This photo was a birthday gift to Agathe Gerbracht’s mother at Christmas 1890 in New York. The dedication on the back of the photo says in German:
“Der lieben Mutter
zum Geburtstage von
Agathe Gerbracht
Dec 25 / 90”
I think the surname was added later (and thanks to whomever added it, otherwise we wouldn’t have found this woman’s story!)
So I set out to find an Agathe whose maiden name or married name had been Gerbracht. How old do you think she was in 1890 when she had her photo taken? I can answer that: she was 26! Yes, I found her!
Watchmaker’s daughter Agathe Lampe was born on October 27, 1864 in Germany. She was 7 years old when she made the journey from Germany to New York just before Christmas of 1872 together with her mother Anne Lampe née Beyer and her younger sister Anna who was 4 at the time. Her father Heinrich Wilhelm Lampe must have got to New York some time earlier in the same year.
The Lampe’s would pass through the Castle Garden upon their arrival:
"Castle Garden Emigrant Depot was America's first facility dedicated entirely to the welfare of immigrants coming to America. The facility opened to the public on August 3rd, 1855, and closed on April 30th, 1890. Between August 3, 1855, and December 31, 1889, the last year for which data was recorded, 8,280,917 of the 10,956,910 immigrants who entered the United States (75%) passed through Castle Garden.
The largest ethnic group that came through the facility were Germans, followed by the Irish, English, Swedish, Italians, Scottish, Russians, Norwegians, Swiss, and French. Today, about 20% of Americans can trace their ancestry to someone who came through Castle Garden.
The facility was the first of its kind to take detailed records of the people who passed through its gates. Officials recorded the names of each individual and family, the vessel they arrived in, their destination, the amount of money they had on hand, and even the names of family members already in the United States. Castle Garden provided these new arrivals a safe place to buy railroad tickets, exchange money, contact relatives, rest, and even wash up before leaving. Though most of its original records were destroyed and little of the facility remains, original stories and images of the facility have been preserved in newspapers and other media." Referenced from: National Park Service, NY
Source: Library of Congress
I can only imagine what Agathe and her little sister were thinking, taking in the New World after a long journey of several weeks at sea. Old photographs of New York can only do the city so much justice. Life was buzzing with languages and so many smells of food, people, animals:
"New York City had expanded considerably in the years since the Civil War. The city had come to dominate nearly every sector of the US economy, helping to drive a national post-Civil War surge in commerce, manufacturing, and finance. The city’s population had doubled from 500,000 in 1850 to around one million.[4] The city’s physical landscape was also expanding, with an increasingly complicated transportation network facilitating the construction of new residential neighborhoods in upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Westchester, among others. New York City was no longer just important nationally. By the early 1870s, the city had become the “Metropolitan City of the World,” generating a new form of urban capitalist modernity that became a global export in the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries." Referenced from: The Gotham Center for New York City History.
The Lampes settled down in Brooklyn where I find them in 1875. 40% of Brooklyn’s wage-earners worked in NYC. Boats and ferries would bring thousands of them to NYC daily. The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge had just begun and would not be completed until 1883. Once the bridge connected Brooklyn with Manhattan, Brooklyn’s population exploded. Rents were lower in Brooklyn and demand was high. At the same time, by the late 1860s, Brooklyn’s street numbering system was getting out of hand. All this must have been overwhelming for young Agathe.
Agathe married Ernst Gerbracht on May 1889 in Brooklyn. Which explains why our photo, dated December 1890, was signed with her married name. Ernst was 11 years older than Agathe and in a sugar refinery business. In 1892, I find the couple living in Brooklyn. But by 1900, their marriage had ended.
By 1905, Agathe had moved in with her widowed father. A year later in 1906, Agathe remarried and her second husband was Charles Winfield.
Agathe’s father Heinrich Wilhelm Lampe (naturalised and americanised to be called Henry William) died in 1912:
Source: newspapers.com
Henry William Lampe had done well in the US. According to the 1910 Census, he owned a house, free of morgage, and had own income. Apparently he left his daughters some value in Brooklyn real estate.
Sadly, Agathe died of a stroke on April 5, 1914, in Queens, New York. She was just 49 years old.
But before I end, I have to share something curious about Agathe’s last will. As mentioned, Agathe’s father probably left Agathe a comfortable inheritance cause when she died in 1914, her estate was worth $8,700 which is about $275,000 in today’s value (about $243,000 in real estate, and about $31,000 in personal effects). Agathe did not have any children and was married to Charles Winfield at the time of her death, but the couple had separated. Curiously she only left her husband $5 from her estate ($158 in today’s value). Charles filed his objection with the court, claiming that his wife must have been a victim of fraud and undue influence when she executed her will just one day before her death.
Source: newspapers.com
Source: newspapers.com
The Springfield News-Sun even published a caricature about Charles in their April 29, 1914, paper. I don’t know if Charles was successful in court.
Source: newspapers.com
Some of Agathe’s estate went to Agathe’s sister Anna Elisabeth Kleber. Just two months after Anna lost her sister, Anna would also lose her husband Adam Kleber. Two deaths within 2 months, just heart-breaking!
Neither Agathe nor Anna had any children, at least I’ve found none. I still hope that there’s someone out there who might miss her story and photo! I will add her photo to FamilySearch.
132.705 alien passengers from Germany arrived at the Port of New York during the year 1872, more than double as much as from any other nationality. The Lampes were among them. They would make a good life for themselves in Brooklyn, the melting pot that was and still is New York!
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