_John BOSLOW ________________+
| (1787 - 1848) m 1812
_Thomas Condon BOSLOW _|
| (1828 - ....) m 1853 |
| |_Mary Stewart CONDON ________+
| (1795 - 1880) m 1812
|
|--Ernest BOSLOW
| (1863 - 1944)
| _Rodolphus Donaldus DERRICK _+
| | (1793 - 1860) m 1817
|_Paulina DERRICK ______|
(1829 - 1896) m 1853 |
|_Lorinda SHELDON ____________+
(1797 - 1874) m 1817
line 37 household #40
Boslaw, Thomas C, age 52 farmer Canada VA New Brunswick
Pauline 50 wife keep house NY VT NY
Clarence 24 son farmer OH Canada NY
Minnie 22 dau public school teacher OH " NY
Ernest 17 son farmer WI " NY
Derrick, Levi F. 24 nephew farmer WI NY Canada
Fay, Reuben A. 32 farmer MI NY NY
Lucy 25 wife keep house MI NY MI
Linda 3 dau NE MI MI
Alice 2 dau NE MI MI
_Wendel BRITZIUS ____
| (1546 - 1618) m 1600
_Johannes BRITZIUS __|
| (1602 - ....) m 1627|
| |_Elizabeth __________
| (1580 - ....) m 1600
|
|--Johann Nicklaus BRITZIUS
| (1628 - 1712)
| _Johannes WEBER _____+
| | (1578 - 1634) m 1598
|_Anna WEBER _________|
(1602 - 1670) m 1627|
|_Elizabeth __________
(1575 - ....) m 1598
__
|
_Richard BULLOCK ____|
| (1219 - ....) m 1249|
| |__
|
|
|--Gilbert BULLOCK
| (1250 - ....)
| __
| |
|_____________________|
|
|__
_____________________
|
_Peter William GAWNE ____|
| (1807 - 1877) |
| |_____________________
|
|
|--Ellen GAWNE
| (1835 - ....)
| _Thomas MARTINDALE __
| | (1759 - 1843) m 1792
|_Electa Joan MARTINDALE _|
(1806 - 1864) |
|_Lucy BENNETT _______
(1772 - ....) m 1792
_____________________
|
_Living__________________|
| |
| |_____________________
|
|
|--Israel MORRISON
|
| _Living______________
| |
|_Anne Virginia MORRISON _|
(1953 - ....) |
|_Shirley BLANCHER ___+
(1923 - ....) m 1944
[724]
John George Nicklas 1806 - 1884 and
Anna Catherine Betsch 1809 - 1889
February 23, 2007
Dear Children
Tonight I will tell you about the Nicklas Family. Anna Adelaide Nicklas was Nana's mother. She married William Wesley White on March 16, 1899 in Platteville, Wisconsin. This is the story of her people.
The first Nicklas ancestors that we know of were John George and Anna Catherine Betsch Nicklas. They were first cousins, born in Leonabach, Hessen, Darmstadt, John George Nicklas on July 2, 1806 and Anna Betsch on August 9, 1809. From 1567 to 1806, the year John was born, Hesse-Darmstadt was a state in the Holy Roman Empire. From 1806 until 1918, after the Holy Roman Empire dissolved, the area was called the Grand Duchy of Hesse, It was a member of the German Confederation and then the German Empire. From 1918 to 1945 it was called the Peoples' State of Hesse and it was a state of Germany during the Weimar Republic. It's located in west central Germany near Frankfurt.
In Germany John was a hooked rug designer. He and Catherine came to Pennsylvania in 1832 and were married in 1833. Their first three children, Peter Benjamin, Elizabeth, and John were born there in Cumberland County. Baby John died before he was eleven months old. By the time their next baby was born in June of 1839 they had left Pennsylvania and moved to Monroe County, Illinois, along with the mother of either John or Anna. We can see her listed on the 1840 census, but only by age, not by name. Monroe County borders the Mississippi River down in southern Illinois. John and Anna really wanted a John in their family so when the next baby turned out to be another boy, they again named the baby John. They had four children during the ten years they lived in Illinois; after the 2nd John came Catharina, George, and William. Then they put all their belongings on a boat and came up the Mississippi River to Wisconsin. First they settled in Lafayette County where Carolina was born, and then they moved to Grant County where their last child, Jacob was born in 1851. They lived and farmed in the township of Georgetown for thirty years. When they were very old they moved into Platteville and they died there, John on 2 December 1884 and Anna on 5 January 1889.
We know a great deal about the descendants of John and Anna Nicklas because of their granddaughter, Sophia Driskill of Yukon, Oklahoma. During the last ten years of her life she worked on compiling information on all the Nicklas descendants she could find. Before she died she sent me a copy of her work, titled Nicklas Family History. She also wrote me a number of letters over the years and they are printed in the sources for John George Nicklas. Two of their sons died as a result of their Civil War service. Baby John died in infancy. From the remaining six children they had 29 grandchildren.
I am calling them John and Anna. However, they may have been called George and Catherine. Many Germans immigrants seem to have had a peculiar custom of giving their children a first name and a middle name and then calling them by the middle name. On the 1840, 1850, and 1860 census he is George, she is Catherine (except that only the head of the family, usually male, is listed before 1850.) On the 1880 census he is John G. and she is Anna C.
On the last page of her book Sophia has a list of "Nicklas Characteristics." How many of these can you see in your mom's family?
tall and slender
slow
religious
neat
stingy with money
queer in some ways
stomach trouble
curvature of the spine
Also senile
Many teachers and doctors
not talkative
Poor business people
Doesn't sound like your mom to me! Maybe your grandpa.
