Stockman Ancestry

DRAFT

The Origin and Family of
Justus Christian Stockman (1771-1826) and Carolina Friederike Reiche (1778-1853)
(3rd Great grandparents of GJF)

George J. Farris – February, 2024

This is a summary for the Stockman/Reiche family based on research conducted over twenty years ago in collaboration with John Edward (Jack) Stockman. It is intended as a concise summary for those who may have an interest in these ancestral lines in the future and is not a detailed genealogical record.

Johann Tobias Stockmann, the father of Justus, was born about 1734 in Germany, was living in Gräfenhausen, Starkenburg, Hesse-Darmstadt, from at least c.1760 to 1773. He married Maria Juliana [.........…] who was born about 1740 in Germany. Their seven children were baptised in the Gräfenhausen Evangelisch Kirche: Christina, Eleonora, and Philippina in 1765, Catharina Elisabetha in 1766, Johann Philip in 1768, Justus Christian in 1771, and Eleonora Dorothea in 1773.

In 1794,twenty-three-year-old Justus Christian Stockmann of Gräfenhausen embarked on the ship "Columbia" at the port of Amsterdam in The Netherlands,and docked on 31 May 1794 at Philadelphia in the United States. He was listed in the ship's manifest.

Carolina was born in 1778 in Brandenburg, Germany, probably at Rheinsberg-Ruppin, the daughter of The Reverend Charles Christopher Reiche and Frederica Catherine Elizabeth Buddee. In 1788, when Carolina was ten years of age, her father traveled to the United States to see whether the family might fare better there than in Germany. Carolina, her eight-year-old sister Louisa, and her five-year-old brother Frederic accompanied their father on the trip. Left behind to await either Charles's return, or his summons for them to join him in America, were Carolina's mother, Frederica, who, with her daughter Wilhelmina, aged thirteen, went to live in Berlin; Carolina's brother Charles, aged nineteen, who was a student at the University of Jena in Germany; and Carolina's sister Johanna, who was aged sixteen and living at Dresden. In Philadelphia, Carolina's father, an ordained minister with a Master of Arts degree, lived in a house on the south side of Cherry Street between Third and Fourth streets where he opened a school in January 1789. In November of the following year, however, Charles became terminally ill and died in late November or early December 1790. At the time of his death, Carolina and Frederic were living at their father's house, but their sister, Louisa, was living with the Reverend Frederick Valentine Melzheimer at McCallisters Town (now Hanover), a village in York County, Pennsylvania, about 100 miles west-southwest of Philadelphia. It seems probable that Carolina continued to live in or near the former residence of her father on Cherry Street, probably with her brother Frederick.

On 7 October 1794, four years after her father's death, at the age of sixteen, Carolina Reiche was married in St Michael's and Zion Lutheran Parish's Zion Church on Fourth Street near Cherry Street, near her father's former residence, to Justus Christian Stockman, M.D., who had just arrived from Germany earlier that year.

On the night of 26 December 1794, three months after Carolina and Justus's wedding, Zion Lutheran Church was destroyed by fire, the event being immortalized in a water colored etching by Carolina's brother, Frederick, who, like his sister, was a member of the congregation.

Following their marriage, Carolina and Justus moved on to the Albany region of New York, where they lived from 1795 to at least 1804, during which time their first four children were born: Juliana Johanna in 1795, Louisa Charlotte in 1797, and Eva Mariana in 1802. In 1804, Justus appears to have moved to Utica, Oneida County, New York, while the rest of the family may have temporarily remained in the Albany area where Carolina's fourth child, Charles William, was born in 1807 and in 1808 was baptised in the Albany area at Centre Brunswick, Rensselaer County. The family then moved to Utica where they remained until 1826. Four additional children were born in Utica: Ann Eliza in 1813, Amelia Henrietta in 1814, Theodore L. in 1816, and Augustus G. in 1820.

In 1804 Dr. Stockman opened a medical practice on Genesee Street just north of Catherine Street in Utica, Oneida County, New York,. His newspaper advertisement in Utica on 9 July 1804 is quoted in a biographical sketch in the 1804 section of a book published in 1877 relating the history of the pioneers of Utica from the first settlement to 1825. Below are excerpts from the sketch. Note that by this time He had dropped the name Justus and was known as Dr. Christian Stockman.

