Britten History

Britten Family History

A history of the Britten family as told by Monsignor John Britten Gehl in 1978 and noted and corrected by Jo Ann Gehl Wall in 2000.

About the History of the Britten Family by Monsignor John Britten Gehl

My great-grandfather, Mathias1 Britten, was a shoemaker. His wife was Anna Marie Benschawel, a Jewish convert. They lived in Ockfen, which is about six miles south of the city of Trier, Germany. I visited there in 1927.

(Curt Gehl) Mathias1 Britten first married Barbara Weber in Germany on  18 Apr 1814.  They had 8 children.  Barbara Weber died in 1848, before Mathias1 Britten emigrated to America in 1861.  Later, in Wisconsin, Mathias1 Britten married Anna Maria Benzschawel, who was apparently a widow and possibly from the Irsch area.

The men of the town of Ockfen were not farmers, but each had a piece of land on the Bocksteiner Berg, a rocky hill where they raised grapes and produced a very expensive wine. They carried manure in baskets on their backs to their grape vines. Each family produced and bottled its wine and marketed it.

(Jo Ann Gehl Wall) As close as I could establish, the families of Ockfen and neighboring Irsch migrated to this country in a group, between 1840-1850. (Our Brittens left Germany in the early 1860 ‘s. Father John’s grandparents, Mathias and Anna Bodem Britten, left Trier in June 1861. See accompanying paper submitted by Raymond Britten.

My great-grandparents took up a farm north of Kleinhan’s on the old St. John road. The Benschawels took up a farm southwest of St. John. My great-grandma (Anna Maria Benschawel) fell off the hay wagon and broke her neck; buried in St. John cemetery, the old part southeast of the sacristy. There were two iron crosses, very fancy, in the middle a plaque with their names. I remember them. When Father Roppuld wanted to add a garage, he told the people to remove the graves-no one at Hilbert knew about it, so he just leveled over the graves and, I suppose, buried the iron crosses and built his garage.

My Grandpa (also) Mathias Britten, was a shoemaker and tailor by trade. His wife was Anna Bodem from Ockfen. I learned of two sisters of hers; one (Mary) who had married Matt (John) Thiel who lived on a farm a mile south of the St. John church; and a Sister Christina who had joined the Sisters of St. Agnes.

(Jo Ann Gehl Wall) The archivist at St. Agnes Convent, Fond du Lac, can find no record of a Bodem woman becoming a nun. It is unlikely St. Agnes nuns were in Woodville between 1870 and 1875. There was another Bodem girl, Margaret, who is in the 1870 Federal Census for the Town of Woodville, Calumet County, living with her mother, Magdalene Bodem. Magdalene is 56 years old. Her son, Peter, a farmer, aged 21, lives with her. Margaret is 15. Magdalene is the mother of our great-grandmother, Anna Bodem.

Grandpa Mathias Britten got married to Anna Bodem just before he left Irsch. (All census reports show their oldest child, Mathias, was born in Prussia. Again, see accompanying paper, submitted by Raymond Britten, showing date of departure from Trier). He did not go with the rest of the families, but stopped in New York State; plied his trade of shoemaker and tailor; Uncle Matt, the oldest, was born there. (See above) Then he moved to Fussville, St. Anthony’s, north of Milwaukee. Aunt Mary was born there (On September 21, 1863. Fussville is in Waukesha County, a rural locality in Menomonee Falls Township). Then he moved to the Town of Ellington (in Outagamie County). His church was St. Mary’s, Black Creek, a mission of St. Mary’s, Appleton. There I found the baptismal record of Aunt Josephine. (Josephine Britten was born in 1864 and her death record states she was born in the Town of Greenville, Outagamie County.) Now, if you go to the cemetery of Black Creek, you will find the four small slabs marking the graves of the four children of Mathias Britten and Anna Bodem. (I was to that cemetery twice and did not find the gravestones. Donna Gehl was also there and did not find them.)