Among John and Anna's descendants were many teachers and doctors, so I don't think when she said "slow" she was talking about brain power. I found one who was an English professor right here in Madison while we've been living here and we didn't even know it. That was Irving Kreutz (b. 1917). It bothered Sophia that along with brilliance, the family seemed to have a dark side. Sophia thought perhaps it was because of George and Anna being first cousins. Nowadays its against the law for first cousins to marry because there is a greater risk of having babies with abnormalities, but it used to be quite common. We have a good number of marriages between first cousins in our family tree besides John and Anna. One time when Sophia said to a cousin that she wished she had known more about her grandparents the cousin replied, "You would NOT want to KNOW about them." (See Sophia Driskill Letters G and H) There were a number of cases of mental illness and at least two suicides among their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.. Sophia thought those cases were due to their having been cousins. We will never know for sure.
Now I'm going to tell you a little bit about each of John and Anna's nine children.
John and Anna Nicklas's first child was Peter Benjamin Nicklas, born 5 July 1834 in Blue Ridge, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He is our ancestor. More about him later.
John and Anna Nicklas's second child was Elizabeth Nicklas, born 13 February 1836 in Blue Ridge, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth grew up and married Leonard VonBerg who was born in Germany. They had one son that was a doctor, and another was a dentist. The third died in a dormitory fire when he was at college. They also had tthree daughters. Some of their descendants lived in Iowa.
John and Anna Nicklas's third child was John Nicklas, born 5 October 1837 in Blue Ridge, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He died in infancy.
John and Anna Nicklas's fourth child was John Nicklas, born 26 June 1839 in Monroe County, Illinois. He married Amelia Kreutz in 1870 in Wisconsin. Amelia's brother, George Kreutz, married John's sister, Carolina Nicklas. John and Amelia had six children, two boys and four girls, with many descendants in Iowa. Their youngest daughter committed suicide by throwing herself down a well.
John and Anna Nicklas's fifth child was Catharina Nicklas, born 1 January 1842 in Monroe County, Illinois. She married Sam Linderman on 25 February 1870. They had two adopted children. It was reportedly an unhappy marriage.
John and Anna Nicklas's sixth child was George Nicklas, born 10 October 1845 in Monroe County, Illinois. George was a private in Co. K of the 47th Wisconsin infantry in the Civil War. He died of Tuberculosis several years after the war ended. Many Civil War soldiers suffered from TB. Over 6,000 died during the war and countless others, including George and his brother Jacob, succumbed after they returned home.
John and Anna Nicklas's seventh child was William Nicklas, born 9 February 1847 in Monroe County, Illinois. He married Emma Schlick in 1876. They settled in Floyd County, Iowa and had seven children, the youngest of whom was Nicklas family historian, Sophia Nicklas Driskill. Many of their descendants lived in Iowa.
John and Anna Nicklas's eighth child was Carolina Nicklas, born 24 June 1848 in Lafayette County, Illinois. She married George Kreutz in 1868. GeorgeKreutz and Amelia Kreutz, John Nicklas's wife, were brother and sister. George and Caroline had six children. The youngest, Earnest, was seven feet tall and committed suicide.
John and Anna Nicklas's ninth child was Jacob Nicklas, born 3 November 1851 in Georgetown, Wisconsin Sophia says Jacob served in the Civil War but I haven't found his record. If he did he would have had to do so as a very young teenager. He died in 1873 of Tuberculosis.
So that's the story of our immigrant Nicklas ancestors from Leonabach, Hesse, Darmstadt.
Here is how you're related to John George and Anna Catherine Betsch Nicklas: They had a son Peter, Peter had a daughter Addie, Addie had a daughter Helen White, Helen had Paul Stevens, Paul had Dawne, and Dawne had Sarah, Becky, Timmy, and Hannah!
Hooray for John and Anna! (Or George and Catherine.)
Love
Granny
I don't know how much you know about the Nicklas family. My father spoke very little about them. They left quite a sum of money to the children in the will. Our cousin found the will in a trunk. - Sophia Driskill Letter A
Geo. Nicklas age 44 b. Ger
Catharine " 42 "
Peter " 16 Penn
Elizabeth " 14 "
John " 11 Ill
Catharine " 8 "
Geo. " 6 "
Wm. " 4 "
Caroline " 2 Wisc
Line 34
George Nicklas age 54 Farmer real value $3000 personal $725 b. Hesse Darmstadt
Catharine 52 "
John 21 IL
Catherine 18 "
George, Jr 16 "
William 16 "
Caroline 12 WI
Jacob8"
Line 46
Nichols, John G. age 73 aged retired b. Hesse, Darmstadt f.b. Hesse m.b. Hesse
Anna C. 72 at home " " "
George Nickles
Males under 5 - 1
5 & under 10 - 1
30 & under 40 - 1
Females under 5 - 1
30 & under 40 - 1
70 & under 80 - 1
Line 1
Nickolas, George age 64 Farmer Real-$7,800 Personal-$800 b. Hesse Darmstadt
Catherine 61 Keeping House "
Jacob 18 helps on Farm WI
Wisconsin Deaths, 1820-1907
about John G Nicklas
Name: John G Nicklas
Death Date: 02 Dec 1884
County: Grant
Volume: 01
Page #: 0116
Reel: 030
Image: 0302
Index Volume: -
ImageNum: 103826
Sequence #: 277934
Level Info: Wisconsin Vital Records Death Index.