Biographies

 Johann Christian Heckenbach 1804-1885

Johann, the firstborn in his family, was born in Brohl in 1804. This was during the French occupation of the Rhineland. At the age of 12, he started to work at the papermill in Brohl. Starting in 1839, new machines were installed and he rose to the position of foreman. At his retirement in 1866, he was given a silver cup acknowledging his 50 years' service. The cup still exists in the family. The mill was then known as J. Merzbach and Co. Founded in 1785, it still operates today under the name of Brohl Wellpappe, with 510 employees, producing cardboard, pasteboard, and boxes.

Johann had five daughters, three of whom had died by 1845. A fourth died in 1874 at the age of 24. His two sons lived and emigrated to America and were the forbears of the Heckenbachs in this country, leaving some 1000 descendants. From Johann's four brothers, only a handful of descendants remain to this day in Germany. Some never married, many more died, and others have moved away from Brohl. His brother Phillip also had three daughters who came to the US and settled in St Louis.

  Doctor Johann Adam Heckenbach 1831-1913

Johann Christian's older son and firstborn was Johann Anton. He attended the University of Bonn and also worked as a schoolteacher. In 1865, at the age of 34, he married Franciska Fisher from Koblenz. A year later they moved to America. An infant son died in Chicago. They settled in Williamstown, a community in Dodge County, Wisconsin, near Mayville, where Johann Anton worked as a carpenter. The area was composed almost entirely of Prussian immigrants at that time, and was experiencing a building boom.

He lived for a time in St. Louis and became a choir director and organist. We recently learned that he had cousins living there, see below. He then moved to Chicago, performing the same function at St. Alphonsius Church.

He was back in Mayville in 1878 at the time of his wife's death. Soon thereafter, he came to Chicago to stay, becoming a doctor of medicine, with a 100% success rate in diptheria cases. He also gave violin lessons, repaired old violins (some of which are still in the family) and composed some waltzes.

He used the name "John Adam."

He remarried but was widowed again. Although he was able to afford trips back to Germany, he ended up poor and living with his daughter Molly.

  Christian Heckenbach 1841-1920

Johann Christian's other son was Christian, born 1841. In 1866, he married Sophia Spicker from Willheiss, near Essen in the industrial Ruhr Valley. They lived in Essen before sailing to New York in 1867. They joined his brother living near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and worked a farm in Williamstown, near Mayville.

By 1873, two years after the Chicago Fire, the growing family had moved to Chicago. Christian worked as a decorator and sign painter. Later they had a truck farm and greenhouses, on the property where Senn High School is now situated. Here they raised celery for seed, among other crops. Later they moved to another farm at 7548 N. Clark St., at the northern edge of Chicago. He sold a strip of land to the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, as that railroad pushed on to Milwaukee and beyond. In 1903 he sold some land to the City of Chicago so that Howard Street could be extended to the west, and he also subdivided his farm and at least one of his sons owned a house there. By about 1910 he was operating an ice cream parlor at the corner of Clark and Howard Streets.

He was remembered as a kindly man. He belonged to the Catholic Order of Foresters. At the 1911 Old Settlers' Picnic, Christian won the gold medal for having the largest family. Annual family picnics were held long after Christian's death, and many of his 57 grandchildren kept in touch all their lives.

He spent his last years, after Sophia's death, with his youngest son Joseph and family.    click here for pictures of Christian

 Update on their Arrival in America:

The following information has come to light in the past year.

Doctor Johann Adam: Johann Anton may have made a previous voyage to the U.S., because we have recently learned that a ship manifest from the ship Bavaria, which sailed from Hamburg to New York, arriving June 19, 1862, listed a 31-year-old passenger named A. Heckenbach, apparently single, identified as a "merchant," although Johann Anton was not quite 31 on that date. We knew before that he arrived here with his wife and baby in 1866.

However, this manifest places him in the US a few years earlier, during the Civil War, which lends support to a family story about him. According to the story, he "actively avoided" both the American Civil War, and the strife that led to the Franco-Prussian War, a conflict which erupted when Bismarck provoked Napoleon III into attacking Prussia in 1870. For him to "dodge" both wars, he would have had to be in the US before the American Civil War ended in 1865. Then, back in Prussia, things were just starting to heat up. His 1866 arrival has not been found on any ship's records, though.

Christian: Meanwhile, on the passenger list of the ship America, which arrived in New York on June 14, 1867 from Bremen, are the following:

We know that Christian, his wife Maria, and baby Kate were living in Essen before leaving Prussia. Kate was born there.

Their Cousins: Then on June 10, 1872, with 939 passengers, the ship SS Köln steamed into New York from Bremen carrying

We have learned elsewhere that sisters Anna Josephine, Katrin, and Gretchen Heckenbach arrived in St Louis and that Katrin's real name was Catherine. "Kalchen" must have been Gretchen's nickname. It took a while to realize that "Jos" was Anna Josephine, and it turns out that all three were cousins of Johann Anton and Christian Heckenbach, through their Uncle Phillip who had 6 daughters. They settled in St. Louis. Katrin married Georg Löloff and Josephine married William Dufs, both in St. Louis, both in 1874. Kalchen married Lou Kaugman.

Another relative?: Then on June 18, 1871, the ship Herman arrived in New York from Bremen carrying Margaret Heckenbach, age 27, of Prussia. We don't know who this person was. JA and Christian had a sister Margaret who was born in 1845, but who knows? In fact, the three Heckenbach sisters had another sister Margaret who was born in 1844. It's possible that it's the same person and that she led the way for her sisters. This is pure speculation.

The late 1860s and early 1870s were a time of massive German immigrations to the US, not only beacuse of political tensions, but also because of the opening of the western states to development, while Prussia was suffering economic hardships. In 1880 in Dodge County WI (Mayville) something like 80% of the grammar school students were of German descent.

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updated Nov 2, 2001