78. Jakob's family moved from Echandens, Vaud to Steffisburg, Bern, Switzerland

Jakob II moved his family from Echandens, Vaud Canton to Steffisburg, Bern Canton, Switzerland.   See post #1 for a picture postcard view of Steffisburg, from the early 1900's.   It is near Thun, in central Switzerland.   The year of the move and the reason for the move are unknown.   Possibly Jakob II no longer had a job after the powder mill in Echandens closed. 

As explained about Jakob II in post #76, he learned powder milling before he was powder miller at Steffisburg.   His two sons assisted at the same mill, and both became powder millers.   Even with extensive experience, there were complications and dangers every day and moment in milling black powder.        


Before continuing with Jakob's story, let me catch you up with a sparse version of Friedrich's early life.  

  

72. Jakob II Treuthardt, powder miller at a stamp mill

Jakob II was (almost certainly!) a powder miller.    A powder miller produced charcoal, and he added sulfur and saltpeter to make "powder," another name for gunpowder.    Although this theory has not been proven, my conjecture is that Jakob II was possibly powder miller at Echandens, where a powder mill was in operation.  

The powder mill at Echandens, Switzerland, used a stamping process to crush the powder.   The mining term "stamp mill" refers most recently to gold mining, but it was an ancient process which was primarily used from the 1500's to the 1900's.    According to Webster's definition in 1913, a stamp was a "kind of heavy hammer, or pestle, raised by water or steam power, for beating ores to powder;  anything like a pestle used for pounding or beating."   The origin of this term is from 1740-50;  but the process was in use long before that.

From one website, this is a description of a stamp mill, as follows:
[http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Stamp_Mill]

"The machines were known for their heavy, cumbersome awkwardness and difficulty to maintain.    Each stamp could weigh as much as 2,000 lbs. (907 kg).   They were also incredibly noisy and produced vibrations close to the area of installment and operation.   Some likened the noise produced by a stamp mill to that of a 'stampede of horses galloping across the land.' "  

The mill at Echandens had to close because it was in the way of the railroad which was being built.  [For further research -- The years that the railroad was built at Echandens, would indicate approximately when the mill closed.]   Sometime after Friedrich's birth in 1834, the family left Echandens.   Possibly they moved when the Echandens mill closed.     

References:
http://onlinedictionary.datasegment.com/word/stamp+mill
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stamp-mill
http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Stamp_Mill

4. Birthday -- Anna Ida Treuthardt Krieg, February 8, 1872

Today is my grandmother's birthday.    She was born in 1872 at Aubonne, Vaud Canton, Switzerland.  Vaud Canton is in the French-speaking northwest part of Switzerland.   She is named Anna Ida Treuthardt in the Baptismal certificate issued on 7 April 1872 from the Kirche zu Aubonne.  Her mother's name was also Anna.     Her family lived in the miller's home on the premises of the black powder mill at Aubonne.   She went to French school until she was 11 years old.   Her family immigrated to Texas when she was 11 years old, in the fall of 1883.   

In Texas she was known as Ida (nobody knew that her first name was Anna).   Her family lived in Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas, in a home at the south bank of the San Gabriel River.    She grew up among the English and the French-Swiss communities.   Of course she attended English school.   The family aligned with the Lutheran church at Walburg, and the Treuthardt family is included in that church's records.   She was confirmed in 1893, by Pastor Collmann of St. Peter Lutheran Church of Walburg.    

 

But she married a Swiss man who spoke no French, and not much English (in my opinion).   He had immigrated to the U.S. when he was about 17 years old.    Gottlieb Krieg was from a large family who at first all lived in the Swiss and German town of New Bern, not far from Thrall, Texas.   Gottlieb and Ida had eight children.    The couple farmed at New Bern, and they purchased another farm, when their plans were cut short.    Sadly, Gottlieb took sick when he was about 39 years old, and he died in 1911, at the age of 40.   After her husband's death, Ida continued to farm with the help of her older sons, her Krieg brothers-in-law, and maybe some neighbors.    After her children grew up, she had a home built in Thrall, next door to her oldest son's family, where she lived for a few years.   She died in 1939.   That is 28 years after her husband's death, and only three years after the death of her mother.   

Ida's children did not learn French, but from infancy they were taught Swiss.   "Swiss" is thought of by Americans [who think of it at all] to be a dialect of German, but it is considered a separate language by the Swiss.  

There is so much more to say, but those are basic things to know. 

In 1985 my daughter was born on the birthdate of her great-grandmother Ida.