Page 07

1836, the founding year

The founding year 1836

Johann Distel's marriage and the two 1836 land-register entries

Page 07 of the 1986 Distel butchery anniversary booklet

Click the page to see it at full size

Translated from Ludwig Distel's German.

The founding year of the butchery, 1836 In this Villingen, which still kept within the old ring walls, Johann Distel, the founder of the butcher's shop, sought to establish himself. Johann, the only son of the Rietheim farmer Mathias Distel, was born in April 1805. Down to 1835 we know no more about him than that in 1825 he did his military service with the Baden Garde du Corps. At the age of 30 Johann married Theresia Neugart of Neuhausen, five years his junior. To be exact, that was on 18 January 1836 in the Villingen Muenster. This was the beginning of an eventful year, 1836. Extract from the land register: 23 March 1836 Johann Riegger, the Altherren miller, sells for 2,900 gulden to Johann Distel, butcher, the house three storeys high with barn and stabling in the Kaesgaessle, on one side Johann Binder, on the other Benedikt Kreuzer, opposite the parish office house. Here, in this deed of 1836, a member of the Distel family appears for the first time as a butcher. Whether Johann was already running a butcher's shop here, or even living in this house at all, remains open. The approximate position of the house is easy to describe: the Kaesgaessle is the eastern part of the Brunnenstrasse between Faerberstrasse and Niedere Strasse. "Opposite the parish office house" means opposite today's "Bistro" inn. That building, also called the Pflegschaftshaus, was an administrative building of the Muenster parish. Research by Mr Walter K. F. Haas established that this first "Distel house" is today's Haus Hutt, Brunnenstrasse 8. Johann Distel's starting capital came chiefly from selling fields in Rietheim; the farm there was given up. A further extract from the land register proves conclusively the 150-year anniversary of this business, which has remained in the possession of the same family without a break to this day. 13 July 1836 Johann Distel exchanges his house in the Kaesgasse with Benedikt Riegger, tanner, for the house 3 storeys high with barn and stabling in the Gerbergasse together with the garden lying behind it, on one side Josef Leute, on the other Mathis Ebenhoe the elder. (es = on one side, as = on the other side; the neighbours are meant) This house at Gerberstrasse 24, today's Haus Samen-Nitsche, was our family's home for 22 years. It was here too that the two sons were born - Theodor Karl, the later heir, and Wilhelm. Villingen at this period, as a central market town, still had a concentration of trade in foodstuffs. In 1843, besides 12 butchers, there were 26 bakeries alone and a number of mills supplying food to the town and its surroundings. In this period the bounds of the old ring wall were also passed. With the demolition of the Niederes Tor in 1840, which had to make way for the district [shop sign:] DISTEL

Interesting facts

People: Johann Distel (1805-1887), Theresia Neugart (1810-1879), Mathias Distel (b. 1780), Theodor Karl Distel (1836-1876), Wilhelm Distel (1838-1870)

Places: Villingen, Kaesgaessle / Brunnenstrasse, Gerberstrasse 24, Rietheim, Neuhausen