Hillmanns 1 1893 Meet the Hillmanns

The Hillmanns of Brooklyn #1 

Meet the Hillmanns

This is my great-great grandfather, Johannes Hillmann.  He was born in 1854 in Bremen, Germany.   I do not know when he immigrated.  He was naturalized in 1879.

At the time he was naturalized he owned a bar at 107 Forsyth Street in Manhattan and his name was anglicized to John.  According to Google Map’s, this is where his bar was. 

My father was told the most common drink sold in the bar was beer.  If you had more money you added shots of whisky to it.  If you had even more money they dropped an egg in your beer.

John sold his bar in Manhattan and opened another one on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

John married the beautiful Emma. She was 11 years his junior. She was born in Germania, Pennsylvania to parents who had emigrated there from Hamburg.  Emma was the fourth of five children, and the first to be born in the United States. When she was five years old her father died, by the time she was 15 the census showed her living in Manhattan and she had a step-father.

This is Emma's Mom, Christina. She was born in 1833 in Holstein Schieswig. Today we think of this as Germany, but John, Emma and Christina did not view Germany as a unity.  They viewed themselves as Northern Germans. When Christina and her husband immigrated to the United States they went directly to Germania, Pennsylvania a development made for Germans.

John and Emma married in February of 1882.  John was 28 and Emma was 17.  A year later they had their first child, a son, my great-grandfather, Herman.  This is his Christening Certificate.

In 1887 the family sat for a group portrait.  By then John and Emma had their second child, Louise.  In this picture we see John next to a woman we don't know. In the front row we have Emma, Herman and Christina holding Louise. 

The picture below was taken in 1889, but who are these people? I see Emma holding Louise with Herman sitting in front of them.  I believe John is in the middle, in the back.  Census records show John had two brothers, one named John B. (which does not seem right) and another, Frederick.  I think we can assume the older couple are John’s parents John Senior born in 1818 in Germany and Rebeca Arnmann Hillmann, born in 1821 in Germany.  Census records also show John had a sister, but we don’t see her.  Frederick and his wife, Louise, had a daughter, Edith, who was 4 years older than Herman.  I think it’s safe to say the oldest little girl in the picture could well be four years older than Herman.     

Here we are in 1893 with Louise, Emma, Herman and Christina.  Herman complained the first day he went to school he was teased and embarrassed because he couldn't speak English, despite having been born in the United States.

John Hillmann died in 1906 at the age of 52.