Elise Schuchmann Jatho, Charleston, South Carolina, around 1885
A silver pitcher representing the quality of work at J.E. Spear & Co., the shop where G.W. worked during the late 1850s; click to enlarge.
Meeting Street, about 1865. G.W.'s jewelry shop was just at the corner across from where the Mills House Hotel still stands; a fire in 1861 destroyed the block. St. Phillip's Church is in the background. Click photo for an enlargement.
G.W. left family members behind when he emigrated to New York on the ship Jason, arriving at Castle Garden (the precursor to Ellis Island) on October 17, 1848. By 1849 he had settled in Charleston, South Carolina and set up his business as watchmaker.
In the USA, as in Hanover, his family name was spelled Jatho but was occasionally transcribed as Yatho, due to its original Germany pronunciation. Charleston offered one of the biggest German imigrant communities on the eastern seaboard.
For some time a mystery surrounded G.W. Jatho's marriage to Elisabeth Margarethe Schuchmann, who had emigrated from Hesse-Darmstadt to Charleston in the late 1840s or early 1850s with her mother Marie Dressel Schuchmann and brother Philip. Her father, Johann Ludwig (Louis) Schuchmann, had emigrated around 1840 and his prosperous fancy-goods store was already firmly established on King Street. The surname was also spelled Schuckmann.
No marriage was recorded in Charleston in either of the two German Lutheran churches. Yet the couple had seven children, all of who appeared to have been born in Charleston. By casting our net a little further afield, we discover that G.W. and Elise were married in Louisville, Kentucky on July 19, 1853.
The reason is unclear, but their first child, Philip, had been born a few months prior to the marriage. There were a number of Schuchmann immigrants in Louisville, including a tailor, Louis Schuchmann -- not the same fellow as Elise's father. A cousin, an uncle, perhaps? More research is needed to determine their connection, if any. Perhaps Louiville provided a less judgmental environment to celebrate the nuptials of a couple whose first baby had already made his appearance!
G.W. and Elise were the parents of seven children: Philip, Pauline, George,
William, Edmond, Elise, and Carl Julius.
One of
G.W.'s first business and residential addresses was 121 Meeting Street, across
from the Mills House Hotel.
The Meeting Street location was destroyed by fire in 1861. See the photo below right for details of the destruction.
In addition to maintaining his own business on King Street, G.W. was also associated for a time with J.E. Spear & Co., a purveyor of jewelry, watches and silver. Spear's shop was known for quality products and today antique pieces from his shop retail for large sums at auctions around the world.
By 1860 G.W. had moved his business to a four-bedroom residence at 87 Cannon Street (above, as it looks today, a bead shop; click to enlarge). Reasons for the move were probably twofold. In 1858 G.W. lost a lawsuit and his belongings were sold to settle a debt with his landlord. It was also much easier to evade bombardment of lower Charleston by Union troops by living in a neighborhood that was then far away from the city center.
The bottom floor of the Cannon Street house was well-suited to a showroom and workroom, while the upstairs area provided a parlor and bedrooms for the Jathos' growing family. G.W. and his family also had a residence in Greenwood at the western end of South Carolina.
It was in Greenwood that G.W. died on September 23, 1870. At left is a link to his handwritten funeral notice, with his son George Jr.'s black armband still attached. Unfortunately there's no indication of an exact burial place in Greenwood. We only know the city from Elise's headstone in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, where Elise was buried several decades later.
His widow Elise taught German in Charleston and later lived with her son George Jatho Jr. Daughter Eliza died of typhoid fever at age 18 in 1881; eldest son Philip, a district court clerk, died of pneumonia in 1885.
Elise Schuckmann Jatho died in 1910 at her son George's home. All are buried at Magnolia cemetery in Charleston.