Select Hoffman Miscellany
- Martin Hemanzen Hoffman
- William Hoffman's Paper Mill
- Henry Hoffman in Illinois
- The Hoffman Jewish Family from Lithuania
- ND Hoffman in South Africa
Martin Hermanzen Hoffman
Martin Hermanzen Hoffman was undoubtedly the first
Hoffman to step ashore in America. He was in fact born in Estonia
(then part of Sweden) in 1624, the son of Hermann Hofman. At the
age of 33, he set sail for New York, then New Amsterdam and a Dutch
colony.
His first marriage, to Lysbeth Hermans in 1663, ended
within the year. But his second marriage in 1664, to the Dutch
woman Emmerentje Claesen de Witte, produced three children and the line
continued through the youngest son Zacharias who settled in Ulster
county. Eleven generations of this family were tracked in E.A.
Hoffman's 1899 book Genealogy of the
Hoffman Family.
William Hoffman's Paper Mill
William Hoffman had learnt the craft of paper-making in Germany, near
Frankfurt. He had come to America with his wife Susanna in 1765
and, ten years later, had started a paper-making enterprise in
Baltimore county close by the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania (at
Gunpowder Falls where he could harness the water power).
Almost all of the paper on which Continental money was
printed during the Revolutionary War was printed by William Hoffman at
this mill. A marker there today commemorates the event:
"The first paper maker in Maryland was William
Hoffman. In 1775 he built his first mill on Gunpowder Falls a
quarter of a mile upstream from the present Hoffmanville bridge.
In 1776 Congress adopted watermarked paper for its currency.
Hoffmanville Mills manufactured this paper as well as writing and
wrapping paper."
The business lasted more than a hundred years at this
location, being handed down to William Hoffman's son and then to his
grandson.
Henry Hoffman in
Illinois
Henry Hoffman lived in Jo Daviess county, Illinois after
his arrival in the state in 1854. He worked on the early
railroads and that may have been how he came to know a Bavarian woman
who lived in Peru, Lasalle county in central Illinois. In April
1858 Henry went to the Lasalle county courthouse where he obtained his
naturalization papers and a marriage license for himself and Mary
Donner. They were married two days later. Henry was nine
years younger than his bride.
They had no children. Mary died of a heart attack
in 1872. Her funeral (which Henry did not attend) was recorded in
the German language records of the St. John's Lutheran church in
Massbach and she was buried in the Elizabeth City cemetery.
The Hoffman Jewish Family from Lithuania
The Hoffmans lived in the village of Pokroy and were traders of fruit, vegetables, chickens, and geese. On the outskirts of Pokroy lived a Baron Von Roc, a German nobleman who administered the area. He had a whole court with a mansion for himself, living quarters for all his servants, and stables for his horses. The Hoffmans supplied the Baron with fruit, vegetables and chickens and it was the Baron who gave them their surname as "man of the court."
The first recorded Hoffman was Chayim Hoffman. His family later emigrated to South Africa. They are to be found today in America and Israel as well.
ND Hoffman in South Africa
Hoffman's volume of memoirs, Sefer Ha-zikhroynes (published in 1916), was the first full-length Yiddish book to be printed in South Africa. It described the author's experiences in Europe, America (in Hebrew), and Africa. He was the first writer to record the eastern European immigrant response to life in South Africa. His account of the hardships experienced by the traveling Jewish smous was the first appearance in South African Yiddish literature of what was to become one of its major themes. His Yearbook of 1920 contained important information about country communities.
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