Maurus Oestreich

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maurus Oestreich (also Morris or Maurice ; born January 15, 1836 in Oberbimbach ; † August 13, 1912 in St. Clair (Pennsylvania) , USA) was an American organ builder of German origin. He emigrated to Pennsylvania , USA in 1855 .

family

Maurus Oestreich was the third of four sons of the organ builder Adam Joseph Oestreich (1799–1843) from his marriage to Margarete geb. Gardener (1805-1857). His two older brothers Emil Michael (* 1832 in Oberbimbach, † 1857 ibid) and Maximilian (* 1834 in Oberbimbach, † after 1872 in the USA) were also organ builders and were thus members of the last of the five generations of organ builders in the Oestreich family .

Maurus Oestreich, like his two older brothers, learned in his father's workshop in Oberbimbach. After the death of his father, his younger brother Augustin Oestreich (1807 – after 1855) married his widow Margarete in 1844 and thus looked after their children Monika (* 1829), Emil Michael, Maximilian, Maurus, Mathilde (* 1838) and Damian (* 1843). In 1855 Augustin, Maximilian and Maurus emigrated to the USA. They settled there in Ashland, which was founded in 1850 and incorporated in 1857, in Pennsylvania and ran an organ and wood construction workshop in neighboring Pottsville .

Act

Maurus Oestreich, who was now also called Morris or Maurice, and Maximilian (Max) Oestreich took over the workshop of their stepfather in Pottsville, with Max leading the way ("Oestreich & Brother Organ & Melodion Manufactory, Pottsville, Pa., Max Oestreich, proprietor" ). They made organs, carpentry and wood construction and, since they were in the middle of a coal mining area, also pit punches and coal breakers .

After the beginning of the American Civil War , Maurus / Maurice Oestreich joined the B-Company of the 96th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment as a volunteer on September 23, 1861 . He served in this unit until it was demobilized on October 21, 1864.

Soon after, he moved to St. Clair, neighboring Pottsville, where he ran his own carpentry , organ workshop, and wood construction workshop. He married Katherine Anschutz or Anschitz (1840-1907), a German from Crow Hollow, a miner's hamlet less than two kilometers west of St. Clair, with whom he raised nine children, and became a successful and respected man in town. He built the organs in St. Bonifacius Church in St. Clair and in other Catholic churches in Pottsville and the surrounding area, and manufactured and repaired church furniture such as altars and crucifixes . However, he became wealthy with the construction of coal breakers. His wife was a midwife and nurse and drove with her husband on Sundays to visit the sick in St. Clair and the surrounding mining hamlets.

In 1890 he was still known as Maurice Oestreich, carpenter , in St. Clair. He died on August 13, 1912 and was buried in the cemetery of the Saint Bonifacius Church (also called German Cemetery).

In addition to the organs he built in St. Clair and the surrounding parishes, only the organ in the Columbia Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia , inaugurated in 1870 and no longer preserved, is known to date .

literature

  • Gottfried Rehm : The organ builder family Oestreich. In: Acta Organologica . Vol. 7, 1973, pp. 37-66.
  • Gottfried Rehm: Contributions to the history of the organ building family Oestreich. In: Acta Organologica . Vol. 21, 1990, pp. 55-99.
  • Gottfried Rehm: Musikantenleben. Contributions to the music history of Fulda and the Rhön in the 18th and 19th centuries. Parzeller, Fulda 1997, ISBN 3-7900-0282-8 (= publication of the Fulda History Association ).

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Today a borough in Schuylkill County .
  2. ↑ When Augustine died is not known,
  3. ↑ http://www.civilwarindex.com/armypa/Rosters/96th_pa_infantry_roster.pdf
  4. ↑ http://php.scripts.psu.edu/~sam21/regiment5.php?reg=96&state=PA
  5. ^ Census: 1890, Saint Clair, Schuylkill County, PA; Special Schedule, Surviving Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Widows, etc.
  6. ↑ The youngest brother Damian / Daniel Oestreich, who was born in 1843 and came to the USA in 1859, served in the 27th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment ( http://php.scripts.psu.edu/~sam21/regiment5.php?reg=96&state=PA ).
  7. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/193828263/katherine-oestreich
  8. ↑ Joan Quigley: The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy. Random House, New York, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8129-7130-9 , pp. 27-28
  9. ↑ Anthony FC Wallace: A Workingman's Town - Chapter 3 of: St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry. Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, 1987 (digital-reprint at Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Exploring Diversity in Pennsylvania History, Immigrants in Coal Country), pp. 54–55 , accessed December 11, 2018.
  10. ^ Shops and Industries of Saint Clair
  11. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/147967005/maurus-oestreich
  12. ↑ The Tracker, Journal of the Organ Historical Society , Volume 26, Number 4, Summer 1982, pp. 26–29 (here: 29)
personal data
SURNAME Oestreich, Maurus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oestreich, Morris; Oestreich, Maurice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American organ builder of German origin
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1836
PLACE OF BIRTH Oberbimbach
DATE OF DEATH August 13, 1912
Place of death Saint Clair (Pennsylvania) , USA