The able Abels

An earlier post noted that Adam Pantle was unlikely to have been involved in sponsoring the Imle family immigrants or helping them once they arrived. The dates are all wrong and Adam had come from Grossbottwar, not Gundelbach. He would have been unlikely to have known the Imles in Germany. But there was an early Clark County resident from Gündelbach, Mathew Abel, who was born there on 22 Apr 1848, probably with the German name “Mathaus,” the name on his marriage record. Mathew and Christoph, who was six years older, had grown up in the same small town. In 1866, at the young age of 18, Matthew traveled to the Wabash Valley. He was likely a source of information about Clark County, Illinois, for the village of Gündelbach.

The third Clark County Courthouse, built in Marshall in 1839
 and torn down in 1887, was the site of the 1863 military arrest
 of Judge Charles H. Constable during the Civil War. (Historical
 Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Clark County, 1907.)

Mathew arrived just one year after the end of the Civil War, and ill feelings were undoubtedly still present. Clark County had sent over one-tenth of its population, 1,560 men, to serve with the Union forces. Illinois had become a free state with the adoption of the Constitution of 1848. The final decision was made only after a prolonged struggle even though there had been few slaves in the state — only 331 in 1840. Although a free state, Illinois loyalties had been split. In 1863 in Marshall a group of Clark County Copperheads opposing the War, tried to safeguard soldiers deserting from the Union Army. In March of that year, an Indiana army detail arrested several of the deserters. A local judge, Charles H. Constable, freed the fugitives and ordered two Union sergeants arrested on kidnapping charges. Under the command of Col. Henry B. Carrington, 250 soldiers arrived by special train from Indianapolis, surrounded the courthouse, freed the two sergeants, and arrested Judge Constable.

Mathew Abel first worked as a farmhand in Clark County before moving to Terre Haute, where he met Rebecca Mayer. The two were wedded on 7 Nov 1875 in Clark County, but lived in Terre Haute for two years before moving back to Clark. where he and Rebecca farmed in Wabash Twp near Zion church.

In 1881, Mathew’s younger brother Gottlieb, who had also been born in Gündelbach (on 29 Jun 1851) left Germany to join his brother in Clark County. Gottlieb arrived on the on the W. A. Scholten. Accompanying Gottlieb on his trip was Christoph Imle and his family.

Does this prove that the Abels induced the Imles to come to Clark County? No. But it certainly makes it likely.

The Abel family and their descendants generally attended Zion Church, but some were members of Grand Turn, the Imle church. Mathew died 17 Jan 1931, after losing both his first and second wives. Gottlieb died 2 Feb 1933 and rests with his wife, Wilhelmina (“Minnie”), in Marshall Cemetery.

The Adam Pantle Conundrum

In my last posting I stated that the Adam Pantle family were sponsors of the Christoph and Anna Maria Imle family when they came to the U.S. I may be wrong. I obtained that information from a paper "The Imle Family" prepared by Edgar Imle for the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Imles to the U.S. In that paper, Edgar stated

They [the Imle immigrants] were sponsored by the Adam Pantle family with whom they stayed for some time after arriving in this county. The Adam Pantle family lived near Snyder (also called Hatton) about six to seven miles south of Marshall, Ill. Later on the Pantle family moved to the Dennison area north and east of Marshall where I recalled having visited them around 1912. It was while living with the Pantles that the Imles bought, in 1881, their first farm near Ernst, Ill., which is about two miles north of Snyder and five miles south of Marshall.

Edgar was right about where Adam and his wife lived, but may have been wrong about their role as sponsors or hosts. There are numerous documents showing that the Clark County Pantles (Adam Frederich and his wife to be, Lucy Greiner) did not arrive from Germany until 1887, six years after the landing of the Imles.  It is remotely possible that Adam Pantle traveled twice to the U.S. and that we have only a record for the later voyage (arrival date, 15 Nov 1887), but Adam always gave 1887 (in one case 1889) as his immigration year.

This marker in Dunlap Cemetery, Dennison and other
sources clearly show Adam Pantle's birth year as 1864.
Why "Louise" rather than "Lucy"?  Evidence indicates
that Lucy may have used both names.

Even had Adam come earlier, there would have been no "Adam Pantle family" when the Imles arrived. When Adam and Lucy came to the U.S. in 1887, they were unmarried. Traveling separately, they may have first met in this country. They were married 21 Feb 1891 in Terre Haute, where Lucy was living at the time. Plat maps and censuses show Adam and Lucy with a farm on the railroad track two miles south of Ernst in 1892 and 1900, and a mile north of Dennison in 1910 and later.

