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Divertimento The Codoris I n 1828 George and Nicholas Cordary, single and brothers, arrived in Gettysburg from Hottviller, France, a town in Lorraine near the border with Germany. In 1850 another brother, Antoine, joined them along with his wife, Magdaleine, their married daughter Catherine (age twenty-six) and her husband, Jean Stab, another daughter, Marie (age twenty), and a son, Jacob (age thirteen). George, Nicholas, and Antoine, French Catholic immigrants, generally moved quickly and comfortably into the American mainstream. Of the three brothers, Antoine, the most recent arrival, found assimilation the most difficult. He achieved less status than his brothers and lingered somewhat on the margins of the mainstream. True, assimilation worked on Antoine and his family. In 1850 the census called him “Anthony” and the Stabs were “Staub”; in the United States only a few months and already names had been anglicized, whether or not by choice. In 1854 Jean/John became a citizen, and in 1858 Antoine followed. The 1860 census no longer listed Magdaleine as illiterate, as it did in 1850. Perhaps she could now read in English, or maybe the 1850 census taker had simply disliked her foreign characteristics. Yet prosperity was elusive. In 1850 newly arrived Antoine was a “laborer,” and by 1860 the enumeration had no occupational designation for him; perhaps the sixty-six-year-old had stopped working. Moreover, after ten years in the United States Anthony and Magdaleine had accumulated very little property ($500 real estate; $100 personal estate). They lived with their son Jacob, an impoverished carpenter, and his wife Barbara , who had very full hands with two children, aged one and four months, and they further shared the residence with a native-born family of three. By 1860 this branch of the family was just getting started in America. Earlier arrivals George and Nicholas climbed higher. Both married in Pennsylvania and became butchers. George required only one year to take a wife, French-born Regina Wallenberger, but Nicholas, naturalized in 1834, waited longer , perhaps to complete a butcher apprenticeship, and in 1835 he wed Elizabeth Martin, a local woman. It would be interesting to know how Nicholas got his ap- The Codoris 71 prenticeship, the gateway into normally a tightly controlled profession. Butchers were well-respected, prosperous tradesmen who avoided the booms and busts of the early nineteenth century because people eat regardless of the economic cycle. Nicholas’s son, another George, likewise took up the family business, leaving school at an early age to learn the craft. As testament to their status, the two brothers bought homes; Nicholas’s was especially prominent on a centrally located lot that belonged to James Gettys’s original town. By 1860 these prosperous lines of the family added servant labor to their households. Second-generation George, son of Nicholas, employed an Irish domestic and a thirteen-year-old Irish boy, who did not attend school and was presumably a child laborer. Also, Nicholas and his brother, George, had adolescent Holland-born boys in their household , Charles Sopan and Detrich Supan, most likely brothers whose surname(s) the census-taker misspelled. Both boys attended school, unusual for apprentices and mere laborers, and perhaps they were part charity cases, part cheap labor. Nicholas’s election as a Democratic Party committeeman further documents his success in the community. Nicholas and Elizabeth particularly flourished. The 1860 census estimated their value at $1,000 in personal estate and $10,000 in real estate, including a farm along the Emmitsburg Road with AME Zion, Dunkers, Lutherans, and Reformed among the neighbors. Their son, George, had $1,200 in personal wealth, also a significant amount. All of the Codoris participated in the life of St. Francis Xavier parish. They rented pews, and the priest baptized their children. Nicholas, especially active, appears on a membership list as early as 1830, and he served on a building committee for the 1852 building project, keeping plans for the new structure in his home and making them available to the public. Although the Codoris were French, they mixed easily with this German-English congregation. Perhaps growing up in a border region, they spoke German. The 1850 census listed their birthplace as Germany, not France, either yet another census taker’s mistake or evidence of German language skills. (The 1860 enumeration got it right and lists them as French-born.) For the Codoris citizenship indicated official Americanization, but by numerous unofficial markers they were also typically American. Most obviously, their name was Anglicized. Secondly, they...

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