekin's most famous son -- Senator Everett Dirksen.


The Miars Cemetery is a very small country cemetery located in the Elm Grove Township. Our local guide had arranged for the caretaker of the cemetery, Keith Keller, to meet us out there. Actually, Mr. Keller arranged to be plowing right by the cemetery and parked his tractor and walked over to the cemetery when he saw us. Unfortunately, our ancestor's grave is not marked. There is a record of his grave in row 4, grave number 28. Mr. Keller unfortunately did not know where row 4, grave 28 was located. We did locate approximately where he was buried. (Note: We may try to raise funds to buy a marker for William's grave. If you happen to read this blog and would be interested in contributing to such an effort, let me know in a comment. I'm sure Mr. Keller would help us accomplish that if we decided to do it.)

While we were at the cemetery, Mr. Keller showed us where William's farm was located. You can see it from the cemetery. His farm bordered the Miars' property which holds the cemetery. It is due west of the cemetery, maybe a quarter of a mile.

After we were finished at the cemetery, our wonderful guide took us to the farm where we met the current owner, Wilda Keller. (Wilda is Keith's mother.) She grew up on the old Ritterhouse farm, in the house she believes was built by William. The house is a two-story frame house in the salt box style.. Wilda told us that when she was little, in the early thirties, an older gentleman, whom she believes was one of the Ritterhouse boys, visited the farm and said he was born in the house. She described the farm and some of the changes that had taken place there -- like when the various barns and out buildings had been added. Wilda even sent me pictures of the farm from 1919 after I got home. We were not able to enter the house because of the condition it was in, but Wilda has plans to restore the home and Keith may be moving into it eventually.

It is difficult to describe the thrill of walking around the old farm knowing that the American roots of our Ritterhouse clan began there. I felt a connection to the site and to our history.

TWO VICTORIAN GENTLEMEN

Recently I found a photograph online of Fred Ritterhouse that reminded me of a picture I had of his brother, Charles. They're a little older than in the tintypes discussed previously, but are still fairly young men. I'd judge they are in their twenties when these two photos were taken. My guess is that they were taken between 1890 and 1895, probably after they moved to northern Kansas from Illinois, which was around 1890.


Both young men are dressed in fairly typical late Victorian clothing. In this era, three-piece suits ("ditto suits") consisting of a sack coat with matching waistcoat/vest and trousers were worn, as were matching coat and waistcoat with contrasting trousers. The centerpiece of men's dress at that time was the waistcoat or vest. According to one source I read, it was typical for men to own several vests to change the look of their main suit. These vests usually had collars or lapels and were single-breasted, which is the style worn by both Charles and Fred. Also according to the above-mentioned online source: "In the Victorian era, daily dress was much more formal than it is today. Unless they were a workman or laborer, every gentleman was expected to wear a coat, vest, and hat. To walk around in shirtsleeves without vest or coat would be the modern-day equivalent of traipsing about in one’s underwear. Very unseemly, and most ungentlemanly!" In these two pictures, Fred is looking particularly dapper!

Both men are also wearing the most basic accessory for every Victorian gentleman which was the cravat. Charles' ensemble also includes the nearly universal pocket watch and fob, which were prominently displayed hanging from the front vest pockets. Their shoes are probably the square-toed style of the turn of the century. Both men sport the short hair cuts of the times and the ubiquitous moustache.

I would guess these pictures were taken several years apart since the brothers look to be a similar age. Charles was eight years older than Fred, so his picture was most likely taken earlier in the decade, probably before his marriage in 1893. Fred's may have been taken in the latter half of the decade, sometime before his marriage in 1898.

The stylin' brothers look very similar and one can certainly tell they are related.

JOHN WILLIAM'S VOYAGE TO AMERICA

We may not know WHY our ancestor, Johann Wilhelm Rittershaus, left his home in Germany and journeyed to America, but we do know WHEN and HOW he came. According to the ship record, William left the northern port city of Bremen, Germany May 2, 1848 aboard the George Washington. I've tried to imagine what that trip was like for the 28-year-old who was leaving the ancestral homeland of his family who had deep, deep roots in the Barmen, Germany area. William would have paid about $16 for his steerage passage from Bremen to America. The voyage could not have been a lot of fun. It lasted six weeks. He surely knew many of his fellow passengers since they mostly came from the same area of Germany that he did. But the quarters were close and uncomfortable. There was not a lot to do. And six weeks is a long time.

