Franelich

A Family Story

(Old) Mobile, Alabama

Norwich, Connecticut, Meets Bakar, Croatia in Mobile, Alabama!

Conrad and Lucia Weinheimer were my great-great-great-grandparents. They moved from Norwich, Connecticut, to Mobile, Alabama, in 1845. Thomas Franelich was my great-great-grandfather. He moved from Bakar, Croatia, to Mobile, Alabama, in 1850.

This wasn't unusual considering Mobile's huge cotton export made Mobile known throughout the world. Many Mobilians in the mid 1800s were from France, England, Germany, Italy, and Ireland.

Mobile experienced a huge population growth as a result of the Federal Road which was to supply the Gulf coast for the anticipated war with England. It connected Milledgeville, Georgia, the capital of Georgia at the time, and Mt. Vernon, Alabama. Why Mt. Vernon instead of Mobile? Mobile was below the 31st Parallel and still in possession of Spain until 1813.

When “Alabama Fever” raged through the Carolinas and Georgia, the Old Federal Road, acting as the interstate highway of its day, carried thousands of pioneers to what was known as the Southwest. As such, the Federal Road directly contributed to the dramatic increase in Alabama’s population between 1810 and 1820.  Alabama’s population grew much faster than that of either Mississippi or Louisiana during this time, and Alabama continued out-distancing both Mississippi and Louisiana in population growth through 1850. Andrew Jackson called Alabama the best unsettled country in America.

A culturally diverse work force supplied the labor for the city. Most skilled workers were white, while slaves supplied much of the semiskilled and some skilled labor. The slaves worked as domestics, draymen, mechanics, and (cotton)press hands. In 1850, half of Alabama's free blacks lived in Mobile where they constituted about 3 percent of the free labor force. Stiff labor competition developed in Mobile in the late antebellum years when an increased number of white immigrants sought jobs formerly held by slaves and free blacks.

By 1860, the free male labor force of Mobile consisted of 50 percent foreign-born, 34 percent southern born, and 16 percent northern born. Irish and German workers predominated among the foreign-born. Free women, white and black, comprised about one-tenth of the total free work force in Mobile. The 1860 census reported Mobile had a population of 29,258 people that included 817 free Blacks. Another report at the same time showed 7,500 slaves in Mobile.

One document on file in the archive section of the Mobile County Probate Office is Sally Johnson's petition to become a slave, and there is information that represents other free Blacks made similar petitions. The belief is they would choose to become slaves of benign and trustworthy masters to protect them from the oppressive laws directed at them just before the Civil War. The Alabama Legislature passed a law in 1860 allowing this; Virginia passed the same legislation March 28,1861.

A large portion (46%) of Alabama state tax receipts in 1849 was from the slave tax, which created many problems for the state after the Civil War. One method of finding tax dollars in 1890 (10% of the entire state budget) was leasing convicts, who were mostly Black, to Tennessee Coal and Iron (TCI) to work in the coalfields.

The Alabama state tax before the war was unfair to free Negroes. This is shown in Thomas' 1857 state tax form (backside with address): white males (apparently this tax was for just living in Alabama) 21 to 45, were taxed 50 cents (in 1862 it was 75 cents); white women were untaxed; free Negro men, 21 to 50, were taxed $2.00 (in 1862 it was $5.00); free Negro women, 21 to 45, were taxed $1.00. There was another tax: fund for slaves executed, which created funds in Alabama to compensate the slave holder if his slave committed a crime resulting in capital punishment.

In 1855, Mobile had several slave marts or blocks. One was at St. Anthony and Royal streets, several were between St. Louis and St. Michael streets, the older ones were at NE Royal and Dauphin streets, and the front of City Hotel on Royal Street at "2nd south of Dauphin St."

An English visitor in 1861 described Mobile as the most foreign looking city I have yet seen in the States. "It was normal to see in the city's market Negroes, Mulattoes, Quadroons, Mestizos of all sort, along with Spanish, Italian, and French. All were speaking their own tongues, or a quaint lingua franca, and dressed in very striking and pretty costumes."

There is another perspective of Mobile written in Frederick Law Olmsted's book The Cotton Kingdon. This book is about his travels in 1854.

Map of Mobile in 1874. (Lipscomb Street was changed to Beauregard Street in 1871 or before, Wilkinson was changed to Washington, around Monroe and Conception is now the I-10 interchange and Fort Conde area) Map from 1815 and Map from 1840.

 Thomas Franelich was the first generation in America with the "Franelich" name. My grandmother and great-aunt believed and told everyone he was from Austria; however, Dee Dee, my great-aunt, always said, with a caveat, "There is Italian in there too, somewhere." I'm sure this came from a letter written in Italian by Thomas (here)  (translation). They were unaware of an 1850 census where Thomas reported he was born in Austria and his son in a 1910 census reporting, what appears to be, the city was Hallein. An 1860 census (married for 9 years and still alive) shows Thomas being born in Hungary. In an 1880 census, his wife Odelia, reports Thomas being born in Maryland. In the 1800s Baltimore was the second leading port for immigrants after Ellis Island, NY.

In a 1900 census, their son Nicholas reported Thomas as being born in Austria and Odelia in Maine. Nicholas was the father of my grandmother and great-aunt so I'm sure he verbalized this through the years.

The Connecticut connection comes from my great-great-great-grandparents moving to Mobile with their daughter. Conrad and Lucia Weinheimer moved from Norwich, Connecticut, with their daughter, Otilia, in 1845. Otilia (later Odelia) was born on January 10, 1836.

Odelia and Thomas Franelich married on July 26,1851, in the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile, Alabama. Odelia died March 12,1905. Thomas was born in 1823 and died September 1,1868. He was a volunteer fireman at Company #5, and was recognized by the Committee, Tom F Callaghan, Jerry Callaghan, and JNO Coyle, for being kind and religious.

Magnolia Cemetery information: Sq. 10, Sq.15, Sq.27

Highlights