Christian Friedrich Gottfried [von] Kamrath born on Christmas Day, 25 December 1835, at Schönwalde, in the Kreis (county/district) of Naugard(t) in the Prussian province of Hinter Pomerania, Germany (since WWII called Mokre, Poland) and christened in the Evangelical [Lutheran] Church of the nearby town of Massow on 3 January 1836. He died on 22 July 1918, at Norfolk in Madison County, Nebraska. He went through life by his middle name of Gottfried and was known in the U.S. as "Gottfried Kamrath." He was the second of three sons of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm von Kamrath, a member of the Prussian Junker class of petty nobility and landed gentry, and his first wife, Charlotte Friedrike Louise Sümnicht. Johann was descended from a junior branch of a line of counts from the province of Brandenburg and whose young sons, one of who, was his forefather, moved east in the late 1600s, after Pomerania was annexed by Prussia, from Sweden.
Gottfried briefly attended the university in Kolberg and studied the natural sciences and later the university in Stettin where he studied law, but never stayed long enough to be awarded a degree. He served in the Prussian Landstrum [local militia] during the Seven Weeks War in 1866, against Austria with the rank of "Freikorporal" [free corporal] meaning he was qualified for the rank of a junior officer, but due to the lack of an open posting in his military unit was given the rank of non-commissioned officer instead.
Gottfried married on 7 February 1859, in the Evangelical [Lutheran] Church in Schönwalde his first wife, Ernestine Wilhelmine "Minnie" Fredrike Rakow (1834-1882).
as the middle son with no chance of inheriting his father sizable farm, because he had an older brother who traditionally would inherit most if not all of his father's estate, Gottfried petitioned the King of Prussia for permission to immigrated to America. This was granted in 1867, when he, his wife, and their first three surviving children voyaged to America aboard the S.S. Teutonia, with his wife's cousin Wilhelm Friedrich August Rakow and his family. They arrived in New York City on 10 May 1867. They traveled by train and covered wagon to Silver Creek Township in Dixon County, Nebraska where Gottfried homesteaded near some of his other Rakow in-laws.
Despite establishing a profitable farm he was no stranger to hardship. He lost three children and his wife to illness and witnessed the great locust plagues of the first half of the 1870s, severe drought in 1877, the great blizzard of January 1888, and various floods and prairie fires over the years. In late 1892, he sold his place and moved to Sioux City, Iowa before returning to Germany. He returned to Germany to visit family sailing from New York City on 23 April 1894, aboard to RMS Umbria to Liverpool. On 12 October 1894, he sailed for America on the SS Scandia returning New York and heading to Sioux City.
So afterwards he when to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he met and married his second wife, Auguste Wilhelmina Friedricke Beckmann (1860-1910) on 10 September 1895, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By 1 August 1896, he and his second wife, Auguste, were residing in the Castro Valley in Eden Township, Alameda County near Hayward. By late 1902, they were living in Alameda in Alameda County, California. At some point in late February 1906, he moved his second family across the bay to San Francisco where he was employed as a builders assistant during the big building boom. While he and his wife and daughter survived the great 1906 San Francisco Quake and subsequent fires, they lost their home and returned across the bay to Alameda to live. His second wife died in 1910, and their daughter Anna died in 1917, (both are buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland) causing Gottfried to return to Nebraska to live with a daughter from his first marriage, Emma (née Kamrath) Bolton, in Bloomfield in Knox County.
However, Emma was forced to put him in the State Hospital in Norfolk in neighboring Madison County where he dead within the year of mental exhaustion. After his death, he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave next to his first wife and three of their children in the Silver Ridge Cemetery outside of Ponca in Dixon County, Nebraska.
He was the father from his first marriage of:
Ernestine Wilhelmine Friedrike [von] Kamrath (1859-1859) who died in Germany,
August Johann Friedrich [von] Kamrath (1861-1877),
Bertha "Berttie" Wilhelmine Louise [von] Kamrath (1863-1887), Ernstene "Tena" Johanna Friedrike [von] Kamrath (1866-1917),
Mary "Nellie" Kamrath (1869-1889),
Emma Katharine (née Kamrath) Bolton (1872-1946) and
Wilhelm "William" Christian Kamrath (1880-1961);
and from his second marriage:
Anna Augusta Friedricke (née Kamrath) Lawton (1897-1917).
