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Page 2 of 55 min read

The Grocery on Tulip Street

Marriage and the Grocery on Tulip Street

On 29 July 1866 George married Fredericka Bauer at St. Michael’s and Zion German Lutheran Church in Philadelphia. The witnesses were Fried. Bauer, probably her father, Philipp Stuler(?), Marie Wiedenbacher and Wilh. Walter(?). A William Walter, a German-born painter of 26 boarding in the 12th Ward in 1860, is possibly the last witness, though nothing ties him to the wedding.

Fredericka was born Maria Friederike Karolina Bauer at Vaihingen an der Enz, in the Kingdom of Württemberg (today in Baden-Württemberg), at half past twelve at night on 23 May 1844, and was baptized there on 26 May. She was the daughter of Jacob Friedrich Bauer and Christina Magdalena Rau, who brought their family to America in 1854. In 1860, aged 16, she was living with them in Philadelphia’s 11th Ward, where her father was a brush maker. Her own family’s story is told in the Bauer Family section.

George made his living as a grocer. In 1870 the couple lived in the 19th Ward with Willie, aged two, and Emma, three months old. On 12 December 1871 “George Wesemann of the said City Grocer” bought from the baker Godhelf (Gotthilf?) Holoch and his wife Barbara, for $2,400, a two-story brick house at the northeast corner of Tulip and Dickinson Streets in the 19th Ward. Its lot ran 14 feet along Tulip Street and 53 feet along Dickinson Street to a three-foot alley. On 1 November 1872 he took from Benjamin Tindall and his wife Elizabeth a lot on the south side of Dickinson Street, 63 feet east of Tulip, on a yearly ground rent payable to Elizabeth, promising to build on it. On 7 November 1879, for $700, he bought the two-story brick house next to his own on the southeast side of Tulip Street, 14 by 56 feet, from Henrietta H. Reilly, widow of Thomas A. Reilly, with her son Richard H. Reilly and his wife Bessie K. It carried a yearly ground rent of $48 to Alexander R. Harvey, and the deed, recorded on 11 November, bounds it “by ground of said George Wesemann”. The Pennsylvania Law Record printed the sale as “Reilly H H to Geo Wesemann 2322 Tulip ........ 700”. J. Fletcher Budd witnessed the deeds of 1871 and 1872, as he later witnessed George’s will. The buyer in all three deeds was probably this George, by his name, his trade and the street. The corner house of 1871 was probably 2321 Tulip Street, the family’s home in 1873 and 1880, and the number 2322 for the house of 1879 rests on the printed notice alone.

In 1880 the census found George, 42, a grocer, and Fredericka, 36, at 2321 Tulip Street with Willie, Emma, Sophia and young George. The neighbors on the same sheet show the kind of block it was: a German-born boarder, a cigar maker’s family, a warper born in the West Indies to Irish parents, an Irish-descended household of seven children, a Mrs. Withington whose brother was a molder, and a dressmaker’s family lately come from Alabama and Mississippi. The Wesemanns were the shopkeepers on a mixed working-class street.

The family remembers that George may have been a deacon in the Lutheran church. No record confirms it or rules it out.

George and Fredericka had five children.

ChildBirthDeathMarried
William (“Willie”)5 October 1867, Philadelphia; christened 17 November 186715 January 1940, PhiladelphiaAnna E. Hippel, 1898
Emma Caroline10 January 1870, Philadelphia13 December 1925, Abington Township, Montgomery CountyWilliam Andrew Boentgen, 7 May 1890; David Frederick Brosius, licensed 24 November 1903
Sophia Henriettaprobably 12 September 1871, Philadelphia4 February 1953, Columbiana, OhioEdwin Harrold Detwiler, 22 November 1904
Mathilda G.possibly 2 April 1873, Philadelphia11 July 1873, Philadelphia, aged three months
George Washington1 January 1876, Pennsylvania12 April 1949, Philadelphia General HospitalElizabeth Cosbey, 1901; Mary Matilda Knoll, 10 September 1907

Mathilda lived three months. She died at 2321 Tulip Street on 11 July 1873 of inflammation of the stomach and bowels, and was buried on 14 July in the German Lutheran Cemetery. Her death certificate names her parents as Fredericke and George “Wisemann”. She almost certainly lies in her Bauer grandparents’ own lot, Section C, Lot 86, later transferred to Peter Kappes, where the grave card enters her as “Wesemann, Mathilde” . Her birth was registered at the time as 2 April 1873, and the family’s own record gives 10 April; she was possibly born on 2 April.

