Kleinhans / Petitjean Family
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Niagara County with Dysinger (Corners), Wolcottsville, and Lockport. The Erie Canal runs through Middleport, Gasport, Lockport, and Pendleton. Most of the Kleinhans family lived in the Towns of Royalton, Lockport, Hartland, Newfane, and Somerset with a few in Orleans County to the east and the City of Niagara Falls. More Lutheran immigrants settled in the Town of Wheatfield and the City of North Tonawanda.
Partial 1852 Town of Royalton, Niagara County Map from the Library of Congress
In 1852 the future Wolcottsville was pretty empty with only a few homesteads. Notice Fisk Rd. was a dead end. A(nson) Wolcott owned 2,000 acres in the area (see Wolcottsville/Wolcottsburg below). Close to Mud Creek and Royalton Center Rd. on the map was the A. Wolcott Steam Saw Mill near the Wolcottsville Inn/Hotel today (see below).
Partial 1860 Town of Royalton, Niagara County Map from the Library of Congress
By 1860, Wolcottsville practically exploded with nearly a hundred new property owners (see Wolcottsville/Wolcottsburg below). Fisk Rd. was no longer a dead-end, new roads were built, and Anson Wolcott had moved out of the immediate area. (see Homesteads and Census Records)
👇 Click on the map below to open Google maps, and click on a marker to see the location/info about one of Frederick's children or grandchildren.
Žemyna - goddess of earth statue in Lithuania, once a part of East (Old) Prussia
►Wolcottsville/Wolcottsburg: click to show/hide
Wolcottsville, Town of Royalton, Niagara County, New York is about five (5) miles from Wolcottsburg and about the same distance from Dysinger's Corner in Royalton. The Erie Canal and Lockport are also only a few miles away.
Wolcottsburg is a hamlet in the Town of Clarence, Erie County, New York. The settlement was originally known as West Prussia due to the large number of Prussian inhabitants. The German Lutheran church at the end of Wolcott Rd was constructed in 1873 and still stands today.
JOURNAL-REGISTER (Niagara) Medina, New York, Wednesday, November 3, 1982 "Recollections of Wolcottsville" Heard by the Royalton Historical Society - At the last meeting of the Town of Royalton Historical Society, the program was "Recollections of Wolcottsville" by the "Pechuman Sisters," now Mrs. Hazel Gurssling and Mrs. Violet Meisner. Several members and guests brought pictures and photos of the older, bustling community. Mr. Pechuman operated a tavern [see below], and had the first auto in Wolcottsville. John Fink's store delivered groceries by wagon, and when he was elected Town Supervisor the hamlet celebrated with a bonfire of cardboard boxes from the store. William Sy was a watchmaker, there was a dressmaker, a hardware store, wallpaper store, blacksmith, barrel maker, cigar maker, wagon shop, a cider mill and a post office. At one time Wolcottsville had seven hotels. Mention was made of the medicine shows, "Pinkster," soap stones to keep one warm when traveling by bobsled; the carbide lights that would explode and burn if frozen, and the frequent spring flooding in the area. Several references were made to Dr. (Claude S.) Johnson who was the area doctor at Gasport for 35 years. A home remedy for burns was to cover the affected area with molasses and cotton batting, and there would be no scars. Anson Wolcott purchased 2,000 acres of land from the Holland Land Company in 1847, divided it into equal sized lots, and in 1872 [reported incorrectly, actually 1852-53] seventy-five families settled there from Prussia. The land was low, but the settlers were willing to accept this type of land as they had come from a similar type of country in Germany. Four members attended the Town Board meeting and obtained $250 in Revenue Sharing Funds to refurbish Gilberts' Corners Cemetery; the work on the project is being headed by Ed Hernberger. The Society had an exhibit at the Cambria Historical Society's "Pioneer Day" at the Cambria Fire Hall.
Town of Royalton Niagara County, NY History
Wolcottsville, also, does not owe its existence to canal influence [debatable]. It is situated in the southeast corner of the town, near the Tonawanda Reservation, which extends over the line into Royalton. The land on which Wolcottsville stands was a part of 2,000 acres bought of the Holland Company by Anson Wolcott. He settled there in 1847-48. Ehrick Sutherland had "squatted" on a part of this tract at an early date. When Mr. Wolcott was located he built a steam sawmill, where Charles H. Schad's store stood in recent years. [near the current Wolcottsville Inn/Hotel, see below] The mill employed a large number of hands while timber was left to saw. After a few settlers had come in there, Mr. Wolcott, in 1851, deeded his whole tract to four trustees, viz., Frederick Moll, Christian Moll, Frederick Welland and Carl Martins, who laid it out in small lots and in 1872-73 [incorrectly reported, actually 1852-53] seventy-five families from Prussia settled here, drawing their locations by lot. This gave rise to the name, Prussian Settlement, which has been applied to the immediate section, thus settled. After this transfer was made Mr. Wolcott removed his sawmill across into Erie County.
