#36 Oberbauerschaft c. 1930
William Heitkamp was born at #32 Heddinghausen, Luebbecke Kreis (i.e., County) Westphalia, Prussia on 17 June 1826 to Johan Friedrich Heitkamp and Anne Marie Luise Reisebrink. He was baptized in the Evangelish (Lutheran) Church in Holzhausen bei Luebbecke on 29 June 1826 and given the name of 'Anton Friedrich Wilhelm' by his sponsors: Anton Friedrich Heitkamp (half-brother of his father) and Christian Friedrich Samson (husband of his mother's sister).
This Heitkamp family line comes from a small farming community named Oberbauerschaft, which is located a few miles southeast of Heddinghausan (Holzhausen bei Luebbecke). The Heitkamp family can be traced back to the birth of Wulbrandt Heitkamp in 1618. Wilhelm (i.e., William) represents the sixth generation of this family line.
Because of the practice of primogeniture (i.e., the inheritance of the family farm/land by the eldest son), many younger sons married women who had inherited property from their fathers (i.e., eldest daughter of a man with no living sons) or their deceased husbands. In some cases, this would result in a move from the family village to a nearby village where the young man would then assume the responsibilities of running the new farm, often assuming the surname of that farmland. This is the case with William's father, Johan Friedrich, whose own father, Rudolph Henrich Hilmar, had married three times and fathered a total of eleven children, nine of whom were males. However, most of these male children died either in childhood or young adulthood, leaving no heirs of their own.
Of the six males born to Rudolph's second wife, only two produced children, and only one of these two (the youngest, as it turned out) lived long enough to produce living heirs (i.e., five females). Therefore, even though William's father was the firstborn male of Rudolph's third wife, he was not eligible to inherit the family farm (#36 Oberbauerschaft). With this is mind, it was arranged (or rather contracted) for William's father, Johan Friedrich, to marry the eldest surviving daughter of a man who had a farm in the nearby village of Heddinghausen (Holzhausen bei Luebbecke), but no surviving sons to inherit.
In January 1817 Johan Friedrich married Anne Marie Luise Reisebrink and helped her father fun the Reisebrink farm. Johan Friedrich and Anne Marie Luise had five children, 3 females and 2 males. William was the second male and the only one of the five children to carry the surname of Heitkamp (at that time the name was spelled Heidkamp), the other four children used the name of Reisebrink when they reached adulthood (in childhood all the children were known by both surnames (eg. each of their baptism records show both surnames).
Unfortunately, Johan Friedrich's father-in-law married a much younger third wife who produced a male heir. The church records show that Johan's fifth child was born at #279 Luebbecke proper and that Johan was now a day laborer and no longer farmed. It can be assumed that William learned the trade of a blacksmith because his own Heitkamp line no longer owned farmland. It can also be assumed that William became an apprentice blacksmith to his uncle, Anton Albert Henrich, his father's younger full brother. (Church records show that Anton Albert Henrich had also learned the blacksmith trade as a young man, since he also did not inherit his own farm.)
William Heitkamp married Marie Luise Uphoff on 28 July 1850 and relocated to the village of Hille, which is located a short distance northeast of the city of Luebbecke, where he continued to practice his trade as a 'naglschmid' or 'nailsmith' at #379 Hille. William and Marie had two sons, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm (known as Friedrich or Fred) who was born on 5 Apr 1851, and Christian Heinrich (known as Heinrich or Henry) who was born on 9 Feb 1854.
The family emigrated from their homeland in 1855. They loaded their belongings onto a small watercraft that took them up the Weser River to Bremen where they boarded the 'J Ahlers' (a bark or sailing vessel) and sailed to America arriving in the port of New York on 22 Oct 1855. The small family headed directly to Dane County where they settled in the Cottage Grove area first and then later Blooming Grove. Marie Luise's brother, Christian Heinrich Uphoff, as well as several other families from Hille, had already settled in the late 1840s early 1950s.
On 2 November 1855, William petitioned to become a naturalized citizen of the United States. And on 23 Oct. 1860, five years after arriving in America, he became a citizen of his adopted county: E. G. Reuter and Jacob Heimer acted as witnesses.
