Dreyer family

When Johann Caspar Dreier (formerly Dreyer, b.1758) married Dorothea Adelheid Uhthoff (b.1774) in 1797 the Dreiers were a relatively wealthy merchant family from Bremen in northern Germany. The couple had four sons and a daughter who died at the age of eleven.

The eldest son Gustav Theodor Dreier (b.1803), married to Thaddea Henriette Schacht (b.1806), was also a merchant in Bremen but got into financial troubles during the the 1850s. The second son, Julius Alexander Dreier (b.1805), worked as a pastor in Mittelsbueren and Grambke (today part of the state Bremen), and married first Metta Lucie Wilhelmine Noltenius (b.1800) who died five years after the marriage and then Margaretha (Meta) Catharina Lampe (b.1813). The third son, August Ferdinand Dreier (b.1808), who became a merchant in Bremen also married twice: Sophie Friederike Elisabeth (Betty) Focke (b.1808) in 1837 and 32 years later Margaretha (Meta) Thibetha Meinertzhagen (b.1814). The youngest son, Heinrich Eduard Dreier (b.1811), became a pastor but had some problems in securing an appropriate rectorate. After working in Lehe, at the House of Emigrants (Auswandererhaus) in Bremerhaven and Blumenthal he finally succeded in getting a post in Neuenkirchen near Farge (today part of the state Bremen), where he lived until his death with his wife Margaretha (Meta) Thibetha Hotzen (b.1817).

Gustav Theodor Dreier (b.1803) and his wife Thaddea Henriette Dreier (née Schacht, b.1806) had seven children. Three daughters died as children as did a son at the age of 19. Their eldest child, Johann Caspar Theodor Dreier (b.1828), became a merchant and emigrated to the United States at the end of the 1840s. There he worked for the steel distributor Naylor & Co. in New York, where he became a quite wealthy businessman. In 1864 he married his cousin, Dorothea Adelheid Dreier (b.1840), the daughter of his uncle Heinrich Eduard Dreier and his wife Margaretha (Meta) Thibetha Dreier, and took her with him to the United States where the couple lived mainly in Brooklyn. His sister, Dorothea Henriette Christine Dreier (b.1829), never married and stayed with her father in Bremen. After being ill and partly bedridden for several years she died at the age of 41. Her brother, Karl Wilhelm Dreier (b.1836), was sent to the boarding school Rauhes Haus in Hamburg. After several years as seaman (finally as officer on a steamship) he became a farmer in Iowa. He married Bertha Obermann (b.1846) in 1869, and after her death eight years later, Marie Adelheid Kant (b.1857). The brother of Gustav Theodor Dreier (b.1803), Julius Alexander Dreier (b.1805), and his two wives had ten children, his brother August Ferdinand Dreier (b.1808) and his first wife, four. The youngest of the four brothers, Heinrich Eduard Dreier (b.1811) and his wife Margaretha (Meta) Thibetha Dreier (b.1817) had three children. The eldest daughter Margaretha (Meta) Dreier (b.1839) married pharmacist Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm Knoch (b.1826), who had pharmacies in Blumenthal, Bad Pyrmont, Giessen and Krefeld. The second child, Dorothea Adelheid Dreier (b.1840), married, as already mentioned, her cousin and moved to the United States. Her brother, Johann Caspar Ludwig Dreier (b.1843), never married. He followed his sister and his cousin to the United States during the 1860s where he worked for Naylor & Co. and an insurance company. His attempt to establish his own enterprise failed after a short time. He later returned to Germany.

Johann Caspar Theodor Dreier (b.1828) and his wife (and cousin) Dorothea Adelheid Dreier (b.1840) had seven children. Their daughters, Marie (Mary) Elisabeth Dreier (b.1875) and Katherine Sophie Dreier (b.1877), became quite well known, the first as a social reformer (her papers can also be found at the Schlesinger Library, MC 309), the second as an artist and a patron of the arts.

From the guide to the Papers of the Dreyer family, 1778-1928, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)