It was
on this date 140 years ago, January 30, 1877, an epochal event in my family history occurred--one set of my great grandparents, Martin Hovel and Amelia Duscheck were joined in the sacrament of holy matrimony. In early 1877 the U. S. Congress would settle the 1876
election, the most contentious election in U.S. history; yes, even more
contentious than that of 2016. That
resolution would bring about an end to the Reconstruction policy that followed the Civil War. The end of Reconstruction would see the
Democratic Party take control of most of the south and bring about Jim Crow
laws that continue to effect the nation.
It would also be the start of the Gilded age, when in less than a
generation the American economy doubled, when names like Rockefeller, Morgan
and Carnegie would be as common in a household at that time as Gates, Musk, and Bezos are to us
today. This post, and perhaps another one
or two (I am making this up as I type, with no grand scheme) will provide
information on my great grandparents and the life they lived. History is but a combination of stories, and
this is one small story, probably inconsequential in the large mosaic that is
our American historical journey that seemingly is as dynamic as it is static.
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| Baptismal/birth Record of Martin Hovel Source: digi.ceskearchivy.cz See the notation starting in column two regarding issuance of a duplicate certificate in the matter of immigration to America |
To say that times were different 140 years ago would be an understatement. A tweet was what
the train did upon its pulling out of, or its arrival in town. Personal transportation was by foot, or
horse. Yet, as noted in the first
paragraph, similarities exist between two very different eras. What is
important to me is not so much the grand events of the time, but the
experiences and life of that one family started by the union of marriage on
this day 140 years ago. Martin Hovel
entered this earth in a home-barn combination on 11 November 1850 in southern
Bohemia, part of the Czech Republic, in a small village known as Dolni
Chrastany, and in fact it was in building number 18. It was
the same home in which his father, and grandmother were born. With his parents and siblings he would immigrate to Wisconsin in 1868, arriving in Baltimore, MD, aboard the ship Baltimore. He would be part of the immigrant labor that
would break the deep sod of the American Midwest and in so doing assist in the
economic growth of the nation. He was
part of the agricultural expansion of this nation. The Hovel family first
farmed land in the town of Jefferson, according to the 1870 census. According
to an 1872 plat map, Martin’s father, Josef, owned, and with the aid of his children,
farmed 80 acres near Fort Atkinson, in the town of Koshkonong. This Farm would be sold to George Kachel, a
brother-in-law of Martin’s, who married Rose Hovel in 1882, the only family
member to remain in Wisconsin.
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| 1872 Plat Map of Town of Koshkonong Showing Josef Hovel land (Haffell) Source: Wisconsin Historical Society Archives |
Amelia Duscheck, was a day shy of here
eighteenth birthday when she wed Martin on that unusually warm late January
day, with high temperatures recorded in the low 40’s. Amelia was born in the Town of Milford, in
Jefferson County, Wisconsin, just outside of Watertown. Her father was Josef Duscheck. Her mother,
Rosalie, was Josef’s second wife. A second spouse after the death of the first wife appears fairly common in that era, after all there were children to raise, and women, like today, did much work to allow the family to function. Josef Duscheck was about 20 years older
than Rosalie, Amelia’s mother. The Dusheck family would emigrate in 1854, three years after Joe and Rosalie were married. Entry for
the Duscheck’s to Wisconsin was by way of Quebec, Canada. The Duscheck family would leave their farm in
Milford Township, Jefferson County in 1867 and move to a farm in the Town of
Bristol, Dane County, and north of the then small village of Sun Prairie. Showing the nature of a small community and its then bonds, it seems that half of the residents with some sort of history in the Sun Prairie--Town of Bristol area can claim ancestry to Josef Duscheck.
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| Marriage Record of Martin and Amelia Hovel Source: Wisconsin Historical Society |
Amelia and Martin married at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in
the crossroads of East Bristol. The
formal witnesses to the marriage were Rosa Duscheck, and Anthony Pohl. Showing a major difference with today when
most marriages are celebrated on a Saturday, their marriage occurred on a
Tuesday. How a man who emigrated from
Bohemia and settled near Fort Atkinson in 1868 met a young lady living in the Town of
Bristol I do not know, but suspect it had a relationship to the strong Bohemian
and Czech network that had established itself in this part of Wisconsin. Churches have historically played an important role in many of life's key moments, and so it was in January and again in early April of that year, when St. Joseph's Church would hold the funeral for, and in its cemetery be buried, Amelia’s father, Josef. Rosalie, Josef’s widow, who was just 48 years
and one week old at the time of her husband’s death would continue to farm with
the assistance of her children and step children. Joy and heartbreak were not uncommon emotions
in the raw and rough times in rural America of the 1870’s. Rosalie was viewed as a pioneer woman of Sun
Prairie, and a similar role would be played by Amelia and Martin in the untamed land of north central Iowa.
