Hiram and Eva Margaret (Stoehr) Hammond were a couple who, at the surface, appeared to have little in common.

Hiram, who was said to have been born on 26 February 1813 in Ohio, first appeared in public record when he purchased land in Jackson County, Iowa Territory in the spring of 1845.¹ Presumed to be in his early thirties at this time, Hiram spent the next nine years honing his skills as a farmer before purchasing one hundred and sixty acres of land near Volga, Clayton County, Iowa.² Although there are speculative connections potentially linking Hiram to the family of War of 1812 veteran Jonathan Hammond and his wife Lovisa Herrington, no connections have yet been verified.

Eva Margaret Stoehr, on the other hand, settled in Clayton County, Iowa alongside her parents and siblings.³ She was said to have been born on 02 March 1831 in Weißenstadt, Wunsiedel, Bavaria, the daughter of Lorenz Stoehr, a master tailor who was a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, and his wife Barbara Feicht.⁴ She immigrated to America aboard the Solon, arriving in New York in 1853, and settled alongside many from her home village in northeastern Iowa.⁵

Find A Grave, Inc., Find A Grave, digital image (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 13 July 2014), photograph, Hiram H. Hammond (1813-1896), Memorial No. 84463650, and Eva M. (Stoehr) Hammond (1831-1906), Memorial No. 84463738, Garnavillo Community Cemetery, Garnavillo, Clayton County, Iowa; photograph by Ken Johnson, 2016. Note: The third headstone belongs to daughter Amelia Hammond (1857-1872).

When the couple married in Garnavillo, Clayton County, Iowa on 02 December 1854, Eva was likely just twenty-three years old while Hiram was forty-one.⁶ Although they were married by a German Lutheran minister, Hiram, unlike Eva, was neither German nor Lutheran.⁷ Eva was literate and came from a family of skilled craftsmen; Hiram was a farmer and could not write his own name.⁸ The couple went on to have the following known children: Amelia (1857-1872), Matilda J. (1859-1947), Louisa Barbara (1861-1936), John William (1865-1931), and George H. Hammond (1867-1934).⁹ In addition to losing their daughter Amelia when she was fourteen years old, it is believed that the couple lost two additional children at young ages.¹⁰

The Hammond family farmed near the community of Volga in Clayton County for thirty years, eventually moving to Henderson Prairie near Clermont, Fayette County, Iowa in early 1885.¹¹ They saw success as farmers, and by 1893, as Hiram entered his eighties, he and Eva decided to retire to the nearby town of Postville, Allamakee County, Iowa.¹²

Despite their vast difference in age, language, and culture, these Iowa pioneers celebrated more than forty years of marriage together. Hiram H. Hammond died on 23 August 1896 in Postville, Allamakee County, Iowa, and Eva Margaret (Stoehr) Hammond died there a decade later on 01 October 1906, both having suffered cerebral hemorrhages.¹³ They are buried side by side in the Garnavillo Community Cemetery in Garnavillo, Clayton County, Iowa.¹⁴

Copyright © 2018 Melanie Frick. All Rights Reserved.

SOURCES

¹ “Gone to Their Rest,” The Graphic (Postville, Iowa), 27 August 1896, p. 1, col. 3; digital images, Advantage Preservation (http://postville.advantage-preservation.com : accessed 25 April 2018), and U.S. Bureau of Land Management, “Patent Search,” database, General Land Office Records (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov : accessed 20 May 2018), entry for Hiram Hammond, Dubuque land office, doc. no. 4358.
² U.S. Bureau of Land Management, “Patent Search,” database, General Land Office Records (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov : accessed 20 May 2018), entry for Hiram Hammond, Dubuque land office, doc. no. 27828.
³ “George Stoehr,” Portrait and Biographical Album of Fayette County, Iowa (Chicago: Lake City Publishing, 1891), 448; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 25 April 2018).
⁴ “Obituary,” Postville (Iowa) Review, 12 October 1906, p. 5, col. 3; digital images, Advantage Preservation (http://postville.advantage-preservation.com : accessed 25 April 2018), and “George Stoehr,” Portrait and Biographical Album of Fayette County, Iowa, 448.
⁵ “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 May 2018), manifest, Solon, Bremen, Germany to New York, arriving 01 June 1853, Eva Stöhr; citing National Archives microfilm M237, roll 126.
⁵ Ken Johnson to Melanie Frick, e-mail, 14 May 2013, “Garnavillo Church Records,” Personal Correspondence, Hammond Family, Frick Research Files; privately held by Frick. Hiram Hammend and Margaretha Stoehr were married 02 December 1854 by Heinrich Müller of St. Paul Lutheran Church of Garnavillo.
⁷ 1895 Iowa State Census, Postville, Allamakee County, Iowa, Hiram H. Hammond; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 May 2018), citing State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines.
⁸ “Iowa, Wills and Probate Records, 1758-1997,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 May 2018), Hiram Hammond, 18 November 1896, Allamakee County, Iowa.
⁹ “Public Member Trees,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 October 2013), “Melanie’s Family Tree,” entries for Amelia Hammond (1857-1872), Matilda J. Hammond (1859-1947), Louisa Barbara Hammond (1861-1936), John William Hammond (1865-1931), and George H. Hammond (1867-1934); submitted by Melanie Frick.
¹⁰ “Gone to Their Rest,” The Graphic, 27 August 1896, and “Obituary,” Postville [Iowa] Review, 12 October 1906.
¹¹ “John Hammond Passes On Suddenly Thursday,” Postville Herald, 14 May 1931, p. 1, col. 2; digital images, Advantage Preservation (http://postville.advantage-preservation.com : accessed 25 April 2018).
¹² “Gone to Their Rest,” The Graphic, 27 August 1896, and “Obituary,” Postville Review, 12 October 1906.
¹³ “Allamakee Co. Death Records,” Iowa Genweb: Allamakee County (http://iagenweb.org/allamakee : accessed 20 May 2018), entry for Hiram H. Hammond, vol. 1, p. 92, no. 1089, and Iowa Department of Public Health, death certificate, Eva Margaret Hammond (1906), Bureau of Health Statistics, Des Moines.
¹⁴ Grave of Hiram H. Hammond (1813-1896) and Eva M. Hammond (1831-1906), Garnavillo City Cemetery, Garnavillo, Clayton County, Iowa; digital image 2007, privately held by Melanie Frick, 2018.