A History of the STUEVER family in America

 

 

 

I am a fifth generation descendant of the original Stuever who came into the country sometime after 1824. The following are some of the notes received from Mayme PIPER who was the oldest sibling of Joseph and Mina RENSCHEN Stuever.

Stuevers came from Hanover Germany. Brought family to America around 1830. Lived in Pennsylvania a short time and then came by boat landing on the east bank of the Mississippi River near St. Louis on the Illinois side.  He felled trees to make a trail settling 35 miles east of the Mississippi near the small town of Hanover. The name of this town was changed to Germantown during World War 1.

Their farm was a few miles west of Hanover and was mostly timber. He cut trees to build homes and barns and farmed the rich fertile soil.

During a brushfire, the father took his two sons Charles (or Karl) and Ben to get the horses and told the mother to bring the little girls to safety. The mother and daughters never reached the safety in the clearing and perished in the fire.  The distraught father took his two sons to the Catholic priest at St. Francis parish in Aviston Ill. and asked him to find homes for them. They were originally Lutherans but since there were no Lutheran churches in the area the two boys were raised in Catholic farm families in the Aviston Ill. area. The first name of the father is not known nor where he went after the fire. One story is that he became a mountain man and helped settle the west.

Charles (or Karl) 1824-1889 married Elizabeth "Liza" MEIER 1836-1924 and settled on a farm two miles east and south of Aviston, Ill. (Clinton County) and kept the farm in the family for 65 years. Their six children were:

Anna Stuever REMPE - one son Joe

Mary Stuever NIEMEIER - two sons and two daughters

Frank Stuever married Mary RHODES (Frank was a deaf mute) - two sons

Joseph Stuever married Mina Renschen - five sons and five daughters

Charley Stuever married Mary KLOCKE - five sons; Married Anna BAALMAN - one son and two daughters

John Stuever married Emma OLIGES - three sons and three daughters

Ben 1838-1890 married Elizabeth KRUEP in Aviston Ill. and their children were:

These notes were the starting point of my search for information on the Stuevers in America. You will see from reading my history on the original Stuevers, that some of these notes may not be accurate. For example the story of the wife perishing in the fire and when the two surviving boys were left at the parish in Aviston. I was also able to find the names of the original Stuevers from the death records of their sons. The facts that I found are written in the next chapter on the original Stuevers.

 

Here is another family history that came from Mayme Piper in May of 1952.

 

"A widowed Mother, 2 sons (Karl and Ben) and daughter, name unknown came from Hanover Germany during 1840's. (guessing at possible time) or there abouts. Landed in Pennsylvania. From there came by boat and landed at St. Louis on the Illinois side.

A group of settlers set out together, felled trees to make a trail through the swamp country, settled 35 miles east of St. Louis in Clinton county in the diocese of Belleville."

 

I did not pursue this version of the history of the family as I know that Ben was born in Illinois in 1838 and my great grandfather Karl was in state by 1836. Therefore she couldn't have been pregnant with Ben at the time she came into the country. From the two boys death records I know they had the same father.

Verification of the family history was started by me in 1989. In August of that year my two brothers and myself drove to Aviston and did some searching of our own by visiting the courthouse, the cemeteries, the churches and talking with people in the area. One of these individuals was my Dad's first cousin Fred Stuever in Breese, Ill. Another was Hilda Buergmann who was at the time trying to get Germantown parish records in some kind of order. Both of them were most helpful.

In addition I have written to and received information from the various parishes in the area but my history is by no means complete. A great deal of the early information comes from notes left to our family by Mayme Piper who was my Dad's first cousin. Additional information was given to me by my Aunt Gertrude and my second cousin Helen HODDY.

I have written this giving each generation of Stuevers a chapter through my generation. It will be up to future generations to add their individual chapters. I only wish that I would have been interested in this twenty years earlier when Mayme was still alive as well as many of her generation. I hope that you find this history interesting and not too confusing. As of December 2000, I have over 900 individuals entered into my family history.

