John Baptist Bauer:Why Leave Germany
Why leave Germany? Life in a small German village in the 1800s
The main focus of this installment is on John Baptist Bauer himself, but the lives of early settlers in the St Marys area and Benzinger Township are mentioned as well. There are multiple histories of St Marys and Elk County, written as early as the 1890s, which focus on the prosperous and most well-known residents, the Kauls, Halls, Garners Schauts, and the Stackpoles. However, I want to focus on the lesser known settlers. These people kept the settlement running while receiving no recognition at all. Certain aspects of the St. Mary's Area are remnants of early German life and traditions that have been lost to time. Why are things and people the way they are?  All of us have an imagination and some may have an open heart and an open mind, but access may not be available. Furthermore, the material may be difficult to understand or overwhelming. Laying it out in small chunks of information in a simple narrative makes it accessible and easy to understand. Â
John Baptist Buaer, like most of the early settlers, came from small villages in different kingdoms in Germany. Germany was not a unified country until 1870, based in the largest kingdom of Prussia.  Beforehand, all of these little kingdoms were the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire consisted primarily of the French and German people, but there were many other European ethnic groups in the Empire as well. It was run by both an emperor who held both political and religious authority. The Empire was blessed by the Pope. Each little German kingdom had a ruler called an Elector who could also be called a Prince or a Lord. The Thirty Years War, Napoleonic Wars, and the constant warring between the kingdoms caused chaos and strife.  Furthermore, many of the village people were under serfdom and the authority of the local nobility. There was a clash between their old customs and traditions and the new reality they were living in. Â
These people were dealing with a stagnant economy, no chance for upward mobility and overpopulation. The old ways made surviving very difficult for the average man or woman in Germany. Some of the old traditions that prevented them from moving up in the world were partition, mandatory military conscription, and your legal ties to the village authorities and ultimately the Lord who controlled the villagers. As the industrial revolution was just beginning in Germany in the 1830s, the population was growing. Partition is the main reason why many left, the law required parents to divide their assets equally among their surviving children after they died.. By the 1830s, there was simply not enough land and dwellings in families for their children to survive. Families who were well off centuries before were left with practically nothing because the assets were continually divided up until almost nothing was left. Then, each male owed the Lord a portion of their time, their harvest, and their money each year. The Lord controlled their movements, their position in the community and their income. It was what was left of the serfdom system all the villagers were a part of. The closest thing we have in America to understanding of serfdom is a full time job, but even that falls short. Then there is their caste system and the Burger system. That is another topic for another time and will be temporarily broached in the Bauer surname study. Incidentally, there are a hundred words in the German language for the occupation of a farmer. . A Bauer is only one word for farmer, but it is so much more complicated than that. Â
Something people who are studying their ancestors from the St Marys area have problems with the United States censuses. The parts of Germany these people claim to be from in these censuses change over time, obscuring their origins. John Baptist Bauer says he is from Bavaria, but other genealogists have found him in Baden and even Thuringia. However, the German tree places him in a village, Forbach in the former kingdom of Baden. There is this website you can go to that will help you locate last names in present day Germany. The people with the last name Bauer are primarily located in Western Germany in the province of Baden-Wittenberg. Johann Wilhelm Gausman claimed both Hanover and Prussia, He was actually traced back to Hagen in Hanover. John Matthias Meyer is from a small village in the tiny kingdom of Onasbruck. I am still trying to track down Anton Evers. Many single young men found themselves poor with no prospects for a better life so it was much better to secretly leave, without asking permission to leave and paying their debts and exit taxes, There was no way they could afford passage to the new world and still pay off those debts.  I found John Baptist Bauer in both Bretten in the Wittenberg area and Mozzelfeld in the Hanover area. He was obviously moving north to where the German ports leading the Atlantic Ocean were located. According to the customs report he was a painter, which tells me he was a journeyman or he hired himself out as a day laborer. There is still information on him to find in Germany, primarily deciphering his baptismal record and gaining an understanding of the Anephetal, the ancestor’s table, a German genealogy. These things have proven to be more difficult than I thought. This is what is called a brick wall in genealogical terms. It seems as if there is no solution, but I found John Baptist Bauer after three weeks of searching and his grave (it’s unmarked) after three months. Even the person who knows the cemetery (where he is buried) well, had a very hard time finding him because he was forgotten. He wasn't forgotten purposely, just with the passing of time and the modern world compels us to forget who we came from. After all it isn’t as much as where we are from, but who we came from. Your personality, your appearance, your temperament, and even ancestral memory (if you believe in that) plays a role in who you are. Your ancestors are your anchors.  Also, I might add that all four of these men, John Baptist Bauer, Anton Evers, John Matthias Meyer, and Johan Wilhelm Gausman, were in the St Marys area so early that all or most of their descendants are related. If you have an ancestor in the St Marys area before 1850 or in the 1850s or 1860s, you are most likely related to all or most of their descendants. St Marys and Elk County itself is an isolated area of Pennsylvania, even today, so that creates a genealogical bottleneck binding even today’s residents by either blood or marriage.  Â
The dream of many of these Germans was to own enough land to raise their family without having to supplement their income with outside work. It is essentially what we would call an entrepreneurial spirit today.  However, America had an added freedom that none of them fully understood when they came here. We have freedom of movement, aren't tied to a Lord or a village, are not trapped in a system where you cannot move up in the world. Most of all, after they received their naturalization, they could vote for their representatives in Congress, so they could govern themselves. These men and their families became fully American and still retained their Germanness.  The early leaders of St. Marys tied to recreate the Germany they knew but with more freedom and prosperity for all. What they never fully understood was how the American system would change them and their descendants There is so much we take for granted that could be gone in an instant, especially when you consider the current economic and political climates, national unrest and lawlessness, and the breakdown of international relations leading to wars.  We need a foundation to build upon, A family history is tied to the young idealistic country with hope for a better life . a foundation to be used for our good.
An interesting post. Mostly people focus on the lives of their ancestors when they settled in a new country. But it adds context and perspective if you know why they left their homeland.
I have been working backwards in the series and I enjoy them! I’m going to have to go back to the beginning. Lol! Thank you for sharing them!