George’s Death and Fredericka’s Widowhood

On 11 December 1874, a year before his last child was born, George made a short will. After his debts and funeral expenses were paid, everything he owned, real and personal, went outright to “my beloved wife Fredericka,” whom he named sole executrix. The will revoked any earlier one and made no separate provision for the children. J. Fletcher Budd, Charles Knittel(?) and Emma Budd witnessed it. He never changed it, through the birth of a fifth child and two more decades in business.

By May 1890 the family had moved up the street to 2515 Tulip Street. That June the census of Civil War veterans listed George in Philadelphia with his three months and fourteen days of service. He died at home, in the 31st Ward, at four in the morning on 21 January 1896, aged 57, of lobar pneumonia, and was buried on 24 January in the German Lutheran Cemetery. His will was proved on 11 February 1896 as will no. 1939. On 29 April 1896 Fredericka applied for a widow’s pension on his service, application no. 633,000.

Fredericka had lost her mother in 1891, and her father died in 1899 (see Bauer Family). In June 1900 she was the head of her own household in the 31st Ward, a widow of 57, with her son George, 24, a hat finisher, and her daughter Sophia, 28, at home. On 1 June 1907, living at 2304 East Firth Street, she made her will. Her properties were to be sold and the money divided equally among “my four children,” William Wesemann, George Wesemann, Emma Brosius and Sophia Detwiler. Her household goods went to Sophia “for her faithfulness to me for so many years,” and her son-in-law Edwin H. Detwiler was sole executor. She died in Philadelphia on 18 June 1907, aged 64, of heart disease, and a coroner signed her death certificate.

