this page updated Saturday, 12 January 2008

The Life Events of
John Michael Zellhoefer 1825-1865

We have made so much progress, but there are brick walls:

• The first wife "Anna" of Urphershofen, Bavaria, and when/where they were married.
• Documentation of births, adoptions or otherwise of any of their 4 children.
• Anything at all about the adoptions of first son Fredrick & sister Annie.
• Fredrick exists only as one line in the 1860 census, so anything more!
• Annie resurfaced marrying Frank Sherrard of Chicago, & bore son Frank Jr, and there the trail seems to end

Any tidbit might hold a magic key, so let's talk!

thank you!    >
Ron Klotz Zellhoefer
researcher and webmaster

In 1846 Mike was refused "Permission to Leave" with others of his family,  being required by the Königreich (kingdom of Bavaria) to first serve six years in the military.

Permission to Leave was finally granted on 20 March 1853.  The documents stated Mike was "single" at that time.  He soon departed, sailing from Hamburg on the ship Celle and landing in New York U.S.A. on 13 June 1853.  Transcripts of that passenger list do not show that "Anna" was on that same voyage, but we do not have the actual images as of March 2004.

Mike went on to Sullivan Township, Jefferson County, there joining siblings  Johann Leonhart, George Leonhard & Christine, all having arrived in earlier migrations, purchased land, married and begun their families.

Mike's mother Anna Margaretha HOFMANN, two sisters and others connected with the family had died in a cholera plague their first winter of 1846-47.  The brother Leonhart had been appointed administrator of the mother's estate, which held the proceeds of selling the farm back in Brachbach.  Leonhart had not advised the probate court of the three heirs (Mike and 2 sisters) back in Bavaria, thus they were excluded from the distribution.  So the next we know of Mike was his successful petition to the Probate Court in early 1854 for the fair shares of the three.

But with this discovery came more to question.  Who was this wife Laura?  Well, we knew that Anna had died in childbirth of the twins on 9 Sep 1858.  We knew that Mike had remarried the next spring to Elnora.  We finally did reconcile that Elnora was aka Laura, so we could go on from there.

But the shocker was the discovery of two older children, who HAD to be the other two mentioned in Anna's obituary.  Fredrick was a completely new discovery; Annie had been known to the family lore but thought to be another child of Elnora.  The numbers of the family members finally eliminated that misconception.

We received this translation from Hildegard Zech:
Died in hospital at Louisville, Tennessee, on January 5, 1865, brother Michael Zellhoefer, at the age of 39 years, 6 months and 1 day.  Born in (native to) Bergbach, [turns out to be Brachbach] Bavaria, came to America about 11 years ago and settled in Rome, Jefferson County,  Wisconsin, where he converted to God soon after his arrival and joined the Evangelical Community which he served for four years as Vermahner and also for a time as Class Leader and was an upright and devoted Christian. On August 29, 1864 he enlisted as a volunteer in the Army of the United States and died from the effects of chronic diarrhea.  He leaves behind a wife and eight children.  His loss is deeply felt in his family and also in the Church.   Joseph Harlacher.

RonKZ:  This would put Mike's birthdate at 4 Jul 1825.  Mikes birth record in Obernzenn gives 4 Aug 1825, but on his military enlistment he gave 17 May 1825 ~ I will always wonder why!  Noting those  conflicts, I have opted for the birth record as best evidence. 

The "Evangelical Community" was actually the "Evangelical Association" for which der Christliche Botschafter was apparently the main publication.

The " eight children" becomes very important here, as it corresponds with the 4 children with Anna, the 1 previous child of Elnora, and the 3 children of Elnora with Mike.  This precludes the family lore which held that Annie was Elnora's child by yet another previous marriage to Richard HEILMANN, but in which may lie some clue as to Elnora's true origins, which remain unresolved as of March 2004.

The marriage of Mike and Anna would have been before about October of 1853, because Frederick would have been born before June 1854 to fit his age 6 given in the 1860 census.

One open possibility is that Mike, on his way from Bavaria to New York to Wisconsin in 1853, may have visited his brother Frederick in New Jersey and/or his brother Jacob in Pennsylvania.  We don't know for sure that he was hell-bent on reaching Wisconsin, nor where he was from after 13 Jun 1853 to about May 1854. If that was the case, perhaps he met and married Anna "on the path"?

Anyway, back to the 1860 census, and knowing Mike and Anna had 4 children, and that Mike and Elnora had 3 children, and t had 4 children by 1st wife Anna and 4 more children by 2nd wife Elnora, thus EIGHT children. After his death in 1865, Elnora apparently liquidated his (probably meager) estate along with Mike’s first 4 children.

