Joseph Gully emigrated from his home valley, Hintervogelbach, in the Vosges Mountains of eastern France making his way to Wilmington, DE, where he operated one of the first lager beer saloons (a predecessor to today's brewpubs) in the city beginning in about 1850. While in Wilmington, he met and married future fellow lager beer saloon owner - and later brewing magnate - Joseph Stoeckle's cousin, Crescentia Stoeckle. Joseph Gully was a minor but, nevertheless, an important figure in the mid-19th Century Wilmington brewing scene.
From the port of Le Havre five weeks at sea aboard the sail ship Alabama, he arrived in North America on August 1, 1845 at NYC. Traveling down to the Mid-Atlantic, two years later at Baltimore, he enlisted in the US Army. From 1847-1848, he served during the Mexican War and was discharged at the site of his enlistment, Ft. McHenry in Baltimore. His military enlistment records his occupation 'brewer'. Gully may have arrived in Wilmington shortly after his service was completed.
Spoken by him and recorded by an American military clerk, his papers declare his birthplace St. Marie, France. When correctly translated to English, St. Marie, is Saint-Amarin, Alsace, France. During his time, Alsace was predominately of German architecture, cuisine, culture and tongue not of French, although national communication was in French. Alsatians like himself were largely bilingual. (The Rhine River separates the French state Alsace, now called Grand Est, from the modern German State Baden-Wurttemberg). Joseph's family spoke Upper Rhine Alemannic German in their home identical to wife Crescentia's Swabian German tongue spoken in her home state of Wurttemberg and identical to Swiss German and to American Amish German. In a near linear line, one hundred and fifty miles separated their home villages. They first met in Wilmington.
Physically at age thirty-five in 1847, the army recorded his eye color blue, hair tone light, skin tone brown and height 5'3". No photos of him exist. The 1850 Federal Census finds him boarding in Wilmington in the home of Swiss couple Frederic and Margaret Bapia. Again, his occupation is noted "brewer". City population was 13,979 of which 15% were native Delaware born Free Blacks, 35% of whites were foreign born.
It's not certain whether Gully named his French Lager Beer Brewery and the style of lager beer it produced after his native region or if it was in reference to its Wilmington location at 5th & French Streets. He advertised in Wilmington news prints and one advert survives today declaring him "open for business offering the best quality French lager beer, either by the quart, keg or barrel". Of course, lager is a traditional German-style brew but Alsace, which alternated between German and French control over the centuries and to this day reflects a mix of those cultures, also has a long history of lager brewing.
The advent of the swift clipper ship made it possible for lager beer and the yeast that produces it to make its way across the Atlantic. In 1840, John Wagner brought the yeast to Philadelphia and began what would become a revolutionary movement in brewing in the U.S. Sometime around 1850, Christian Krauch, who was a brewer and had operated saloons in Philly since before Wagner's arrival, relocated to Wilmington and introduced the style of beer to that city. Krauch became affectionately known as "the Father of Lager Beer in Wilmington". However, Joseph Gully wasn't long on his heels. Gully is documented to be the second lager beer brewer in Delaware, at least so far. The location of his saloon was 2 blocks north of Krauch's business, which was the center of German culture in the city at the time.
Gully and Crescentia (Fraulein Kreszenz Stokle) Stoeckle married on December 30, 1850 at Episcopal Old Trinity Church, the oldest extant church in the United States dating to 1699, founded by Swedes, and today a National Historic Landmark. They were likely Roman Catholics, both of them baptized as such, but the only Catholic church was a long 'winter-season' walk west. Joseph's residence was close by the historic Swede church on Church St., in-between there and his brewery on French St. The couple birthed three daughters while living in Wilmington, Mary (b. 1853), Josephine (b. 1854) and apparently there was a first daughter, Maria Rosanna Gully, born November 2, 1851 and baptized December 14, 1851. Knowledge of her existence did not survive into modern family memory. She likely died as an infant. Her birth and baptism were discovered and are documented in Wilmington's St. Peter's Catholic Cathedral parish archives.