Joseph Rhodes opened the first hotel in the place in 1866, and a considerable trade and shop interest soon came into existence. In 1875 there were in the place seven hotels of all kinds of pretension, five stores, a cigar factory, five wagon and blacksmith shops, a sawmill, two churches, and about 1,000 inhabitants. The present merchants are Albert Retzloff, William Luckmann, W. H. Rhinehart (also postmaster), and Mrs. John Koepsal. Henry Siegler is a hardware dealer and blacksmith.
1902 SOUVENIR HISTORY OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK
Schad, Charles H. — Born in Town of Rovalton, 1845. Left Lockport with Cothran’s Battery, October 11, 1861. Was in a number of battles in Virginia and taken prisoner at Winchester. He was liberated in ten days by Fremont’s Cavalry. He lost his left leg on May 1, 1863, and has the piece of shell weighing two pounds, ten ounces that struck him. Returned home in 1864 and went into general merchandising at Wolcottsville. Appointed Postmaster there and held the office for twenty-four years. In 1888 moved to Lockport and is engaged in the operation and sale of farm implements.
Prussian Superstition, Magic, and Witches
One written account mentions superstition, magic, and Old Prussian-accredited witches for various ailments such as sickness, bad weather, and bodily pain. Old Prussia was located on the North European Plain near the Baltic Sea. Originally a group of pagan clans, Old Prussians worshipped pre-Christian deities. (see pic) By the 13th century, the Old Prussians were subjugated, their lands conquered by the Teutonic Order (a Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders), and were assimilated during the following 2 centuries. The 16th century brought the Protestant Reformation when most Prussians were converted to Lutheranism or Calvinism. By the 17th century, the largely undocumented Old Prussian language was extinct. Most Wolcottsville German / Prussian immigrant families were devout baptized Lutherans and had been for 200 years or more. A few immigrants were still thought to practice old pagan beliefs and superstitions, but, except for rumors, there is no direct evidence of this. However, belief in the devil and witches has persisted even after years of enlightened and educated general populations in the 19th, 20th, and even 21st centuries.
Wolcottsville today
Wolcottsville today has only one hotel, one store, and two churches. Wolcottsville shrank due to, in large part, the attraction of the nearby cities of Lockport in Niagara County and Akron in Erie County, and the rise of automobile travel.
In the first part of the 20th century, some Wolcottsville senior farmers sold their rural properties and bought a retirement house in Lockport for the prominence and convenience of city life. Lockport's growth benefited from increased industrialization fueled greatly but not solely by Harrison Radiator. More shops and factories meant more jobs with greater incomes, especially compared to farming.
A view of Main Street, Lockport, between Market and Pine Streets, 1887. From nearby rural Royalton to the modern city center with a dirt road, horse-drawn trolleys, businesses, and shopping.
►Lockport, NY: click to show/hide
Late 19th and 20th century Lockport.
In the late 19th and 20th century Lockport was vibrant and alive with social activities and attractions nearby rural areas didn't have. The smaller surrounding towns and villages such as Gasport, Middleport, Wrights Corner, Newfane, Wilson, Olcott, Cambria, Sanborn, Wolcottsville, and Rapids weren't large enough to support everything Lockport had. Larger cities rivaling Lockport were farther away such as Batavia, Niagara Falls, Tonawanda, and Buffalo. Some parts of Lockport were ugly and dirty, yet much of the city was relatively clean and safe and had room for new single-family homes with sidewalks not far from the city core. Lockport flourished from the 1850s to the 1980s until certain factors caught up to it.
Lockport grew initially because of the influence of the Erie Canal and train stations. In the late 1800s and early 20th century, Lockport became an engineering and manufacturing hub peaking with the General Motors' Harrison Radiator factory (see below) employing about 12,000 hourly workers from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. Some early Kleinhans family members left rural life behind for city life and work at the factories in Lockport.
GM Harrison Radiator Plant, Lockport, NY
►Harrison Radiator: click to show/hide
This is the brief history and current state of Harrison Radiator, the leading factory in the burgeoning industrialization of Lockport and Niagara County, where many Kleinhans made their living after leaving farming.
From Wikipedia: Harrison Radiator Corporation was an early manufacturer of automotive radiators and heat exchangers for crewed spacecraft and guided missiles, as well as various cooling equipment for automotive, marine, industrial, nuclear, and aerospace applications, (particularly for space suits of the first two U.S. human space flights) that became a division of General Motors in 1918. Today its business is a part of General Motors' Automotive Components Group, and is based in Lockport, Niagara County, New York.