In 1857 William purchased 80 acres of farmland in Blooming Grove, Dane Co. for $1000 (N ½ of NE ¼ of Section 13) from James W. Barrett and his wife, Jane Barrett. In June of 1858 William purchased fifty acres of farmland in Westfield, Sauk Co (NW ¼ of Section 18). William did farm the land in Blooming Grove, but it is not known whether the land in Westfield was ever farmed by anyone.
Marie Luise (nee Uphoff) must have died sometime after their arrival here in 1855 and prior to 17 July 1858, when he married Ann Katherine Lilienthal (daughter of Nikolas and Ann Rebekah Lilienthal of Fond du Lac).
William began buying lots in Madison in 1862, beginning with the purchase of E ½ of Lot #18 in Block #174 for $500. In 1863 he purchased from W. F. Vilas and Frances Massing another lot (do not have description for this purchase, but most likely this is the purchase of Lots #3 & #4 in Block #148) in Madison for $250. William purchased Lot #2 in Block #148 in 1865 from George and Emeline Delaplaine and Elisha and Maria Burdick for $450.
According to information from the Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory website: William built his carriage, wagon and blacksmith shop, which was located at 811 Williamson St., in 1872. (It is unknown when the house at 813 Williamson St. was constructed.) According to historic records, John and Dorota Schlundt built house on Lot #2 in block #148 (William's 1865 purchase) in 1872. (William must have sold this lot to John Schlundt, who became his business partner as well as neighbor.)
William and his second wife, Katherine (Catherine) had six children:
The two sons from William's first marriage to Marie Luise Uphoff, Friederich (Fred) and Heinrich (Henry) also became blacksmiths. Fred married Marie Dorothy Schultz on 7 Feb 1878 in Madison. They lived in the family house at 813 Williamson for a couple of years before moving to Reedsburg, Sauk Co. where Fred built his own blacksmith shop.
Henry married Carline Marie Wiese (who was also born in Hille) on 20 Mar 1879 in Madison. Henry and Marie moved to Loganville, Sauk Co where he opened his blacksmith shop. Henry and Marie lived in Loganville for twenty years before they sold his shop there and resettled in Reedsburg, where he built another blacksmith shop and competed for business with his brother, Fred.
Fred and Marie had three children:
Both Fred and Marie, along with their son Edwin and his wife, Alma are buried in St. Johns Lutheran Cemetery in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. Their son, Ewald and his wife, Estella are buried in Madison, Jefferson Co., Indiana where they lived the last twenty years of their lives. Their daughter Alvina is buried in Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Westfield, Sauk Co., Wisconsin.
Henry and Marie had three children:
Henry and Marie's daughter, Louisa Heitkamp Tilker, lived in the town of Reedsburg and is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison next to her husband, Al Tilker, and her parents.
Marie Wiese Heitkamp is the daughter of Christian Heinrich (Henry) Wiese who emigrated from Hille in 1864 and settled in at 740 Williamson Street in Madison. Henry Wiese died on 20 Sep 1891 and his Obituary (Wisconsin State Journal, 22 Sep 1891) stated that ". . .headed by the First Regiment Band, a long procession escorted the remains of Henry Wiese to Forest Hill cemetery this afternoon, after services at the residence, 740 Williamson Street. All the German societies in the city, of which the deceased was a popular member, were in the procession. The carriages in the rear extended along Main Street five blocks."
In 1857 work began on a new Capitol building in Madison. It is believed that William worked on the construction of this new building, which was completed in 1869. Between 1882 and 1884 William may also have been one of many skilled craftsmen who worked on enlarging/adding a wing to the Capitol. During this construction process, a portion of the Capitol collapsed and killed seven people. The following year on 12 Oct 1885, William Heitkamp (Anton Friedrich Wilhelm) died in his home at 813 Williamson Street in Madison, Dane Co., Wisconsin. He was 59 years old. William is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery along with his second wife, Catherine and their oldest son, Louis, who died in childhood. Their daughters, Anna Heitkamp Imig (and her husband, George) and Helena Heitkamp Hinman (and her husband, Frank) are also buried in Forest Hill Cemetery. William and Catherine's son, August (and his wife, Celia) are buried in a different section of Forest Hill Cemetery. Marie Luise (Uphoff) Heitkamp's (William's first wife) grave has not been located yet. Also, no death information has been found for William and Catherine's daughters, Wilhelmine Heitkamp Schlaak and Marie Heitkamp Ekstadt and their husbands.