Max A. Stuever

P. O. Box 206
Andale, KS. 67001

 

Great Great Grandparents - Joseph and Maria A. (KIRCKHUFF) Stuever

Their children:

Charles (Karl) Joseph Stuever - Mar 10, 1824 to Nov 6, 1889

John Bernard (Ben) Stuever - Jul 4, 1838 to May 6, 1890

Anna Margaret Stuever - 1842 to January 29. 1879

Unknown daughter or daughters

These were the original Stuevers who came into the country after 1824. They came with their son Charles (Karl) who was my great grandfather. I have been unable to ascertain exactly when they came into the country but know that it had to be after 1824 as that is the birth date of their son Charles and he was born in Germany. His birth place was ascertained from family history and census records showing that he was born in Germany. I found him in the Illinois 1860 and 1870 census and it shows both he and his wife were born in Germany. In December of 2000, I did find a family coming into the country on the ship Clementine in 1835 to the port of Baltimore, Maryland from a web site on the internet. This ship came from the port of Bremen in Germany. The last name of the family is Stuver and his first name is listed as Jobst H. With his family group was himself, two women and three children. Most of these early records are very hard to read and I will have to research this further. He could have brought a sister and her two children.

 

My best guess is that they came into the country around 1835. The family history of Mayme Stuever Piper says that they lived in Pennsylvania a short time and then came by boat to Illinois. From my great grandfather's death certificate it shows that he was a resident of the state for 53 years and since he died in 1889 that meant that he came to Illinois in 1836 when he was 12 years old. His brother Ben was born in Illinois in 1838. In November of 2000, I called the parish at Aviston inquiring about a Margaret Stuever BLAZE who was born in 1842 and died in 1879 and found that her death record listed the same parents as Carl and Ben's records. Her name was on some parish records of baptisms that I had received earlier from the parish as the mother of six children listed. So instead of two boys surviving the fire, there were two boys and girl and possibly the mother.

September 27, 1989 I went through the immigration passenger listing for the port of Philadelphia for the years 1800 to 1906 for the alpha character Stu to Su but did not find any Stuevers listed. These records are listed by alpha characters so if their name was misspelled as Steu then I will need to order that roll of film to see if I can find them coming into the port of Philadelphia. I also ordered the records for the port of New York with the spelling of the last name Stuever but did not find them coming into that port either. I was pretty sure that the original Stuevers came into the port of Philadelphia but now I am not so sure. They could have come into any number of ports on the east coast and I suppose it's possible that they could have come into the port of New Orleans and came up the Mississippi to St. Louis. The rental on the microfilm is $4.00 a roll and this could get expensive. The other problem with the microfilm is that it is very hard to read in some cases and in the course of our investigation, I have found the name spelled, Stuever; STEUVER, STEVER, STUVER, STEINER, STIEVE and STUBER.

Nowhere in the notes of Mayme Stuever Piper does it give us the first names of the original Stuever but I was able to get this from the death records of both sons and the daughter from the parish records. On these records their names were Joseph Charles and Maria A. (Kirckhuff) Stuever. So at least on this point I am sure that I have the names of the original Stuever and approximately when they came into the country.

Mayme's records states that the farm was two miles west of Germantown, called Hanover at the time. I have a note from the 125 year book of the parish that Carl Stuever came into the Aviston area around 1849. I think this may have been the year he was baptized into the church but am still researching this. Since the parish at Aviston was not established till 1864, I think his baptism and marriage as well as early births and deaths in this family were recorded in another parish and that could be Germantown or Breese.

I ordered the 1840 Illinois census and went through it thinking for sure that I would find the family intact in that census. I did not find them listed. This record too was very hard to read and simply listed the head of the household and the ages of each by categories; male under 5, 5 to 10, etc. We went through this census twice and we found three listings of Stevens but the ages do not match up with what we know, so I am certain that these are not Stuevers. I may have found them in the 1850 census as I found a family with the correct individuals (that I know of) but the last name was KEVER. I looked at the original document and the K could be taken for a St. Ages were a little off as were place of birth but this seems to be par for the course looking a old handwritten records. I did find the family in the 1860, 1870 and 1880 census. These records are on file at the main library here in Wichita, Kansas.

Now the mystery deepens about the prairie fire. According to Mayme's notes the Mother and daughter(s) died in the fire. I know from the Germantown centennial book that there was a fire as this is what was written.

"Carl Stuever, grandfather of Joseph Stuever of Aviston, put up a cabin on the prairie west of Germantown and moved there with his family. One day the prairie caught fire and a child of his was burned to death in the flight to a neighboring farm."

From this account the first Stuever's name was Carl but I know his name was Joseph from the death records of his two son and daughter.. The Joseph Stuever listed above was probably Mayme's dad and maybe his grandfather Joseph went by the nickname of Carl as his middle name was Charles. It appears that Carl or Karl was used as a nickname for Charles as it was in the case of my great grandfather whose name was Charles Joseph who went by Carl or Karl. However my grandfather's name was Charles Anthony but he went by the nickname of Charley. In any account I think that the fire in the centennial book is the same one as the fire in the family history.