Today the Harrison Radiator plant has declined, employing barely a quarter of its highest point. During peak Harrison employment, many people who lived in the Lockport area either worked at the plant or for a company that supplied the plant. After the mid-1980s attitudes towards unions and globalism shifted. General Motors sold the Harrison plant to its subdivision, Delphi Automotive Systems, in 1999. Delphi filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and emerged in 2009 after significantly reducing the plant's workforce. GM then repurchased the plant. The bankruptcy settlement affected many workers' retirement packages. Hourly and particularly salaried employees' benefits were significantly reduced. Although the plant is still in operation, Lockport hasn't fully recovered from the economic impact of GM's decisions.
*** Push is on to restore Delphi pensions | Local News | lockportjournal.com Published July 26, 2021 ... In 2009, the Delphi Salaried Pension Plan, which covered almost 22,000 employees at Delphi, was terminated in the aftermath of bankruptcy proceedings. The plan’s termination resulted in a benefit reduction of up to 70% for those workers. ...
Many of the affected salaried employees were WWII veterans, Vietnam veterans, older baby boomers, and their spouses some of whom have since died.
*** Union-Sun & Journal June 23, 2022 County Urges Delphi Pension Restoration | Local News |
By unanimous vote, the Niagara County Legislature adopted a resolution earlier this week calling on Congress to restore the pensions of salaried Delphi retirees which were cut after General Motors filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
The resolution encourages passage of the proposed Susan Muffley Act to restore full pension benefits to salaried Delphi retirees. The act is named for the late wife of a Delphi retiree who delayed seeking medical care due to her family's financial constraints and later died from pancreatic cancer.
After GM's bankruptcy filing, “the pensions of certain Delphi retirees were cut by the U.S. Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. The federal government then bailed out GM, but nothing has been done to restore the pensions of these Delphi workers,” Lockport-based county legislator Rick Abbott noted. “The fact is these Delphi workers played by the rules and earned their pensions, but they are now suffering financial hardship through no fault of their own. It’s long past the time that Congress finally act on this legislation.”
According to Abbott, more than 20,000 Delphi retirees across the United States were affected by PBGC's action. Among them, approximately 2,000 are from New York state, including retirees from the Lockport plant.
Reagan's Union Busting
The Baltimore Sun by Stacey Hirsh, Sun Staff, Jun 08, 2004
Ronald Reagan's presidency signaled a critical period for organized labor, a time when unions began shrinking at a much faster pace and it became more acceptable for businesses to fight off labor organizations. "It isn't clear whether Reagan set the tone for the '80s and into the '90s, or whether he reflected changes in society," said Charles Craver, a labor law professor at George Washington University Law School and author of Can Unions Survive? The Rejuvenation of the American Labor Movement.
The culture had started to change, America was becoming more conservative, and employers were becoming more strongly anti-union, Craver said. An important turning point came in 1981, shortly after Reagan took office, when he fired about 12,000 federal air traffic controllers who went out on strike.
"The biggest thing that that did was it sent a message to the private employer community that it would be all right to go up against the unions," Craver said. "Whether he intended to do that, I don't know."
After the PATCO (federal air traffic controllers) strike, the number of union members began to decline. "Beginning in the '70s you started to have a number of corporations who began to challenge labor, not just at the negotiating table, began to challenge the legitimacy of organized labor," said John Jordan, president of Washington public relations firm Principor Communications and a union organizer for 10 years.
"This really didn't become mainstream acceptable until Reagan broke the PATCO union, and that really opened the floodgates to a major effort on the part of corporate America to essentially beat labor back into a corner to a place where they haven't recovered yet," said Jordan.
Reagan also made it much more difficult for workers who wanted to have a union to get one, said Gordon Lafer, an associate professor at the University of Oregon's labor education and research center.
"Reagan stacked the labor board with people who are anti-union," Lafer said. The right to strike became more theoretical and less real, he noted. While Reagan did appoint members to the National Labor Relations Board who reflected his political views, previous administrations also had appointed board members who shared their ideologies, noted Alan Draper, a professor of government at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. Reagan simply took it to a new level, appointing members who were very anti-union, he said.
TheGrio The five worst presidents for Black people’s lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness by Ray Marcano, Jul 4, 2022
Ronald Reagan used conservatism as an excuse not to use the federal government to improve the lives of Black people.
Reagan’s racism emanated not from racial animus per se but from his rigid adherence to this conservative ideology, the notion of limited government and the belief that government should not try to correct social conditions.
