The Lost Souls of Bethany Orphanage

From researcher and archivist Carl Bloss:

"While proofing the translation from the German of the Bausman History found in the Board Minutes Bk 1, we found the names of the first 4 children that Rev. Boehringer took in at Morris Street: being Caroline Engel, but the next 3 were Vogel's. We found them in Yundt's and Vandevere Histories as Fogel, but we couldn't find them in the Book of Life? We know and understand the role that Caroline Engel held as the first child to enter the orphanage but no very little about many others.

 The fire at Womelsdorf in 1881 seemed to have destroyed all the children’s records, so they had to be reconstructed from the past; any notes carried over, memories of children remembered from the past even though not currently living at the institution. The Books of Children and then the Book of Life were the reconstructions but many names of children seem to have been missing. These are the “Lost Souls” of Bethany. 

Rev. Yundt made the first attempts by keeping a list of children already at Bethany in the year 1886, the year he became the Superintendent and eventually published in his history of Bethany. Rev. Vandevere repeated this list and added more to the year 1962. There are a variety of other lists that we found in different locations of the Archives as well the census lists.

So, Who were the VOGELs? From the German translation we read: ( On 21 September 1863, the first orphan was accepted into the home of Pastor Emanuel Bӧhringer, No. 702 Morris Street, Southwark, Philadelphia. In the October number of “The Shepherd of the Lambs”, Pastor Bӧhringer reports as follows: “ Accepted children: Karoline Engel from Philadelphia – 6 years old. Heinrich Vogel from Perryville(sic) Parryville, Carbon Co, Pa. – 11 years old. Franz Johannes Vogel “ – 8 years old. Philippina Vogel “ 5 years old. The last three are orphans of the fallen Sergeant Konrad Vogel, who fell on 14 September 1862 in the battle at South Mountain, Md., who left behind a poor widow with eight children.”

From these statements alone, we have, genealogically, been able to track Konrad Vogel and his family at that time. In the 1859 census, we find Conrad Vogel, age 26, as a shoemaker from Germany living in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife Margaret, 27, son John 5 born in NY, and daughter Mary 2. In the 1860 census we find Conrad Vogel, 35, wife Margaret 38, son John H 15, Mary E 12, Peter, 10, Henry 6, Francis 3, Philippine 1, Caroline & Louisa 4/12 and probably his mother-in-law, Phillipa West (Werther), 74, living in Weissport, Franklin Twp, Carbon County, Pa. (Parryville area). In the Boyd’s Pa State Business Directory we find Conrad Vogel living in Parryville, PA in 1861.

Also in 1861, we find Conrad Vogel enlisted in Company F, Pennsylvania 42nd Infantry Regiment, 1st PA Rifles for Civil War service on May 29, 1861 as a Sergeant. His (47 page) widow’s Pension file verifies his death at South Mountain, Md among 443 known Union deaths in that Battle (Fold3.com). The 2 Widow’s pension was filed in 1863. With the death of their mother on January 16, 1869, guardianship and pension was transferred of the minor children to daughter Mary AVENS of Brooklyn, NY. The 1870 census shows Wm Avenes 27, engineer, and Mary, 22, along with Henry 15, and apprentice boilermaker, Francis 15 an apprentice cigar maker, Philippine 11 at school as with Louisa 10.

Information on Ancestry shows that Philippine survived and the Archivist has been in touch with Michael Fanning, 3x great grandfather being Konrad Vogel through Philippine. (hntsgt@gmail.com) We look forward to sharing known pictures of Philippina’s family over the years. The family did not seem to know about this part of their lives. So we have learned a little bit more about another of the several “Lost Souls” of the Civil War and our own past. It is a known fact the “Bethany” had served more than 129 children through the Pa Soldier’s Orphans School Program after the Civil War – Another topic"