The wandering mariner, part 2

Joanna RUMP Miller

Lizzie RUMP Miller

Previously, I discussed the family stories about how August Christian Wilhelm Rump and his family came to America.  Census and ship registry records are consistent with the family stories, although I haven't been able to verify the story about him accidentally shooting the captain.  The Rump family moved to my hometown of Tuscumbia, and some of their descendants have lived in the area ever since.  However, a missing piece of the story involves what they did between their arrival in America in 1867-68 and their relocation to Tuscumbia.

Leroy and Lizzie RUMP Miller.

The family shows up in the 1870 census in the city of Huntsville, Alabama (where I now live), where August was working as a carpenter.  By 1880 they are farming nearby in Big Cove, then a small farming community.  (Coincidentally, they lived within a couple of miles of where I now live in the suburbs of Huntsville.)  I know they were in Tuscumbia by 1884 because they have a child buried there.

Children of Leroy and Lizzie Miller
listed in the family Bible.

I had the good fortune to run across some other Rump descendants on Ancestry.com, and it turns out some of their family still lives in Big Cove (aka Hampton Cove or Owens Cross Roads).  Through them, I was able to learn more about the Rump family.  The Rumps' oldest daughter, Joanna Louise, married a farmer named William Leroy "Lee" Miller, who owned land in Big Cove.  They had 8 children together.  In 1897, on her deathbed, Joanna reportedly asked her sister Elizabeth ("Lizzie") to take care of her children.  Lee Miller and Eliazabeth Rump married in 1898 and had 6 children.  The Miller descendants have their own stories that confirm some of the Coburn family stories.  It is exciting to make a connection with relatives that have been separated for generations and still have family stories in common.

The following story was related by Nellie Grant Miller Sublett in the 1960's.

    I have wished many times that in my wonderful talks with Grandmother [Sophie Hendricks Rump] I had asked her more about the trip and time spent on the ocean.  This much I do remember in the talks we had – they left their native Germany with sad hearts but with high hopes and dreams of America. 

     They were on the ocean many weeks and witnessed storms and sea sickness.  They settled in the state of New York and Grandfather began work as a carpenter.  The first year after they arrived another daughter was born.  They named her Elizabeth [born 1859].  Then Grandfather grew restless and they began making plans to journey further south. But before they could start, little Elizabeth became suddenly ill and when they left [New York] they left behind a baby’s newly made grave. 

     Traveling farther south each year they finally reached Alabama.  When Joanna was about seventeen years of age [born 2-16-1860] they reached Big Cove and lived there several years.  In the mean time they had been blessed with five more children; Johnny who died when he was fourteen, Otto died when he was eight, little Sophie died at the age of six, Annie Elizabeth [born 1872] who later became our stepmother was next to the youngest of the children, William Thomas being the youngest and at the time of this writing [1960’s] is living in Birmingham [Alabama] at the age of eighty years.

Lizzie and Joanna Rump.