In 1860 (1866), Grandpa Britten moved to Hilbert-that is north of the village. (Hilbert was originally known as Menasha Junction. In July of 1873, the site of the railroad junction became Hilbert Junction, in honor of H.J. Hilbert. He was one of the men who pushed the project of expansion of the Milwaukee and Northern Railroad). He bought land opposite the large spring, from which the water flowed along the south ditch of the road, crossed under a culvert, where the beaver had erected a dam. Grandpa built his log house about on the spot where the white house now stands next to the barn of Lunda Construction Company (which was in the township of Brillion. The white farm house is no longer there. You can see where the “large spring” is today. Go east on Crosstown Road from Highway 57. As soon as you cross the railroad tracks, look on the south side of the road, for a metal pipe sticking up from the ground. It is amongst some bushes, so is not easy to see. Also, see accompanying plat map.)

Anna Bodem, as I said, had two sisters who came to the United States. Mary, Mrs. Matt (John) Thiel, and Sister Christina. But there was also a brother, Pete Bodem. He left immediately for the gold fields in California; (As noted earlier, Peter Bodem is listed in the 1870 Federal Census. He was living with his mother, Magdalene Bodem. In November 1875, Magdalene Bodem sold 40 acres of land in Section 25, Town of Woodville, to Peter Bodem. Peter Bodem is listed in the 1880 Federal Census for the Town of Woodville. He is 32 years old, a farmer, born in Prussia. His wife is Gertrude, aged 23, born in Wisconsin. Their children are: Magdalena, aged four (born August 25,1876); Mathias, aged two (born February 2, 1878); and John, aged six months. Civil records on file in the Calumet County courthouse show: In 1943, Lena Chisamore of Modesto, California, the sister of Matthew Bodem, swore that Matthew Bodem had been baptized on February 9, 1878 at St. John Church and had been born on February 2, 1878. Matthew Bodem was 65 years old in 1943 and most likely was applying for Social Security. Matthew Bodem is the two-year old child, Mathias, listed in the 1880 census, son of Peter Bodem. From this record, we know that Peter Bodem, our Grandma Gehl’s Uncle Pete, probably thrived in California). Ma said to us, how often, “When Uncle Pete comes home from California, we will all be rich.” We never heard from or about him; maybe he was shot by a claim jumper, as happened so often.

Grandpa Britten, as ma told us, had three brothers (John, Nicholas, and Peter) who came with the Irsch people. One had a farm across from what is now the Schaefer farm; another one on the corner where the road leads through the swamp to Hollandtown; and a third one, Ma used to call him Uncle Pete (he was her sponsor), lived in Marshfield. The Catholic History of the Churches in Wisconsin mentions his name – not his first name – and he with two others, were responsible for the erection of a church in Marshfield. Grandpa donated the bell to the Corpus Christi Church in Bakerville (a town about five miles southwest of Marshfield) and I went with him when he visited his brother, Pete, who had a full-grown son. (I am inclined to think Peter Britten did not live in Marshfield. He died in the St. John area 20-0ctober-1893. His wife, Susanna Laurer Britten, died in the St. John area 15-September-1895. Their death records can be found in the St. John Church, St. John records. He was involved in several real estate transactions in Calumet County between 1875 and 1884. Nicholas Britten, aged 69 was living in Marshfield in 1900 with his wife, Christine, and a son, Peter, aged 22). It was 1860 (1866) that grandpa moved to Hilbert. As I said, he built a log house. I was in it many times. Indians used to come to trap the beaver at the dam and also muskrat on the Manitowoc River. They brought skinned carcasses and wanted to trade them for bread from Grandma. Ma said her mother gave them all the bread they wanted just so they would leave.

The rule was, where there was a parish school (St. John the Baptist Parish, St. John, was founded November 24, 1862), a child had to attend the school for two years. So, Grandpa Britten took Ma to Matt (John) Thiels on a Monday where she boarded until Friday. This in winter. Ma said they did not have enough dishes, so Mrs. Thiel made a large bowl of soup and all got spoons and helped themselves to bread and milk. The soup was very good, Ma told me later. Ma told me when the weather was nice, she and her brother, John, walked to where George Diedrich’s farm is and walked the railroad to St. John. The Milwaukee Northern stopped at Bauer’s crossing and picked up wood; they picked up her brother, John, and went away. She screamed after them – they stopped and let John off.

