coopveardie kapten anton söderman 1794-1842 our great-great-grandfather
Home, Family and Godparents
Anton Söderman (Anton the 2nd) was born on 16th October 1794, in Öregrund in Sweden. He was the son of Skeppare Anton Söderman (Anton the 1st) and Eva Maria Norman. Anton was christened (just Anton) on 20th October; he had as godparents and witnesses: Captain Petter Cederholm, Adjunct Pastorius Andreas Söderman, Madame Anna Catharine Riset, Jungfrau Barbro Christine Giers. (The Giers family were part of the Försmark iron foundry dynasty, who has been invited to Sweden in the 1720s to kickstart the Iron industry, by the then King Gustav II). Petter Cederholm was Eva Maria's brother-in-law, from her first husband Eric Cederholm, by whom she was widowed. |
The Söderman family’s home is in the Uppland parish, and we see many people there with the name. There are at least two strands to the family with a common ancestor a long time back. Some live in Öregrund, and appear to be the sailors. The others come from nearby Försmark and Börstil and appear to be working in the iron towns, the bruks, being merchants and all sorts of influential people, one a baker, a shoemaker. Many of the generations of boys are called Johan, Anton and Anders! Twice in the 1700s there are two sets of twin boys born, who are called Anders and Anton. Life looked short for our mariners, there are lots of widows; children died in infancy in time for the next one to be given its name, and some men had second marriages after wives died in childbirth (död i barnsäng).
All the men on this side of the family appear to be merchant seamen, apart from a priest Andreas. From all the christening and household records we can see how deeply intertwined the families that supported the Södermans were. Anton had two other full siblings as well as his half-brothers.
His brother Sven was born 5 March 1797, and Sven’s godparents were: Anders Lang, Lars Wising, Madame Ahlgren and Catharina Söderman. Coopv Captain Anders Lang and a Madame Anna Christina Söderman (from which we deduce she might have been a widow married to a previous Söderman) had produced a son, Stephan Söderman, on Feb 28 1796; his godparents also included Jungfru Catharina Söderman, and Madame Söderman (possibly Eva Maria).
Sven died in a storm in the North Sea, recorded as 1st April 1835, when he was on the “Amschion”, under Dan Elfstrand out of Gävle.
His sister Anna Maria was born on 23rd August 1799. Her godparents were: a headteacher Herr Petter Nordlin, Clockaren Nils Ahrberg, a styrman Johan Söderman, Fru Sophia Braun and Jungfru Anna Stina Martin.
Anna Maria married (4 January 1835) Johan Emmanuel Söderström, a baker who rose to become a ‘burgher’ ie. something like a town councillor or elder in Öregrund. They had a son in December called Anton Emmanuel, christened on Christmas Day, whose first godfather was Coopvaerdie Kapiten Anton Söderman, along with Christine Lang among others.
It was through this reference that we first came across the mention of “i (from) Finland”. It was only later, when one of the Öregrund librarians translated the actual written record from the Dombok, that we found it said “Coopvaerdie Kapiten Anton Söderman’s wife, from Finland”. Clearly this was Brita Caisa, who was there representing him at the christening, as she is not named for herself, ie. she is not a godparent.
Working life
Back to Anton - we assume that he started his seaman’s career from Öregrund, but in 1819 (aged 25) he was working out of the port of Gamla Karleby (now known as Kokkola), along with hundreds of other Swedes in Finland. In July 1819 he is a matros (able seaman) on the schooner Mercurius; in 1821 he is the styrman (which translates as Mate, or Navigating Officer, or even Quartermaster) on the same ship. The captain both times is Petter Pousette, quite a well known name in Öregrund’s shipping dynasties. In 1822 we know that Anton went to Finland, with his brother Sven. By 1823 Anton is the Skipper on the Mercurius, all out of Gamla Karleby going to the North Sea. Between October 1826 and July 1827 he is Skipper of the schooner Försöket (Trial), in its way to London. In this record it is noted that the boat was owned by P.J. Eschilson at the start of the voyage, and Henric Bergström, a dealer in Helsinki, became the owner of the schooner, sometime between those dates, and whilst Anton was at sea.
So it was in Gamla Karleby that he married Brita (Birgitta) Cajsa (Catharina) Jessberg, in 1832. There is one mention of a date of 30 March 1832 in one document that we found in Kokkola library, and he and Brita are seen by the priest living in Gamla Karleby on 26th April in that year, as household number 183, in the 5th section/area of the town. Both are literate, can say their Lutheran catechism, and Anton appears to be numerate too. After 1832 he is called ‘Kofferdiskeppare’ and later ‘Coopvaerdie Kapiten’ (which is pronounced koffericaptain) which means a captain on a merchant boat. A lot of his voyages now are in the Baltic Sea area, rather than outside.