What precipitated the Gully's departure from Delaware is unclear but Joseph, Crescentia, Mary and Josephine moved to Mineral Point, Wisconsin in 1855. Shortly before that time, in 1854, Crescentia's cousin, Joseph Stoeckle, located to Wilmington from their home village Buchau, Wurttemberg. Eventually, he would open a lager beer saloon and become involved in the brewing business. When he died in 1893, he was one of the wealthiest men in the city and the Stoeckle name and Stoeckle's Diamond State Beer brand would become synonymous with beer in Delaware for a century. Wilmington brew historian, John Medkeff, conducted his first historical brewing tour of Wilmington during summer 2013 for the Delaware Historical Society. He told this author that he talked about Joseph Gully and his contribution to brewing in the city. It might have been the first time Gully's memory had been invoked in Delaware in a century or more. Medkeff's research has enlightened Joseph's first years in America.
The family traveled west with plans of investigating Gully's Wisconsin parcel, land he had been awarded for his military service, and they may have also, at the same time, thought to investigate the possibility of opening a new or purchasing an existing brewery in Mineral Point, the first brewery in Wisconsin opened there in 1835. However after arrival and discovery that Mineral Point's boom years had passed, their brewery ideas waned, and they launched their energies into opening a farm.
The immediate area still boasted a couple thousand citizens as the center of a once rich lead ore mining belt and with its rolling sometimes wooded countryside and beautiful streams coupled with its mining and farming culture, southwest Wisconsin's Driftless Area likely recalled for Joseph his roots in France. Their land varied in elevation with some timber, limestone outcroppings and a running stream making it perhaps less than half tillable, but it was suitable enough and they remained in the area. (Today, except for their level one acre home site which is privately owned, the whole Gully quarter section including several additional adjacent acres is owned by State of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and known as Yellowstone Wildlife Area.)
Delaware had passed an alcohol prohibition law in 1855, although repealed in 1857, the timing of the new law likely was the impetus for the family's exit from Wilmington. Brewing was stopped by order of the state. In Wisconsin, at the same time as Delaware, a similar ban on beer, wine and booze sales was proposed, as it was in many states, but the measure died in Wisconsin following the governor's veto.
The Gully's moved onto their 160 acres in Fayette Township, Section 34, ten miles southeast of town. A patent for the land is recorded in Lafayette County books on August 20, 1855 and is recorded in Washington DC in 1857. They birthed a first son, Jacob, reportedly in Mineral Point in December 1856 and two more sons, Joseph Jr. and Michael were born on the farm in 1857 and 1859.
At forty-eight years old during late summer 1861, Joseph died. Son Jacob passed along to his children that his dad had taken him once or twice to local militia drills. And it was at a militia camp where Joseph reportedly took ill or was injured. He was however at home in death. Attending physician from Darlington, WI, Dr. Wm M. Thomas, received $60 for medicine and for twelve patient visits beginning in August according to a probate record ($60 equivalent to over $2000 today).
Where is Joseph Gully buried? Years later Jacob and sister Josephine, ages four and seven, recalled riding atop their dad's coffin to his burial. With that information, Joseph certainly was buried nearby. It's possible and very likely he was buried on their farm on the treed limestone ridge directly overlooking their home in Fayette Township. Later owners of the property, the Leach family, buried two family members in that exact spot. The three closest active cemeteries to the Gully farm at that time were Fayette Cemetery in the hamlet of Fayette, Union Cemetery on Ferrell Road and Holy Assumption Catholic Cemetery on Olson Road, the latter two located west northwest of the farm just into Willow Springs Township. Jacob's family believed he was buried in the "west corner" of small Union Cemetery (also known as Willow Springs Cemetery or Fort Defiance Cemetery and about eight wagon miles from their farm). His grave marker was thought to have been seen there by two of Jacob's children in 1934. Perhaps they saw his grave marker in Assumption Cemetery as their maternal grandparents, the Walker's, are interred there.