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| Martin and Amelia (with son) 1880 census Town of Lincoln, Worth County, IA Source:HeritageQuest |
Martin and Amelia, as a married couple, did not long stay in Wisconsin, as in the
fall of 1877 they would move west to Manly, Iowa. If Manly is small today, at 1,023 persons, it
was newly created when Martin and Amelia moved there in the fall of 1877. Manly, Iowa was founded by the joining of two
railroads in August of 1877 and was originally called Manly Junction. It was named after the Central of Iowa’s
freight agent J.C. Manly. The land
Martin would purchase, about one and one-half miles south of then Manly
Junction, would be along the rail line. More
research is required but it is possible it was purchased from a land
speculator. Settlement of this part of Iowa was delayed following the panic of
1857. The speculators at that time placed a high
value on the land, but prospective settlers, upon seeing the price, moved
further west. However, Martin would appear to make a wise decision, as the land prices had dropped and by the later part
of the 1880’s arable land in the midsection of the nation had been claimed,
forcing agricultural production further and further into the more arid
climatic zones of the west. Martin and Amelia would
not be alone, as his parents and seven of his eight living siblings who made
the long journey to Wisconsin from Bohemia had or would move to Iowa. Rose, who as noted earlier married George
Kachel, would be the only sibling to remain in Wisconsin. The Martin Hovel family would be recognized
as true pioneers of north central Iowa.
At the time Martin and Amelia arrived in Manly it had its newly constructed railroad depot
in operation and a general store, which in 1877 was owned by A.H. Harris, and later was known as the Knowles Store. A short article in the “Manly Signal” on August 21, 1952, which celebrated the 75th year of its founding, refers to Martin and Amelia, and their children as a “Pioneer family.”
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| Manly, IA Depot Source: University of Iowa digital archives |
Martin and Amelia would set up farming in the rich prairie
land of north central Iowa, less than twenty miles south of the Minnesota
border. The 1880 Agricultural Census has Martin owning
80 acres, of which 45 were tilled in 1879. The history of Manly recalled in that 1952 paper began with a sentence which shows that Martin and Amelia were the first to break the soil, as it reads: "In the summer of 1877 only the ceaselessly waving tall grass of the prairie marked the present site of Manly." This would be the Hovel version of the Little House on the Prairie. It is probable that the remaining 35 acres had yet to be cleared and
plowed as the census was based on farm items in 1979, or less than two years distant from their settlement in
the pioneer prairie plains of Iowa. The
farm, at that time, had a land value of $1,200, and they had $190 in machinery, with their stock valued at $140. Farm laborer wages totaling $20 were paid. It was an old nostalgic farm operation of
varied crops and animals making it quite different from the large single
purpose mega-farms that have been common in the past thirty or more years. In contrast to, or a result of, the continued mega-farm movement the rage
today, however, is to know your food. This theme is popularized by such phrases as “farm to table” or “field
to fork”. I often think of myself as
ahead of the time with my glasses and wardrobe, but Martin and Amelia were well
ahead of the food rage today. Seriously, they were diversified, and produced much of their own food. It was a time when self-sufficiency was still important, before specialization
brought on by an ephebic industrial age.
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| Josef Hovel Family, 1870 Census Town of Jefferson Source: HeritageQuest |
One cow to produce 25 pounds of butter is what Martin and
Amelia owned in 1879. They also owned one
other cattle, but not a milk cow. Barnyard
poultry was numbered at 24, and they would report the production of 60 dozen
eggs in that year. The farm would produce four main field crops, potatoes, oats,
Indian corn, and wheat. As could be
expected in what was then the nation’s wheat belt, Martin had 30 of his 45 tilled
acres in wheat producing 840 bushels.
The couple got by with two horses.
The value of all farm products produced in 1879 was $370. Martin would occasionally travel well over 100 miles to
McGregor, IA by horse and wagon to deliver wheat to be ground into flour. To make the trip by auto today it would take
an estimated 2 hours and 16 minutes by the fastest route (ahh, the benefits of
Google maps). But, Martin had no truck,
no paved roads, and no Google maps. It would likely have taken Martin more than a week to get to McGregor and return home. Amelia would have the job of tending the farm in his
absence.
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| 1913 Plat Map of Martin and Rudy Hovel Farms Source: University of Iowa archives |
While Amelia is noted in the
1880 census as a homemaker, she did her share of work on the farm, and we know she assisted Martin with the harvest. One recollection passed to me by a grandchild of their oldest child is that she would place that child, Joseph J. (born in 1878) among the shocks
of wheat. The other two children may have been brought and set in the field as well, but I have not uncovered a written record as such. Many helicopter parents of today might find this shocking, pun intended, but at that time they relied on their ears and eyes, no baby voice or video monitors which are common in present time. In any event, Joseph grew up to become a farmer, and later a blacksmith. A growing nation needed its wheat, and while a small producer, Martin and Amelia likely found growing the crop to their benefit. Their farm diversification, which was an early version of today's field to fork, was necessary and not a luxury.
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| Martin and Amelia Source: Michael J. Hovel |
Martin and Amelia were a young couple and would raise a
family on this farm in the plains of north central Iowa. They were part of an immigrant wave that stretched
across the nation to provide labor for a growing agricultural and industrial
economy. 1877, the year of their
marriage would see the beginning of the end of that era’s great recession which
began in 1873 with the collapse of an Austrian bank. They were part of a larger movement heading
west. As I noted in a written work on
family history in 2010, Iowa was a land in transition. Martin was the first to break the
deep and rich alluvial soil of the prairie for his farm. Farming was their way of life, it is what they knew. Martin grew up on a farm in Dolni Chrastany,
and helped his father farm near Fort Atkinson, WI, but I suspect he changed his way of farming to a less labor intensive regime than common in the old country. Martin and Amelia would bind themselves in
marriage on that day 140 years ago, which lacks any real significance but to
those whose lives they touched and to their descendants.
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| Martin Hovel farm as it appeared in 2009 Source: Carol Ryan |
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