Stick height

Stick height municipality Morsbach Coordinates: 50 ° 50 ′ 59 ″  N , 7 ° 45 ′ 2 ″  E
Height :	321 m
Residents :	258  (Dec. 31, 2007)
Postal code :	51597
Area code :	02294

Stockshöhe is a district of Morsbach in the Oberbergischer Kreis in southern North Rhine-Westphalia within the administrative district of Cologne .

Location and description

Stockshöhe is located in a rural, wooded area at the southernmost tip of the Oberbergisches Kreis. The cities of Gummersbach (38 km), Siegen (35 km) and Cologne (75 km) can be reached in a short time by car.

Neighboring districts are Stentenbach in the north, Wittershagen in the southeast and Alzen in the west.

history

In 1864 the place is listed for the first time in the original list of all civil inhabitants of Morsbach . It is presumably named after a miner Johann Stock, who bought land there. It was a settlement of Yenian families who had lived in the region for a long time . With the modernization of the right of settlement in Prussia, it became possible for the migrating part of the population to move into a community and to settle there. Many of the supposedly “homeless” took advantage of the new opportunity to stabilize their fragile living situation. Some had already settled a little earlier in nearby Wittershagen or in Wiehl near Wildbergerhütte, in the Westerwald near Molzhain ("Molzhainer Höhe") or in Siegerland (Alchen, Oberfischbach). Others now moved to the agriculturally unused because not very productive border height away from the community center Morsbach.

Here they first erected “clay, stakes, juniper bushes, straw, etc. the like. ”simple dwellings that were later converted into permanent houses. From here they traveled to the surrounding area as earthenware dealers, basket makers, rag collectors or musicians. In 1858 - the name is still "Oberwittershagen" - there were ten residents in two houses, in 1864 there were 36 people in seven houses. In 1891 the place had grown to 21 houses with 132 people.

The poverty of the newcomers differed only gradually from the poverty of many long-established residents of the poor mayor of Morsbach. “The whole stretch of land seems to have been a desolate, desolate wilderness not too long ago, where everything else, except people, may have lived. You can see this in the land that has not yet been cleared or has only been used, in the not very attractive and often poorly built huts and in the completely uneducated peoples hardly resembling civilization ”, remarked a teacher in Alzen in 1876.

The change to a permanent way of life was accompanied by a change in wage work, especially in the industrial companies located in the Siegtal valley. In a lengthy adjustment process, the character of the settlement changed. In 1907 a chronicler stated that it had "looked very strange in the Alzen school district, especially in the village of Stockshöhe". “The external image was determined by the poverty of the people. ... Today it can be seen from reports to the contrary, then poverty and extravagance, today good income and in general avarice. "

leisure

Association

• Stockshöhe village community

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulrich Opfermann: "Mäckeser". On the history of travelers in Oberbergischen in the 18th and 19th centuries. In: Contributions to the history of Oberberg. Vol. 5, 1995, pp. 116-128, here p. 124.
2. ↑ ^{a b} School Chronicle Alzen b. Morsbach [1. Volume], cit. based on: Ulrich Opfermann: "Mäckeser". On the history of travelers in Oberbergischen in the 18th and 19th centuries . In: Contributions to the history of Oberberg. Vol. 5, 1995, pp. 116-128, here p. 124.

literature

• Ulrich Opfermann : "Mäckeser". On the history of travelers in Oberbergischen in the 18th and 19th centuries. In: Contributions to the history of Oberberg. Vol. 5, 1995, ZDB -ID 1113566-9 , pp. 116-128.
• Ulrich F. Opfermann: "Completely uneducated peoples hardly resembling civilization". At the Stockshöhe in Oberbergischen. In: Nevipe. Circular letter of Rome e. V. No. 46, 2010, pp. 1–6, digital version (PDF; 1.23 MB)