Ma told about when they had the small pox; no one would come to visit them except the Wicks family. Also, Ma was the youngest of the twelve children of Mathias Britten and Anna Bodem. (The 1880 census for the Town of Rantoul shows children of Mathias and Anna Britten as Anna, aged 7; Maggie, aged 5; and Gertrude, aged 3. St. John Church records show Maggie, referred to as Mary Margaret in the baptism records of St. John Church, and now as Maria, was buried 6-July-1881. She died 5-July-1881 at the age of six years. Gertrude Britten was buried on 20 July-1881 at the age of four years. Another baby, Michael Britten, died January 30, 1880 – one hour old. Another son, John Michael, was born June 28, 1881 and died on July 11, 1882. All of these death records are from St. John Church. As these are church records, we do not know the cause of death. So, our Grandma Anna Britten Gehl had four siblings younger than she. I cannot find the twelfth child). They still had two small children and the plague also struck St. John. Ma said each day coffin after coffin filled the main aisle in church. Grandpa and grandma lost two children with that pest also. They were buried in St. John cemetery – where, I don’t know.

(The 1880 census shows another son, Peter, aged 11. He was born January 29, 1869, according to his birth record found in Brown County. I cannot find out what happened to him.)

Ma told me she was 10 years old when her mother died of typhoid fever, which means from drinking contaminated water. Ma was born on March 15, 1873 and grandma was buried in 1883 (Anna Bodem Britten died 29-December-1882 and was buried 31-December-1882) in the St. John cemetery -where, I don’t know. I never saw the grave. (The gravestone of Anna Bodem Britten is in the third row from the rear of the cemetery in the old section. Her mother’s gravestone is in the very back row beneath a tree and is in very good condition. “Magdalene Bodem, Born 1816 Died 1879? is plainly visible. The two stones are not very far apart. Magdalene’s is a little further north.)

Grandpa had bought the land where the strong spring is on and on that land he built a brick house. Ma said she dropped a brick on her foot and it hurt so that she cried. About this time (January 26, 1885), Grandpa bought the Bishop farm across from the Bishop sawmill.

(The Bishop family was prominent in the area at that time. Two brothers, O.D. Bishop and William R. Bishop, built their first stave mill in Sherwood in 1863; then another mill in Hilbert in 1871; in 1872, they established one in Brillion; they had branches in Brant and in Chilton. The principal mill was in Hilbert, which had a capacity of about 20,000 feet of hard wood lumber and 8,000 staves for tight work. OD. Bishop and his wife, Celia Ballon, had one child, Oriel D.W. Bishop. The sawmill in Hilbert was located across Highway 57 and a little north from where our grandparents lived in the 1940 ‘s).

Before this, the oldest son, Mathias, wanted to marry Anna Eicke. Grandpa was opposed and broke up the wedding. Uncle Matt ran away from home to Mann, (actually Mannville) on a cut-over farm where he married Aunt Lizzie (Elizabeth Poppy. Elizabeth lived in the town of Rantoul in 1875. She married Mathias Britten in 1890 in Marshfield after Mathias Britten ran away, he never went to church. His wife, Elizabeth Poppy was Lutheran, and their descendants are Lutheran). They had four boys (John, who died as a baby, Mathias, William and Louis). Mathias, the oldest of the surviving four boys, also had a son named Mathias. He owned a greenhouse in Marshfield. (This youngest Matt Britten has seven daughters, so that is the end of a line of four Mathias Brittens, of which we know. He sold the greenhouse to a daughter and her husband).