References

  • St. Michael’s and Zion marriage register entry, George Wesemann and Fredericka Bauer, 1866, family archive scan. Read the record
  • FamilySearch. “United States, Census, 1860,” Philadelphia, 12th Ward, p. 46 (familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GBSZ-9WZD, image 50), and 21st Ward, p. 52 (3:1:33S7-9BSX-RHD, image 232), the Walter households. Read on the images.
  • Baptism record, Fredericka Bauer, 1844, family archive scan. Read the record
  • 1860 U.S. Federal Census record, Frederick and Christiana Bauer household, family archive scan. Read the record
  • A family researcher, research notes on Fredericka Bauer’s origins, June 2016, family archive scan.
  • A family researcher, research notes on the Wesemann, Bauer, Knoll and Weiss lines, June 2016.
  • 1870 U.S. Federal Census record, George Wesemann household, family archive scan. Read the record
  • 1880 U.S. Federal Census record, George and Fredericka Wesemann household, family archive scan. Read the record
  • FamilySearch. “Deeds (Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania), 1683-1886”: Godhelf Holoch and wife to George Wesemann, 12 Dec. 1871 (film 008089244, images 527–528); Benjamin Tindall and wife to George Wesemann, ground-rent deed, 1 Nov. 1872, pp. 513–517 (film 008089283, images 14–16). Read on the images.
  • Philadelphia County, Deed Book L.W. no. 57, pp. 396–399, deed no. 8654, Henrietta H. Reilly et al. to George Wesemann, 7 Nov. 1879, recorded 11 Nov. 1879 (FamilySearch film 1319086, DGS 8089778, images 515–516); Grantee Index, vol. W, 1879 (film 1318566, image 440); FamilySearch Catalog koha:227024. Read on the images.
  • Pennsylvania Law Record (Philadelphia), vol. 1 (1879), p. 198, transfers printed under “November 18”: “Reilly H H to Geo Wesemann 2322 Tulip........ 700.” HathiTrust, page image read.
  • Last Will and Testament, George Wesemann, 1874, family archive scan. Read the record
  • FamilySearch. “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JD2Q-D1M, entry for Matilda G. Wiseman and George Wisemann, death 11 July 1873, address 2321 Tulip St., burial 14 July 1873, “German Lutheran Cem.”; and “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, City Births, 1860-1915,” familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VBTC-MHQ, entry for Matilda G. Wiseman and George Wiseman, 2 Apr. 1873. Death-certificate image viewed 24 Sept. 2026 (age given as “three (3) months”); the birth-register image (book 1873, p. 91) is restricted online.
  • Word-for-word transcriptions of the remainder of the scanned family archive, filed as individual documents across
  • A family researcher, family memoir, family archive scan.
  • FamilySearch. “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, City Births, 1860-1915,” familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V1MC-5RZ, entry for William Wiseman and George Wiseman, 5 Oct. 1867; and “Pennsylvania, Births and Christenings, 1709-1950,” familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HHFL-WGT2, Wilhelm Friederich Wesemann, christened 17 Nov. 1867, parents Georg Wesemann and Friedericke Bauer.
  • FamilySearch. “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Marriage Indexes, 1885-1951,” familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ZWV5-W7MM, entry for Anna E M Hippel and Wesemann, 1898.
  • Ancestry.com. “Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1972”: [name withheld] (file 2213, 1940), Anna E. Wesemann (file 37191, 1955), Emma Brosius (file 120765, 1925), Sophia B. Starkweather (file 067523-63, 1963) and Mary M. Wesemann (certificate 011261-68, 1968). Read on the images.
  • FamilySearch. “Pennsylvania, Civil Marriages, 1677-1950,” Philadelphia marriage license 34155, William Andrew Boentgen and Emma Wesemann, 1890: affidavit and duplicate certificate (film 004287253, images 1138–1140; affidavit familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6GVW-9G8; certificate 3:1:S3HY-6GVW-97Z). Read on the images.
  • Marriage license application, David F. Brosius and Emma C. Boentgen, Philadelphia, 24 November 1903, family archive transcript Read the record
  • FamilySearch. “Ohio, Deaths, 1908-1953,” familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X6PV-22B, Sophia Henrietta Detwiler, born 12 Sept. 1872 [sic], Philadelphia, died 4 Feb. 1953, Salem, Columbiana County, parents George Wesemann and Frederika Baur; and “United States, Census, 1880,” familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MWV7-WS2, Sophia Weseman, 9, in the household of Geo. and Frederca Weseman, Philadelphia.
  • 1900 U.S. Federal Census record, Fredericka Wesemann household, family archive scan. Read the record
  • Marriage certificate (duplicate), no. 180433, Edwin H. Detwiler and Sophia H. Wesemann, Philadelphia, 22 November 1904, family archive transcript Read the record
  • Pennsylvania certificate of death, George Washington Wesemann, 12 April 1949, file no. 37960, family archive scan. Read from the scan: the place-of-death line carries a stamp of Philadelphia General Hospital; the usual residence and informant’s address read 1971 W. Elston, not “W. Chelten” as the transcription has it; usual occupation retired, industry John B. Stetson Co.; immediate cause bronchopneumonia, other condition carcinoma of the bladder. Read the record
  • The Wesemann Family Bible, Deaths page, transcribed in full, family archive scan, 2026.
  • FamilySearch. “Pennsylvania, Civil Marriages, 1677-1950,” Philadelphia license affidavit, George W. Wesemann and Elizabeth Cosbey, 17 June 1901 (familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DZMS-VMC, image 28). Read on the image.
  • The Wesemann Family Bible, illuminated marriage-certificate keepsake page, family archive scan, 2026.
  • German Lutheran Cemetery lot card, Bauer lot (Christine Bauer, Mathilda Wesemann), family archive transcript Read the record
  • 1890 U.S. Census, Special Schedule of Surviving Soldiers, Sailors and Marines, and Widows (Veterans Schedule), index entry (Ancestry), George Wesemann, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, June 1890, Enumeration District 745: enlisted 27 March 1865, discharged 11 July 1865, 3 months 14 days; regiment indexed as 2nd New York Infantry, Company G, family archive scan. Read the record
  • FamilySearch. “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” return of death no. 15066, George Wesemann, 1896 (film 004009618, image 78). Read on the image.
  • FamilySearch. Philadelphia County will books, 1896, will no. 1939, George Wesemann, proved 11 Feb. 1896 (film 007726455, images 306–307; viewer only). Read on the images.
  • Pennsylvania, Wills and Probate Records, 1683–1993, Philadelphia County (Ancestry.com, Provo, Utah, 2015).
  • A family researcher, “Geo. Wesemann in the Civil War,” reitter.net, last modified 26 December 2000.
  • U.S., Civil War Pensions Index, 1861–1900, NARA publication T289, catalog ID 2588825, Record Group 15, Roll 300.
  • Ancestry.com family group sheet, Rau/Bauer family, family archive scan. Read the record
  • FamilySearch. Philadelphia County wills, 1907, Fredericka Wesemann, dated 1 June 1907, typed page 1444 (film 004441270, image 156; viewer only). Read on the image.
  • Ancestry.com LifeStory printout, Fredericka Bauer (1843-1907) (paywalled; cited as record location), family archive scan.
  • Death certificate, Fredericka Wesemann, Philadelphia, 1907, family archive scan Read the record