Only the children born in Germany before the family voyaged to America borne the "von" as part of their surname. Those children born in the U.S. apparently never had the "von" as part of their names. Of these eight children only Emma and William married and had descendants.
Gottfried briefly attended the university in Kolberg and studied the natural sciences and later the university in Stettin where he studied law, but never stayed long enough to be awarded a degree. He served in the Prussian Landstrum [local militia] during the Seven Weeks War in 1866, against Austria with the rank of "Freikorporal" [free corporal] meaning he was qualified for the rank of a junior officer, but due to the lack of an open posting in his military unit was given the rank of non-commissioned officer instead.
Gottfried married on 7 February 1859, in the Evangelical [Lutheran] Church in Schönwalde his first wife, Ernestine Wilhelmine "Minnie" Fredrike Rakow (1834-1882).
as the middle son with no chance of inheriting his father sizable farm, because he had an older brother who traditionally would inherit most if not all of his father's estate, Gottfried petitioned the King of Prussia for permission to immigrated to America. This was granted in 1867, when he, his wife, and their first three surviving children voyaged to America aboard the S.S. Teutonia, with his wife's cousin Wilhelm Friedrich August Rakow and his family. They arrived in New York City on 10 May 1867. They traveled by train and covered wagon to Silver Creek Township in Dixon County, Nebraska where Gottfried homesteaded near some of his other Rakow in-laws.
Despite establishing a profitable farm he was no stranger to hardship. He lost three children and his wife to illness and witnessed the great locust plagues of the first half of the 1870s, severe drought in 1877, the great blizzard of January 1888, and various floods and prairie fires over the years. In late 1892, he sold his place and moved to Sioux City, Iowa before returning to Germany. He returned to Germany to visit family sailing from New York City on 23 April 1894, aboard to RMS Umbria to Liverpool. On 12 October 1894, he sailed for America on the SS Scandia returning New York and heading to Sioux City.
So afterwards he when to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he met and married his second wife, Auguste Wilhelmina Friedricke Beckmann (1860-1910) on 10 September 1895, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By 1 August 1896, he and his second wife, Auguste, were residing in the Castro Valley in Eden Township, Alameda County near Hayward. By late 1902, they were living in Alameda in Alameda County, California. At some point in late February 1906, he moved his second family across the bay to San Francisco where he was employed as a builders assistant during the big building boom. While he and his wife and daughter survived the great 1906 San Francisco Quake and subsequent fires, they lost their home and returned across the bay to Alameda to live. His second wife died in 1910, and their daughter Anna died in 1917, (both are buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland) causing Gottfried to return to Nebraska to live with a daughter from his first marriage, Emma (née Kamrath) Bolton, in Bloomfield in Knox County.
However, Emma was forced to put him in the State Hospital in Norfolk in neighboring Madison County where he dead within the year of mental exhaustion. After his death, he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave next to his first wife and three of their children in the Silver Ridge Cemetery outside of Ponca in Dixon County, Nebraska.
He was the father from his first marriage of:
Ernestine Wilhelmine Friedrike [von] Kamrath (1859-1859) who died in Germany,
August Johann Friedrich [von] Kamrath (1861-1877),
Bertha "Berttie" Wilhelmine Louise [von] Kamrath (1863-1887), Ernstene "Tena" Johanna Friedrike [von] Kamrath (1866-1917),
Mary "Nellie" Kamrath (1869-1889),
Emma Katharine (née Kamrath) Bolton (1872-1946) and
Wilhelm "William" Christian Kamrath (1880-1961);
and from his second marriage:
Anna Augusta Friedricke (née Kamrath) Lawton (1897-1917).
Only the children born in Germany before the family voyaged to America borne the "von" as part of their surname. Those children born in the U.S. apparently never had the "von" as part of their names. Of these eight children only Emma and William married and had descendants.
