The Neumann Family Backstory - Part 2

 

Amalie Neumann Haizinger 1845

   In my last post, I looked at the records that I found and determined that the actress Amelie Neumann Haizinger of Karlsruhe, Prussia did have a son Karl (or Carl) Ludwig who would have been about the age of the Carlos Luis Neumann of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic who was my husband's second great grandfather.  But were they the same person?

   The documents that I had related to Carlos Neumann provided some additional clues.  First, a letter of recommendation in the consular documents from the Prussian State Archives noted that Carlos was said to have a sister in Bremen and a brother who was an "...adjutant to Imperial-Royal Landwehr Feld Marshall Radetsky"1.  Second, both the article in the economics journal described in that post2 and several of the consular documents noted the destruction of Carlos Neumann's business by the Spanish during the occupation of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Restoration War (1863-65)3.   Finally, another note from Carlos to the foreign office in January 1868 indicated that he was in Germany at that time for his health, and could be reached at the address of Anton Haizinger in Karlsruhe4.  Corroboration of these items would indicate that they were in fact the same person.

   As I said in my last post, in addition to having three children by her first husband, Amelie and Anton Haizinger did have a son together, Anton Ludwig Paul Sigmund Haizinger (known as Anton, or Toni).  Toni did join the army and is listed in 1840 as a Rittmeister II Class or Staff Captain in the cavalry. In 1870 he was listed as a Commandant des Dragoons5. The article Memories of the Gabillon couple and Amalie Haizinger discussed chats with Amalie in 1860 where they said "She told us about her son, her Toni, the young cavalry officer in Vienna, the great Radetzky's adjutant."6 I can't confirm the part about his connection to the hero Joseph Radetzky von Radetz who died in 1858 in Milan, but young Anton did have a distinguished military career being listed as Unangestellte Titular-Feldmarschall-Lieutenante ( Retired titular Lieutenant Field Marshal) in 18857. 

   The final confirmation is found in the autobiography written in the form of a letter to her children by Amalie's daughter, Louise, Countess Schönfeld -Neumann. 9 By 1860 when Louise wrote the letter mentioning her siblings, Amalie's daughter Adolphine had died8, but Louise, Karl Neumann's sister, had married Karl, Graf Schönfeld, and did live in Bremen. In addition, in the autobiography, Louise wrote nearly a page about a visit from her brother Karl, who she had not seen for the past fifteen years and who was now the Austrian and Prussian consul in Puerto Plata.  This portion of her narrative is noted as occurring in 1851, but I believe that she conflated several visits of his as she mentions not only his health problems but also the destruction of his business by the Spanish during the war that didn't take place until 1863-65, and his death which didn't occur until1873.  His last visit mentioned was to "...Karlsruhe, where he stayed for the same reason he usually stayed in Europe." while also visiting various spas over the years in an attempt to regain his health.  

   By tying all of these various documents together, I was able to show that Carlos Luis Neumann of Puerto Plata Dominican Republic was the Carl Ludwig Neumann, son of Carl Ludwig Neumann (1786-1923) and Amalie Morstadt (1799-1884) of Karlsruhe, Baden Wurtemberg.  I could also push the family tree back two generations! Carl Ludwig (Sr.) was the son of Carl Ludwig Neumann (b. abt 1756) and Charlotte Wilhelmine Sophia Epien (b. abt. 1760)10. Amelie was the daughter of Georg Michael Morstadt (1763-1842) and Fredricka Jacobina Fastert (sp?) (1774-1822)11.

   Hooray for following up on unusual sources!

1.  Letter in Royal Prussian Archives: Bremen 24 June 1853 from Fredtd Uelm, the Royal Prussian Consul, to The Royal Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, translated by Nina Gafni.

2. "Donation de Capital de la Sociedad Rural Dominicana en el Siglo XIX Segunda Parte” by Manfred Wilckens. Ciencia Y Sociedad,  Voumen XXVII, Numero 2 Abril-Junio 2002. Portions translated by Yanire Brana.

3.  Geheimes Staatsarchiv PreuBischer Kulturbesitz. Zentrales Staatsarchiv Hist. Abt. 11 2.4.1. Abt. II Nr. 642 Vol. II vom Sep. 1845 bis December 1862. May 3, 1854.  Translated by Nina Gafni

4.  Letter January 1868 Carl Neumann. Geheimes Staatsarchiv PreuBischer Kulturbesitz. Zentrales Staatsarchiv Hist. Abt. 11 2.4.1. Abt. II Nr. 642 Vol. II vom Sep. 1845 bis December 1862. May 3, 1854.  Translated by Nina Gafni

5.  Ancestry.com, Germany & Austria, Directories of Military and Marine Officers, 1600-1918 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Ancestry.com, Record for Anton Haizinger 1861

Rittmeister 1. Classe Haizinger Anton PSGO-R. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=60667&h=3637639&indiv=try.