When I was in Germany last fall, I visited a museum in the port city of Bremerhaven, which is about 50 miles (via the Weser River) north of Bremen. The Washington would have traveled through Bremerhaven on its way to New York. The museum showed what the German immigrants would have looked like as they stood on the dock with their belongings piled around them. Dressed in simple, peasant clothing, with their faces a mixture of eagerness and anxiety, these ghosts of our ancestors convey the hopefulness they were feeling about their new life. This museum also had reconstructions of the boats the immigrants traveled in. The one most similar to the Washington showed just how cramped the space was. The shared bunks housed 20 or so people, many of them coughing, crying and vomiting (which the museum highlighted via a soundtrack of the varied noises passengers would have been making). For William's voyage, there were 186 passengers most of whom were crammed into steerage for the six week voyage.

Notes included with the displays at the Bremerhaven museum explained that for hundreds of passengers, the cramped quarters in steerage were dining hall, dormitory and lounge in one. When the weather was good, the steerage passengers could spend time up on deck with music and dancing provided a welcome change. But, when storms rose at sea, the passengers had to leave the decks. For steerage passengers that could mean days without fresh air or daylight. Close quarters and poor sanitary facilities were conducive to disease. Spoiled food and bad drinking water only made matters worse. There was no doctor on board. It was not unusual for passengers to die on the voyage across the Atlantic.

What was the George Washington like? According to the "Palmer List of Merchant Vessels", the George Washington was built in 1822, probably in Killingsworth, Connecticut. According to Bremen records, it weighed in at 450 tons. From 1839 to 1849, it was owned by the Bremen firm of C.L. Brauer & Sohn. William's 1848 voyage was captained by Mathias Probst. Another source, "The Ships List" website, describes the George Washington as a 2,000 ton steamship. This ship was described as "the first American Atlantic liner and also one of the ugliest ships ever put afloat" (in Mail and Passenger Steamships of the Nineteenth Century). In June 1847, a review of the Washington's trip to Quebec claimed that she turned out to be slow and "rolled rather than steamed along." A letter in 1832 described the voyage across the Atlantic to New York on the George Washington as "a most delightful passage." The Washington was a paddle steamship. Her paddle wheels were apparently 39 feet in diameter. She had two boilers and three furnaces. Here's what she looked like:

Imagining William's six week trip to his new life only increases my admiration for my immigrant ancestor. It seems like it would have taken courage, fortitude and optimism to leave his family, friends and known life and endure the journey, first to Bremen and then across the ocean to the unknown. Whatever drove him to the extreme decision to make the journey to America, I appreciate the sacrifices he made to start his new life!

WILLIAM THE LOCKSMITH

Great-great-grandpa William Ritterhouse was a schlosser or locksmith. Most locksmiths were blacksmiths who made locks, so they were called locksmiths. As early as 1411, Charles IV of Germany created the title of "Master Locksmith". Locksmiths were skilled metalworkers who trained as apprentices and became journeymen locksmiths. One source I read mentioned that the work of a locksmith required ingenuity and accuracy. Ingenuity was probably needed to stay ahead of the lock-pickers.

To become a master locksmith, the journeyman designed and produced a one-of-a-kind "masterpiece" lock as a "test". These locks were displayed without covers to show the component parts of the mechanisms, their functions, etc. and were never actually used on a door. The lock displayed above was made by great-great-grandpa William. I'm wondering if it could have been his "masterpiece" lock. It has been passed down through the family. At one time, William's granddaughter, Edna (the daughter of Charles), owned it, but she passed it to her youngest brother, Merle Ritterhouse, who willed it to his grandson, Jim Ritterhouse, the current owner.