So we may now conclude that Mike & Anna had four children, all born Sullivan Township:

1. Fredrick, b.1853/1854; nothing more known.
2. Annie, age 3 in the 1863 census, so born 1856/57, was wrongly listed in family lore as Annie Heilmann, daughter of Elnora and a said previous deceased husband Richard Heilman.  Married Frank R SHERRARD 7 Nov 1878 in Cook County, Illinois, one son.  Annie may have died young, as later census records show a Frank Sherrard with a different wife and children - has not been fully tracked to verify.  This marriage was noted in the family lore, but no documentation and no source info at all, but I'll not discard it!
3. Catherine Sophia b 9 Sep 1858; "adopted" by KLOTZ;  married Albert R ZICK 8 Dec 1881, 3 children.
4. George Martin b 9 Sep 1858; also "adopted" by KLOTZ; married Verena LUETSCHER 4 May 1882; 3 children.

The names of the twins are those known after their "adoption", and I suspect may not have been entirely the same at birth, to wit: Martin is not a given name found in Mike's ancestry.  As to his twin sister, Sophia was added to avoid confusion with her adoptive mother's name Katherine, altho Sophia was also an earlier name found in Mike's ancestry; in any event she was known as Sophie thru her life in Sauk County.  The family lore holds that the twins were adopted in 1862 by Melchoir KLOTZ and his wife Katherine nee:FELIX of Honey Creek, Sauk County, Wisconsin. While diligent search finds no adoption record, the fact of the Zellhoefer-Klotz family reunion mentioned later seems adequate documentation.  It does seem more reasonable that the adoption did not occur until after Mike's death in 1865.

Elnora remains problematic with several AKA's ~ given names Elenora, Laura, Helenora, and Leona ~ surnames Haverland, m.Heilmann, m.Miller, m.Zellhoefer ~ her daughters all named her differently in their marriage applications!  We shall list the children and then deal with some more quirks:

Annie, supposedly Heilmann, was mistakenly ID'd as Elnora's daughter with Richard Heilmann who had died in Germany.  I am convinced that Annie was NOT Elnora's, but rather one of the FOUR children of Mike and "Anna".  The final straw?  That 1860 census record showing that Annie was born in Wisconsin (NOT in Germany)!

1. Augustina, aka Christena and Tena b. Nov 1857, again in the 1860 census b.WISCONSIN.  Daughter of Elnora and Mr. MILLER, said to have also died back in Germany.  We haven't found this husband, but note that a Rev. Miller signed the aforementioned certification of marriage, perhaps some clue.
   Married George PFEIFFER, 5 children, then widowed. 
   
   Reappears later in 1930 census in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin as Augusta BOELAING, again a widow.  Her daughter Emily (m.ANDREW) husband and son were living with Augusta. 
   
   So now to the three daughters of Mike & Elnora, all born there in Sullivan Township:
   
   
2. Margaret aka Harriet b. 28 Feb 1860; married Martin ROETHEL 25 Jul 1880; 4 children.  Elnora was living with them at her death, and Martin handled her probate.
    
3. Charlotte aka Lottie b. 2 Jan 1861; married Jacob LIPPERT; one daughter.
    
4. Laura J, b.23 Mar 1868; married David BOGIE 8 Jun 1893; one daughter.

So now we have "eight" children for Mike, that assuming that Augustina Miller-Zellhoefer was counted as one of those eight.

So now let's examine Elnora a bit more.

• Elnora died 27 Feb 1889; her name on her headstone is Eleonora.  Four years later:
• The "Registration of Marriage" for daughter Laura & David Bogie lists her mother as Helenora HEAFERLAND.
• In Elnora's probate documents she is written as Eleanora, and in another part of that she owed a hospital bill as Laura, that also found in the 1860 and 1870 censuses.
• As written in the above certificate of marriage, it is written as Elenora, and her parents are listed as John and Sophia HAVERLAND.
• A marriage note from DJCGS on daughter Charlotte Zellhoefer and Jacob LIPPERT, Charlotte names her mother as Laura nee: Hoverland. 
• A marriage note from DJCGS on daughter Margaret names her mother as Leona Miller.
• The most mystifying to me is Myron Klotz's reference to Elnora's supposed first husband Richard HEILMANN & their daughter Annie. There's absolutely no documentation for any of that, and I've not been able to find any tracks for such on the www.  I can't help but wonder if maybe the name Heilmann might have been Elnora's birth-name, as I haven't been able to track Elnora or John or Sophia HAVERLAND either.  I also can't see tracks for Annie's marriage to Sherrard ~ only Myron's notes.
• It sure doesn't seem like the kids had good communications with their mother, does it?

  ---

So now Mike has died, and we next find Elnora as Laura in the 1870 census with NONE of Anna/Mike's children, despite that the eldest would have been only age 16 or maybe 17!  From this we can only conclude that these first 4 kids were all given to others by Elnora.  We know the Klotz's took the twins, but what happened then to Fredrick and Annie?