Christian Friedrich Gottfried [von] Kamrath born on Christmas Day, 25 December 1835, at Schönwalde, in the Kreis (county/district) of Naugard(t) in the Prussian province of Hinter Pomerania, Germany (since WWII called Mokre, Poland) and christened in the Evangelical [Lutheran] Church of the nearby town of Massow on 3 January 1836. He died on 22 July 1918, at Norfolk in Madison County, Nebraska. He went through life by his middle name of Gottfried and was known in the U.S. as "Gottfried Kamrath." He was the second of three sons of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm von Kamrath, a member of the Prussian Junker class of petty nobility and landed gentry, and his first wife, Charlotte Friedrike Louise Sümnicht. Johann was descended from a junior branch of a line of counts from the province of Brandenburg and whose young sons, one of who, was his forefather, moved east in the late 1600s, after Pomerania was annexed by Prussia, from Sweden.
Gottfried briefly attended the university in Kolberg and studied the natural sciences and later the university in Stettin where he studied law, but never stayed long enough to be awarded a degree. He served in the Prussian Landstrum [local militia] during the Seven Weeks War in 1866, against Austria with the rank of "Freikorporal" [free corporal] meaning he was qualified for the rank of a junior officer, but due to the lack of an open posting in his military unit was given the rank of non-commissioned officer instead.
Gottfried married on 7 February 1859, in the Evangelical [Lutheran] Church in Schönwalde his first wife, Ernestine Wilhelmine "Minnie" Fredrike Rakow (1834-1882).
as the middle son with no chance of inheriting his father sizable farm, because he had an older brother who traditionally would inherit most if not all of his father's estate, Gottfried petitioned the King of Prussia for permission to immigrated to America. This was granted in 1867, when he, his wife, and their first three surviving children voyaged to America aboard the S.S. Teutonia, with his wife's cousin Wilhelm Friedrich August Rakow and his family. They arrived in New York City on 10 May 1867. They traveled by train and covered wagon to Silver Creek Township in Dixon County, Nebraska where Gottfried homesteaded near some of his other Rakow in-laws.
Despite establishing a profitable farm he was no stranger to hardship. He lost three children and his wife to illness and witnessed the great locust plagues of the first half of the 1870s, severe drought in 1877, the great blizzard of January 1888, and various floods and prairie fires over the years. In late 1892, he sold his place and moved to Sioux City, Iowa before returning to Germany. He returned to Germany to visit family sailing from New York City on 23 April 1894, aboard to RMS Umbria to Liverpool. On 12 October 1894, he sailed for America on the SS Scandia returning New York and heading to Sioux City.
So afterwards he when to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he met and married his second wife, Auguste Wilhelmina Friedricke Beckmann (1860-1910) on 10 September 1895, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By 1 August 1896, he and his second wife, Auguste, were residing in the Castro Valley in Eden Township, Alameda County near Hayward. By late 1902, they were living in Alameda in Alameda County, California. At some point in late February 1906, he moved his second family across the bay to San Francisco where he was employed as a builders assistant during the big building boom. While he and his wife and daughter survived the great 1906 San Francisco Quake and subsequent fires, they lost their home and returned across the bay to Alameda to live. His second wife died in 1910, and their daughter Anna died in 1917, (both are buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland) causing Gottfried to return to Nebraska to live with a daughter from his first marriage, Emma (née Kamrath) Bolton, in Bloomfield in Knox County.
However, Emma was forced to put him in the State Hospital in Norfolk in neighboring Madison County where he dead within the year of mental exhaustion. After his death, he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave next to his first wife and three of their children in the Silver Ridge Cemetery outside of Ponca in Dixon County, Nebraska.
He was the father from his first marriage of:
Ernestine Wilhelmine Friedrike [von] Kamrath (1859-1859) who died in Germany,
August Johann Friedrich [von] Kamrath (1861-1877),
Bertha "Berttie" Wilhelmine Louise [von] Kamrath (1863-1887), Ernstene "Tena" Johanna Friedrike [von] Kamrath (1866-1917),
Mary "Nellie" Kamrath (1869-1889),
Emma Katharine (née Kamrath) Bolton (1872-1946) and
Wilhelm "William" Christian Kamrath (1880-1961);
and from his second marriage:
Anna Augusta Friedricke (née Kamrath) Lawton (1897-1917).
