Sheboygan County Historical Research Center Newsletter

Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. He died at Saul, Downpatrick Ireland, on the 17th of March 460 AD, and every year, on this day, Ireland and many other parts of the world celebrate their Irishness. Did you know that:

* 30.5 million US residents claim Irish ancestry.
* 4 million- Today’s population of Ireland.
* 8 million- Population of Ireland before the potato famine of 1845-1850 where half the population either immigrated or died.
* 4.8 million immigrants from Ireland admitted for U.S. residency since 1820.
* 22.5 per cent of all Massachusetts residents claim Irish ancestry.
* 269 years Boston has held its St. Patrick’s Day parade.
* 52,000- the number of Irish immigrants who arrived in New York City in 1847 (Black ’47) the worst year of the famine.
* 372,000- the population of New York City in 1847.
* 9 places are named Dublin in the United States.
* 3 million spectators attend New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade.
*100 pounds of green dye is added to the Chicago River each St. Patrick’s Day.

St. Patrick: fact and fantasy
- St. Patrick is supposed to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. Certainly, there are no snakes in Ireland — but there are none in New Zealand either and St. Patrick never visited there. The story that St. Patrick banished the snakes is more likely to have been invented in the 12th century by a Northumbrian monk named Jocelyn.

- A blind man once visited St. Patrick seeking a cure. As he approached he stumbled several times and fell over, and was duly laughed at by one of St. Patrick’s companions. The blind man was cured. The companion, however, was blinded.

- The first St. Patrick’s Day parade on record was held in New York in 1762 and seems to have been primarily designed as a recruiting rally by the English army in North America. Nowadays, St. Patrick’s Day parades are held on almost every continent of the world.

- The earliest recorded evidence of St. Patrick’s Day being celebrated outside of Ireland, other than by Irish soldiers, is provided by Dublin-born Gulliver’s Travels author Jonathan Swift. In his Journal to Stella he notes that in 1713 the Westminster Parliament was closed for St. Patrick’s Day and the Mall in London was so full of decorations he thought “all the world was Irish”.

- One legend has it that St. Patrick went straight to France after escaping youthful slavery in Ireland. On a visit to his uncle in Tours he had to cross the River Loire and used his cape as a raft. When he reached the other side he hung the cape out to dry on a hawthorn bush - which immediately burst into bloom. To this day the hawthorn blooms in the winter in the Loire Valley, and St. Patrick is celebrated there on March 17 and on Christmas Day.

- Despite his saintliness, St. Patrick was not averse to bouts of temper. He was once denied use of a field to graze his oxen and he cursed the field, prophesying that nothing would ever grow on it. Sure enough, that day the field was overrun by the sea and remained sandy and barren evermore.

- St. Patrick’s Day is also a public holiday on the Caribbean island of Monsterrat. The origins of the island’s celebrations date back to the 17th century when Oliver Cromwell was instrumental in forcing quite a number of Irish immigrants to move there. Names like Murphy, Kirwan and O’Malley are still commonplace on the island.

- Legend has it that St. Patrick used a three-leafed shamrock as a teaching aid to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan King Laoghaire.

- The Shamrock predates the red poppy of Flanders fields as a sign of remembrance. In 1900 Britain’s Queen Victoria ordered that soldiers in Irish regiments should wear shamrocks on St. Patrick’s Day in memory of fellow Irishmen who had been killed in the Boer War.

- Before he died an angel told St. Patrick he should have two untamed oxen yoked to his funeral cart and that they should be left to decide where he should be buried. The oxen chose Downpatrick.