No marker nor any record of his burial or grave deed purchase exist today in any of the area cemeteries giving support to his burial at home. The Assumption Catholic Cemetery sexton (historian), Joseph F. Rielly, wrote to this author during the late 1960's stating there was a Gully headstone in Assumption at one time but it had toppled many years ago and was discarded with others during a cleanup. Assumption Cemetery is isolated and rarely used today receiving only five burials in the last 100 years. Union Cemetery has received just fifteen burials over the same time period.
Crescentia was devastated. She had unexpectedly, suddenly lost her husband. At harvest time with much work to do before winter, she was left alone to manage their farm, care for five small children, the oldest was eight, and she was pregnant. A simple task like splitting wood became a problem. She relied on the help of neighbors or did the work herself. Five and one half weeks after her husband's death, she birthed their son Richard Walter Gully. Three years later she remarried locally to Johann Jaeger, an Austrian, and after birthing a daughter the whole family moved 380 miles northwest to a new farm and new life near the tiny village of St. Martin in central Minnesota. written by Gregory Dorr
Birth Name
Joseph Gully
Birth Place
rural Saint-Amarin, Alsace, France
Youngest of six children
His dad died the year after he immigrated to United States.
Custom Event
Immigration
Departure LeHavre, France aboard steamer or sail ship Alabama
Arrival in United States, 1 August 1845, four weeks shy of age 32 years old
New York City, New York, United States
Military Service
US Army
1847-1848
US Mexican War
Qualification for free land
One year service in US Mexican War
Naturalization
Intention to become a citizen of the United States, renounce the Emperor of France
23 May 1854
New Castle, Delaware, United States
Occupations
Soldier, Brewer, Farmer
Resident of United States from 1845 to 1861
Lived in Delaware and Wisconsin
JOSEPH GULLY pedigree.
He is #1, his father Michael #2, his mother Walburgue #3, and so on through grandparents #4,#5,#6,#7 to distant ancestors. Early Gully surname was Gulling.
_____| 16_ Petrus Gulling 1669-1703
_____| 8_ Joannes Casparus Gulling 1701- ?
/ ¯¯¯¯¯| 17_ Catharina Walter 1661-1736
_____| 4_ Josephus Gully 1730-1812
/ \
/ ¯¯¯¯¯| 9_ Mariana Ameneker died ca 1763
/
|2_ Michael "Michel" Gully 1773-1846
| \ _____| 20_ Joseph Luttringer 1667-1734
| \ _____| 10_ Petrus Luttringer 1700-1772
| \ / ¯¯¯¯¯| 21_ Kunigundis Mura 1669-1734
| ¯¯¯¯¯| 5_ Maria Catharina Luttringer 1734-1811
| \ _____| 22_ Joannes Henricus Luttringer 1674-/1741
| ¯¯¯¯¯| 11_ Maria Catharina Luttringer 1705-1780
| ¯¯¯¯¯| 23_ Eva Kübler 1685-1750
|--1_ Joseph Gully 1813-1861
| _____| 12_ Josephus Lötscher
| /
| _____| 6_ Josephus Lötscher 1737-1812
| / \ _____| 26_ Petrus Christen 1880-/1747
| / ¯¯¯¯¯| 13_ Francisca Christen 1716-1763
| / ¯¯¯¯¯| 27_ Agatha Mura 1680-1733
|3_ Maria Walburgue Letscher 1771-1836
\
\ _____| 14_ Joannes Jacobus Christen 1695-1783
\ /
¯¯¯¯¯| 7_ Maria Elisabetha Christen 1731-1806
\ _____| 30_ Petrus Herrgott 1647-1692
¯¯¯¯¯| 15_ Anna Maria Herrgott 1688-1731
¯¯¯¯¯| 31_ Catharina Schütter died 1712
Joseph Gully emigrated from his home valley, Hintervogelbach, in the Vosges Mountains of eastern France making his way to Wilmington, DE, where he operated one of the first lager beer saloons (a predecessor to today's brewpubs) in the city beginning in about 1850. While in Wilmington, he met and married future fellow lager beer saloon owner - and later brewing magnate - Joseph Stoeckle's cousin, Crescentia Stoeckle. Joseph Gully was a minor but, nevertheless, an important figure in the mid-19th Century Wilmington brewing scene.
