Caroline Laurent Müller, Charleston, South Carolina, around 1900
Philippina Carolina Laurent (known as Carolina) was born on September 15, 1822 in Zweibrücken (also known as Deux-Ponts), Pfalz (the Palatine), Germany, a locale with a mixed French and German heritage.
Caroline's mother was Margaretha Philippina Jungblut (called Philippina), an unmarried laundress in Zweibrücken. Her father was Philipp Heinrich Laurent, a book printer and local businessman, son of Emmanuel Friedrich Lorenz Laurent and Catharina Louisa Schmidt. Philipp married Philippina in 1825, thus legitimizing Carolina and her subsequent siblings.
According to familynotes Caroline was confirmed at Alexanderskirche in Zweibrücken and married Ludwig Müller in 1842. The couple emigrated to the USA that same year, settling first in Brooklyn and later in Charleston and Walhalla, South Carolina. They had eleven children.
After Ludwig's death in 1898 Carolina lived with her eldest daughter, Helena Melchers, in Charleston and died in 1910 of natural causes. She was buried at Bethany Cemetery in Charleston next to her husband.
Carolina had a younger sister, Louisa, born in February 1827. Louisa was the only other Laurent daughter, so far as we know, who emigrated to the USA. She arrived in New York in 1847 and in 1853 married Julius Edward Stohlmann (usually known as J. Edward Stohlmann), a purveyor of German religious books in Brooklyn. Louisa and her husband had nine children and she kept in touch with her sister's family in Charleston. Julius died in 1910, Louisa shortly thereafter.