St. Nicholas Hospital Slide Collection	Photos and negatives of Holy Name Church
A History of St. Nicholas Hospital- Hospital Sisters of St. Francis	Photos of Ed Nicolas, B. Graham and Frank Kuehn, 1912
Jacob and Louise Eifler Family Photos	Kiel Cemetery Reading
Duecker and Griebnow families of Kiel, Wisconsin	Bunge Family Genealogy and Obits
Photos of Lester and Frieda Prange	Photos of Franklin Blacksmith Shop and Forge, Jacob Eifler and grandson
The Village of Kohler, A Historic Photo Essay	Aero-Metric Inc. Celebrating 35 Years
Articles on construction of I-43	Heidorf- Siegworth Family history
Spielvogel Family History	Our Redeemer Lutheran Church choir photos
Photos of Sheboygan Falls	Louret Family Photos
Photos of 1998 Disney Parade	Wigwam Mills 100th Anniversary Book and DVD
My Living Legacy DVD, genealogy	Eernissee-Leutscher Family Connections
Photos of Hildebrand, Klingly, Stannard, Prindiville, Novas, Meyer and Tellen families	Town of Russell tax rolls, assessment rolls, road records, schools records and town minutes

Misspelled Names and Name Changes

Names were rarely changed intentionally at Ellis Island. The majority of passengers were detailed on the ship's manifest before the vessel left the port of departure. The purser or ship's officer was familiar with the name and ethnicity of the many passengers who typically used the port, and the ship visited the port several times each year. The captain and the medical officer swore affidavits to the accuracy of each group of lists, with 1 to 30 people in a group. On arrival in the port of New York, the U. S. inspectors boarded each vessel and examined the manifest and tickets of all classes of passengers. For those passengers taken to Ellis Island, immigration officials reviewed the questions and answers with each person. The inspectors developed systems to prevent the misspelling of names. To handle difficult names, interpreters were on hand who could understand more than 30 languages from Albanian to Yiddish . . . A few immigrants requested a name change, as a new beginning. However, historical records and individual testimonies indicate that most name changes occurred during the naturalization process, not at Ellis Island

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Welsh records
Searching for your Welsh ancestry can present some unique and difficult problems. Firstly, since 1536, Wales has been an administrative region of England As such, a lot of Welsh records are kept in London (Somerset House, The Family Record Centre, etc). Secondly, there are a lot of duplicate names within Wales, which can make your searching both labor intensive and error prone. It's important to have some significant dates related to your ancestors when searching for information about them.

The main centre for research in Wales is the National Library at Aberystwyth. Many Welsh records have been archived and stored there.

Civil Registrations

The requirement to register was introduced in 1837. Up until 1875 this wasn't enforced, and as a result, some early records may be missing. The main records are for birth, marriage and death. For information visit the Family Records Centre at www.pro.gov.uk.

Census Returns

A census has been held every 10 years since 1801 (apart from in 1941). The returns up until 1831 were for numbers of people only. But from 1841 a lot more detail was needed on the census forms. This could provide you with useful information in your quest.

After 100 years the censuses are freely available for inspection by the public, so anyone can check the returns up until 1901. You can find this information at The Family Records Centre, Myddelton Street, London EC1R 1UW.

Parish Registers

You'll be amazed at what you'll find if you hunt around religious sources of information in your relatives' towns and villages. From 1538 it was required that the incumbent of every parish kept a register of births, deaths and marriages within their parish. Most of these local parish registers are kept at the local County Records Office, and some are kept at the National Library of Wales.

The records kept in parishes close to the English border have tended to move over into the records offices within England. Unfortunately few registers from before the 17th century survive. Most commonly individual parishes keep records starting from the 17th to 18th centuries.

Christmas Raffle Prize Winners

Mitch Blank- 1 Query
Alice Wolter- 1 Query
Alice Senty- 2 Historic Photo Scans
Mel Mahlendorf- $50.00 Local History Books
Rick Conrardy- Lifetime Membership to SCHRC

A new book is presently being researched. It will detail many of the City of Sheboygan’s firsts.

Following are a couple of interesting examples included already discovered. Many more are needed.

Television Store---The first Sheboygan dealer to demonstrate and sell television sets, according to a newspaper advertisement in 1953, was Siebert’s Radio, Television and Appliance on Indiana Avenue. The store stocked TV sets made by General Electric, Du Mont, Stewart-Warner and Crosley and was owned and operated by Palmer Siebert. The store also provided repair services. Originally located on Indiana Avenue., Siebert’s later moved to a north Eighth Street location.