"Dr. Christian Stockman, from Germany, and last from Albany, where he has resided for the last ten years, has opened in Utica on Genesee street, a general assortment of drugs and medicines. He will likewise attend to any calls in the line of his profession as physician, and give advice at his store in all cases, and when requested, visit any patient who may favor him with a call." So runs his advertisement of July 9, 1804. He was installed on the east side of Genesee street, not far from the present Catherine, his family living in the rear and upper part of the building. His written language was passably good, but his spoken English was quite broken. With respect to his literary and scientific acquirements he was decidedly sensitive. He was small in stature, petulant and passionate. Of German oaths the doctor had a full vocabulary, and, when these were exhausted, he would resort to English to finish the anathema. With these traits, it was natural that he was often the sport of mischief-makers too much bent on their own amusement to heed the doctor's offended dignity. . . Although this much has been said to the disparagement of the doctor, it is to be added that he was a regular member of the profession, had some skill in his calling, and enjoyed a good share of public confidence. He was neat in person and in the main correct in deportment. He lived in Utica until after 1820, but taking it in his head that he could make money by conducting a party of Indians to Europe for exhibition, he set out with them. He failed in his expectation and became greatly reduced in means. Weighed down by disappointment, he leaped overboard while on his return, and was lost. His wife came back to Utica and was miserably poor. “

The article in the book is in error regarding the details of his suicide, a more accurate description of his death is given in a newspaper account from 1826. The manner in which he died on 19 May 1826 was recorded in the 3 June 1826 issue of THE BOSTON NEWSLETTER AND CITY RECORD:

“Suicides.---Dr. Christian Stockman, for many years a resident of Albany, and late of Utica, committed suicide by shooting himself through the head with a horseman's pistol, which was loaded with duck shot, on board the steam-boat Sun, on her passage from New-York to Albany, about twenty miles below the city, between the hours of five and six o'clock on the 19th inst. He accomplished the rash act by discharging the pistol through his right ear, while seated upon a settee in the forward cabin, in the presence of a number of passengers, who were wholly unapprised of his intention. The cause is wholly unexplained, but is probably owing to pecuniary embarrassments. There was nothing in the conduct of the deceased, while on board, that indicated a derangement of mind. He was about 60 years of age, and has left a numerous family to deplore his loss.”

At the time of Dr. Stockman’s death two of the living children, Juliana and Louisa, were already married. Charles was 28 but not yet married and returned to Albany, NY. Carolina and the four younger children moved to Newark, New Jersey, to live with Juliana and her husband Derrick Lynch. Louisa and her husband, Rufus Rowley, remained in Oneida County, NY. In 1827 Charles married Jane Ten Eycke in Albany and sometime after that they moved to a farm near Piscataway, NJ. In 1830 Amelia married Robert Nicol in Newark ( they were my gr.gr.grandparents) and Ann Eliza returned to New York and married Truman Fox. There are no specific records regarding the two younger boys, Theodore and Augustus, but we believe that they lived with the family of Charles and Jane Stockman after they moved to NJ. Carolina remained with Juliana’s family in Newark until 1840 and then returned to Utica, NY for two years, apparently living with the Rowleys. From church records she was dismissed by letter from the First Presbyterian Church of Newark and received at Utica First Presbyterian Church in July, 1841. In June, 1843 she was dismissed from the Utica church and received at First Congregational Church in Rome, NY. She may have lived with the Rowleys there or with Ann Eliza and Truman Fox. In 1850 she returned to Newark, NJ.

Meanwhile, in about 1834, Amelia and Robert Nicol and their family moved from Newark to Dearbornville, Michigan where Robert worked as a stone mason in construction of the Dearborn Arsenal. At the same time, Charles and Jane Stockman also moved their family to a farm south of Dearbornville in Brownstown Township. We assume that Theodore and Augustus also moved there along with them and remained there for several years before both moved to Toledo, Ohio. Theodore married Jane Ellsworth in 1840 in Detroit, MI and was a cabinet maker and an undertaker in Toledo. Augustus married Dilegena (Dilly) Wintemute in 1851 in Toledo and later became a silver plater. The families of bothTheodore and Augustus remained in the Toledo, Ohio area for the rest of their lives. Sometime around 1849 Ann Eliza and Truman Fox moved to St. Joseph County, Indiana. By 1860 they were in adjoining LaPorte County, Indiana,

In 1850 Robert Nicol died in Dearbornville. Amelia and her three surviving children moved to Indiana and lived for a short while with the Fox family before moving to a farm in LaPorte County. At about the same time Charles and Jane Stockman moved to Toledo, Ohio. Carolina then moved from New Jersey to Toledo, Ohio where she apparently lived with Theodore and his family for the next three years. In 1853 Amelia remarried to David C. Elliott, a widower with four children in LaPorte County, Indiana, and they then moved to Kane County, Illinois near Aurora.

In November, 1853 Carolina Friederike Reiche Stockman died at the home of her son Theodore in Toledo, Ohio. A death notice in a Toledo newspaper stated:

“DIED. In this city, of inflammation of the lungs, CAROLINE STOCKMAN, formerly of the city of Newark, N.J., aged 75. She was for 40 years a most worthy member of the Presbyterian Church. Her funeral will take place to-morrow at 2 o'clock P.M., at the house of T. L. Stockman.”

After her death the Charles Stockman family moved to Indiana and then joined Amelia and her family in Illinois for about two years and then both families moved to Bremer County, Iowa in 1855.

At the time of the move of Amelia’s family to Iowa her oldest living son, Alexander Francis Nicol, was 20 years old. The next year, in 1856, Alexander married Martha Watts in Bremer County, Iowa, and they remained there for the rest of their lives. They were my great grandparents. Their daughter, Henrietta Amelia (Etta) Nicol Farris, obviously named after her grandmother, was my grandmother.

