No, this isn’t an ancient essay I’ve resurrected from a long ago literature class. It’s the tapestry I’ve created about the Rivers’ great-great grandmother. Some of it is my imagination at work; it should be clear when I’m speculating about how things might have been. But the framework is based on documents whose accuracy is not questioned.
In telling this story I have two goals. One is pay homage to our ancestors. The other is to successfully argue, using evidence, that the woman who married Morand Bushu was in fact Maria Ana Müller, daughter of a German immigrant and his wife. I do have one huge caveat for the reader: while the odds against Maria Ana Müller being Mary Ann Miller Bushu are incredibly small, they are not zero. I do not have a document that unequivocally names Mary Ann’s parents.
The principle actors in this drama were identified in an 1822 will written by a 25-year-old man who was dying. He was widowed and had an infant daughter for whom the will made provisions. In his will he named his parents, his guardian, his in-laws, and his daughter. The dying man was Johannes Müller; the infant was Maria Ana. This will gave me my first break in the search for Mary Ann Miller. Here is the story, as best as I can determine.
Let me preface this narrative with two small tales. The first is mine. At some point while I was still living at home, mother told me that one of her ancestors was the daughter of a duke/count/nobleman in Europe (I think she said Germany but my memory of this is very fuzzy), that she had fallen in love with the chauffeur and run off with him. Her father cut her out of her will.
The second tale is reported in a brief biographical piece on James Bushu, Herbert Bushu’s uncle. James reported that his mother (Mary Ann Miller Bushu) was the orphan granddaughter of a German count and that she had been swindled out of her inheritance.
The two tales, if you ignore the absurdity of the chauffeur in the 1800s, seem to share an underlying theme: someone was born into wealth but didn't inherit it.
Our story starts in Göppingen, Wurttemberg, Germany on January 9, 1797 when a baby boy is born to Johan Leonhard Müller and Eva Maria Ott. The baby is named Johannes (spelled Johanes in the will), and because he is raised by a court administrator named Ludwig Schafer, I assume that his parents died when he was young. There is evidence that suggests the family was wealthy, but so far I’ve been unsuccessful finding them. Johannes emigrated to America in March of 1817, with the permission of Herr Schafer. UPDATE: I have found German records for both Johan Leonhard and Eva Maria Ott, confirming the birth of their child and their early deaths. Their story will be another essay.
We don’t know why he left, especially since he enjoyed some wealth in Göppingen, but a look at the history of the area gives clues. Johannes was born during the Napoleanic Wars, which caused upheavals throughout the region. At the time of the French Revolution (1789), Württemberg was a duchy in the Holy Roman Empire; when Württemberg threw in with Napoleon in 1806, it became a kingdom. It also saw its population reduced by over 15,000 men who were sent to fight with the French in Prussia and Russia. In 1813, Frederick II, king of Württemberg, abandoned Napoleon and joined the German Confederation. I can't imagine this was met with sanguinity by many people. Militarily and politically, this would have been a volatile region; leaving may have been more like escape.
It's also worth noting that 1816-1817 were the years without summer. Mt. Tambora blew in 1815 and the consequence for agriculture was dramatic. Famine was wide-spread. In Switzerland, families were paid to leave, reducing the strain on the towns for feeding the starving. I know that in the Haut Rhin, deaths sky-rocketed, which may have driven people to emigrate.
Meanwhile a little girl named Anna was baptized on May 18, 1799 in Birndorf, Waldshut, Germany, a small town about 120 miles southwest of Göppingen, also part of the kingdom of Württemberg. She was the first child born to Joseph Herholzer and Helena Reinhardt Herholzer. She was followed by Elisabeth in 1801, Magdalena in 1806, Johannes Baptista in 1808, Marie Ursule in 1812 and an infant who died at birth in 1815. Sometime between the death of the last child and 1819, perhaps responding to the pressures of war and famine, Helena and Joseph packed up the family and left for America.
It doesn’t appear that Joseph was a man of means; in 1819 he bought 15 acres of land (contrast this with Michael Bourgeois’ land purchase a month after arrival of 80 acres). In 1828 his 15 acres and the house were worth $83. Even by 1820 standards, he was not a wealthy man.
