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To the left are copies of some interest-ing stamps from a scrap book
that belonged to Michael Koelzer son of Peter Joseph and Sophia
Koblitz Koelzer. Peter and Sophia were the first couple married at
Wildcat in 1859, they are the first settlers of Wildcat
(now St. Benedict). Michael was born in 1880 at Wildcat before the
town was renamed St. Benedict in 1883. He died in 1953 in Hereford,
Texas. His father died in 1893 the night before they were to move
to a new home he had built at 610 Roanoke in Seneca |
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The mother and the
three young children moved to Texas and lived with her son's family,
John and Mary (Huls) Koelzer. She took the three young children, Michael
and two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth with her raised them in Texas. It is
believed they never moved into the new home they had built in Seneca.
These Stamps are
now the property of
Douglas and Julie McCloskey,
Julie
is a
granddaughter of Michael Koelzer. Julie's sister, Mary Sandler copied
and sent me the copies of the picture stamps. The stamps were about 1
1/2 inches wide and pasted in scrap book on a black page which is the
reason for the black background. There is no information as to the
origin of these stamps that we know. It may be that they were
used for a promotion of some kind for the Bank or the City of Seneca.
Perhaps made to pasting on letters and brochures to be
mailed to prospective new comers or emigrants. They do show off the
buildings of Seneca at that time. It is likely these
Stamps came to Michael Koelzer through his brother J. P Koelzer,
prominent Citizens of Seneca in early days.
My reasoning
for thinking that they came from J. P or
that they may have some connection to J. P. Koelzer is that the one
building in this collection that is not a city or county building, is the
bank building. This is the bank in which JP Koelzer was involved as
a
director as well as his father-in-law Matthias Schneider. JP as he was
know was the older brother of Michael Koelzer. JP, was also Mayor of
Seneca and in the lumber business here in Seneca as Koelzer Lumber
which is still in business owned by a fourth generation, James Koelzer.
It is very evident that these stamps represented buildings
the city could be proud of at that time. It was a time when
each community was looking for more citizens to help make their city a
better place to live.
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