The Charles Stockman family remained in Iowa for just a few years before moving to St. Joseph, Missouri before 1860. They later moved back to McHenry County, Illinois for several years and by 1874 on to Denver, Colorado. After Jane died in Denver in 1880 Charles moved back to Toledo, Ohio where he apparently lived with his daughter Sarah Jane Andrews. In 1862 the family of Amelia and David Elliott (with the exception of Alexander Nicol) began a migration to the west in two covered wagons drawn by oxen. The story of their migration over the next two years was documented in 1894 in a series of articles in the Hamilton, Montana, newspaper written by Robert W. Nicol, son of Amelia. In summary, they started out with the intention of going to Oregon, stopped for a period at Fort Bridger in the Utah Territory where the older boys worked for the Ben Holiday stage coach company, returned to Fort Collins, Colorado for most of a year, then headed north toward Virginia City, Montana. During 1864 they took contracts to build two stage coach stations in Montana and then went over the mountains to the Bitterroot Valley stopping near current day Hamilton, MT. They settled there and remained for the rest of their lives.

Charlotte had died in 1849 in NY, Juliana died sometime after 1850 in Newark, NJ, Theodore died in 1881 in Toledo, Ohio, and Augustus sometime after 1881 in Toledo.

Before 1870 Truman Fox had died in Indiana and Ann Eliza lived with her daughter Frances Stockman and her children in LaPorte County, Indiana. Ann Eliza later also moved to the Bitterroot Valley in Montana near Amelia where she lived adjacent to her grandson, Elmer Stockman, who had migrated to Montana earlier. (Note: Elmer was one of the children of Frances Fox, daughter of Ann Eliza, and Frances’s first cousin Isaac Stockman, son of Charles and Jane. This was just one of the SEVEN identified marriages of Isaac Stockman.)

Amelia died at the home of her daughter Caroline in Missoula, MT on November 21, 1884. Ann Eliza died on September 8, 1890 in Missoula, MT. The last living member of the family of Justus and Carolina Stockman was Charles W. Stockman. After his wife Jane died in Denver, Colorado Charles returned to Toledo, Ohio where he died on March 7, 1893.

Summary of the Children and Grandchildren of JUSTUS STOCKMAN and CAROLINA REICHE:

JULIANA JOHANNA "JULIA ANN" STOCKMAN, born 24 December 1795, Albany County, New York; died after 1860, married Derrick Lynch.

LOUISA CHARLOTTE STOCKMAN, born 1797, Albany County, New York; died September 1849, Ulster County, New York, married Rufus Rowley.

EVA MARIANA STOCKMAN, born 1802, Albany County, New York, and was christened on 13 February 1803 at the First Lutheran Church of Albany, Albany County, New York. She apparently died young.

CHARLES WILLIAM STOCKMAN, born 4 December 1807, New York, probably in Albany County; died 7 March 1893, Toledo, Lucas County, Ohio, married Jane Ten Eycke.

Children
Isaac Stell Stockman – 1827
Sarah Jane Stockman – 1833
Catherine B. Stockman – 1836
Charles A. Stockman – 1844
Edward D. Stockman - 1846

ANN ELIZA STOCKMAN, born about 1813, Utica, Oneida County, New York; died 8 September 1890, Missoula County, Montana, married Truman Fox.

AMELIA HENRIETTA STOCKMAN, born about 1814, Utica, Oneida County, New York; died 2 November 1884, Missoula, Montana, married Robert Nicol and, after his death, married David C. Elliott. She was buried in Riverview Cemetery, Hamilton, Ravalli County, Montana.

Children
James Nicol – 1831
Munroe Knowles Nicol – 1833
Alexander Francis Nicol – 1835
Caroline Augusta Nicol – 1841
Amelia Henrietta Nicol – 1846
Robert William Nicol – 1847
David Catlin Elliott, Jr. - 1854
Clara Ella Elliott - 1858

THEODORE L. STOCKMAN, born 1816, Utica, Oneida County, New York, died 7 October 1881, Toledo, Lucas County, Ohio, married Jane Ellsworth.

Children
Richard L. Stockman -1843
Ellen L. Stockman – 1853
Charles Ellsworth Stockman - 1867

AUGUSTUS G. STOCKMAN, born 1820, Utica, Oneida County, New York; died after 1881, Lucas County, Ohio, married Delegena (Dilly) Wintemute.

Children
James Stockman – 1852
William G. Stockman – 1855
Jane Stockman – 1859
Jenney Stockman – 1861
Edwin Stockman - 1862

The only one of the children of Justus and Carolina Stockman whose burial place is known and marked is Amelia Henrietta Stockman Nicol Elliott. There is a Find A Grave memorial for her at: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/48224582/amelia_henrietta_elliott This memorial is maintained by Russ Anderson, a descendant of one of the children of Amelia’s second husband David C. Elliott, and his first wife, but I provided the biographical summary for Amelia’s memorial to Russ.