And now it gets messy. We know that on August 22, 1820, Johannes Müller and Anna Herholzer got married (they Americanized their names for their wedding: They were John Miller and Ann Harhalsey). We know that in September of 1822, when Johannes wrote his last will, he was a widower with an infant daughter, Maria Ana. And we know that in the 1820 census, Jacob Hesholser had in his household one female under 10, one female 10-15, one male 10-16 and two adults, Joseph and his wife. (I don’t know for sure that Jacob Hesholser is Joseph. However, no Jacob ever appears in later censuses, and we KNOW Joseph is in Perry County in 1819 because he buys land then. In the absence of anyone else, it looks like Jacob and Joseph are the same man.) One person in the family is a naturalized citizen which means someone was born in the United States. Huh!
We also know that Anna was married in August of 1820, and that Elisabeth Herholzer married her first husband, John Downhour in 1821 (exact date unknown). Finally, we can’t find Marie Ursule at any point after her birth; I think she probably died, perhaps before leaving Germany (I doubt this; I think it would have appeared in the German church records. But I don’t know for sure.) Assuming this is Joseph Herholzer, how are we to read this census?
The 1820 census had multiple problems, starting with a delay in completing the enumeration until September 1821. Enumerator training varied widely in thoroughness and accuracy. And we know that Joseph and his family were recent immigrants who spoke German. It would have been good if the enumerator could speak German, but the Irish were also a huge ethnic group in the area, and it would take serious organization skills to ensure that the enumerator and respondent languages matched. To complicate this more, many of the area's German speakers were from Alsace, where the language was Alsatian, a dialect of German. I think understanding all the new settlers was pretty challenging. And Perry County was newly settled with limited amenities. The enumerator's job could not have been easy under any circumstance, but under these? Oy!
Perhaps when the census-taker appeared at the Herholzer household, he didn’t arrive until well into 1821. He got the name wrong. The respondent didn’t understand, or wasn’t told, that he should be counting people in the household as of Aug 7, 1820. So the record shows the people who were in the household when the enumerator showed up. John Baptiste and Magdalena were unmarried; they would have been there. Elizabeth has married and is gone. Marie Ursule is dead. And Anna? She is married, probably dead as well, and her infant daughter is the "under ten" female in the house. Maria Ana was born in the US; she's the naturalized citizen.
I don’t like having to manipulate the data this much, so I’m not happy with this explanation, though I must admit it is both plausible and reasonably parsimonious. I am saved by the fact that in the larger scheme of things, this doesn’t matter. We don’t need the census to confirm the people, their children, or the locale; we have an extensive trail of official papers to tell us that. The census won’t get me the information I badly need: Maria Ana’s birth, Anna’s death, Marie Ursule’s fate, Johannes’ death, and clear data that tell me who the parents of Mary Ann Miller Bushu were.
Back to our story.
Joseph’s fifteen acres were on the edge of Somerset. According to the 1820 census, he worked in agriculture. I don’t know if this means he actually farmed or if he worked in a supportive role. Part of his household in 1820 were five 14-21 free males of color. Who they were and why they were there is a mystery to me. However, every household in Reading township in 1820 had at least two young men of color.
Johannes Muller, with or without Anna, is invisible in the 1820 census. We know he was THERE; he got married, had a baby, lost his wife, wrote his will, and died. But I don’t know if he was in a rooming house, living with a relative, in his own place (though I should be able to find tax records or a property deed; he doesn’t mention any local property in his will so I’m guessing he’s living with some family. But it doesn’t appear to be the Herholzers.)
In his will, Johannes placed Maria Ana in the care of his in-laws, Joseph Hierholzer and Helena Reinhardt Hierholzer. Maria Ana was to have all his property in Europe, property that he did not own but had a right to for his lifetime. I’m not sure just how property that he had a right to in his lifetime could be conveyed to his daughter, and this could explain how she was “swindled” out of her inheritance.