From the port of Le Havre five weeks at sea aboard the sail ship Alabama, he arrived in North America on August 1, 1845 at NYC. Traveling down to the Mid-Atlantic, two years later at Baltimore, he enlisted in the US Army. From 1847-1848, he served during the Mexican War and was discharged at the site of his enlistment, Ft. McHenry in Baltimore. His military enlistment records his occupation 'brewer'. Gully may have arrived in Wilmington shortly after his service was completed.
Spoken by him and recorded by an American military clerk, his papers declare his birthplace St. Marie, France. When correctly translated to English, St. Marie, is Saint-Amarin, Alsace, France. During his time, Alsace was predominately of German architecture, cuisine, culture and tongue not of French, although national communication was in French. Alsatians like himself were largely bilingual. (The Rhine River separates the French state Alsace, now called Grand Est, from the modern German State Baden-Wurttemberg). Joseph's family spoke Upper Rhine Alemannic German in their home identical to wife Crescentia's Swabian German tongue spoken in her home state of Wurttemberg and identical to Swiss German and to American Amish German. In a near linear line, one hundred and fifty miles separated their home villages. They first met in Wilmington.
Physically at age thirty-five in 1847, the army recorded his eye color blue, hair tone light, skin tone brown and height 5'3". No photos of him exist. The 1850 Federal Census finds him boarding in Wilmington in the home of Swiss couple Frederic and Margaret Bapia. Again, his occupation is noted "brewer". City population was 13,979 of which 15% were native Delaware born Free Blacks, 35% of whites were foreign born.
It's not certain whether Gully named his French Lager Beer Brewery and the style of lager beer it produced after his native region or if it was in reference to its Wilmington location at 5th & French Streets. He advertised in Wilmington news prints and one advert survives today declaring him "open for business offering the best quality French lager beer, either by the quart, keg or barrel". Of course, lager is a traditional German-style brew but Alsace, which alternated between German and French control over the centuries and to this day reflects a mix of those cultures, also has a long history of lager brewing.
The advent of the swift clipper ship made it possible for lager beer and the yeast that produces it to make its way across the Atlantic. In 1840, John Wagner brought the yeast to Philadelphia and began what would become a revolutionary movement in brewing in the U.S. Sometime around 1850, Christian Krauch, who was a brewer and had operated saloons in Philly since before Wagner's arrival, relocated to Wilmington and introduced the style of beer to that city. Krauch became affectionately known as "the Father of Lager Beer in Wilmington". However, Joseph Gully wasn't long on his heels. Gully is documented to be the second lager beer brewer in Delaware, at least so far. The location of his saloon was 2 blocks north of Krauch's business, which was the center of German culture in the city at the time.
Gully and Crescentia (Fraulein Kreszenz Stokle) Stoeckle married on December 30, 1850 at Episcopal Old Trinity Church, the oldest extant church in the United States dating to 1699, founded by Swedes, and today a National Historic Landmark. They were likely Roman Catholics, both of them baptized as such, but the only Catholic church was a long 'winter-season' walk west. Joseph's residence was close by the historic Swede church on Church St., in-between there and his brewery on French St. The couple birthed three daughters while living in Wilmington, Mary (b. 1853), Josephine (b. 1854) and apparently there was a first daughter, Maria Rosanna Gully, born November 2, 1851 and baptized December 14, 1851. Knowledge of her existence did not survive into modern family memory. She likely died as an infant. Her birth and baptism were discovered and are documented in Wilmington's St. Peter's Catholic Cathedral parish archives.
