Who is Frederick Boller, and why does his history impact George F. Boller?
Anyone familiar with the work of genealogy knows that you must keep an open mind as you track “branches” of your family tree. One must often play the role of detective as you pick up clues here and there, and often, the information you uncover will confirm your best suspicions. But sadly, the opposite can also occur when a newly discovered fact or two ends up frustrating your family narrative as well. So, it is with the story of my ggg grandfather George F. Boller and (his son?), Frederick Boller.
As I’ve been working with Our Boller Story over the last twenty-plus years, so many details about George F. Boller have fallen in place. When my father died in 1994, all the info I had on George was this 3 x 5 index card (above) and these notes (below) scribbled out in my dad’s handwriting…
Today, thanks to the wonders of the internet, we have gathered so much additional information surrounding George and his wife, Elizabeth. Yet to be honest, I’ve never felt completely comfortable with the way some early Mennonite records have placed Frederick Boller into George’s story.
As you know, from reading our website, it’s been long assumed that Frederick was George F. Boller’s first-born son, born in Hessen-Darmstadt (Germany) on April 15, 1815 to “First Wife Boller” – the unknown lady of the Rhine River Valley. As it is with any family antidote, the accuracy of this particular father/son scenario was substantiated through reliable information published on the internet in the 1990’s by the OMII (Ohio Michigan Indiana Illinois) Genealogy Project. OMII’s focus was on Swiss Mennonite & German Amish descendants, accessing major Amish/Mennonite databases (Kidron and Hostetler) with a total of over 425,000 individuals. This info from OMII set the stage for the Frederick Boller narrative, but quite honestly, after all these years of research, I’d like to propose, on this webpage, another viable option. And in doing so, allow me to give you some of the data research behind it.
Let’s start with the well-established facts…
Frederick (Fred) Boller was born on April 12, 1815, in Darmstadt, Germany, a small community located in the Rhine River Valley near Mainz. His mother and father were both residents of Darmstadt as well. In 1850, he lived in Green Township/Wayne County, Ohio with John Boller (oldest son of George) and wife, Mary, working as a cabinet maker. He moved to Iowa (Johnson County) by 1852 (one year before Jacob B. Boller), became an American citizen on July 12, 1860, owned land in Johnson County and Washington County, Iowa (1853-1889), farming there until his death on September 27, 1887, living 72 years, 5 months, 15 days. He was buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery near Amish, Iowa.
These facts are a culmination based on the following sources…
Amish, Iowa has a rich history in Johnson County, Iowa and played a part in Our Boller Story. Click here for more.
See Frederick Boller’s grave records (as son of George F. Boller) on Find-A-Grave.com
Read more about the Mennonite connections that pushed westward to Johnson County, Iowa.
This 1889 map (above) of Washington Township of Johnson County shows Jacob Boller’s farmstead (Section 35 & 36), and to the north, Frederick’s farm in Section 36.
Pretty impressive so far, right?
So now, I’d like to present to you two important pieces of evidence that might show us that Frederick was NOT George Boller’s son – born in Germany in 1815 from Unknown Boller Wife #1 – but actually he could be George’s…
1) younger brother, 2) nephew, or 3) cousin…who came to America at a later date (just before 1850), settling with the Boller family (John and Mary Boller) in Ohio before relocating to Iowa (1852) along with his uncle or cousin, Jacob Boller, who came to Iowa in 1853.
So, if Frederick had indeed come to the US with his father, George, in October 1816 (as a 1-year-old), he most certainly would show up in the earliest census records we have for George, correct? In addressing that question, let’s start with the 1820 Census, the first U.S. Census taken after George’s arrival in America in 1816.
Family records indicate that George, most likely, moved directly to Mifflin County, Pennsylvania after his arrival in the U.S. in October 1816. We also know that it was in Mifflin County where George met his future wife, Elizabeth F. Zook (born in Pennsylvania in 1790), and was married around 1820 when she was age 30. But thus far, we’ve not located George, as the head of a household anywhere on the 1820 U.S. census. It’s very likely that George, age 26 at the time, did not have a home of his own, and was living under the roof of another Mennonite friend or relative, or even with his father-in-law, John Hans Zook, and their family after marrying his daughter, Elizabeth, that same year. So, in other words…no Frederick to be found in 1820.
Next, let’s look at the 1830 Census…
The U.S. Census from East Union Township, Wayne County, Ohio for George Boler (1830) is certainly the most revealing census we have. First of all, the info shown here is an exact record of what the Boller family demographics would have looked like in 1830, but with NO Frederick, who would have been only age 15 at the time!
Let’s unpack it. We know, for example, that George and Elizabeth Boller had two children in Mifflin County, PA before relocating to Wayne County, Ohio. The birth of Christiana in 1821 and John in 1823 is confirmed in Mifflin County, and we know that their third child, Jacob Boller (my gg grandfather) was born in Wayne County, Ohio (1825), and that two more children were born (Elizabeth – 1826 and George – 1828) after the Bollers moved to Ohio. Their sixth child, Magdalena, came along after the 1830 census (1831).
In this 1830 census, George reported two boys under the age of 5 (George, Jacob); one boy under the age of 10 (John); and George himself, at age 36. Next, there is one girl under the age of 5 (Elizabeth); one girl under the age of 10 (Christiana); and finally, Elizabeth, his wife, age 40, indicated in the box checked for female between age 30-40. All of these categories fit the birth years we have for George and his family as it was in 1830. But where is Frederick? As a 15-year old son, he would most certainly have been listed in this census, if he were there.
