On Monday, July 26, 2010, Merritt, Bob and I travelled to New York City to attempt to find the gravesites for our Herrschaft ancestors in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, and also to see what information we could obtain on them from archived records at various sites in the city.
We rode to New York on Amtrak, and then from Penn Station took the A (express) train southbound one stop to 14th street, where we transferred onto the L train for the long trip to the Evergreen cemetery.
We got off at Broadway Junction, and found our way to Conway Street, heading northwest on Broadway, under the complex tiers of merging elevated lines.
Incidentally, on the L train trip, once we crossed into Brooklyn, a middle-aged African-looking and sounding man came on board, and for the next 15 minutes or so strongly preached the Gospel to those who were on the train. His theology seemed totally orthodox; he did seem to emphasize the destination for those who were not saved. On the way off the train, I told him that I was praying for fruit in his ministry and for strength and protection for him.
Getting to the cemetery required a one-block walk up Conway to Bushwick Av, and then across the street into the cemetery.
By this time it was about 11:45am, and the temperature was in the 80’s, however there was a “nice breeze.” Our first stop was the Administration Building, and after some discussion about the location of plot 17 ½ in the Holly Dell section, the woman in charge said that she would enlist the services of one of the cemetery employees, a man by the name of Danny Daddario, known on his business card as a “Cemetery Historian.”
Danny came up to the ad building with his van, cheerfully greeted us, and drove us over to the Holly Dell section. We got out and began to look for plot 17 ½. Unfortunately, not all the grave markers had a label to indicate which plot they belong to We knew that the plot for Gottlieb and Katherine Herrschaft was not big – 100 sq. ft – only enough for 4 graves, Danny told us.
After roaming around the general area for 15-20 minutes, noticing that the plots were not always situated in numeric order, we began to wonder if even with the cemetery historian as our personal resource, we might not find the plot. But Danny was determined, and decided to go back to wherever and get his own laminated plot map for the Holly Dell section.
To make a long story a little less long, even with the plot map and his experience we still were quite unsuccessful. However, we had narrowed down the location, and found adjoining plots that were numbered as shown on the map. It had to be just about…. here.
Suddenly, the words we were waiting for: “I found it!”
Merritt had gone up to a large clump of 10 ft. high sassafras plants, reached inside and found a grave stone, and on it were the names, “Gottlieb Herrschaft” and “Katherine Herrschaft,” along with their lifespan date ranges. Hallelujah!! We attempted to stamp down the plants and make the gravestone clearly visible. However, Danny told us to go back to the office and file a complaint, asking that the foliage be cleared away, and the gravestone reset to perfectly vertical. So when we had completed the picture taking and calmed down a little from the euphoria of the “find,” we went back to the office, filed our requests, generously thanked Danny for has huge assistance, and walked out of the cemetery, standing in respect as a funeral precession passed by; the cemetery is still in use!
A side note: during our search, a good percentage of the gravestones in the Holly Dell section that we saw contained names that seemed to be of Germanic origin. And a fair number of those gravestones had text that was only in German. So at least the Holly Dell section of the cemetery supported a sizable number of German families. This corroborates with what we have been told in the past that this part of Brooklyn 100 years ago contained many German immigrants.
After leaving the cemetery, we walked back to the Broadway Junction MTA station, and took the J train (elevated all the way until in Manhattan – some great views, especially crossing the East River) to the City Hall area in downtown. We wanted to go to the Board of Health to see if we could find death certificates for Gottlieb and Katherine. The hope was that they would contain the city or town of origin, and not simply “Germany.” The first place we visited was the NYC Office of Vital Records at 125 Worth St. There were long lines of people all waiting to request copies of birth, death and marriage certificates. Merritt inquired about archival information, and someone in the know said we were in the wrong place; we needed to go to 31 Chambers St., the NYC Department of Records – Municipal Archives.