William was identified sometimes as a blacksmith and sometimes just as a smith. The ship record listed him as a smith. Then in 1850, according to the census, he was working as a blacksmith in Blair, Pennsylvania. The 1860 Tazewell County, Illinois, census also states he is a blacksmith. By this time, locks were being mass-produced, but maybe not out in the prairies of Illinois. William also farmed, probably because he couldn't support his family on his smithing alone.

RITTERHOUSE TINTYPES

These tintypes of four of the Ritterhouse boys are the earliest Ritterhouse photographs I own. These are four of great-great-grandfather William Rittershaus' five sons (from top to bottom): Fred (born 1874), Lew (born 1867), Charles (born 1866) and George (born 1863).

Tintypes were photos with the image on a metal surface that was blackened. They were cheap, durable and instant (available a few minutes after taking the photo). The process was patented in the U.S. in 1856 and, by the end of the Civil War, they were the most common type of photos. They remained the preferred type of photo until the end of the 19th century. They were usually taken outside at fairs, carnivals, etc. by itinerant photographers, because the equipment was easily set up and the photographs were instantly available.

Judging by the ages of the boys in the Ritterhouse tintypes, I think these photos were taken about 1880. By 1880, the oldest Ritterhouse boy, William, who was 21, was already living in Kansas, working on a farm in Hiawatha County. George would have been 17, Charles (my great-grandfather) would have been 14, Lew 13 and Fred 6. It may have been a year or two sooner, but it was surely around then. At this time, they were living in Tazewell County, Illinois. It was shortly after their father's death (in June 1876) and their mother's marriage to Joseph Vandorn (in late 1877).

So, do we learn anything from these pictures? All of the boys were surely dressed in their "Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes. They are all wearing jackets with vests. None of them look too comfortable, with poor Lew looking particularly uncomfortable, with all of his jacket buttons buttoned and the jacket appearing to be a bit small. While the photos may have been taken by an itinerant photographer, they surely must have planned to have them taken and dressed accordingly. They are all very solemn, but taking photographs were a much bigger deal back then. They had to remain still and I'm sure wanted to appear as dignified as possible. To me, it's obvious they are brothers, sharing traits like the shape of their heads, similar mouths, noses, and hair. Is there a Ritterhouse feature that continues in the family today? What do you think?

THE IMMIGRANT

My immigrant Ritterhouse ancestor was John William Ritterhouse -- or more accurately, Johann Wilhelm Rittershaus. William (as he was most often referred to) was born in Barmen, Germany. Barmen was a small town located in the valley of the Wupper River, north of Koln/Cologne and east of Dusseldorf. Rittershaus families had lived in this area for several centuries by the time William was born on January 3, 1819 (and there are still many Rittershaus families living there today).

Great-great-grandfather William was probably the fourth child born to Johann Wilhelm Rittershaus and his wife, Anna Wilhelmina Pistor. He had at least three older sisters: Anna Wilhelmina (born April 18, 1814), Johanna Gerdraud (born September 16, 1815), and Helena Carolina (born March 12, 1817). As far as I know (at least so far), that was his immediate family. The family story (according to my Great-Aunt Edna who never knew William, but who lived with his wife Rosena while Edna went to high school) was that the Rittershaus's were farmers, but we don't know for sure. William was a locksmith, probably learning the trade in Barmen.

In 1848, at the age of 28, William left home and sailed to New York City. He first traveled 160 miles to the port city of Bremen -- by foot, a several day hike. So why would a young man with a marketable skill leave the home of his ancestors and his family and friends, carrying all of his belongings in two trunks, journey several days across northern Germany, then purchase passage (for probably around $16) on a small sailing ship, packed in tight steerage quarters with 200 of his fellow countrymen for six long weeks? Oh for a copy of a letter he wrote home or a journal with his deepest thoughts to solve the mystery! But no such luck!

