Gustav Hellenberg & Caroline Eichbauer Documents

July 18, 1880

                                        GENEALOGICAL TABLE

Johann Adam Eichbauer, born between the years 1763 - 1765 in

Grossbreitenbrunn, Bavaria, died in June 1820 from a stroke

in Feuchtwangen, Bavaria. (day-laborer)

His wife was Anna Margaretha Grauf, died 1830.

Johann Simeon Eichbauer, son of Joh. Adam and A. Margaretha

Eichbauer, born March 19, 1795 in Feuchtwangen, Bavaria;

died July 27, 1880 in Monroe, Mich.

His wife was Anna Maria, born Dec. 3, 1792, died June 20,

1880 in Monroe, Mich.

Johann Leonhardt Eichbauer, son of Joh. Adam and A. Margaretha

Eichbauer, born March 28/29, 1799 in Feuchtwangen, Bavaria,

died 28/29 of March, 1851 in Feuchtwangen, Bavaria (day-laborer)

His wife was Anna Christina Schenck, of Meyersbrunn, district

Feuchtwangen, Bavaria, born 1781, died (or was buried) July 4, 1857 in Feucht-

wangen, Bavaria.

Anna Barbara, daughter of Joh. Adam and A. Margaretha Eichbauer,

born in March 1801, died 1820.

Anna Christina, daughter of Joh. Adam and A. Margaretha Eichbauer,

born in March 1803, married to Michael Preis, after his death,

with Ch. Weiskopf, her present husband.

Georg Leonhardt Eichbauer, son of Joh. Leonhardt Eichbauer and A.

Christina (nee Schenk), born September 27, 1822 in Feuchtwangen,

Bavaria, bricklayer and stone mason master in Monroe.

His wife is Anna Christina Schmelzer, born January 12, 1831

in Arxhofen, district Feuchtwangen, bavaria.

Anna Barbara, daughter of Joh. Leonhardt and A. Christina Eichbauer,

born July 15, 1826, married to Johann Enders, her present husband.

Anna Maria and Anonymous, daughters of G. Leonhardt and Anna Christina Eichbauer,

born and died December 23, 1856.

Johann Ludwig Eichbauer, born March 5, 1858      )

                                                 ) sons of G. Leon-

Johann Wilhelm Eichbauer,born June 5, 1860       ) hardt and A. Chri-

                                                 ) stina Eichbauer

Konrad Heinrich Eichbauer, born January 25, 1868 )

Katharina Louise Eichbauer, born January 20, 1866, daughter of G.

Leonhardt and A. Christina Eichbauer.

(on back of paper)

Monroe, Mich. the 18th of July 1880.

If this leaflet fails into somebody’s hands

he should then carefully preserve it or give

it to one of the relatives, possibly myself.

Johann Wilhelm Eichbauer

                  This manuscript is from the Monroe Country Historical Society Library, Monroe Co, MI

       LOUIS EICHBAUER IN FRONT OF HIS FATHER’S STONECUTTING SHOP

Indian braves, French couriers du bois, trappers and traders, French and Yankee farmers, English and New
York  state  merchants first settled  Monroe,  but  early in the  community  life its skilled tradesmen were Ger-
mans.  Some of them came in the late twenties and early thirties, founding Trinity church: most of them, how-
ever, in the decade from 1846 to 1856.   Typical of many of these families of craftsmen  were  the  Eichbauers.
George Leonard Eichbauer (many of the Germans used their middle  name as their given  name) left  Cologne
March 12, 1852, by Rhine  steamboat  for Bremen, where he sailed for the  United  States on a sailing vessel.

A prized  keepsake in the  Eichbauer  family is  Leonard   Eichbauer’s  Wanderbuch,  or  record  of  his ap-
prenticeship.  In it, beginning March 29, 1842,  (all  the  entries  are  in  German, of course,  and  had to be in-
terpreted  for The Observer  by  his  grandson,  Norman  L.  Eichbauer)  when he was 20,  are entered  all  the
places where he worked as a mason & stonecutter, and his employer’s comments and recommendations. The
book records each  place he  worked, from his  birthplace, Feuchtwanger,  Bavaria, (the  name also of a noted
Bavarian  author,  Lion  Feuchtwanger,  whose  best-seller,  “Success,”  is  laid  in  Bavaria, and which, freely
interpreted, means “wet cheek”) to Nurnberg, Ansbach and other German towns.  At each a municipal official
stamped the book with an official seal and signed it, telling when the young apprentice arrived, when he left and
where  he  was  going.

Arriving  in  America  at  the  age  of 30  (family  history does not  record whether  he  had  married Christina
Maria  Schmeltzer  of  Feuchtwanger  before  he  left  their  native  village,  or  whether  she  came  to  Amer-
ica  later  after  he  was  established  here)  Mr. Eichbauer  came  directly  to Monroe.  A master  stonecutter and
mason  then,  he  built  the  monument  works  shown  above, on East Front street.  It still stands, though it has
been added to several times.  In it his sons Louis, shown in the picture, and  William were  apprenticed as stone-
cutters.   Louis died in 1901,  William only a few months ago;  William’s sons carry on the business.   Leonard
Eichbauer’s  youngest  son, Henry,  who died only a few weeks ago,  was  apprenticed as a  sheet metal worker
to the firm of Stoeckert & Finzel, later went into the heating  and  plumbing  business  for  himself  and  appren-
ticed his son  Norman.   Leonard’s only daughter, Louise,  married Herman Reisig,  who was a tailor,  and  who
died  just  this  year.  She  is  the  only  survivor of the  German  stonecutter.   Here  was  a  German  family  in
which  four  trades  were  represented, stone mason,  sheet metal worker,  plumber  and tailor.

                                                                                                                                From the Monroe Co. Archives