The first Suthoffs in America
The first Suthoff family in America joined a wave of German Catholics settling across the country, so many that the Know Nothing nativist movement sprang up to organize native-born Protestants. The new arrivals pressed on and prospered. German — Plattdüütsch, or Low German — remained in common use and was still spoken in public schools until around World War I. Visitors to the Missouri Rhineland can stop in Hermann, Missouri, where you might still hear some of the older generation speaking it.
Stephan and Anna Catharina Sudhof emigrated from what was then Prussia around 1840. Starting with three children, one of them born in Prussia, they have 413 direct descendants as of 2008.
Why the name changed from Druwe to Suthoff
The family didn't begin as Suthoffs, at least along the patriarchal line.
Stephan's father was Jodocus Sudhof né Druwe, born in May 1775 in Westerloh, now part of Delbrück, Paderborn, Nordrhein-Westfalen. He was the son of Heinrich (Henricus) Druve and Anna Catharina, and was baptized Johannes Jodocus — Johann Jodoc, also called Joseph — Stephanus. He died on 14 April 1825 in a drowning.
The change from Druwe to Suthoff came when Joseph married Anna Maria (Angela) Margaretha Sudhof at St. Martinus Catholic Church in Hörste on 2 September 1797. Angela Margaretha Sudhoff was one of four daughters of the farmer Johann Franz Sudhoff of Mettinghausen and his wife Angela Maria Plogmeyer, who married in 1761. By the time Angela's father died in 1804 and her mother in 1812, she was the elder of the two surviving daughters and inherited the family farm. In the Westfalen region it was customary for a man who married the heiress of a farm to take the farm's name as his surname. That is how this Suthoff line began.
Stephan Sudhof, born 1802
(Johann) Stephan Sudhof was born in Mettinghausen and baptized in Hörste, in the former Bishopric of Paderborn, Westphalia, on 12 December 1802. Catholic church records were kept in Latin then, so his name appears as "Jo[hann]es Steph[anus]." His parents were Joseph and Angela Margaretha Sudhof of Mettinghausen, and he was named for his godfathers, Stephan Hillner of Delbrück and Stephan Baumhögger of Mettinghausen.
Johann Stephen Sudhoff married Anna Catharina Foerman, a farmer's daughter of Westenholz, at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Westenholz on 25 September 1828. He was 26 and she was 21. The records note that his father was already dead and that his mother consented to the marriage.
When did the Suthoffs emigrate to Missouri?
No official record of the emigration has been found, which was not unusual at the time. Birth records and US Census data place it between 1837 and 1844, probably closer to 1837. The Paderbornsches Intelligenzblatt of 1847 lists the farmer Stephan Sudhoff of Mettinghausen three times. In 1836 he received a loan of 250 Reichstaler from Stephan Lautmeyer in Rebbeke for the Sudhoff farm. He may have sold the farm to repay the debt and emigrate.
Stephan and Anna had three children. The first, Bernhard (1837), was born in Prussia. Between 1837 and 1844 the family emigrated to Missouri, where Stephen (1844) and Joseph (1851) were born.
The 1850 US Federal Census records a Suthoff family in Linn Township, Osage County, Missouri. Stephan is listed as "Francis," for reasons unknown, with his wife Catherine and sons Bernhard (listed on the previous page) and Joseph. Stephan appears as 48 years old, Catherine as 37 and Joseph as 2 on page 478a; Bernhard is recorded as 12 on page 468b.
By the 1860 Census, Stephan had become a landowner. The 120 acres were bought in 1857 under the Act of Congress of 24 April 1820 for the sale of public lands, recorded in a US land patent. The land lies about 3.4 miles east of St. Thomas, Missouri, along Profits Creek Road (38°21'59.44"N, 92°10'28.68"W). In 1860 it was valued at $400, roughly $9,800 in 2009 dollars.
Bernhard Suthoff, 1837–1912
By the 1870 Census only Bernhard (1837–1912) and Stephen (1851–1908) appear. Stephan, Anna Catharina and Joseph are presumed dead, and the 1857 land is presumed sold or lost, as the census records no real estate.
How the Civil War affected the family isn't known, but both Bernhard and John served in Union forces. Bernhard is recorded as a private in the Minor Civil Division of Jackson Township, Osage County; his company and regiment are unknown. The last record found for Joseph is a $100 warrant issued on 15 October 1864 for his Union service in the Cole County Home Guards Regiment.
In 1877 Bernhard married Christina Adrian Hammelback, previously married to Theodore Adrian and apparently widowed. By the 1880 Census the household had grown to include five stepchildren, a daughter Mary (1879), a son John (1880), and Bernhard's brother Stephen. In the 1900 Census, Bernhard, his children Mary (Maria) and John, and his brother Stephen are still together in Osage County; Christina is presumed to have died.
John Suthoff and the Osage River Farm
Much had changed by the 1910 Census. John Suthoff married Agnes Wankum on 12 May 1903, and their first two children were Mary Catherine and Anna Marie. Bernhard, at 72, still lived with the family, but John had become head of the household.
The family moved a few miles, from Osage County to what is now the Suthoff Osage River Farm in Cole County, a Missouri Century Farm. John and Agnes had 10 children, seven of whom survived well into adulthood. The Suthoffs, and many Luebberings, Hoelschers, Bruemmers and Stropes, trace their ancestry to this third generation.
The family chart
There are 591 people on the Suthoff family chart, last updated 12 December 2008, including 413 direct descendants of Stephan and Anna Catharina Suthoff.
Sources
- US Federal Census, Osage County, Missouri: 1850 (pp. 468b, 478a), 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910
- US land patent, 120 acres, Osage County, Missouri, 1857
- Catholic parish records, St. Martinus, Hörste, and St. Joseph, Westenholz, Westphalia
- Paderbornsches Intelligenzblatt, 1847
- Suthoff family chart, last updated 12 December 2008
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Last updated September 25, 2026