Collection: Directories and Documents

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Title: Lost Grass Valley Gold Rush History of the Wilhelm & Binkleman Pioneer Families by Waldo C.F. Potter (2024) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Author: Waldo C.F. Potter Published: 2024 # of Pages: 374 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-12 19:32:15 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:22:43 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:22:43

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 374  

The Binklemanns Johann David & Sophia Mader Binklemann and Theodore Henry & Rosa Binkleman Wilhelm are my great-great grandparents and great-grandparents, respectively, on my dad’s mother’s side of the Potter family. This is the historical story of my grandmother, Ida Louise Wilhelm Potter, and her parents' and grandparents’ families’ lives in Grass Valley. They were part of the famous California 49ers Gold Rush in Grass Valley, CA, where some of the richest gold ore has ever been found in the United States. . thought . was writing the story of one side of my ancestors’ families, but it is more than that. It is a fantastic story of the courage and determination of their family and friends in a very unforgiving time in United States history. This is a story of people who risked all without much thought of the family they left behind in Europe to go to a place far from home to try to find their fortunes. They risked their lives. They had no telephones, internet, televisions, cars, airplanes, medical insurance, houses, running water, and indoor toilets. They had no jobs waiting at the end of their journeys. They just traveled a great distance to start new lives and, in the process, helped build Grass Valley, CA, one of the great early American mining towns that is still a vibrant city when most mining towns became ghost towns after the mining dried up. Johann David Binklemann was born on January 2, 1828, in Otlingen, Wirttemberg, Germany. His parents, Johann David and Anna Marie Eberhard Binklemann, of Wurttemberg, Germany, were born about 1800. He married Sophia Mader Binklemann in Williamsburg, New York City, New York, on January 2, 1853, after they traveled together to the United States. Sophia was born on January 15, 1830, in Karlsruhe, Baden-Wiurttemberg, Germany. Sophia’s parents were Jacob and Elizabeth Mader of Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. Johann David Binklemann and Sophia Mader arrived on the ship South Carolina from Le Havre, France, in New York City, New York, on September 17, 1852. Sometime after they entered the United States, Johann David Binklemann’s name was changed to David Binkleman. However, when he became a citizen of the United States of America in 1878, his name was still spelled David Binklemann. He dropped his first name, Johann, and the second “n” in his last name. Their first-born child, Rosa Binkleman, was born in New York City in April 1852. David Binklemann spent about a year in New York City working in a bakery. He had learned the bakery artisan trade from his father, a baker in Otlingen, Wurttemberg, Germany. You will see that the Binkleman’s children’s names all ended with one “n” rather than two. Their last name slowly changed in America to Binkleman or Binkelman, even though David Binklemann always kept his last name. Their gravestones have one “n,” but that was their choice of Sophie. Many European people changed the spelling of their names in America for many reasons in those times. . am having trouble keeping up with spelling the Binklemann, Binkelmann, Binkleman, and Binkelman names. . see it spelled all four ways: Johann David Binklemann, David Binkelman (the same man), and David J. Binkelman, his youngest son. . am also seeing Sophia Mader’s name spelled both Meder and Mader. . think the manifest spelling was by someone who didn’t understand Sophia’s language, so . am guessing that the correct spelling is Daught’s spelling of Mader.