John Imle Sr., Log Cabins

Page 1 of  John's Journal

Among records collected while researching the Imles are seven digital pages of an incomplete manuscript entitled “John Frederick Imle Sr., Journal.” John Sr. was the son of Frederick Christian and Clara Josephine (Coldren) Imle. An accompanying note states that the record was given me by John Imle Jr., though I don’t remember this. Anyway, thank you John.

My questionable transcription of the exceedingly unclear electronic copy is presented in three parts, here and in the following two blogs. My own comments (primarily the word “unclear”) are shown in brackets.

I was born “at an early age” on or about 1899 just 30 days before the 20^th century. The place: a little log cabin one-half mile or so north of the “metropolis” of Ernst, Darwin Township, Clark County, Illinois. Ernst was a flagstop on the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and Cairo railroad (the big four as it was then known) which ran between Chicago and Cairo mainly hauling coal from the southern Illinois coal fields to the industrial area around Chicago. Ernst was named (reputedly) after one Ernst Ruhl* a Former land surveyor who laid out and reportedly acquired large land holdings in its immediate area while it was still Northwest Territory and before Illinois became a state in 1808.

The log cabin of my birth was located on the land purchased by grandfather Imle when he immigrated from Germany in early 1881 with grandmother and six children Mary, [unclear] my father, Christian, Gotlieb, Arthur [?] & Adam. My father was 9 and Adam the youngest was just [unclear] year old. Who built the cabin and who previously owned the land [several lines unclear] that they are all gone!! They would have made an interesting study.

[Unclear line] It was later owned by Uncle Chris Imle and still later by Uncle Billy (Wilhelm) Imle who acquired it in [unclear] from granddad when they married. I was often reminded by my mother of the fact that I had something in common with Abe Lincoln – born in a log cabin! That occurred when dad and mother lived there in their early marriage days – 1898 to some time in 1900 [?]. Grandad and family had by then moved to a new frame house build northward of Ernst sometime in the middle 90’s.

In our [unclear] area and north [unclear] Marshall, I can recall at least five log houses that were still occupied most [rest of paragraph unclear except for scattered words]

*Ruhl was the first recorded owner of our farm ½ mile N of Ernst and on which I lived from 1902 to 1919. Later: Examination of Clerk’s records by Ed & Ernest in 1980 found the more recent owner to have been one York [?].

The Immigrants

In 1874, the SS W. A Scholten was put into service by the Netherlands American Steamship Company (later, the Holland-America Line) for regular mail and passenger service between Rotterdam and New York. The ship was a three-masted steamer, capable of traveling at 40 knots and carrying about 700 steerage passengers and 50 first and second-class passengers. The Scholten boasted the most modern conveniences—compartmentalized steerage, providing a little privacy, and two hospital wards, one for men and one for women.

For thirteen years, the Scholten transported (primarily) German emigrants to America. Then, on 19 Nov 1887, the ship left Rotterdam, heading for New York with 230 passengers and crew. At 11 pm that night, in a dense fog, the ship struck the English steamer Rosa Maria, ten miles off Dover. The Scholten sank within an hour with the loss of 150 lives. Many of the dead were German. No lives were lost on the Rosa Maria.

Six years earlier, the SS Scholten had sailed from Rotterdam, docking in New York on 15 Apr 1881. (16 Apr 1881, the date that the passenger list was signed, is often given as the arrival date; however, newspaper articles show that Apr 15 was the actual date.) Among the 707 passengers were a family of seven from Gündelbach, Frederick and Marie Imle and their five children (at that time), Marie, Fredrick, Christian, Gotllieb, and Adam. Had they been part of the 1887 voyage, this posting would likely not exist, nor would we.

 Imles on list of passengers docking in New York City, 16 Apr 1881 on the SS W. A. Scholten.

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.