In 1848, revolution in Germany brought many immigrants to America. These immigrants were called Forty-eighters. Other factors that encouraged the German immigration around that time included economic depression on the farms, the introduction of machinery causing displacement and unemployment, and political and religious persecution. In general, German immigrants were not destitute, but were seeking a higher standard of living and were seeking to replicate their cherished agricultural system which was rapidly disappearing in Germany. When I asked my Aunt Edna why our ancestor immigrated, her response was: "I don't know why they came to America. I just supposed that they became dissatisfied with life in Germany." It just seems that life would have had to be pretty dissatisfying to endure the hardships, sacrifices and expenses of such a journey.

Recently, I found that a local Barmen businessman, Theodor Wettstein, organized a large group of Barmen-area residents, including our William Rittershaus, to immigrate to Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. They traveled as a group to Bremen to board the ship George Washington. Reviewing the passenger list for the May 2nd journey of the Washington, you can see that nearly every passenger was from Barmen, Elberfeld or another town from the Wupper valley. Of the 186 passengers, 156 of them ended up with Wettstein in Wisconsin. Fortunately for me, William struck out on his own once he arrived in New York City. Another mystery. Why didn't he go with his fellow Barmenians, surely people he'd known all his life and with whom he had just endured the arduous journey across the Atlantic? There is probably no way to ever know.

What is documented, is that instead of being in Wisconsin, William was in Blair County, Pennsylvania, working as a blacksmith in 1850. From there, he continued to head west to Tazewell County, Illinois, where he is found in 1857, marrying the also German-born Rosena Kramer.

So, if anyone knows more about why and how William immigrated, please add your comments! In the meantime, I'm just grateful that he did make the sacrifices and the extreme efforts to move to Illinois when he did, or else I wouldn't be here to write about him!

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Growing up, I always heard (or at least that's the way I remember it) that my name meant I descended from German royalty. After all Ritter means "Knight" in German and house (or haus) means house which surely actually meant "castle". What a cool name! (Although it was awfully long to learn to spell! Luckily my clever mom figured out that Mickey Mouse had the same number of letters and my sisters and brother and I learned to spell it using the Mickey Mouse Club song: R-I-T / T-E-R / H-O-U-S-E.)

According to one source (Daniel K. Cassel in The Genea-Biographical History of Rittenhouse Family and All Its Branches in America, with Sketches of Their Descendants, published in 1893) the derivation of the name Ritterhouse is thought to be from the Teutonic “Housius, rider” (meaning a knight mounted on horseback), altered to the German “Hausen-Ritter,” then to the Anglo-Saxon “Rittershausen” (which is the plural for Rittershaus) and finally to the English “Ritterhouse.”

There were undoubtedly knighted ancestors in our Ritterhouse past. They may be the "royalty" referred to by relatives such as Great-Great-Uncle Bill who always told his niece, Edna, that we "belonged to the German Royalty”. If Cassel's research is correct, the Ritterhouse name can be traced back to 1591 in Germany, when Mathias, the son of Balthaser (who became Sir Maximilian II), was knighted with a coat-of-arms to the House of Knights (“Housius Riders,” Mounted Horsemen) by his second cousin, Emperor Ferdinand III, of Austria, for fighting against the Turks. About 1652-62, Ferdinand improved the coat-of-arms of Mathias and conferred it upon Georgius (who was Mathias’ nephew, being the son of Conradi, another son of Balthaser) and his descendants, both male and female. Georgius then became Sir Rittershausen. The patent for this coat-of-arms is recorded in Barmen, a city in Westphalia. Rittershaus’ obviously lived in the Barmen-Wuppertal area as early as 1466 as indicated by the map above.

Royalty or not, Knight's Castle, House of Knights or Mounted Horsemen, it doesn't really matter. Ritterhouse is still a cool name!

Ritterhouse Roots Ramblings: The Beginning

Researching my Ritterhouse roots has led me to meet and reconnect with family and to meet new friends, as well as to learn about the history and culture of my ancestors. In this blog I'm planning to share information I've learned and stories I've heard about the Ritterhouse/Rittershaus family. I'm hoping that some of my Ritterhouse/Rittershaus cousins will share and discuss along with me. Hopefully, about once a week, I plan to post a picture and "talk" about what I know or don't know about it. So, join me in my quest to learn everything there is to know about the Ritterhouse/Rittershaus family history!