This information was sent to me by Hilda Bueggerman who is in the process of updating all the Germantown parish records. It was very hard to get complete records from Germantown as everything appeared to be very disorganized. Mrs. Bueggerman says the book was written by a Father BARTILE in 1870 or 1880 when he was pastor in Germantown. This same information was in a copy of an early German publication called "Amerika". Neither mention anything about the mother being killed in the fire which I find very strange as it was fairly common for children to die young back in those times. Mayme's note mentions both mother and daughter(s) being killed in the fire. If the mother was not killed in the fire why would they make up such a story. The following plus the fact that the mother was not listed a killed in the fire is why I believe she survived. In October of 2000 while in Breese Illinois I called Hilda Bueggerman and she is still working with these old records. When I got home I sent her another inquiry and hopefully the records of births and deaths will be a little more complete than they were in 1989.

In the 1860 Illinois census there is a 53 year old Anne living with our great grandfather Carl's family. In the 1870 Illinois census there is a 66 year old Mary living in the same household. Both of these women are about the right age to be this woman killed in the fire and both were born in Germany. Her real name was Maria A. so maybe she went by the name of Mary and Anne. Are these one and the same person? Different names and the ages do not match up but this could be an error on the part of the census taker or people giving names and ages. Even today my oldest sister's name is confusing as we always knew her as Mary Louise before she went into the convent. After she came out we knew her as Annie. Her birth certificate is Anna Marie but her baptismal certificate is listed as Mary Louise.

In November of 2000 I got into a good web site for Clinton County Illinois and have been in communication with a couple of volunteers there. They told me that I am on the right track about the fire and it is very common to find names used as I have found them. There is also a terrible record of name spelling, correct ages and just simply hard to read handwriting documents.

So you see it is possible that this original Stuever mother did not die in the prairie fire. It is possible that she lived with her oldest son's family until she died? Maybe she lost her mind because of the fire and remained an invalid. My Dad's first cousin, Fred Stuever, stated in a letter I received from him that "the old timers from my younger days never spoke of the catastrophic fire and all spoke German. I think in those times she would have been considered dead especially if she lost her mind as a result of the fire and losing a daughter or daughters. To support the theory that she survived the fire I found the following information.

In the 1880 Illinois census there is no mention of this individual living with the Carl Stuever family as there was in the two previous censuses. This would mean that she either died or moved. From the Aviston parish records, it was discovered that an M. E. Stuever died 9-23 -1872. She was 67 years old and therefore born in 1805 which makes her the correct age for the original Stuever. The parish records list her father as H. Joseph KIRCHLOF, so this was her maiden name. This is very close to the maiden name, Kirckhuff, which we have recorded for the original Stuever from the death records of her three children. If this is indeed the mother of my great grandfather she would have been 19 years old when he was born. Of course it possible that it is somebody entirely different and we may never know for sure. We were not able to check the death records at the courthouse on this individual as they did not start keeping death records until 1875, three years after she died so we had to rely on the parish records strictly.

Now what happened to the father? According to the family notes of Mayme Piper, the father took the two surviving boys to the Catholic priest at St. Francis parish in Aviston and asked him to find homes for them. Since the parish at Aviston was not in existence till 1864 and my great grandfather Carl would have been 40 years old, this can't be correct. They were probably taken to the parish at Germantown and the fire was probably around 1843-1845. In 1843 my great grandfather Carl would have been 19 years old and his brother Ben would be 5 years old, and as I found out in November of 2000 there was a little girl who would have been a year of so old. According to Mayme's notes, boys by the age of 12 would have been out on their own working on other family farms. Since there were three children I feel that the older boy was still at home helping the family and not off with another family.

The original Stuevers were Lutherans and since there were no Lutheran churches around the area I can see him wanting to keep them together with a Catholic family while he went to find another home for them. I would like to think that he died before he made it back, although it is entirely possible he deserted the family. I have not been able to find anything on him and since it was early in our American history we may never know what happened to him. I did find on the FamilySearch web site a Jobst H. Stuewer. I think this is the same Jobst H. Stuver I found in the immigration record on a different site. On the FamilySearch site he is shown married to a Anna Maria Kirchhofs and they had four children. Perhaps more than just my great grandfather Carl came over originally with the family or he could have been the only surviving child to come. The dates on the children's records are christening dates and not birth dates so I cannot confirm the oldest child, Carl, as being my great grandfather as they show his christening date as March 21, 1827. The record for Jobst H. however shows that he died and was buried in Germany. So if this is the original Stuever, he returned to Germany and left the family in Clinton County, Illinois.