Only the children born in Germany before the family voyaged to America borne the "von" as part of their surname. Those children born in the U.S. apparently never had the "von" as part of their names. Of these eight children only Emma and William married and had descendants.
Gottfried briefly attended the university in Kolberg and studied the natural sciences and later the university in Stettin where he studied law, but never stayed long enough to be awarded a degree. He served in the Prussian Landstrum [local militia] during the Seven Weeks War in 1866, against Austria with the rank of "Freikorporal" [free corporal] meaning he was qualified for the rank of a junior officer, but due to the lack of an open posting in his military unit was given the rank of non-commissioned officer instead.
Gottfried married on 7 February 1859, in the Evangelical [Lutheran] Church in Schönwalde his first wife, Ernestine Wilhelmine "Minnie" Fredrike Rakow (1834-1882).
as the middle son with no chance of inheriting his father sizable farm, because he had an older brother who traditionally would inherit most if not all of his father's estate, Gottfried petitioned the King of Prussia for permission to immigrated to America. This was granted in 1867, when he, his wife, and their first three surviving children voyaged to America aboard the S.S. Teutonia, with his wife's cousin Wilhelm Friedrich August Rakow and his family. They arrived in New York City on 10 May 1867. They traveled by train and covered wagon to Silver Creek Township in Dixon County, Nebraska where Gottfried homesteaded near some of his other Rakow in-laws.
Despite establishing a profitable farm he was no stranger to hardship. He lost three children and his wife to illness and witnessed the great locust plagues of the first half of the 1870s, severe drought in 1877, the great blizzard of January 1888, and various floods and prairie fires over the years. In late 1892, he sold his place and moved to Sioux City, Iowa before returning to Germany. He returned to Germany to visit family sailing from New York City on 23 April 1894, aboard to RMS Umbria to Liverpool. On 12 October 1894, he sailed for America on the SS Scandia returning New York and heading to Sioux City.
So afterwards he when to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he met and married his second wife, Auguste Wilhelmina Friedricke Beckmann (1860-1910) on 10 September 1895, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By 1 August 1896, he and his second wife, Auguste, were residing in the Castro Valley in Eden Township, Alameda County near Hayward. By late 1902, they were living in Alameda in Alameda County, California. At some point in late February 1906, he moved his second family across the bay to San Francisco where he was employed as a builders assistant during the big building boom. While he and his wife and daughter survived the great 1906 San Francisco Quake and subsequent fires, they lost their home and returned across the bay to Alameda to live. His second wife died in 1910, and their daughter Anna died in 1917, (both are buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland) causing Gottfried to return to Nebraska to live with a daughter from his first marriage, Emma (née Kamrath) Bolton, in Bloomfield in Knox County.
However, Emma was forced to put him in the State Hospital in Norfolk in neighboring Madison County where he dead within the year of mental exhaustion. After his death, he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave next to his first wife and three of their children in the Silver Ridge Cemetery outside of Ponca in Dixon County, Nebraska.
He was the father from his first marriage of:
Ernestine Wilhelmine Friedrike [von] Kamrath (1859-1859) who died in Germany,
August Johann Friedrich [von] Kamrath (1861-1877),
Bertha "Berttie" Wilhelmine Louise [von] Kamrath (1863-1887), Ernstene "Tena" Johanna Friedrike [von] Kamrath (1866-1917),
Mary "Nellie" Kamrath (1869-1889),
Emma Katharine (née Kamrath) Bolton (1872-1946) and
Wilhelm "William" Christian Kamrath (1880-1961);
and from his second marriage:
Anna Augusta Friedricke (née Kamrath) Lawton (1897-1917).
Only the children born in Germany before the family voyaged to America borne the "von" as part of their surname. Those children born in the U.S. apparently never had the "von" as part of their names. Of these eight children only Emma and William married and had descendants.
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