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John's Later Years and His Will

In July 1870 John, 49, was a butcher with real estate worth $6,000 and personal property worth $1,000. Ten children were still at home four years after their mother’s death, and the three eldest daughters, Emma, Lydia and Caroline, worked as seamstresses. The daughter listed as Elizabeth, 11, stands where Lisette belongs in the birth order and was most likely she. A city directory lists “Knoll John E., butcher, h 1539 Cabot,” and directly below him “Knoll John E., Jr., butcher,” at the same house, probably his son John Edward. In 1900 John, a widower, headed his own household in the 29th Ward, and Rosalia Galler, 58, born in Germany, kept house for him.

On 26 November 1897 John made his will. It opens with where he came from: “born at Marktleuthen, Bavaria, Germany, on the 10th day of June 1826 … being of sound mind, memory and understanding.” He left $1,000 each to three daughters: Lydia Sattler of New York City, Pauline Pickering of Laurel Springs, New Jersey, and Carolina Koenig, widow of Ch. Koenig, whose share he asked to be put toward a life membership in a “Home” of her choice. His son Charles received nothing, but Charles’s children were to share $1,000 equally. The rest of the estate went in equal parts to five parties: Emma’s three sons, John, Joseph and Willie Gsell; Carolina’s children, John, Nicholas, Willie, Otto and Cassie; Louisa Seymour; his son George and George’s children; and his son John. If any party died first, the share passed to the other four. John, the son, was named executor, with Louisa’s husband as alternate, written “Hans Seimor” and recorded elsewhere as Henry C. Seymour. Two neighbors witnessed the will, John F. Hahn of 513 Girard Avenue and Fredk. Hertzog of 507 Girard Avenue.

The will does not say why Charles was left out. The family remembers a reason. A great-granddaughter heard from her grandmother Naomi Wesemann May, Charles’s granddaughter, that Charles “liked to drink and play the piano and sing down at the local saloon,” and that his wife hid money from him so it would not be spent on drink. She set the story down uneasily, since Charles cannot answer for himself, and hoped another family member might one day give a fuller picture. Whatever the quarrel, John did not hold it against Charles’s children, who together received as much as each of his daughters. Mary Matilda, as one of them, would have shared in it.

John E. Knoll died on 21 March 1905 and was buried on 26 March in his lot at Broomall, entered there as aged 78. On 29 March an application for probate and letters testamentary opened his estate, no. 639 of 1905, in Philadelphia; the attorney was Robert J. Byron of 620 Stephen Girard Building.

The Lives of John’s Children

Emma, the eldest, married Wilhelm Gsell on 3 September 1876. She died in 1887, before her father, and her three sons were named in his will.

Caroline married Karl Koenig and was a widow by 1897. She died on 28 September 1908 at 1348 … Street, in the 37th Ward, of a uremic coma with chronic nephritis, and was buried at Northwood on 1 October. Her certificate names her parents as “Jno. Knole” and “Caroline Wetzel”.

Lydia married Theodore Sattler in 1873 and was living in New York City in 1897. She died in the Bronx on 6 May 1934. Louisa married Henry C. Seymour in 1875. As Louise M. Seymour, a widow, she died after a fall at 939 Bullock Avenue, Yeadon, on 26 May 1936, and was buried at Northwood. Pauline married Thomas K. Pickering, lived at Laurel Springs, New Jersey, in 1897, and died in Philadelphia.

Mary A. probably married Leopold Koenig. A Maria Knoll, 19, married Leopold Konig at Philadelphia in 1875, and in 1880 Mary Koenig lived with Leopold and their children Theresa, Otto and John. She died in 1920.

Lisette married Charles C. Hantke on 24 December 1884 and died a month later, aged 25. She was buried in her father’s lot on 27 January 1885, entered as “Lizette Hanke”.

John Edward married Emma Fredericka Ravior on 22 April 1891 and later worked as a bookkeeper. He died at Jefferson Hospital on 8 April 1927, aged 66 years, 2 months and 11 days, after an automobile accident, and was buried at Hillside.

George, the youngest, was a clerk. He probably married Catharine McCann on 28 December 1884 and was a widower by 1930. He was probably the George P. Knoll who died at 4410 York Road on 27 April 1935, aged 72, and was buried at Holy Sepulchre. That man’s certificate gives his birthday as 22 July, calls him the “husband of Marie Knoll,” and gives his parents as “unknown”; Marie was a later wife or an error.