Aunt Mary, Ma’s oldest sister, was engaged to Matt Nillis. Grandpa also broke that up, even though the bans had been published. Matt Nillis stuttered. Grandpa then bought a farm in Bakersville and gave it to Matt Jonas, who married Aunt Mary. (I might express my opinion here that our Great-grandfather Britten seems to be a very harsh man. The present day Matt Britten in Marshfield, agreed with that opinion).

Uncle John also went up to the Marshfield area and picked up cut-over land. Both of them (Mathias and John) came home to Grandpa for help. They could not make a living, so Grandpa gave each a team of horses with harnesses, a new wagon, plows, tooth harrows, chains, shovels, crosscut saws, all carpenter tools, and the boys drove them up to Marshfield. Ma said it took them a week for the trip.

Uncle John got married up there. I don’t remember his wife’s last name (Christine Bell). Uncle John was killed deer hunting with the old muzzle-loader with the large outside cock and primed nipple. (John Britten died on October 28, 1895. The 1900 Federal Census for Lincoln Township in Wood County, shows his widow, Christine, living with her husband, Clarence Michalske, and a baby daughter, Agatha, born in March 1900. Also living in the household was Katie Britten, five years, a step-daughter, born July 1894.) Pa never let us have a gun. (In later years, Father John said that is probably the reason he was so interested in hunting and the guns it involved).

Following is a newspaper write-up of the accident copied from “The Marshfield Times” of November 1, 1895.

Accidental Shooting

John Britten of Bakerville Meets a Tragic Death.

A sad accident, resulting in the death of John Britten, a young farmer, happened at Bakerville about 11 o’clock Monday night. Britten, with a companion named Alfred Willett, had been hunting during the day and as night came on, they drew up at Bakerville where Britten stopped to get a sack of salt, as he intended butchering the next day. When within a half mile of the place they hid their guns in the fence comer near the road, intending to pick them up on their return. A storm came up and they remained at Bakerville until 11 0? clock. They then started home. Arriving at the place where their guns were left, Willett had recovered his while Britten, who was a few rods in the rear, in attempting to get his through the fence, holding it by the muzzle, pulled it in such a manner that the hammer caught the rails and the piece discharged, sending a load of fine shot through his right side just below the arm pit. With the report of the gun, Britten was heard to exclaim, “My god, I’m shot”, and fell over. Before ascertaining the damage to his companion, Willett ran back to Bakerville and gave the alarm. The unfortunate man was found lying where he fell and it is supposed death resulted instantly. The following day an inquest was held on the body; they verdict of the jury being that he came to his death from a gun shot wound inflicted by his own hands. Mr. Britten was a young man, about 30 years old, and leaves a wife and small family residing near Bakersville.

(Actually, John Britten was 24 years old.)

Grandpa Britten (our great-grandfather) now had only two boys and three girls left out of 12. (Our great-grandfather, Mathias Britten, remarried in January of 1884. At that time, he supposedly had three sons and three daughters living; Mathias, Nicholas, John, Mary, Josephine or Sophia, and Anna). However, he helped himself. Uncle John Maurer, a friend of Grandpa’s, told him about a widow whose daughter he had married. He met her on the boat; my Aunt Kate (Gehl). He told him a John Gehl of Rehlingen, Germany, was killed falling from a scaffold. He was a gypser, that is he did fancy work with plaster of Paris. Grandma Gehl was an energetic woman. She took her four children (the number of children who came with her is in dispute, but it is probably six), Uncle Matt and Andrew Gehl, Aunt Kate, and Tante Nanehen. (Tante is the German word for Aunt. Nanehen is a pet name for Anna). She really never got over the loss of this little girl. (St. John Church, St. John burial records show three children of John Gehl and Maria Theobald died in September and October 1884. They were: Anna Maria, Anna and John. More about these children in the Gehl family history.)

So Grandpa Britten and my father’s mother, Anna Theobald Gehl got married (on January 15, 1884, according to their marriage record from St. John Church, St. John) and moved into the new brick house grandpa had built.

