Louis Bockelman

Louis Bockelman was born in Hanover, Germany, on November 26, 1831. He was one of seven children born to John and Anna Bockelman. William the youngest son was a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War.

The Louis Bockelman Family - 1891. Front row: Louis, Carl H., Anna; standing: Mary (Mrs. Herman Stockman), Anna (Mrs. Freddrich Meyer), Emma (Mrs. Fred Richenberg).

Louis was the first of the family to come to America in 1860. He took passage on a ship in Hamburg. The voyage brought him to New York and from there to Defiance County.

He brought with him a good education and a skill of carpentry which he had acquired from his father. He immediately found employment in his trade.

In the spring of 1862 he enlisted in the army to serve his adopted country during the Civil War. He went to the front in Company K of the 107th Infantry. Louis spent most of his time in the Army as a member of the Pioneer Corps where his skill as a carpenter made him valuable. He was usually with the advance guard and assisted in preparing the way for the main body of the troops. During and after the tremendous fighting at Gettysburg he was assigned to the duty of burying the dead. He served in the Army two years and ten months until the close of the hostilities. He received his honorable discharge in Cleveland, Ohio.

His younger brother August had followed him into the same regiment. Both were in the battle of Chancellorville. It was here that August contracted a cold and died in Brooksville, Virginia, at the age of twenty-one years. He had followed his brother to this country.

For several years after the war he resumed work at his trade and then began farming in Freedom Township. He acquired land through the government and at one time owned two hundred and twenty acres. Later he traded eighty acres for a lot and business building with resident at 726 Perry St., Napoleon, Ohio.

On December 20, 1867, he married Anna Eggers. She had also been a native of Hanover, Germany, where she had been born September 26, 1849. In July, 1866, with her parents Henry and Maria Eggers she had sailed on the steamer Atlantic to America.

Louis and Anna had eight children, three boys and one girl died in infancy. Emma, Anna, Mary and Carl H. all lived to the age of eighty years or more.

When Louis and Anna retired, they moved to their upstairs apartment on Perry Street. Louis died on November 23, 1916, at the age of eighty-five. Anna died ten years later on December 24, 1926.

Submitted by the Family