Weppners.org

Generation I · Son of Johann Adam Weppner

Augustus Weppner

Butcher of Zell and Pfeddersheim, who brought the family to Buffalo in 1834

6 Dec 1783 – 14 Mar 1869

Facts

Born
6 Dec 1783, Westhofen, near Worms
Died
14 Mar 1869, Buffalo, New York
Also known as
Carolus Augustinus Weppner (baptismal name); August Weppner
Work
Butcher at Zell and, from 1836, in Buffalo

Their story

He brought the Weppner name to Buffalo. Born near Worms in 1783, he worked as a butcher at Zell in the Palatinate, moved to Pfeddersheim in 1829, and in 1834 sold his farm there and took his wife Barbara and their children to America. They reached Buffalo on 18 September 1834, and two years later he opened a butcher business at Genesee and Ash streets.

Westhofen and Mainz

WikiTree's research identifies him as Carolus Augustinus Weppner, born on 6 December 1783 and baptized the next day at Westhofen, a wine village near Worms. He was the youngest child of Johann Adam Weppner and Anna Sabina Albert, and his grandfathers were Johannes Balthasar Weppner of Westhofen and Arnold Alberti of Bürstadt. Among his brothers and sisters were Eva Magdalena, who married into the Born family, and Arnold and Franciscus, the names he later gave two of his sons. Arnold lived in Mainz, and on 17 July 1811 Augustus married Maria Margaretha Winter of Weinolsheim at the church of St. Ignaz there, where, WikiTree's research notes, one of his brothers also married. She died on 21 November 1812, aged twenty.

Zell and Pfeddersheim

About 1817 he married Barbara Stumpf at Zell, in the Palatinate, which Bavaria then ruled. He worked there as a butcher, a Metzger in the church books, and five of their children were baptized there: Anna Maria in 1818, Jacob in 1820, Mathaeus in 1823, Arnold in 1825 and John in 1828. In 1829 the family moved to Pfeddersheim, just west of Worms, where Barbara was born in 1831 and Mathaeus died in December 1832, at nine. In the spring of 1834 he sold his farm there, outbuildings and all, to the town's newly founded Jewish congregation for 1,230 guilders. The congregation meant to build its synagogue on the site, though it later sold the land and built on another plot in 1842 and 1843.

The crossing

The family sailed from Le Havre on the François I and landed at New York on 23 August 1834. The passenger list gives Augustus as 49, a farmer, from Bavaria, followed by Barbara and the children: Anna Maria, Jacob, Arnold, John and little Barbara. A note beside John's baptism entry in the Zell register records the family's emigration to America.

Buffalo

They reached Buffalo on 18 September 1834, at the end of a cholera summer, and settled at the northwest corner of Chippewa and Ellicott streets. In 1836 Augustus moved to Genesee and Ash streets and opened a butcher business, with his sons working for him. In his seventies a census taker listed him as a “gentleman” with $2,000 in real estate. Barbara died on 17 September 1858. Augustus died on 14 March 1869, a few years after his son John died in the Civil War, and his sons Arnold and Francis carried on the meat business. The couple share a headstone in the United German & French Cemetery, now Mount Calvary Cemetery on Pine Ridge Road. It reads: “Augustus Weppner, died Mar. 14, 1869, aged 84 y's 3 mo. His wife Barbara Weppner, died Sept. 17, 1858, aged 60 y's 9 mo.”

Their lifetime

  1. 1783Augustus Weppner is born at Westhofen, near Worms, and baptized on 7 December.
  2. 1811Augustus marries Maria Margaretha Winter in Mainz. She dies the next year, aged twenty.
  3. 1818Anna Maria, Augustus and Barbara's first child, is born at Zell on 10 July.
  4. 1820Jacob Weppner is born in Zell, Rhine-Bavaria, on 29 October.
  5. 1823Mathaeus Weppner is born.
  6. 1825Arnold Weppner is born in Zell on 5 September.
  7. 1825The Erie Canal opens, with Buffalo as its western terminus. Buffalo
  8. 1828John Weppner is born at Zell on 19 July.
  9. 1829The family moves from Zell to Pfeddersheim, near Worms.
  10. 1829St. Louis Church is founded for the city's French, German and Irish Catholics. Buffalo
  11. 1831Barbara Weppner is born at Pfeddersheim on 28 June.
  12. 1832Mathaeus Weppner dies at Pfeddersheim, aged nine.
  13. 1832Buffalo is chartered as a city; cholera kills more than 120 people by July. Buffalo
  14. 1834Augustus sells his farm at Pfeddersheim to the town's new Jewish congregation, which plans to build its synagogue there.
  15. 1834The Weppners sail from Le Havre on the François I, land at New York on 23 August and reach Buffalo on 18 September.
  16. 1834Cholera returns to a city of nearly 15,000, and people who can afford to leave do. Buffalo
  17. 1835Francis Weppner is born on 23 June and christened at St. Louis Church, the only one of Augustus's children born in America.
  18. 1836Augustus opens a butcher business at Genesee and Ash streets.
  19. 1837Der Weltbürger, Buffalo's first German-language newspaper, begins publishing. Buffalo
  20. 1840Anna Maria Weppner marries her cousin Philip Born at St. Louis Church on 3 March.
  21. 1842A treaty gives up the Seneca's Buffalo Creek Reservation, which bordered the city. Buffalo
  22. 1845The family meat market is established; Catherine Dantzer arrives from Alsace-Lorraine at about seven.
  23. 1845The Elk Street Market opens; butchers come to fill most of its stalls. Buffalo
  24. 1848Jacob marries Emma Lambert at St. Louis Church on 1 September.
  25. 1849Philip Born dies on 26 January, and Jacob leaves his father's meat business to run Born's brewery for his widowed sister.
  26. 1849Barbara Weppner marries Joseph Fougeron, a Niagara Street grocer, on 23 October.
  27. 1852Arnold marries Blandina Doll at St. Boniface Church on 17 February.
  28. 1853John Weppner marries Susanna Germain on 21 July.
  29. 1855Nearly half of Buffalo's 74,000 residents are German-speaking. Buffalo
  30. 1858Francis Weppner marries Catherine Dantzer on 16 February.
  31. 1858Barbara (Stumpf) Weppner dies on 17 September.
  32. 1859German and French Catholics open the United German & French Cemetery. Buffalo
  33. 1861John Weppner volunteers on 8 August and joins Company I of the 64th New York Infantry.
  34. 1862John Weppner is wounded at the Battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, on 1 June.
  35. 1864John Weppner is taken prisoner at Reams Station, Virginia, on 25 August.
  36. 1865By March, John Weppner has died, either a prisoner at Salisbury, North Carolina, or in a Washington hospital after his release.
  37. 1865Jacob Weppner hands the Born brewery on to Gerhard Lang, the husband of Philip Born's daughter Barbara.
  38. 1866Frank Weppner joins the first board of the German Catholic Young Men's Association, later the Buffalo Catholic Institute.
  39. 1869Augustus Weppner dies on 14 March, at 85.