About 1880 (this date is too early, St. John church records show that they were married on April 27, 1886), Uncle Matt Gehl and Aunt Josephine Britten got married. They had five children (from 1889 to 1898). They lived in grandpa’s brick house. The oldest (second oldest and only boy), Andrew died of diphtheria. (He died in 1896, according to St. John Church, St. John records). The other children were: Anna, Katie (or Catherine and in later life, Kathryn) Marie and Josephine. Grandpa and Grandma Gehl moved into their house bought from Bishops. (On January 26, 1885, Orial D. Bishop and Oreelia E. Bishop, his wife, of Rantoul, Calumet County, Wisconsin, sold 80 acres-more or less-to Mathias Britten of the Town of Rantoul, for $4,000. The parcel of land was the N 1/2 of the SE 1/4 of Section #1 in Township 19, North of Range #19 East. This is the farm where our grandparents lived in the 1940?s.)

Ma did not like it at home. Grandma was her stepmother. She went to Aunt Mary’s in Bakerville and later spent some time with an uncle, she said, in Chippewa Falls, and finally found a place to work in Seubert’s in Marshfield. They ran a farmer’s hotel. Ma learned cooking from Mrs. Seubert and Ma was a good cook.

(Curt Gehl) The unlce in Chippewa Falls is most likely Jacob Diedrich, who married Margaret Britten in the Town of Woodville.  Margareth is the daughter of Peter Britten and Susan Lauer.  They came to America on the same voyage as the 3 Mathias Brittens, among others.  Jacob and Margareth are listed in the 1880 US Census as living in the Town of Woodville with children George, Mary and Mathias.  Some time after this they moved to Boyd, Chippewa, Wisconsin.  Margaret died around 1888 and Jacob remarried to Helena Goeser in 1892, so it’s difficult to determine when they moved and if Margaret passed away before or after this move.

When Ma was 18 and Pa, (Andrew Gehl), was 22 years old, Pa went to visit Ma and they were married in St. John’s, Woodville church. They lived in the attic of Grandpa’s brick house. Summer, it was so hot when my oldest brother, Matt, was born.

When Uncle Matt (Gehl) and Aunt Josephine (Britten) got married, Grandpa and Grandma moved into the Bishop house and Grandpa had a house build for Uncle Nick (Britten) to whom he turned over the farm. (Nicholas Britten and Catherine Nillis were married in November of 1891 at St. John Church, St. John).

Uncle Matt Gehl coming home from choir practice one night followed the railroad track and was killed by a passenger train. (This happened on May 24, 1900). He was found late the next morning or at noon. Ma had me run to Aunt Josephine to tell her; she already knew it. Aunt Josephine then bought a house the fourth one south of our farm house and put Uncle Nick on the home place.

Aunt Josephine died of cancer – I don’t remember the year (it was on June 26, 1905, according to the death record, filed at the Calumet County Court House in Chilton). I was younger then. Grandpa then had my Pa and Ma move into the farm house I was born in. My cousin, Joe (son of Nicholas Britten and Kathrina Nillis) was also born in that house. Matt, the oldest was born elsewhere – I don’t know where. All the Nick Britten children were born on Grandpa’s home farm and were baptized in the church in Hilbert. I don’t know all of them. (Joe Britten was the second child to be baptized in the new St. Mary Church in Hilbert.)

I went to school, the parish school in Hilbert with Matt and Joe (Britten). And in 1907, I left home to go to Mount Calvary to study for the priesthood. (A history of St. Mary Church, Hilbert tells on September 4, 1907, “the pastor took John Gehl, one of the boys of the parish, to Mount Calvary College “.)

Grandpa and Grandma Britten were very active in organizing St. Mary’s Church in Hilbert.