Furthermore, Adam Pantle was born in 1864, which means that when the Imles docked in New York, he would have been only 16 or 17, a very young age to be sponsoring or housing an immigrant family. Perhaps the Imles sponsored and housed Adam Pantle, rather than the reverse.

And finally, John Frederick Imle Sr., brother of Edgar, had this to say:

at the 1981 Imle reunion in Marshall one Pantley [sic] claimed that his Grandfather - Adam Pantley- who hailed from Grandad Imle’s home town of Gündelbach Württemberg Germany had preceded Grandad’s emigration to America by several years for the express purpose of locating a suitable grape cultural and wine-producing area. He evidently traveled quite widely and eventually came to Clark County & to Snyder where he found the place he was looking for. Back in Germany he influenced Grandad Imle and encouraged his immigration in 1881. Well, that was the first I had ever heard of that episode and as far as I could determine none of the living relatives had any knowledge of it either. The Adam Pantley family did come to America and did settle in Clark Co. near Dennison, Northeast of Marshall. I recall several occasions when we visited them at their farm on a Sunday, but I was always led to believe that these were people whom Grandad met after arrival here - not people he had known in Germany! My father never - nor did any of my uncles or aunts - ever mention that Pantley almost went into the wine business at Snyder, Ill.! Viticulture requires a moderate climate, good drainage and relatively high altitudes for success, none of which prevails in East Central Illinois. It would be fun to run down this rather thin rumor.

Comments?

Ein Imle Familie Geschichte

I’m back on track with the Imle book, although I am trying to write two books simultaneously (the other on the Tapscotts of Clark County). I hope this works out. Tentatively the Imle book will be titled It Started in Gündelbach, Ein Imle Familie Geschichte—probably far too long, but C’est la vie (or should it be So ist das Leben?).

In 1881, Frederick and Anna Marie Imle lived in Gündelbach, Württemberg, Germany with their five children Maria, Fred, Chris, Adam, and Gottlieb, where they managed vinyards. Not wishing their sons to be drafted into the compulsory German Army they decided to move to America, with the Adam Pantle family as sponsors. (Pantle descendants still live in Marshall and Paris.) The Imle family left Rotterdam, Holland on 26 Mar 1881, landed on in New York on 15 Apr 1881, and made their way west to settle on a farm a few miles south of Marshall.

Frederick bought the farm and he and his sons spent their time tending crops, while Maria tended children, house, and gardens. In time, four more children—Bertha, Anna, William, and Herman—were added to the family.

No one knows for certain how many descendants there are from the nine children. Attending a reunion in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the arrival of the Imles in the United States were 150 people from a dozen states. A recent count from my incomplete database shows 304 descendants plus 176 spouses.

Imle Family Reunion, 12 Jul 1981, Lincoln Trail State Park, Clark County, Illinois.

 My interest in family history was sparked by my mother’s passing around Christmas, 2000, but it was encouragement from Dorothea Maria (Imle) Dunlap, “Dottie Rose,” my mother’s cousin, that that got me going on the Imles. Dottie Rose and several other Imles (in particular, Edgar, author of a magnus opus), had already written large portions of Imle family history. I was asked only to expand their work.

The expansion has turned out to be much more difficult than I had envisioned. First, it has taken on a life of its own to include Imle relatives, history, and geography. Second, Imle descendants have increased geometrically, possibly exponentially. Third, Imles have spread across the United States and outside the country. For over 300 years, the Imles had lived in the same small region of Germany, most of this time in the same town, much of that time in the same house. Then, for 40 years or so after arriving, most remained in and around Clark County. But then the small dispersion became a diaspora and since the 1981 reunion a DIASPORA! The reason is affluence. H. B. Guppy (Homes of Family Names in Great Britain) wrote a passage about the dispersion of affluent Englishmen. It applies equally well to Germans:

“It was the boast of a wealthy old Devonshire yeoman, 150 years ago, that he had never crossed the borders of his native county, and I cannot believe that in this respect he differed greatly from his fellows. From the stationary conditions of their lives, and from the nature of their pursuits and surroundings, they acquired a solid mediocrity of character, to which the long persistence of families in the same locality and in the same station is mainly due. England, in truth, owes much to their lack of aspiration and to their home-loving ways. It is, however, remarkable that the rise of a family into a condition of opulence is, as a rule, shortly followed by its dispersal, until within a generation or two, the home of the name for centuries knows it no more.”

Tracking down the multiplied and dispersed descendants has proven almost, but not quite impossible. These postings will describe this venture and what I find along the way.

All genealogical data are from primary or reputable secondary sources and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, omitted here to improve readability. Readers may use any posted material for any purpose as long as this source is cited. Most important, I need your help. Please tell me of errors, suggested additions, and photos you can contribute. I need your criticisms, comments, complaints.