William Cline's Life in New Madrid

In 1979, I began searching for the immigration document showing the ship that carried my great-great-grandfather Carl Wilhelm "William" Cline from Germany to the United States.  I have yet to locate the elusive record, but I am getting much closer to discovering his birthplace and the Port of Destination and Passenger List.

Meissen China Mark
on back of Cline China.

We don’t know what other items William Cline brought over from Germany; however, we know he brought some Meissen china with the mark shown here.  This manufacture mark was on the back of the Cline Meissen China.  Research shows that China with this mark was made between 1773 and 1814.  Dad’s grandmother, Anna Eliza Blount Kline, told him she inherited the china from her husband’s family.  Most of the china was destroyed in the 1926 Cline house fire in Morehouse.   

I had the pleasure of opening the tin box with all William Cline's probate records in the New Madrid County Court House in 1988.  I found the inventory of his household which included a safe.  I can only speculate that the safe was used in his grocery business.    Other documents included the receipt for his funeral and an interested deed outlined below in 1857.    

Carl Wilhelm "William" Cline (Klein) was born on May 27, 1807, in Schwelm, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.  His father, Peter, was 18 and his mother, Maria, was 20 at the time of his birth.  This information was obtained from one of the many databases at the Morman Family History Center at Little Rock in 1995.  I found it while searching in the book, Germany Selected Births, and Baptisms, 1558-1898.  He immigrated to America and settled in New Madrid at about the time the state of Missouri was admitted into the Union on August 10, 1821.  He married Nancy Cox in late 1834 or early 1835. They had five children in nineteen years.

Without a written diary, it is impossible to know what the family life of William and Nancy Cline was in early Missouri.  Based on what we know from other historical documents written on the first half of the 1800s, most families lived in a small square log cabin, worked long hours hunting, fishing, and cultivating the land for a garden.  The women were responsible for helping her husband as he needed, made clothes for everyone in the family, tended to the cow and other farm animals, taught her children how to read and write, then cared for the family's spiritual needs as well. 

The 1840 Census of New Madrid County, Missouri, his name was "Clyne," and he was married with one son under the age of five (unnamed and died before 1850), and one daughter the age of five (Elizabeth).  

In 1850, he was still living in New Madrid County, he listed his occupation as a hunter, and was a landowner.  His family had added a second daughter (Mary Jane) in 1848.  This date for Mary Jane's birth is different than other sources, but as the Census is the closest primary source found, I deferred to this date of 1848.

Inside the tin box holding William Cline's probate records, I found a surprise.  There was a transfer deed inside where he sold two slaves to Shapley R. Phillips on 20 Oct. 1857, for sixteen hundred dollars.  One was a negro boy, fourteen years old, standing five feet two inches high, and called Shatrick.  The other, a female, was known by the name of Lilly, twenty-six years of age, and of a very dark complexion.  This was surprising because most German in Missouri were against slavery of any kind.  Perhaps the woman helped keep up the house and care for the children after William's wife died.  It is interesting that the sale occurred a year after his eldest daughter married and moved from his house.  The young boy could have been related to the woman and used to do odd jobs in the grocery store.  This deed and other legal documents show that the family had the means to live a good life.

In the 1860 Census of New Madrid, recorded William Cline as a widower with four children living at home.  It showed his occupation as a Grocer.  The trade listed confirms what family tradition always reported, that he owned and operated a grocery store and sold whiskey.  In reviewing the 1860 New Madrid Census Slave Schedule, I found William still owned one female slave, age twenty-eight.  Sadly, no names of the slaves are listed on Census Slave Schedules.
  
The 1870 Census of New Madrid County, Missouri records William Cline, age 61, a widower, living with his youngest child, Louisa Cline, age 15, in the town of New Madrid.  A lot happened between 1860 and 1870 in New Madrid.  We will look at just some of what happened next week.  Then, we will conclude this segment by looking at what happened to his children, starting with the marriage of Elizabeth to Theopholis Verlaque in 1856.  I believe you will find it interesting.

My Great-Great-grandfather's Hometown

Before looking at the Probate Record of William (Carl Wilheim) Cline, I want to cover his birthplace.  Trying to determine the hometown of our ancestors is not an exact science, or easy.  For example, in looking at five census records, representing over fifty years of William (Carl Wilhelm) Cline's life, his birthplace is listed as three different locations.  They all list Germany, but I want a more specific locality.  The 1840 and 1850 census records of New Madrid County, Missouri lists his place of birth as just "Germany."  The 1860 and 1870 census records show "Hesse, Germany," and the 1880 Census record of New Madrid County, Missouri shows "Rhine-Hessen."  This last census taker wrote "Darmstadt" in a blank space as well.  Ah ha, the actual place of his birth and youth was Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany, and is located along the Rhine River just north of Heidelberg.   

Hesse is one of the 16 Federal States of Germany.  It is located in western-central Germany, bordered by the German states of Lower Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.  I see it spelled as Hesse, Hessian, and Hessen but they are all the same location.

As background on the development of the Federal Republic of Germany, it is located in the heart of Europe. The nation-state now known as Germany was first unified in 1871 as a modern federal state and named the German Empire.  In the first half of the 20th century two devastating World Wars, of which Germany was responsible for, left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers. 

With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR).   The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the European Union (EC) and NATO, while the communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the fall of Communism enabled Germany's unification in 1990. 

In 1990, I remembered watching people from East Germany and other Communist countries fleeing in trains loaded to capacity into West Germany.  For days, I watched history unfold on the television screen.  People around the world viewed the event in amazement and excitement.  Knowing this was a significant event in history, I saved a magazine and newspaper highlighting this great moment in history.  It was a powerful moment in time that I will always remember.  It may have been more important to me because of my German-American heritage.

Of course, William Cline would not recognize either Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany, or New Madrid, Missouri today, but I am sure he would be amazed and impressed.  Sometime in the late 1980s, I visited the New Madrid Courthouse and located William Cline's probate records.  I copied everything, and it cost about $25 to have the Clerk of Court make the copies.  Holding those hundred-year-old pieces of papers in my hands was very special.  We will look at some of the personal documents next week.