Family history, Albright

Albright general history

[excerpted and adapted from Albright Family History, 1727-1977, compiled by Elzora Stetzel Weston; anecdote written by DeWitt William Albright]

            Matthias A. Albright was born August 23, 1816, the son of Matthiew Matthias Albright, in Hanover, Heidelberg Township, York County, Pennsylvania.

            On June 14, 1837, Matthias married Anna Mayer, who was born May 24, 1818.

            Their faith being Evangelical and of a pioneering nature, they decided to leave their homeland and travel west. Matthias, 33, and Anna, 31, and their eight children began their journey in the spring of 1849. They traveled by ox team and covered wagon and brought clothing, food and any utensils that would be needed for cooking in the open.

            After traveling some 200 miles to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Albright decided that an alternate form of travel would be more prudent. The family crowded its belongings onto a flat boat propelled by a steam-engine tugboat and navigated the Ohio River some 650 miles from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois.

            The voyage must have been perilous, as the waters would have been high and swift at that time of year and in that pre-fluvial-management era. Upon reaching Cairo, the trip got even more dangerous, as they then traveled 250 miles upstream on the Mississippi River.

            Finally they docked in Muscatine, Iowa, and disembarked with their ox team to travel overland approximately 50 miles to Iowa City. [Note: A different history, George Stetzel and Catherine Albright Stetzel: Her Ancestors, Their Descendants, varies somewhat from this particular route and litany of transport, in that it says they only went by wagon to York, Pennsylvania, then “... by rail from York to Wrightsville (on the Susquehanna River), by canal packet and inclined plane to Johnstown and over the backbone of the Alleghenies, by canal to Pittsburgh ...”.]

            Being the county seat of Johnson County, they stopped at the Government Land Settlement Office to get a description of land available. The rates per acre were very nominal, there being no Homestead Act yet.

            Other Pennsylvania Dutch homesteaders already had settled northwest of North Liberty -- about eight miles to the north of Iowa City -- such as the Stoners, the Morelands, the Mayers, the Ranchaws and the Youngs.

            The Albrights procured 160 acres of land one mile south of North Liberty and settled there. The farm was partly covered with heavy hardwood timber, such as white oak, hickory, walnut, lindwood or basswood and white elm. A beautiful sparkling stream fed by springs in the hilly land several miles northwest of North Liberty flowed across the center of the farm and joined the Iowa River about eight miles to the southeast.

            With some clearings of scattered timber, hazel brush and elder, they would have about one-third of the land available to farm. Matthias, Anna and their son Abe, only 10 years old, cleared the land and immediately broke it and planted wheat and corn.

            Anna did all the cultivating of the corn and a large garden, child Catherine, who was 7 years old, cared and looked after the younger children.

            Being an accomplished carpenter, Matthias cut and hewed oak logs and, with help from Abe, built their home. By winter, with the assistance of their neighbors to the south and east, [it was] a settlement.

            Between 1850 and 1860, the home was extended to the east to make room for a growing family. A room was designated for Anna’s quite elderly mother, Elizabeth, who came to live with them.

            They also erected a “good, substantial” barn of poles, beams and mortise joints. Other buildings were built for poultry and hogs.

            About one mile south of the home place, Matthias purchased another piece of land, this one 180 acres, for his eldest son, Abraham’s, farm.

            On the northwest corner of the farm, Matthias, Abraham, Henry and Willilam helped construct an Evangelical Church.

            The Albrights, the Koser family, who lived directly to the north of the Albrights, and other Evangelical pioneers formed the church’s charter membership and christened it United Evangelical Church. The first minister’s name was John Wagner.

            The Albrights’ religious faith was very strict, and was passed on to their children with a fervor taken directly from the Bible: “Bring up thy son the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

            Besides piousness, the Albrights and their fellow settlers believed in and practiced thrift, sturdiness, honesty and progressivity. Their standard of living depended on nature and the soil.

            They built their own homes, grew a large garden, raised their own hogs, rendered their own lard, cured their own bacon and ham, fried down their pork shoulder meat in large crocks and poured hot lard over the meat for a preservative.

            They made their own sausages, stuffed in casings made from the small intestines of swine, preserved in lard. They made a gelatin-like cold meat called “soute,” or “scrapple,” by grinding up and cooking the head meat, liver, heart and feet.

            They made “mush and pootena” for breakfast by cooking cornmeal and head meat and skimming off the oil.

            They grew their own cabbage and combined it with pork ribs and backbone to make their own special kind of sauerkraut.

            Wildlife was abundant in those years -- wild ducks, geese and prairie chickens -- as well as fish in the stream a few rods from the house.

            For sugar or sweets, they grew sorghum cane. Matthias operated a sorghum mill for his family and neighboring families, which consisted of a cane crusher that crushed out the juice into large vats, which then boiled down the juice to the proper consistency (a thick syrup) and strained and skimmed off the froth that gathered on top.

            The women of the family raised their own sheep and carded the wool. Catherine spun, wove, and made clothing for the family.

            Jacob Koser, who owned the farm just north of the Albrights, not only farmed but was a harness and boot maker by trade. He made boots for his and neighboring families. (In those days, much bartering was done rather than money trading, as currency was scarce.)

            Education was considered a necessity for the boys, but even they could only be spared from the field work during the winter months. The girls did not go to school, as they were constantly needed in the home and needed to be taught homemaking skills. They had no careers in those days; even male teachers were the vogue. Women were expected to marry and have children and become housewives.

            Mothers were overseers of the needs of the entire family, and the girls were busy during the growing season at picking and preserving or drying sweet corn, apples, hickory nuts, walnuts, butternuts and hazelnuts. These foods were stored in the attic of the house so the family could have a wide variety of foods to eat during the winter.

            The boys kept busy helping their fathers butcher and process their winter supply of meat. In the late fall after the harvest, Matthias and his sons cut the winter supply of wood, split it and piled it in neat ranks near the house so that it would be accessible for the fireplaces.

            Matthias and Anna had not trouble with Indians when they arrived at North Liberty, and from then on, the Indians were friendly. There was no stealing.

            While they butchered a steer or a hog, the Indians purportedly sat around on their haunches at a distance. When the butchering ended, they would move in slowly, take the entrails and disappear.

            Grandmother Mayer played a large role in the community as a midwife. She would go into the home of a laboring woman and, after she delivered the child, would look after the family for three days.

            Infectious and potentially fatal diseases ran rampant in those days, and Dr. Tomas Stewardt was the only doctor for miles around.

            As much as 5 percent of the population contracted tuberculosis, also called consumption, and many died. A common form of tuberculosis, called the “Gone” infection, or “White Swelling,” seized Abraham, who recovered. Two of his sons, Ed and Levie, each had a leg amputated, and both died at a young age. Jacob’s five children all contracted diphtheria and, within 24 hours, four had died. [Ronald Stetzel’s history states that four of the 11 Abraham Albright children contracted diphtheria, all of whom died within a week of one another.]

            However, the Albrights must have been a very healthy lot, as few fell ill or died prematurely.

            The Albright family eventually consisted of 10 boys and three girls. This family was a very busy but very happy bunch. All attended church on Sundays. Evenings were spent singing the old spiritual songs, popping corn, crackings nuts and pulling taffy made from sorghum.