We are still living, to an extent, with Reagan, particularly in the Republican Party, but then the general public. There is still this sense that the government should not do anything to address the problems of poverty, especially in Black America. That’s one of the legacies of Ronald Regan.
Trinity Lutheran Church just north of St Michael's Church has two smaller graveyards with several Jagos interred.
St Michael's Lutheran Church, Wolcottsville. Several Kleinhans' are in the graveyard behind the church.
►Wolcottsville Lutheran Churches: click to show/hide
A history of the Wolcottsville Lutheran churches from 1853 to the present.
From 1912, wooden sidewalk and dirt road.
The Journal-Register Medina, NY THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2003 Trinity Lutheran congregation celebrating church's colorful history. Congregants of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wolcottsville will mark the church's 150th anniversary on Sunday. ... Here's a bit of background on "the little red brick church." The Rev. Donald E. Willman has been the pastor since 1977. He served both St. John's and Trinity Lutheran in Wolcottsville until 1996. Since that time, he has retired and continues to serve as minister, working part-time and performing services at the church each week. Trinity church is steeped in German history. Due to religious persecution by King Frederick William III of Prussia, the "Old Lutherans" began emigrating to Western New York in 1839. Although they settled in various areas, such as Bergholtz, one group purchased land from Anson Wolcott in 1851, and settled in the hamlet of Wolcottsville. Its inhabitants still lovingly called it "Prussia." Fifty acres were set aside for the church and cemetery, deeded in trust on Sept. 9, 1853. Several residents from Bergholtz moved to Wolcottsville to assist the new group in getting started. In 1853, church services began in a barn on the property. By the late 1800s, a schoolhouse had been built, grounds set aside for a cemetery and records indicate about 490 adults were in the congregation. While some members left to form St. Michael's, right down the road, in 1868 the Red Brick Church was completed. The church cemetery to the rear of the church and the adjoining cemetery of St. Michael's, the Missouri Synod Church, contains the graves of early settlers, giving history buffs and local historians a lot of information. By 1897, an organ was purchased from a catalog and a band was used for services. Heating and education rooms were added on in an addition in 1953. There have been updates and the interior of the church has changed, but the major part of the exterior remains the same as in the pre-Civil War days. In the summer of 2004, the original organ will be featured in a stop by the tour of the Organ Guild Society. Besides holding a musical presentation, the church and the organ will be profiled in a book that will be added to the Library of Congress. It certainly is an honor for the church to own one of the oldest organs in the area.
The Journal-Register Medina, NY Monday, Sept. 20, 2004 St. Michael's church to mark 145th anniversary - Although St. Michael's was organized as a parish in 1859, its history dates back to 1857, when 12 families met in various homes for weekly meetings. Every three months a Buffalo pastor conducted worship for the group. By fall 1859, a considerable number of families had joined the original unit. An organizational meeting was held Sept. 29, St. Michael's Day, so St. Michael's was selected as a name for the parish. With the growth of the congregation, it became impossible to hold services in private homes. A few acres of land were purchased, and in December 1959, a log structure was built that served as a church for four years. The present brick church and educational building was dedicated Sept. 27, 1964. A parochial school was founded after the first church was built in 1960, then closed in 1952 (sic). In 1994, a preschool opened and continues today. The parish members were from Wolcottsville and vicinity but the church now draws members from all parts of Niagara, Erie and Orleans counties.
More Royalton Churches
The two Wolcottsville Lutheran churches weren't the only denominations in Royalton. Founded in 1818, the Methodist Episcopal (M. E.) Church above was built in 1838 and is still used for worship today. Several wedding announcements mention the Royalton M.E. church.
The original Baptist church next to the Royalton Union Cemetery in Dysinger's Corner on Bunkerhill Rd.
Royalton Union Cemetery (Dysinger Cemetery)
►Wolcottsville Inn: click to show/hide
The current Wolcottsville Inn in Wolcottsville, NY. It's the same building that was built in 1860 with new additions and modifications.
The sign hanging on the railing of the porch on the left side reads "American Hotel A H Pechuman". Albert H. Pechuman and his wife Mary owned and operated the hotel before 1920.
►Prudden & Kandt Funeral Home: click to show/hide
Prudden & Kandt Funeral Home Lockport, NY was founded in 1876. Many Kleinhans family members have passed through here over about a hundred years.
1880's picture of Main St., Lockport, NY. On the left above the two women is a sign on a building for Prudden Bros Furniture and Undertaking Rooms.
Two of the oldest ads for Prudden Brothers Undertaking. For years between the late 1800s and early 1900s, furniture stores and funeral homes were combined businesses. Cabinet makers were routinely sent off to study embalming.
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