6.  Anton Bettelheim, Viennese biographers. Vienna Literary Institute Vienna Leipzig 1921 “Memories of the Gabillon couple and Amalie Haizinger.” By Auguste Wilbrandt Baudius.  https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/bettelhe/wienerbi/chap012.html Accessed 11/27/2022

7. Ancestry.com, Germany & Austria, Directories of Military and Marine Officers, 1600-1918 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Ancestry.com, Record for Anton Haizinger. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=60667&h=3868268&indiv=try.

8. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfine_Neumann

9. Bettelheim-Gabillon Helene and Schönfeld Luise Neumann. Amalie Haizinger Gräfin Louise Schönfeld-Neumann: Biographische Blätter. C. Konegen (E. Stülpnagel) 1906. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/11390508.html. Accessed 20 June. 2022.  Original from Harvard University. Translated by Nina Gafni

10. Ancestry.com, Germany, Select Births and Baptisms, 1558-1898 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014), Ancestry.com, Birth Record for Carl Ludwig Neumann, 1786, Berlin. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N6CF-R5S.

11. Ancestry.com, Baden, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1502-1985 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016), Ancestry.com, Marriage Record for Georg Michael Morstedt. http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=61060&h=5512271&indiv=try.

The Neumann Family Prussian Backstory - Part one

Amalie Neumann-Haizinger1 (1799-1884)
My husband's third great grandmother1

   Some time ago I wrote (Here) that I had located documents in the Prussian archives in Berlin that showed that my husband's 2nd great grandfather Carlos Luis Alberto Neumann was indeed the Prussian consul in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, as family lore had said.  Another document in that group was a letter that said that "He is rumored to be the son of the actress Madame Neumann, who later became Madame Haitzinger..."2  The archivist who sent me the documents noted in her cover letter that Amalie Neumann-Haizinger was a well-known actress at the time. I had to follow up on this to see if the rumor was true.  My first look at Google went to theater biographies of Amalie Neumann-Haizinger.  Those only mentioned two daughters, both of whom followed her into the theater. I looked further into Prussian birth, marriage, and death records as well as other documents and found that she did have a son, Karl (or Carl) Ludwig, but was he the same as my Carlos Luis, the consul?  Would my research make the connection?

   Amalie Morstadt was born on May 6 1799 in Karsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg Prussia to Georg Michael Morstadt (1763-1842), and Friederika Jacobina Pasterts (or Pastertine) (1774-1822)3.  Her father was involved with the theater, and Amalie made her stage debut singing and acting in 1810. 4   She met a fellow actor, Carl Ludwig Neumann born in Berlin in 1786, son of Carl Ludwig Neumann (b. abt 1756 ) and Charlotte Wilhelmine Sophia Epien (b. abt 1760) 5 and they married on Jan 26, 1816, in Karlsruhe.  Their first child, Karl Ludwig Neumann, was born on April 13 of that year.  They had two other children, Louisa Friederike (1818), and Adolphine (1822) before Carl Ludwig senior died on Sep 4, 1823, in Karlsruhe.

   According to a memoir penned by her daughter Louisa, Amalie left the children with their grandfather at his home at Waldstrasse 14 in Karlsruhe while she continued her theatrical career, traveling to various engagements around Germany.  According to Louisa's memoir, Karl "had first and foremost the reputation for being the naughtiest boy in the whole town."6   Amalie was very successful and was described in a memoir by a fellow actress Karoline Bauer "Amalie Neumann, nee Morstadt was the most brilliant artiste and the most fascinating beauty of our stage. In her playful coquetry, she was irresistible for old and young."  Karoline also quoted at length from a work by Heinrich Heine, Brief von Berlin, 7 June, 1822 about Amalie "What shall I say about Mdme. Neumann, who charms everybody, even the critics? See what a beautiful face can do!.... The beautiful woman has even been cast in iron, and small iron medals are sold, upon which is stamped her likeness. I tell you the enthusiasm for this Neumann is epidemical here, like the cattle-plague."7

     On January 3, 1827, Amalie married Anton Haizinger.  He was a well-known operatic tenor who, in 1826 had accepted a lifelong engagement at the Karlsruher Hoftheatre.8  According to Louisa, Anton was very good to his step-children, educating them at the best schools. Young Louisa traveled for two years including time in Baden-Baden where she became "...the playmate of Princess Maria of Baden, later Dutchess of Hamilton."9. On July 19, 1827, Anton and Amalie had a son, Anton Ludwig Paul Sigismund Haizinger (known as Tony).  The four children were encouraged to sing and act and Louisa recalled a performance arranged by Amalie for the Grand Dutchess of Baden in which all of the children played the parts in a musical Vaudeville and Anton rehearsed them and was the orchestra.10

    So far my research showed that Amalie Morstadt Neumann, the actress, from Karlsruhe, did indeed have a son named Karl, born about the right time to be my Carlos, and I filled in part of Amalie's interesting life.  Would the documents confirm the details from the Prussian consular files?  The story will continue in the next blog post.