What precipitated the Gully's departure from Delaware is unclear but Joseph, Crescentia, Mary and Josephine moved to Mineral Point, Wisconsin in 1855. Shortly before that time, in 1854, Crescentia's cousin, Joseph Stoeckle, located to Wilmington from their home village Buchau, Wurttemberg. Eventually, he would open a lager beer saloon and become involved in the brewing business. When he died in 1893, he was one of the wealthiest men in the city and the Stoeckle name and Stoeckle's Diamond State Beer brand would become synonymous with beer in Delaware for a century. Wilmington brew historian, John Medkeff, conducted his first historical brewing tour of Wilmington during summer 2013 for the Delaware Historical Society. He told this author that he talked about Joseph Gully and his contribution to brewing in the city. It might have been the first time Gully's memory had been invoked in Delaware in a century or more. Medkeff's research has enlightened Joseph's first years in America.
The family traveled west with plans of investigating Gully's Wisconsin parcel, land he had been awarded for his military service, and they may have also, at the same time, thought to investigate the possibility of opening a new or purchasing an existing brewery in Mineral Point, the first brewery in Wisconsin opened there in 1835. However after arrival and discovery that Mineral Point's boom years had passed, their brewery ideas waned, and they launched their energies into opening a farm.
The immediate area still boasted a couple thousand citizens as the center of a once rich lead ore mining belt and with its rolling sometimes wooded countryside and beautiful streams coupled with its mining and farming culture, southwest Wisconsin's Driftless Area likely recalled for Joseph his roots in France. Their land varied in elevation with some timber, limestone outcroppings and a running stream making it perhaps less than half tillable, but it was suitable enough and they remained in the area. (Today, except for their level one acre home site which is privately owned, the whole Gully quarter section including several additional adjacent acres is owned by State of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and known as Yellowstone Wildlife Area.)
Delaware had passed an alcohol prohibition law in 1855, although repealed in 1857, the timing of the new law likely was the impetus for the family's exit from Wilmington. Brewing was stopped by order of the state. In Wisconsin, at the same time as Delaware, a similar ban on beer, wine and booze sales was proposed, as it was in many states, but the measure died in Wisconsin following the governor's veto.
The Gully's moved onto their 160 acres in Fayette Township, Section 34, ten miles southeast of town. A patent for the land is recorded in Lafayette County books on August 20, 1855 and is recorded in Washington DC in 1857. They birthed a first son, Jacob, reportedly in Mineral Point in December 1856 and two more sons, Joseph Jr. and Michael were born on the farm in 1857 and 1859.
At forty-eight years old during late summer 1861, Joseph died. Son Jacob passed along to his children that his dad had taken him once or twice to local militia drills. And it was at a militia camp where Joseph reportedly took ill or was injured. He was however at home in death. Attending physician from Darlington, WI, Dr. Wm M. Thomas, received $60 for medicine and for twelve patient visits beginning in August according to a probate record ($60 equivalent to over $2000 today).
Where is Joseph Gully buried? Years later Jacob and sister Josephine, ages four and seven, recalled riding atop their dad's coffin to his burial. With that information, Joseph certainly was buried nearby. It's possible and very likely he was buried on their farm on the treed limestone ridge directly overlooking their home in Fayette Township. Later owners of the property, the Leach family, buried two family members in that exact spot. The three closest active cemeteries to the Gully farm at that time were Fayette Cemetery in the hamlet of Fayette, Union Cemetery on Ferrell Road and Holy Assumption Catholic Cemetery on Olson Road, the latter two located west northwest of the farm just into Willow Springs Township. Jacob's family believed he was buried in the "west corner" of small Union Cemetery (also known as Willow Springs Cemetery or Fort Defiance Cemetery and about eight wagon miles from their farm). His grave marker was thought to have been seen there by two of Jacob's children in 1934. Perhaps they saw his grave marker in Assumption Cemetery as their maternal grandparents, the Walker's, are interred there.