It appears that the terms of his will were met. In 1830 there was a 5-10 year old male living with the Herholzers. Since there was no child of theirs or of their married daughters who would meet this description, my presumption is this was Maria Ana. In the next seven years, as Elizabeth Herholzer Rudy and John Baptiste Herholzer had children, Mary Ann Miller appeared as godmother in the children’s baptisms. In the last one, that of Eleanor, daughter of John Baptiste Herholzer and Hester Snook, Mary Ann Miller’s co-sponsor was “Morant Burschuas.” Six months after the baptism of John and Hester’s child, on Feb. 28, 1838, a woman named Mary Ann Miller and Morand Bushu marry. I'm convinced this was Johannes Müller's baby girl.
In 1843, after having two sons, Mary Ann and Morand finally had a daughter. She was Emily in the baptismal record, but the date and the names of the parents tell us this was undeniably Ellen. Ellen’s godmother was Helen Reinhardt Herholzer. In many old naming traditions, babies are named for the baby’s grandparent. It is fitting that Mary Ann’s first daughter was named for the woman who was her “mom," if, in fact, Mary Ann is MariaAna.
One other small hint: When Morand's daughter Cecilia takes her vows as a Sister of Providence the name she chooses is . . . Helena.
What I love about this series of baptisms is the powerful sense of a close family. All three of the Herholzer children, as well as Joseph and Helena, served as godparents to one another’s children. And this closeness extends beyond family. I have read almost all the baptisms performed in St. Joseph and Holy Trinity churches; Elizabeth and her parents appear over and over again in the lives of their neighbors. Magdalena, who married Samuel Dean and became Mary, appears less frequently and then disappears entirely. I think they move away. But Elizabeth and her second husband Rudolph Rudy stay put, along with John Baptiste and Hester, having children and celebrating the milestones of their lives.
Shortly after Mary Ann and Morand were married, Joseph Herholzer died (1839). In his will and a codicil, both written before Mary Ann married, he mentions his beloved granddaughter Marie Anna, daughter of his beloved daughter Anna. In his will he leaves Mary Ann a half share of his estate. In his codicil, he says that that inheritance has been fulfilled. He did not provide any specifics so we are left wondering if he removed her from his will because he was unhappy with her (thus explaining James’ contention that she was “swindled). Or perhaps he settled some money on her in anticipation of her marriage. I doubt we’ll ever know.
John Baptiste Herholzer died in 1845 (I assume his wife Hester predeceased him) and his five children were scattered among relatives; two of them were living with Helena in the 1850 census. At seventy something, she was still raising her grandchildren.
In the 1860 census, Helena Herholzer was living with Michael Bushu who was Morand’s first cousin. I’m not sure why Helena was not with her granddaughter, but we can ask the same question about why she wasn’t with her daughters. Perhaps Michael had more room (there were 11 people living in Morand’s very small log cabin), or lived near people she was close to or lived near the church. Perhaps she changed homes every six months and happened to be with Michael when the enumerator appeared. Regardless, all the evidence strongly suggest the Herholzers and the Bushus were close.
In September 1865 shortly after the birth of her eighth daughter and eleventh child, and the marriage of her first daughter, Ellen (to Samuel Mattingly), Mary Ann Miller Bushu died. She was 44. She lost her mother and father in infancy, married at 17, lost her grandfather (who helped raised her) at 18, bore eleven children in 27 years while living in one of the smallest houses you can imagine. As a farm wife, her responsibilities, shared with her children I’m sure, were enormous: the family’s food, clothes, and health depended upon her. Her days would have been long and hard, tending the fires, gardens, milk cows, chickens; sewing, fixing wounds, emptying slop jars, canning, pickling, and otherwise preserving food for the winter, cooking, cleaning, wiping noses and butts. And she did this while either pregnant or nursing. I know these early pioneer families drew strength and solidarity, as well as good times, from the church and community. I hope that was true for Mary Ann.
Everything in this document is supported with strong, unquestionable evidence, everything, that is, except the names of Mary Ann Miller Bushu’s parents. It is my belief that the material presented here showing repeated family connections over a long period of time is powerful argument that her Mom and Dad were Johannes Müller and Anna Herholzer. I hope my readers agree.
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