1. Painting Amalie Haizinger by Franz Seraph Strimbrand c 1850 accessed 6/23/22 on Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalie_Haizinger

2.  Letter in Royal Prussian Archives: Bremen 24 June 1853 from Fredtd Uelm, the Royal Prussian Consul, to The Royal Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, translated by Nina Gafni.

3. Ancestry.com. Baden and Hesse Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1502-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. accessed 30 June 2022 source for all subsequent birth, marriage and death dates in Karlsruhe cited in this post except if otherwise noted.

4. Amalie Haizinger Wikipedia entry accessed 30 June 2022.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalie_Haizinger

5.Ancestry.com. Baden and Hesse Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1502-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

6.Bettelheim-Gabillon Helene and Schönfeld Luise Neumann. Amalie Haizinger Gräfin Louise Schönfeld-Neumann: Biographische Blätter. C. Konegen (E. Stülpnagel) 1906. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/11390508.html. Accessed 20 June. 2022.  Original from Harvard University. Translated by Nina Gafni

7. Bauer, K. (1884). Posthumous Memoirs of Karoline Bauer: From the German. United Kingdom: Remington & Company. accessed via Googlebooks.com July 3 2022 pp 83-84.

8.. Wikipedia Anton Haizinger:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Haizinger accessed Oct 4, 2022

9. Bettelheim-Gabillon Helene and Schönfeld Luise Neumann. op. cit.pp.55-59

10. Bettelheim-Gabillon Helene and Schönfeld Luise Neumann. op.cit.pp.55-59

Carl Neumann, Consul to Puerto Plata

Beginning of Ledger Entry May 3, 1854
 Appointment for the merchant Carl Neumann as consul to Porto Plata.

I have written before (HERE ) about my husband's Neumann family, his grandmother Julia, and her father Victor.  I knew that the head of the family was his second great grandfather, known as Luis Carlos Neumann in Puerto Plata in what is now the Dominican Republic.  Family lore had said that he was the Prussian consul and that he had been born in "Germany" (which wasn't a  unified country until 1871).  I didn't have much further information about Carlos except that his wife was Maria Francisca Enriqueta Paris, and they had six children (Anna Maria Alicia, Carlos Henrique, Clementina Ragaela, Amelia, and Alberto in addition to the aforementioned Victor.)  The family referred to his German name as Karl.

Not one to give up on brick walls, I recently Googled Carlos Neumann and to my surprise got a hit on a Spanish language economics journal that had an article about the impact of the Dominican Restoration War of 1863-1865 on commerce in Puerto Plata1.  With the help of my Spanish neighbor, I found that there were several references to Carlos Neumann as the proprietor of businesses with an analysis of the impact on his business based on inventories and reports he filed as consul to the government of Prussia.  There were also footnotes providing references to the archive holding those reports in Germany.  With the help of my German neighbor (I live in a very multicultural neighborhood), I corresponded with the Geheimes Staatsarchiv PreuBischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian State Archive) in Berlin and they sent me images of 59 pages of letters and reports related to Carl Neumann of Karsruhe Prussia including the one shown above naming him consul to Puerto Plata (or Porto Plata as they called it).  I had to hire a professional translator as these were handwritten in old German, and they are still being worked on, but shown above is part of one page of the official ledger where they copied official correspondence showing the letter naming him as consul.  The paragraph shown above reads:

"We, Friedrich Wilhelm by the grace of God King of Prussia, etc. do hereby declare and add:, that, having found it convenient  to appoint a consul in Porto Plata, we have chosen and accepted there in grace Carl Neumann, a merchant who is acclaimed for his knowledge of business and other good qualities”2.

It seems that in the official correspondence his name was spelled with a C, and that the often signed his letters as Charles!  The remaining correspondence in addition to business information seems to include references provided in connection with his appointment with information about Carl's business, his character, and possibly about his origins in Karlsruhe. There are also some hints in the Spanish article that may lead to further information on the family in Puerto Plata.  I will have lots to do to follow up on these new hints, but for now, it's good to know that the family story about Carlos being the consul is correct even if the assumption about the "German" spelling of his name was wrong.

1. Donation de Capital de la Sociedad Rural Dominicana en el Siglo XIX Segunda Parte” by Manfred Wilckens. Ciencia Y Sociedad,  Voumen XXVII, Numero 2 Abril-Junio 2002.

2. Geheimes Staatsarchiv PreuBischer Kulturbesitz. Zentrales Staatsarchiv Hist. Abt. 11 2.4.1. Abt. II Nr. 642 Vol. II vom Sep. 1845 bis December 1862. May 3, 1854. no 5913 Article p. 102.