Now, let’s move up 10 more years to the 1840 Census.
The U.S. Census from East Union Township/Wayne County, Ohio (1840) does nothing for us in substantiating Frederick’s place in George Boller’s immediate family. If we look at the numbers here (sadly, names were not included in the US Census records until 1850) we find one boy between 10-15 (George); three boys between 15-20 (Jacob, John, and ?); one man between 30-40 (probably George with an error in his age); one girl between 5-10 (Magdalena); 2 girls between 10-15 (Elizabeth, and ?); and three girls between 15-20 (Christiana, and ? and ?). In 1840, we know that Frederick was 25 years old and that George’s wife, Elizabeth, had died. We find no 25-year-old person on the list, and, of course, no 50-year-old woman (Elizabeth). It’s likely here that another family in the Wayne County Mennonite community was helping out the Boller family by sending four older children (cousins?) to help with the household after Elizabeth had passed. But again, apparently, no Frederick (unless he’s that 3rd “boy” incorrectly aged at 15-20). Possible, but unlikely.
Now, let’s jump over to the 1850 census.
Because names are now included, we do find Frederick now living with the extended Boller family: George’s oldest son, John; his wife, Mary; their one-year-old daughter Elizabeth; and John’s younger brother, George (age 21). They still live in Wayne County Ohio but in a different township (Green).
So, Frederick did indeed come live with the Bollers in Ohio. It’s possible he might even be the extra “boy” in the 1840 census, but without a doubt, he’s certainly there and part of the family by 1850. But with Frederick completely missing from the very accurate 1830 census, certainly proves he was not a son of George, but more likely a Boller “relative” who came to Ohio as early as 1840, but no later than in the late 1840’s.
Now, let me introduce to you a second piece of evidence that might persuade you to not only reconsider Frederick’s place as first-born son in George F. Boller’s family, but also give you more information about George’s 1816 adventure to America. It’s been assumed that Frederick came, as a one-year-old baby, with widower George when he crossed the Atlantic from Germany to America.
Above are the ship records from October 1816 for the ship Ceres, which left Amsterdam, Netherlands on May 9, 1816, arriving in Philadelphia on October 21, 1816. On the right-hand column, note the names: Frederick Bollier & wife. On the left-hand column, we see the names (bracketed as a family), Berkhard Bollier, Maria Bollier, & daughter.
Now, we know that this listing for Frederick Bollier & wife is not our Frederick Boller, since he was only a one-year old child at the time! But, knowing all the spelling issues at hand (Boller is many times misspelled), and knowing that George’s middle initial was F – could this ship record actually be pointing toward our own George (F)rederick Boller and First Wife Boller – who in earlier accounts supposedly died in Germany prior to 1816?
We know that George F. Boller, when signing his naturalization application in 1837, stated that he arrived in America in October 1816. We also know from other Boller papers* that George relocated to the northern sections of Germany prior to coming to America in 1816.
*In the early 1990’s a very rich biographical story of the Bollers was provided to me by Heidi Boller, a distant cousin from California. Heidi is a descendant of George Z. Boller, younger brother of our Jacob Boller. Her story gave us these wonderful details about George:
“George Boller, while still a young man, lived in Schleswig Holstein which at that time was part of Denmark and which Bismark later made a part of the German Empire. When Napoleon raided that section of the country, George was impressed into Napoleon’s Army, but being loyal to his country, he deserted and came to America to Wayne County, near Wooster, Ohio and settled on a farm.”
Amsterdam is just west of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany (see maps above). So with that information in hand, Amsterdam would certainly be a very convenient place for George to board his ship to America. And since we know George’s middle initial is F, most likely standing for Frederick, is it possible that this one-of-a-kind Ceres ship record shows that George Frederick Boller (and his first wife) were on this ship when it left Amsterdam on May 9, 1816?
So much remains to be found. The detective work continues, but as of my writings here in 2019, I’m prepared to rest my case and present you with two new factoids to add to Our Boller Story going forward…
Factoid #1 – Frederick Boller is not a son of George F. Boller who traveled with him to America in 1816, but a Boller relative who remained in Germany until coming to Ohio (pre-1850) as a young man, becoming an Iowan (Johnson County) by 1852.
Read more about Frederick Boller and his time in Iowa here.
Factoid #2 – “Frederick Bollier and wife” – listed on the sailing ship, Ceres, in October 1816, is indeed our very own George (F)rederick Boller and his first wife.
If #2 is true, this changes the story of George’s first wife dying in Germany, and now sends us on a search for “Mrs. Boller” who must have died in America sometime between 1816 and George’s marriage to Elizabeth Zook in 1820. The names, “Berkhard Bollier, Maria Bollier, & daughter,” who traveled in the Ceres with Frederick (George?) and his wife, certainly now become “people of interest” to track in the archives. Are these other family members who traveled with George to America? Did they end up in Pennsylvania or Ohio as well?
Thanks for going on this little George and Frederick Boller journey with me. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the one to find out all the answers as we dig ever deeper into Our Boller Story!
Humbly submitted in January 2019 and revisited and edited in 2022…
Marty Boller
Kudos to the amazing resources below for the many quotes, photographs, etc. used on this page.
Frederick Boller, Find-A-Grave
Our Iowa Heritage 