One thing that is hard to understand, and even harder to accept, is that Mike also left behind 2 brothers and a sister there in Sullivan Township, all married, all with farms, and all with families.  Surely these 4 little kinder ought to have been taken in by any of them.

One would think that Mike/Anna offspring would have been taken by any of Mike's several siblings there in Sullivan Township, rather than being adopted out, but thus far I have been unable to find matching children in those families, neither in census records or other documentation.

the Zellhoefer-Klotz reunion, 9 Jun 1929 in Madison, Wisconsin
published in The Jefferson Union 14 Jun 1929

A re-typed version of the article

June 9, 1929, sixty-six descendants of the Zellhoefer and Klotz family held a family reunion at Vilas Park at Madison. Those who attended are as follows:

Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Klotz, Jr., and family, [son of George Zellhoefer-Klotz, wife Ella Klipstein]

Mr. and Mrs. Ed. Zick and family [son of Sophie Zellhoefer-Klotz Edward M, wife Ella Allert]

Sophia Zick, [THE twin Sophie b.Zellhoefer]

George Klotz; Sr. [THE twin George b.Zellhoefer]

Mr. and Mrs. George Zick and family, [son of Sophie Zellhoefer-Klotz, George H with his 2nd wife Mary nee:Block & widow of Kaufman]

Mr. and Mrs. George Lehman and family, [wife Katherina, daughter of Sophie Zellhoefer-Klotz]

** Mr. and Mrs. Ed. Marke and family, [Marke is totally unknown and I couldn't find him/them; perhaps a mis-spelled name]
all of Denzer;

Mr. and Mrs. Ed. Eckert and family of Sullivan.,  [Edward A, wife Jessie Pfeiffer, daughter of Augustina Miller-Zellhoefer & George Pfeiffer]

Mr. and Mrs. Pitt Holmes and son, Edward of Milton; [wife Ruth Roethel, daughter of Margaret Zellhoefer & Martin Roethel]

Mr. and Mrs. M. Roethel, [Martin & Margaret Zellhoefer]

Mr. and Mrs. D. Bogie,  [Davie and Laura J Zellhoefer]

Mr. and Mrs. Horton Roethel and family, [son of Martin & Margaret Zellhoefer]
all of Rome;

Mrs. Jake Lippert of Slabtown, [Charlotte Zellhofer, wife of Jacob]

Forrest Pfeiffer and family, [son of Augustina Miller-Zellhoefer & George Pfeiffer]

Mrs. Tena Pfeiffer of South Milwaukee [not certain, perhaps wife of Frank Pfeiffer, son of Augustina Miller-Zellhoefer or perhaps Augustina herself, except that we think we found her in Madison in 1930 census ~ see Harry Andrew below]

Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Sprecher and family of Plain  [Elmer's wife Elvira was daughter of George Zellhoefer-Klotz]

Mr. and Mrs. Harry Andrew and family of Madison;  [Harry's wife Emily was daughter of Augustina Miller-Zellhoefer & George Pfeiffer]

Mr. and Mrs Alb Remmelt and sons Roy & Bob, of Waukesha, [Albert's wife was Ruby Pfeiffer, daughter of Augustina Miller-Zellhoefer & George Pfeiffer]

Gertrude & Levora Roethel of Ft Atkinson  [daughters of Martin and Margaret Zellhoefer]

** Ed MARKE & Family of Denzer ~ that surname cannot be found anywhere in the USA and must be mis-spelled. Perhaps Market, Markert or Markley, all names familiar to me. I believe MARKERT is related thru George H Zick the storekeeper of Denzer & son of Sophia Zellhoefer Klotz, perhaps via Mrs Eddie Markert (Lasetta, surname unknown), but I don't find a direct connection between Lasetta and George H Zick, so that connection needs further study.  Perhaps the connection was thru George's wife.  Otherwise I have no idea about the MARKE's or what connection they might have in the family tree.  Everyone else in this list has a direct connection, so this needs some diligent tracking!

The surname FRIEDEL/FREIDEL appears again and again in Sullivan Township and always nearby a Zellhoefer, Bogie, Roethel, Lippert, etc. John A Freidel married Rosie PFEIFFER, but no direct link to the Zellhoefer tree has been found.

And one last surname is QUICK; they are found in early Sullivan Township, and maintain another website which lists many of the later Klotz’s of Sauk County. There is probably some connection, but I haven't found that either.

After all these years, we are STILL SEARCHING for the missing information
mentioned here.  If ANYONE can add or correct ANYTHING  all this,
or has anything to add in the deductive sense...
PLEASE eMail RonKZ - thanks you so much!