So off we went to 31 Chambers St., about a 4 or 5 block walk. The lobby and corridors in that building were unbelievably ornate – like a cathedral or similar, dimly lit. Where did they get the money for that kind of architecture?
In room 114, we found the microfilm with the information we needed, along with a computer database to search by name. The staff there were very helpful, if a little unfriendly in doing so! We got hits for both Gottlieb and Katherine; we also noted that Benjamin Franklin Herrschaft (our grandfather) was also on the database, although we didn’t pursue his information. Another trip? Here’s what we came up with:
| Cert. No. | 3101 | 13026 |
| YOD | 1909 | 1925 |
| Borough | Kings | Kings |
| Name | Gottlieb Herrschaft | Katherine Herrschaft |
| Occupation | Retired policeman | Housework |
| Length of life | 75 years, 4 months, 28 days | 90 years, 3 months, 9 days |
| Sex | Male | Female |
| Race | White | White |
| Marital status | Married | Married |
| Country of origin | Germany | Germany |
| Address | 575 Evergreen Ave | 575 Evergreen Ave |
| Residence type | Two family house | Two family house |
| Father | S. Randolph Herrschaft | Carl Heiser |
| Father country | Germany | Germany |
| Mother | ?Kunigunda? Jaeger | ?Poialy? W. Esper |
| Mother country | Germany | Germany |
| Cause of death | Pneumonia | Chronic diffuse Nephritis (over 2 years) |
| Time of death | 13 Feb 1909, 8pm | 22 June 1925, 11pm |
The most notable new information was the names of the parents of Gottlieb and Katherine. It seems likely that they would have also travelled to the US with their children. So we have new relatives to research! However, since the certificates were written by hand, it was not possible to get the correct spelling of the first names of the two great-great-great grandmothers, as seen in the above table.
Incidentally, if we had known while at the cemetery, we were only about 10 or so blocks from 575 Evergreen Ave; we could have easily walked to the site of the Gottlieb Herrschaft homestead 100 years ago.
When we finished there, we walked a number of blocks west on Chambers down to the “1” train at West Broadway, and rode several stops uptown to the Houston (pronounced HOW-STUN) stop. We walked over to the National Archives facility on the 12th floor of the federal building at 201 Varick St., and were confronted with a security scrutiny as elaborate as an airport screening. (We found out later that the building also houses the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Varick Detention Facility on the 4th floor!).
Our visit to the National Archives yielded nothing further, although the staff was quite helpful. We were able to use Ancestry.com for free there, and we did get hits on both Gottlieb and Katherine, and maybe a little information on S Randolph Herrschaft. But no really new data.
We left there around 5pm, walked all the way down to Canal Street, and looked for a Chinese restaurant. Sadly, as we walked east block after block on the north side of Canal, there were mostly shops selling gold, with thugs and similar on the sidewalk outside, waiting to do – I don’t know what – snatch our purses? I felt a bit intimidated, and also disappointed in the evolution of this portion of “Chinatown” from the last time I was there.
We finally found a restaurant on a north-south street, I believe Baxter Street. It was a buffet, with 5 selections for $4.50, and while the food wasn’t gourmet, it was good enough for 3 hungry boys (masquerading as old men) who hadn’t eaten since 7:15am.
After eating we needed to get to the A, C and E lines to get back to Penn Station for our 7:00pm train. This meant walking 8 blocks on Canal back to the West Broadway stop. We decided to try the south side of Canal for the walk back – it was a little less intense than our east-bound trek an hour earlier. We took the E train back to 34th Street, and then came to the surface on 35th and walked back the one block to Penn Station. Lots of walking backwards, right?
We boarded the Acela train back to Boston a few minutes before 7pm, with Merritt and Bob secretly walking down to the lower level to get a head start, once the track was called. Indeed, we were pretty much the first on the train, and waltzed through the Quiet Car and into the next, got 4 seats facing one another, and ate all of Judy’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and all of Merritt’s Cape Cod potato chips, calling everyone we could think of to tell of our wondrously victorious day in New York.