An entry to the Northen History blog on April 15, 2015 told the brief story of Michael Ryman told the family pioneer who crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Switzerland and ended up as one of the early families in South Dakota. He was Elvera Wilkins maternal great-grandfather.
Aboard the William Frothington with Michael, his wife and family as it traveled from Le Havre and landed in New York on June 30, 1983 was Michael’s father, Johannes Reimann or, as he was eventually to be known in the United States – John Ryman. While some information is available about John once he arrived in the United States, reconstructing his life in his native Switzerland is much more problematic. It is highly reliant upon undocumented family trees posted on ancestry.com. Given that qualifier, here is what is known about John.
John’s father was Heinrich Reimann born about 1777 in Gadmen, Bern, Switzerland. On May 18, 1800 Heinrich married Sara Ammacher in Nessental, Bern, Switzerland, the town where Sara had been born in 1775. Heinrich and Sara had five children:
Johannes (1802-1885)
Heinrich (1803-1805)
Margaretha (1805-1881)
Anna (1812-1819)
Melchior (1817-1818)
Of the five children only Johannes and Magaretha survived past early childhood.
In 1824, at the age of 22, Johannes married Anna Fuhrer. Johannes and Anna had four children who lived into adulthood: Susanna (1827), Johannes Jr. (1833), Melchior (1835), and Heinrich (1839). There may have been more, but these are the four children that ended up eventually coming to the United States.
Johannes’ mother died in 1849, his father in 1852, and his wife Anna in 1860. Perhaps that is why when his son Melchior in his family left for the United States in 1863, Johannes came along with them. None of Johannes other children or their families were on the ship with Melchior, but they were all in Sullivan County, New York by 1870, so perhaps they had preceded him. That might explain why Johannes, with his parents and wife dead and his other sons in the United States, decided to come along with Melchior. Once in the United states Melchior became Michael, Henrich became Henry and Johannes became John. After a series misspellings, Reimann eventually became Ryman.
As a matter of fact, at least one of John’s sons, John Jr. did precede him to the United States. Records of Civil War soldiers who fought for the Union army reveal that John Jr. enlisted in the 52 New York Infantry on May 17, 1861. He was not in the army for long, however, because he was discharged February 17, 1862. During the time of his short service, he did fight in Virginia, so it is interesting to speculate whether he was on the other side of the lines from some of the Northen ancestors who fought for the Confederacy.
John Jr.’s enlistment papers show his residence as New York, New York, but he enlisted at Liberty, Sullivan County, New York. This is the town where John Sr. and the remainder of the family ended up as well. Whether John, Jr. was the first of his family in Liberty, is unclear, but what is certain is that there was a large group of Swiss settlers, primarily settlers in Liberty, since many of the residents in 1870 listed their birthplace as Switzerland. Much like residents today, they moved to areas where others from their native community had found some success.
In 1870 John Sr., widowed, is living with his daughter Susanna (known as Anna) and her husband, Moses Eggler. Next door is John, Jr. and Henry is just three doors down. Anna’s brother-in-law John, lives right next to them. It is a tight community. Only Michael and his family seem to have moved to another town in the county.
A 1880 farm report gives a good picture of the kind of farming that John Ryman did. He was renting property that gave him 30 acres of farm land and 85 acres of forested land. From 1879-1880 he produced 80 pounds of butter. He devoted 2 acres to buckwheat (40 bushels), 4 acres to oats (100 bushels), 2 acres to rye (15 bushels) and ½ acre to potatoes (50 bushels). In addition, he also grew 15 tons of hay and 2 bushels of grass seed. During the year he sold one of the two calves he had. He also produced 60 dozen eggs and had 20 extra poulty on hand. His total yearly production was valued at $100.
This was a lot of work for a man in his 70’s and the 1880 census reveals that a young couple with their two children we living with John. No doubt the man, a farm laborer, helped in the fields while his wife took care of more of the domestic work. Once again, the 1890’s fire that destroyed census records, does not allow us to know if John was still alive ten years later. A death with a man of the last name of Reimann was reported in May 17, 1885 in Racine, Wisconsin, but the connection with John is dubious. It seems unlikely that a man in his 80’s would have been making that trip unless he were on route to see his son Michael who had recently moved out to South Dakota. More than likely, John – the family patriarch – stayed with his son John Jr. and his daughter Anna in Sullivan County, New York for the remainder of his days.
Northen History 