No marker nor any record of his burial or grave deed purchase exist today in any of the area cemeteries giving support to his burial at home. The Assumption Catholic Cemetery sexton (historian), Joseph F. Rielly, wrote to this author during the late 1960's stating there was a Gully headstone in Assumption at one time but it had toppled many years ago and was discarded with others during a cleanup. Assumption Cemetery is isolated and rarely used today receiving only five burials in the last 100 years. Union Cemetery has received just fifteen burials over the same time period.
Crescentia was devastated. She had unexpectedly, suddenly lost her husband. At harvest time with much work to do before winter, she was left alone to manage their farm, care for five small children, the oldest was eight, and she was pregnant. A simple task like splitting wood became a problem. She relied on the help of neighbors or did the work herself. Five and one half weeks after her husband's death, she birthed their son Richard Walter Gully. Three years later she remarried locally to Johann Jaeger, an Austrian, and after birthing a daughter the whole family moved 380 miles northwest to a new farm and new life near the tiny village of St. Martin in central Minnesota. written by Gregory Dorr
Birth Name
Joseph Gully
Birth Place
rural Saint-Amarin, Alsace, France
Youngest of six children
His dad died the year after he immigrated to United States.
Custom Event
Immigration
Departure LeHavre, France aboard steamer or sail ship Alabama
Arrival in United States, 1 August 1845, four weeks shy of age 32 years old
New York City, New York, United States
Military Service
US Army
1847-1848
US Mexican War
Qualification for free land
One year service in US Mexican War
Naturalization
Intention to become a citizen of the United States, renounce the Emperor of France
23 May 1854
New Castle, Delaware, United States
Occupations
Soldier, Brewer, Farmer
Resident of United States from 1845 to 1861
Lived in Delaware and Wisconsin
JOSEPH GULLY pedigree.
He is #1, his father Michael #2, his mother Walburgue #3, and so on through grandparents #4,#5,#6,#7 to distant ancestors. Early Gully surname was Gulling.
_____| 16_ Petrus Gulling 1669-1703
_____| 8_ Joannes Casparus Gulling 1701- ?
/ ¯¯¯¯¯| 17_ Catharina Walter 1661-1736
_____| 4_ Josephus Gully 1730-1812
/ \
/ ¯¯¯¯¯| 9_ Mariana Ameneker died ca 1763
/
|2_ Michael "Michel" Gully 1773-1846
| \ _____| 20_ Joseph Luttringer 1667-1734
| \ _____| 10_ Petrus Luttringer 1700-1772
| \ / ¯¯¯¯¯| 21_ Kunigundis Mura 1669-1734
| ¯¯¯¯¯| 5_ Maria Catharina Luttringer 1734-1811
| \ _____| 22_ Joannes Henricus Luttringer 1674-/1741
| ¯¯¯¯¯| 11_ Maria Catharina Luttringer 1705-1780
| ¯¯¯¯¯| 23_ Eva Kübler 1685-1750
|--1_ Joseph Gully 1813-1861
| _____| 12_ Josephus Lötscher
| /
| _____| 6_ Josephus Lötscher 1737-1812
| / \ _____| 26_ Petrus Christen 1880-/1747
| / ¯¯¯¯¯| 13_ Francisca Christen 1716-1763
| / ¯¯¯¯¯| 27_ Agatha Mura 1680-1733
|3_ Maria Walburgue Letscher 1771-1836
\
\ _____| 14_ Joannes Jacobus Christen 1695-1783
\ /
¯¯¯¯¯| 7_ Maria Elisabetha Christen 1731-1806
\ _____| 30_ Petrus Herrgott 1647-1692
¯¯¯¯¯| 15_ Anna Maria Herrgott 1688-1731
¯¯¯¯¯| 31_ Catharina Schütter died 1712
Gravesite Details
Buried at home. No known grave marker. At the time of his death, his wife was eight months pregnant and caring for five very young children. Is it probable they traveled sixteen public wagon miles (roundtrip) to a cemetery?
Family Members
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