(The early records of St. Mary’s Church, Hilbert indicate that on July 16, 1890, Joseph Marx and Theodore Runte agreed that there was a sufficient number of families about Hilbert to organize a congregation. Mr. Marx then opened a subscription blank and Mr. Matt Britten was to canvass the neighborhood for subscriptions and signatures for a fund to begin a parish. At a meeting on July 20 of the same year, it was concluded that a Catholic church be built and the officers elected for one year were: Andrew Gilsdorf, Clerk; Joseph Marx, Treasurer; Mathias Britten, Director. A building committee chosen on the same day consisted of Cornelius Nelson, Mathias Britten, Andrew Gilsdorf, Ferdinand Lenz, and Franz Heimerl. It was further resolved that the name of the church be “Maria Hilf’. Twenty-one families are on the first subscription list and the church was built by October 3, 1891, as a school was opened in the basement of the church on that date.)

When the church was built, Grandpa Britten brought Father Verberk, a retired Dutch priest, from Hollandtown on Saturdays, who stayed with the Joe Marx family overnight and on Sunday, grandpa or my pa took him back to Hollandtown. This went on for two years.

Grandma Gehl Britten was very active in getting the new church started. She and another woman took the horse and buggy and begged money to furnish the church. They went south as far as Mayville. (Mayville is between Beaver Dam and West Bend, but about five miles further north.)

As I said, I don’t remember when Aunt Josephine died (1905), nor do I remember when Grandma Gehl Britten died (February 28, 1919), she had hardening of the arteries and would walk to St. John, Woodville, thinking that she was again in Rehlingen, Germany. (Before the village of St. John was known by that name, it was called Woodville, the name of the township.) She had to be put in a care home (the county hospital in Fond du Lac) where she died. Grandpa Britten died in 1908; my pa and Uncle Nick were with him. Now something had to be done for the (orphaned) Gehl girls. Annie married Frank Schneider (on the very day her grandfather died; Grandpa Britten died at 11:00 p.m.; most likely, the wedding ceremony took place early in the morning, as was customary) and lived all her life in Green Bay. (Her oldest two children, Leona and Mary were born in Chilton and Hilbert.) One of her girls (Leona, the oldest) was the city nurse. She had nice children. Katie, Marie, and Josephine were placed in the orphanage (in St. Joseph’s Orphan Asylum in Green Bay), where later Katie married a Kaster boy (Joseph Kaster). They had two boys (Eugene and Donald). Marie married a Christensen (actually Frank Christien from the marriage record found at the Register of Deeds office in Green Bay. He was a shoe merchant from Burlington, Wisconsin. Reverend John Gehl officiated at the ceremony.) They had no children. Died in Utah. Katie and her husband were buried in Green Bay, St. Phillip’s. (They are buried in the Allouez Cemetery.) I was at their funerals. Josephine’s husband (Chester Barret) was the speed cop (no, he was not the speed cop. Father John is confusing him with the husband, Orlen Miller, of Anna Gehl Schneider’s oldest daughter, Leona.) and was killed. Had one son (Jack), who now lives in Milwaukee. We keep in touch.

There is a Bodem buried in the St. John cemetery in Woodville. I think it is the mother of the Bodem children. (Yes, that is correct. Magdalene Bodem was the mother of our great-grandmother Anna Bodem Britten. And also, the mother of Peter, Margaret, and Mary Bodem.)

When Grandpa Britten died, the girls’ property had to be sold. John Madler, the banker, was the guardian.

I don’t know when (1911) Uncle Nick took his family to Ladysmith. (Nicholas Britten worked as a lumber jack in the woods and eventually moved to Kaukauna, where he found work at Thilmany Pulp & Paper Company). He had two girls and, I think, six (yes, that is correct) boys. Mattie, the oldest, was killed in World War I. Three boys joined the Navy; one of them, Frank, I am in touch with. He took his money, bought timber land – now New Auburn – built a house, a workshop, and a saw mill, and married a widow with three sons. I am in touch with him. He has made me some dozens of gavels, beautifully made.

Now this is all I know. I am 84 years old, with a bum heart. I get around in a wheelchair, but I am sending you what I remember. My Pa died on December 17, 1945. Ma died on February 11, 1956. When I was at Stephensville, Anna Britten, from Seattle, came for a visit. I forgot her married name.

Monsignor John B. Gehl