Their sons Anton (23/10/1833), Wicktor (25/5/1835) and Anders (18/1/1839), and daughter Maria Mathilda (9/2/1837) are born. Little Anders dies of an unknown cause on November 6th 1840, and a new son Anders (called Andreas) is born 12 January 1841. This last son Andreas Söderman died 24 June 1883, in Tavastehus, in the south of Finland, now called Hämeenlinna - his story is an interesting one, as he was the sole surviving child of Anton & Brita to have descendants apart from Anton.
Wicktor was possibly in the army, as when he died of pneumonia (lungsot), 22 June 1861, he was called a “Fältweb” which is an Infantry rank. There is also a series of records of him being on boats, as a cabinboy, out of Gamla Karleby between 1848 and 1849, then aged 17 as Konstapel in 1853, on some of the same ships as his brother Anton worked on earlier.
Family Scandals!
We have, though, found out some very interesting things about this Anton, through the Öregrund records. It seems that on 27 March 1822 the priest recorded that both Anton and his brother Sven went off to Finland, as if ‘for good’ as they are written as ‘utflyttag’ [15 Oct 2013, this has just been confirmed in correspendence with by Ove Karlsson [OveK], through his family tree on Ancestry.co.uk]. As part of these ‘outgoing’ records, a sorry tale is uncovered of Anton saying that he is betrothed to Britta Maria Bergdahl, from Försmark. Sven is not committed to anyone, so he is free to go off and marry elsewhere if he wishes. Anton’s apparent engagement comes to light in 1823 when Britta puts up the banns to marry Ephraim Renman, a Finnish book-keeper. The record is there that she is engaged to Anton, but she disagrees, there was no such engagement. Eventually it is admitted that she is free to marry Ephraim, but the priest has had to write all this down, against Anton’s name. We spent quite a long time trying to track down Britta Bergdahl, as his potential wife in Sweden. Luckily, the Finnish records are a bit more indexed…)
It is this story that pricked the ears of the journalist Linda Carlsson, in 2014... and that she thought would be of romantic interest to local readers of the Tydning Osterhammar. What happened is described on this page of this website.
Land in Öregrund?
Despite living in Finland, Öregrund was Anton’s family’s home, and as the oldest son of the Söderman-Norman marriage, it seems he might have inherited the family home there, as his father died in 1801. According to the 1814 city map No. 23, possibly a small cottage, was owned by Anton Söderman, consisting of 875 square metres(?). This was in the block made up of Kyrkogatan (Church street), Rådhusgatan (Town hall street) and Hamngatan (Port road) in the Vastra Roten (Western area). Was Anton (aged 20) living there or just registered as the owner to pay tax? Or was it still in his father’s name? Interestingly, his mother Eva Maria and his stepbrother (Styrman Anders Petter Cederholm) sell a property and garden at no 14 in the Westra Roten, to Inspector Johan Bergström in May 1823, which later is identified as no 23. One wonders if he had ordered the house to be sold, as he had left for Finland the previous year.
The house can take us on an interesting little detour. In the summer of 1829 “a devastating accidental fire that broke out destroyed almost all the properties in the neighbourhood, with the exception of a small cottage along the Port road plot, no 23”. It seems that the numbering had altered as according to the 1829 city plan map of the burned part of the town, plot No 13 (originally 23 & 24, along the town hall square) was owned by Inspector Bergstrom.
In probate established July 28, 1869, the widow Brita Ström, took up, among other things, the garden at nos 22, 23, 24, 25 in the Westra Roten, valued at 3,000 crowns, and in 1873 spouses Anders and Brita Ström who had inherited the gardens, sold it for 3,500 kr. By 1878 the numbering has changed again, and the whole block is called number 26, in the Drufvan neighbourhood. In the 1890s what is called the “state takeover” happened to this block, which we found now houses the Systembolaget, the state liquor store!
Anton Söderman (2) died on 11th September 1842, of ‘bröstvatts’ – pulmonary oedema, or pleurisy - aged 46. Some of his ships are on the attached page.
(As if to trip us up, we found another Anton Söderman born in the Försmark area in 1793, on 11th October. This Anton married Maria Pohrs (Persdotter) in 1818 and had three children, called Maja Greta (1820), J(oh)an Petter (b.1822) and Anna (1824). Jan Petter is possibly the ‘JP’ in Anita’s family tree, along with this Anton, and it all shows just how confusing the records can be!)