Tree Shaped Tomb Stones - Captain Pruss

You find the darnedest things wandering around in cemeteries.  Evergreen Cemetery in Manitowoc had some interesting things to see.  Here's a tree shaped tomb stone.  A nicer than average specimen, sure.  But there is actually more going on here...

Here's the name, "Captain" Herman Pruss.  Anchors are reasonably common and often allegorical, but this one - coupled with the title - made me think Sea Captain; while his name suggested Prussian origins.  I was mostly right.

The anchor has a very nautical looking rope attached to it, and down at the very bottom are tiny little letters.  I never scrub or brush monuments so had to make do with what I could photograph.  With a bit of magnification it appeared to read "Kettenhoff" or something similar.

And here's the tale.

Captain Pruss was of course a German immigrant.  He was born in a coastal region, Schleswig-Holstein, and went to sea as a young man.  Rising from "ship's boy" to helmsman he presumably had a salty and adventurous life.  He came to the US in 1854.  Like most immigrants entered by New York but eventually ended up in New Orleans as he was sailing on the West Indies routes.  We tend to forget that there was a significant German community in the south as well as the north.  Herman Pruss ended up being drafted into the Confederate "military".  The source I read did not mention specifics here, the Confederate Navy was pretty small compared to land forces but I do like to imagine that his skills would be put to use as say, a blockade runner.

In any event there do not seem to have been serious hard feelings post Civil War, at least for southerners coming north.  He moved to Manitowoc in June of 1868 (marrying about two weeks later, so perhaps arranged?), and had a career on Great Lakes ships where his moniker Captain was acquired by virtue of his being the skipper of several vessels.

Later in life he ran a tavern.

The inscription on the anchor is not, alas, the name of one of his ships.  But just as delightfully it is another rare case of a monument carver signing his work.  Nicholas Kettenhofen was a "marble cutter" who worked out of the Northwestern Hotel.  A family business, the other two Kettnhofens in the city directory were the proprietor of the house and a woman who was the chief cook.

I should credit the work of others here.  Findagrave.com has much carefully researched data on 19th century cemeteries.  HERE is the write up on Captain Pruss.