Telephones---Telephone service was introduced in Sheboygan in 1881, five years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. One telephone was installed, at the Zschetzsche Tannery and connected by a direct wire to a second phone in the office of the Milwaukee Lake Shore and Western Railroad in Milwaukee. That same year the first public long distance telephone connected to Milwaukee was installed in a building at 812 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was believed to be one the first long-distance circuits in Wisconsin.

Bratwurst Day---Sheboygan Press editor Matt Werner, to promote the city’s 100th anniversary and its German heritage, came up with the idea for the first Bratwurst Day event as part of the city’s 100th anniversary celebration in 1953.

The idea was endorsed by the Sheboygan Jaycees, who became the continuing sponsor of Bratwurst Day.

The highlight of the day was a brat sandwich-eating competition. The first winner was 24-year-old Roger Theobold, a lift operator at the Bemis Manufacturing Co. in Sheboygan Falls, who downed six double brats. Theobald was the brat-eating champion for three straight years. Eugene Gross, 15, won the first junior division championship with five doubles.

Please put on your thinking caps and participate in this fun research project. Call the Research Center (920-467-4667) with your submissions. You may also mail your ideas. The deadline for new “firsts” is June 1, 2006.

This entertaining volume will be ready for Christmas 2006.

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Lady Elgin Victim

New York Times – September 20, 1860—Among the victims of the Lady Elgin calamity was Mr. Wm. Farnsworth, of Sheboygan, Wis. His body was recovered and taken to that town, where it was buried on the Wednesday succeeding the disaster. Mr. Farnsworth was among the earliest settlers of Sheboygan. In 1818 he resided there for a few months as a trapper and Indian trader, and in 1835 returned to the town, at that time becoming proprietor of a half interest in the village plat. When speculation in lands was at its highest pitch, he sold two-sixteenths of this interest for $55,000, on for $30,000 to the New York and Erie Transportation Company, and the other to another party for $25,000. With the exception of a three or four years residence at Milwaukee, he has lived at Sheboygan since 1835.

From an article by Emmitt Feldner
Plymouth Review, 2-16-1993

In the late 1930s, under the leadership of Norwegian-born Oscar Knutson, a maintenance engineer for Kraft, a group of local ski-jumping enthusiasts constructed a ski jump on a vacant slope overlooking the Mullet River mill pond along the west side of Fairview Drive in Plymouth. Members of the original ski club included Bud Kolpin, Marvin Cain, Jerry Flood, Hank Blanke, Roger Langemak, Vern Fox, Tim Zimmermann, Robert Anderson, Arnold Pick, David Vesey, Dick Bourneville and Henry Heisler.

Heinz Maslon, a draftsman at Kohler, helped design the initial structure made of tamarack.. This first ramp was too short though, making it impossible to generate enough speed to achieve any distance on jumps. Within a few years, the tamarack structure was replaced with a new wooden one, built of reclaimed planks from old barns and ice houses.

The slope got its name when one of the original group, John “Pinky” Penkwitz, was killed in a traffic accident. The group, which later adopted the name Plymouth Junior Ski Club, paid $15 a year rent for the property on which the ski jump stood. The city of Plymouth installed floodlights, and there was jumping day and night. The city also helped by dumping several truck loads of snow from plowed streets onto the lot each year. Members would then carry the snow down the hill in bushel baskets to create a landing area.

Pinky’s Knoll was torn down in the early 1960s after it was deemed unsafe. Ski jumping was also experiencing a decline in interest at the same time that maintenance costs were escalating.

Over the years hundreds of Plymouth kids learned to ski and to jump there. While older, more experienced jumpers moved on to the bigger ski jump on Chocolate Drop Hill in what is now the Kettle Moraine State Forest southwest of Plymouth, jumpers everywhere hold fond memories of Pinky’s Knoll.

For more than two decades, through the 1940s and 1950s, hundreds of area skiers learned to jump off this 40-foot structure built by members of the Plymouth Junior Ski Club.