This pretty well summarizes all the information we have on these original Stuevers. I will continue to search the immigration records to see if I can find where and when they came into the country. I wish the Germantown parish records were more complete.

I do have some information on the other son Ben, but did not make it a part of this narrative. I ran into one of his descendants around 1985 when Mary Jane WEHNER came to Andale to attend a wedding of her friend's son from St. Louis. I was the first Stuever relative she had ever met and we keep in contact. She would be my third cousin.

In November of 2000 I called the parish to inquire as to the birth date of one of Carl and Elizabeth's son, namely Frank. I had him born in 1867 and the family had it as 1866. Since the records are keep chronologically, I am certain that my date of 8-18-1867 is correct. I also inquired about the sponsors and they were Francis Meyer and Margaret Blaze. This last name was another reason for me calling the parish. I wanted to see if they had a funeral record on this person and who her parents were as she was the correct age to be a sister to the two boys who survived the prairie fire. Her parents as listed were the same and she is a sister to Charles Joseph and John Bernard.

The following is a listing of their known children and a record of their children.

Charles Joseph Stuever Mar. 10, 1824 - Nov. 6, 1889

Married

Elizabeth Meier 1836 - Aug. 21, 1924

Mary Stuever Mar. 18, 1856 - Jul. 22, 1939

Anna Stuever Jan. 21, 1857 - Jun. 23, 1880

Henry Gerhard Stuever Apr. 1862 - Oct. 11, 1867

Theodore A. Stuever Feb. 23, 1866 - Feb. 24, 1866

Frank Conrad Stuever Aug. 18, 1867 - May 18, 1940

Joseph Francis Stuever Jan. 26, 1870 - 1944

Charles Anthony Stuever Aug. 31, 1872 - Mar. 25, 1951

John Welhelm Stuever Jun. 21, 1875 - Nov. 30, 1947

Wiulhelmina Anna Stuever Jun. 7, 1879 - Sep. 3, 1883

Mariam Elizabeth Stuever Jan. 7, 1882 - Jan. 16, 1882

I found two more children from the county records but don't know their names. I show Wiulhelmina and Mariam as # 9 and # 10 and the county shows them as # 11 and # 12.

Hopefully the Germantown parish records will be able to fill in the gaps. Birth records at the county level were not kept before 1875.

John Bernard (Ben) Stuever Jul. 4, 1838 - May 6, 1890

Married

Catherine Elizabeth Kruep Apr. 1, 1844 - Jul. 20, 1896

Bernard H. Stuever 1863 - Apr. 19, 1945

Anna Mariam Stuever 1865 - Feb. 13, 1870

Katie Stuever Mar. 23, 1867 - ?

Anna Maria Elizabeth Stuever Nov. 5, 1869 - ?

Henry Stuever Jan. 23, 1872 - ?

Charles Joseph Stuever Apr. 13, 1874 - ?

Matilda Stuever Aug. 27, 1877 - ?

John (Jack) Stuever 1878 - 1974

Anna Margaret Stuever 1842 - Jan. 29, 1879

Married

Francis Blaze (or BLASE) listed both ways in parish records. 1835- Jan. 3, 1880

Maria Elizabeth Blaze 4-20-1866

Anna Elizabeth Blaze 4-28-1868

Catherine Elizabeth Blaze 6-11-1870

Carl Joseph Blaze 11-26-1873

Francis Henry Blaze 10-22-1876

Joanes Henric Blaze 1-24-1879 - 1-25-1879 The mother died four days later.

In looking through the death records of Clinton county on the web, I found a Frank Blaze who died in 1880. I think this is the same as Francis Blaze. The mother died in 1879 and the father in 1880 leaving five children orphan. I did call the parish in Aviston today and verified the death record for Francis Blaze. They are one and the same individual as I had thought. My Dad's cousin Ed Stuever, who was the son of Frank and Mary Stuever, was familiar with the Blaze name when he was growing up around Aviston in the 1920s. These children would have been his dad's first cousins.

The many different ways the Stuever name was spelled as well as the variations in the first names make it most difficult to verify with certainty many of the records. I was surprised that even in the parish records, the Stuever name was spelled correctly in only five of the fifty that I received from them in 1993. Since both grandparents were probably illerate, maybe that not so strange.

 

 

Submitted by:   Max A. Stuever

 



Clinton County Biography Index

Clinton County ILGenWeb Page