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John and Carolina Knoll in Philadelphia

John’s wife was Carolina Barbara Wetzel, born about 1827 at Marktleuthen by the family’s record. Where and when they married is not known.

Her maiden name is not proven either. Her children’s death records give it as Wetzel, Wessel, Wassell and Waffel, and her son John Edward’s gives “Carrie Weltzel” (or Wertzel). Of these, only Wetzel is a known German surname, and this book uses it. Her daughter Caroline Koenig’s death certificate of 1908 names her “Caroline Wetzel,” the only record to give both that surname and her first name. Her son Charles’s certificate of 1940 gives “Barbara Wassell,” and his funeral record “Barbara Wessell(?)”. The Koenig certificate supports Wetzel without proving it.

The 1900 census gives the year John came to America as 1848. By the summer of 1850 the family was probably at Kensington, in Philadelphia’s 5th Ward. The census there lists John Knowl, 24, a butcher born in Germany, with Caroline, about 24, and Emma, one year old, born in Pennsylvania. A John Knoll, 25, from Germany, landed at Philadelphia on 9 August 1852 from the steamer City of Glasgow, out of Liverpool, with a Catherine, 23, on the next line of the list. He was possibly John, but nothing on the list names his home or family.

John was a butcher in 1850. From 1853 he worked as a victualler, and later as a victualler and butcher. A victualler was licensed to sell food and drink, much like an innkeeper. The trade was common enough in the city that Joseph Yeager made a print of a Procession of Victuallers, now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

On 24 June 1858 the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society entered two accounts on one ledger page: number 105345 in Caroline Knoll’s name and number 105346 in John’s. A note written between the lines of Caroline’s account reads “same in trust for No. [1636 or 1638],” a linked account that has not been identified.

In July 1860 the family lived in the 20th Ward. John, 40, a victualler born in Bavaria, owned real estate worth $3,000 and personal property worth $400. Caroline was 35, and their eight children ranged from Emma, 11, to Ernestine, one year old. Two victuallers from Württemberg boarded with them, John Walter, 35, and Gotlieb Evershart (or Eberhart), 23. Ernestine appears in no other record and was most likely the daughter later known as Lisette. A Pennsylvania septennial census, a count of the state’s taxable residents taken every seven years, possibly lists John in 1863: an index page carries entries that seem to read “Knoll, John” and “Knoll, Charles,” both victuallers. That Charles was not John’s son, who was then six.

The Children

John and Carolina had eleven children.

The family remembers the Knolls as Catholic, a belief offered to explain eleven births in about thirteen years. The records complicate this. Marktleuthen was a Lutheran town with no Catholic congregation until 1909, and the boy who was probably John was baptized and confirmed in its Lutheran church. Three readings remain open. The tradition may be a later misremembering; the family’s birthplace may be slightly off; or the Knolls may have belonged to a tiny Catholic minority whose records sit with a distant parish. None of them is confirmed.

Delia died in infancy on 15 November 1863. Carolina died in Philadelphia on 2 June 1866, aged about 39, and was buried on 5 June at Glenwood Cemetery, Broomall, in Delaware County. Both lie in the same grave of John’s lot, No. 102 in Section Q.

Another Knoll from Marktleuthen

Two months after Carolina’s death, a second Knoll from Marktleuthen married in Philadelphia. On 2 August 1866, a few days after George Wesemann married Fredericka Bauer in the same church (see George and Fredericka's Family, 1860 to 1907), the register of St. Michael’s and Zion records the marriage of Johann Karl Knoll of Marktleuthen to Maria Sophie Geist. Adam Knoll was a witness. John’s half-brothers included the twin Johann Karl, then 33, and Johann Adam, then 24. The two are possibly John’s kin, but nothing yet links them to him.

The couple of 1866 were probably the Charles and Sophia Knoll found in 1870. That June, Charles, 37, a bartender born in Bavaria, and Sophia, 28, born in Württemberg, lived with Charles, 3, and Max, eight months, in Alois Heck’s lager-beer saloon in the 6th Ward. The same family was counted again in the 12th Ward in November. In 1880 Charles, 47, a waiter, and Sophia, 37, lived in the 11th Ward with Charles, 13, Maximilian, 11, and Henry, 3. Sophia M. Knoll, born in Germany on 5 June 1842 and probably the same Sophia, died a widow on 3 May 1910 at the house of her son Harry J. Knoll, 5111 Brown Street, and was buried at Hillside. Charles probably died between 1880 and 1910.

That this Charles was the Marktleuthen twin remains only possible. A Johann Knoll, 63, died at Marktleuthen on 30 September 1896 and was buried on 2 October. He was probably one of the twins, with his age off by a month. A death note under Johann Karl’s baptism, “† 28 Sept. 18[3? 9?]6,” fits 1896. If the twin who died at home was Johann Karl, then the Philadelphia groom of 1866 was not he. Which twin died in 1896 is not known.