My Genealogy Hound

GUSTAVUS PAPE, a native of Prussian Westphalia, was born in the city of Hirschberg, January 18, 1826. He is a son of Caspar Antoine and Therese (Hillebrandt) Pape, both of whom were Prussians. The former was born in 1789, and the latter about ten years later. To them were born seven children, of whom our subject is the second in order of birth. There were a half-brother and half-sister born of a former marriage of our subject’s father. Of this family of nine, only three remain, our subject and two sisters younger than he.

While in the Old Country Caspar Pape held official position under the king, as did his father before him, the latter being a magistrate. The maternal grandfather was also a magistrate in earlier life, and at the time of his death was a privy councilor. He came to his death while out on a hunt, being shot by a near-sighted friend who, seeing his deerskin pouch through the bushes, mistook him for a deer and shot, killing him. The date of the marriage of our subject’s parents was about the year 1820. They emigrated with their family to America in the spring of 1834, landing in Philadelphia after a passage of forty-nine days out from Bremen, their port of departure on the sailing-vessel “Champion.” From the vessel their goods were moved to a river steamer, by which they journeyed to Baltimore.

After a week’s sojourn at Baltimore, the family traveled to Frederick on one of the first railroads in the country; the coaches were of the old fashioned kind, each one having a seating capacity of but six or eight. From Frederick they went to Cavetown, a small place near Hagerstown, where they remained a month. From there to Wheeling, W. Va., they progressed by the freight wagons plying across the Alleghany Mountains, a trip that occupied a week or ten days. At Wheeling our travelers were compelled to wait a week for a steamer to take them to Cincinnati, the water being so low that boats were very irregular.

Reshipping at Cincinnati on another steamer, no more delays were suffered, and in course of time the family were disembarked at Kaskaskia Landing on the Mississippi, opposite the ancient town. Mr. Pape was a property owner in the Old Country, and disposing of his possessions the year before his emigration, was, unlike many emigrants, in comfortable circumstances when he reached his new home. On his arrival at Kaskaskia, he bought the Atkins farm, on the bluffs of the Okaw, about nine miles above Kaskaskia. Here our subject resided until the death of his father, in September, 1851, when the family scattered. The mother departed this life in 1859, at the house of one of her daughters on an adjoining farm, and her body and that of her husband lie buried on the farm that was for so many years their home.

After the death of his father, Gustavus went to St. Louis and secured a clerkship in a grocery store, where he remained three years. At the end of that time he came to Kaskaskia, and in the spring of 1854 took a position with and clerked six years for George W. Staley, now of Chester, who kept a general store. From 1861 to 1865 our subject was in partnership with his old employer. Dissolving partnership at that time, Mr. Pape a year later purchased a building and began business for himself, in which he has continued ever since, and by careful management he has accumulated a comfortable fortune to keep him in old age. Besides his store in Kaskaskia, he has a farm of one hundred acres in the rich bottom lands above the “cut-off,” and a tract of two hundred and eighty acres in Perry County.

Owing to the encroachment of the river, the town is fast washing away, and when Mr. Pape may be forced to move, he will retire from active business and take life easy the rest of his days. The building in which he conducts his business and makes his home is the oldest brick house in the state. The brick from which it was made was manufactured in Pittsburg, whence it was transported on keelboats down the Ohio, and “cordelled” up the Mississippi to Chester, and thence up the Okaw to Kaskaskia in 1803. In this building the first Territorial Legislature was organized, and there its first sessions were held.

November 30, 1867, Mr. Pape was married to Mary E. Feaman, a native of Hardinsburg, Ky., where she was born January 9, 1836. She is a daughter of William and Elizabeth (Jeffries) Feaman, natives of Virginia and Kentucky respectively. The two children born to our subject and his wife died in infancy. Mrs. Pape is a strict member of the Roman Catholic Church, as were the parents of Mr. Pape, who, owing to the distance from a place of worship in the early days of his life, fell away from the church. Socially, he is a member of the Masonic fraternity, holding membership in the blue lodge at Ellis Grove and the chapter at Chester. In politics he has been a Democrat all his life, but believes in voting for the man rather than the party. Since 1872 he has been Postmaster at Kaskaskia, holding that office through all the changes of administration.