1808

Google, the giant search engine that seemingly is in competition with Amazon to abscond with our personal data and take over our private lives, will often recognize the birth dates of certain individuals through their Google Doodle.  For example, today they recognized n English chemist born in 1938.The persons are not always prominent, or even recognized by the masses today, but nonetheless made some impact during their life either by invention, discovery, or action.  For a reason totally explainable, they did not provide a Google Doodle last Saturday for my great great grandfather, Josef Hawel, who was born on 10 March 1808.  That is 210 years ago.  I am a fourth generation distant from Josef.  His third child, Martin, was my great grandfather.  Martin died when my father was nine years of age.  What makes Josef exceptional to me is that he and his wife chose to emigrate from Bohemia to the United States.  That was a decision that would alter family history, and lineage.  I am here today because he made that decision.

1837 Partial Plat Map for Dolni Chrastany area
Shows part of the land holdings of Franz Hawel
Source:  http://archivnimapy.cuzk.cz/uazk/pohledy/archiv.html

I seem to know more facts and figures about Josef than about who he really was.  Can the life of a man simply be relegated to facts and figures?  I know when he was born, married, when he applied for a copy of his birth certificate to emigrate, date of arrival in the United States, when and where he signed his declaration of citizenship, what he grew in 1869 and 1879 as a farmer, when he died, and where he is buried.  Perhaps a look at a few of these facts will provide a narrative which may explain who he really was.  Josef was born the sixth child of Frantisek Hawel (Hawel is the Germanic spelling of Havel, and German was a common language given that Bohemia was under rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for many years)  and his wife Terezie Jiral at 18 Dolni Chrastany, Bohemia.   Terezie was born in the same house in which Josef would be born.  Frantisek was born in the village of what is called today Ratiborova Lhota.  Josef would grow up helping his father on the farm.  Overtime Frantisek would acquire some rather significant acreage for the time as shown in the 1837 plat maps of Dolni Chrastany.  Dolni Chrastany is in southwest Bohemia roughly the same distance east of Regensburg, Germany as it is south of Prague.   Josef and his wife Anna were married on 27 January 1846.  Anna was born and raised in Hlavatec, which according to Google maps is today about a 57 km (35 miles) car ride from Josef's home town of Dolni Chrastany.  While that may seem an easy to navigate distance with an automobile, in the days of horses and wagons it was probably a decent trip of nearly 10 hours, or the better part of a day.  What would be interesting to find out is how two people so distant met.

Sacramental Marriage record of Joseph Hawel and Anna Jodl
Source:  Book 30 Image 14 at https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/DA?menu=3&id=5825

Josef's father, Frantisek, would pass away a little more than one year after Josef was married, and at the time of his death he was living in what the death record referred to as the outer house; this likely means that he was retired from farming and living in the second home, like a granny flat on the home farm.  I am not sure if Josef and family lived and owned the main house or a sibling owned and lived there as well.  It is was not unusual for a house to hold more than one, if not many immediate families.  What is interesting is that of Josef's six full-blood siblings three died within a year of birth. A heartache perhaps all too common in that era. I have not, to date, been able to track the marriage or death of Josef's remaining three sisters (including a half sibling born to Frantisek and his second wife), and his older brother Martin.  The old parish records are not always easy to decipher.  Regarding his marriage, Josef was rather old, even by today's standards, being age 38.  It appears to me that men needed to first obtain the capability to support a wife, and children.  Their first child would be born 363 days after he and Anna were wed.  The births of their nine children would span from January 1847 to September 1867.  I cannot imagine having a child at 59 years of age.  The fourth of the nine children of Josef and Anna would not even make it half way to his first birthday. He is likely buried at the church graveyard in nearby Netolice.  In 1868 Josef would leave Dolni Chrastany and the farm fields of Bohemia to establish himself in the United States.

1872 Plat Map, Jefferson Co.
Source:  Wisconsin Historical Society archives

The US Census of Agriculture and some plat maps provide additional information about his farming activity.  I know that he farmed in the town of Jefferson, Jefferson County, WI in 1870 (per census), and by 1880 was farming in the town of Koshkonong.  What I do not know is if it is a different farm, a mistake in the record, or if the jurisdictional boundary was altered.  An 1872 plat map shows land owned in what may have been then the town of Jefferson, but is now the town of Koshkonong.  The farm he owned, which was 80 acres, is located about a half mile north of Highway 106 on County N.  Farming was a difficult life, which I noted in a post last year detailing the farm adventures of three of Josef's grandchildren, sons of my great grandfather Martin; that post can be found here. While it was common at the time in the United States, particularly in the Midwest to have a diversified farm operation, it was often more subsistence than a money maker, according to agricultural historian John Shover.   Census records indicate his farm income in 1879 (reported in 1880 census) was almost half what it had been reported in 1870 for 1869 earnings.  His livestock was also valued at about half of what it was worth ten years earlier.  The 23 cords of wood he and his family cut in 1879 was valued at $46.  The diversification of the farm had included cattle, cows (milk), chickens, pigs, hay, wheat, oats, rye and Irish potatoes.  His wife, if they followed the typical pattern prevalent at the time, likely did the production of butter (200 lbs in 1879), cared for the chickens (40 in 1879) and gathered the eggs (150 dozen in 1879).  His largest crop in 1870 was 200 bushels of Indian corn, which was supplanted by 200 bushels of oats in 1880.  In 1870 his crop output totaled 424 bushels, but grew to 620 bushels in 1880.  The same five crops were grown in the two reported years but in vastly different amounts.

Sacramental record of birth and baptism of Joseph Hawel, b 1808
Source:  Book 30 Image 32 at https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/DA?menu=3&id=5825

What we have to understand is that in 1879 Josef and Anna had fewer children assisting them with the farm work. At the 1870 census all but the oldest daughter was still at home, which left three daughters and three sons able to assist with farm chores. Wenzel would have been short of his third birthday at the time of the 1870 census, so too young for farm chores, even for a Hovel.  In the 1880 census young Joseph (reported as Jr.) and young teen Wenzel (age 13) and daughter Catherine were at home to assist with farm chores.  We have to remember that farming at that time was still very labor intensive.  Sometime after the 1880 census, but before 1882 Joseph, Anna and Wenzel would move to Iowa. Daughter Rose and her husband George Kachel would marry in February 1882 and purchase the Hawel farm. The move to Iowa may well have occurred after Rose was married.  However, Catherine Hovel Popp's 50th wedding anniversary news article says "they settled at Jefferson, WI and after thirteen years she moved to Iowa."  Given the 1885 Wisconsin census, which only lists head of household, I wonder if by chance Joseph D  was living with George and Rose Kachel as he does not appear with Anna and Wenzel in the Iowa 1885 census. By 1885 George and Anna only had a daughter, but two males are reported in the household at the time of 1885 Wisconsin census.  It is possible it could also be a male other than Josef D.

1880 US Census Record, last name is spelled as Harvill
Source:  HeritageQuest

Joseph Hawel's soul would go to his creator on 18 September 1882.  His body would be buried in the Bohemian Catholic Cemetery near Plymouth, IA.  He would spend only fourteen years of his 74 years of life on the continent west of the Atlantic ocean. He made no monumental discovery, or as far as we know did anything particularly unique.  He would have been an ordinary man who went about the daily routine of a commoner of his time--just like millions of us others on earth today.  Although, to me he has one unique attribute--he is my great great grandfather. His decision to move to the United State would alter the course of family events, even if he is not worth a Google Doodle.