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American Jewry · Lumberland, Sullivan County · 1851

A Lonely Grave by Lebanon Lake

Published

Near Lebanon Lake in Lumberland, a stone-walled enclosure holds the grave of Nathan Freisleben of Bohemia, who died on 22 December 1851 at age fifty-nine.

The slab inside its stone wall. You can walk around the grave.

One grave in the woods

Near Lebanon Lake, the trees close around a square stone wall. Inside stands a single marble slab. Its English face names Nathan Freisleben, born in Bohemia, dead on 22 December 1851 at fifty-nine. Beneath his name, the inscription reserves the ground itself: “One-fourth acre of the ground around where his remains lie has not been sold nor shall it be.”

Drawing of both faces of Nathan Friesleben’s slab: Hebrew with a Levite pitcher on the left, English on the right
The two faces of the slab. A Levite pitcher appears above the Hebrew inscription.
Hebrew face of Nathan Freisleben’s gravestone inside the stone enclosure near Lebanon Lake
Nathan’s Hebrew inscription as it appears inside the stone enclosure.

On the other face, the Hebrew calls him a learned man, Rabbi Nutal Freisleben, son of Yaakov Segal, from Purschau in Bohemia. A pitcher above the words marks him as a Levite. The Hebrew and English agree on his age, though their dates fall eight days apart.

The inscriptions preserve Nathan’s name and origins, but who chose this place for him? Who built the enclosure and set aside the quarter acre?

What George West remembered

Forty-three years after Nathan’s death, George West of Lumberland still remembered the Jewish families who had lived in the hills. As a boy, he had watched their shechitah. In the summer of 1894, a Monticello newspaper printed his memories and identified the man inside the wall as Nathan “Frisleben,” one of the area’s early Jewish settlers.

West remembered a wife buried beside Nathan and a wealthy son in the West who had ordered the wall built. The description points toward a merchant from Purschau who had made his fortune in California.

1894 column describing the cemented wall around Nathan Frisleben's grave and the wealthy son in the west
The 1894 account: the wall was raised at the urging of a wealthy son in the West.

Nine years later, the name had faded again. A newspaper item headed “A Lonely Grave” asked about the “silent tenant” behind the wall. An answer followed under the altered surname Fiesland, carrying a child into the story.

“Sixty-one years ago, in the year 1842, a Jewish family of the name of Fiesland settled in that locality, which was then a wilderness. The family consisted of a rabbi of the Jewish synagogue, well advanced in years, his four sons and their wives and children. One day a granddaughter of the patriarch strayed off into the surrounding woods and was lost and five months elapsed before her dead body was discovered in a desolate spot about a mile from her home. The child was buried, and about the grave was built a solid wall of stone masonry sixteen feet square. In 1852 the aged rabbi died and was buried within the stone enclosure, as our informant thinks, in the same grave with his little granddaughter.”

By 1903, Nathan’s name and story had been forgotten entirely.

Newspaper column headed A Lonely Grave, describing the unidentified occupant of a walled grave near Lebanon Lake
In 1903 the grave was already a local mystery.

To solve the mystery of whether Nathan was buried with a grandchild, with his wife, or alone, we must trace his family back to Bohemia.

The family in Purschau

Purschau, now Pořejov, lay in western Bohemia. At its center stood house no. 1, the old manor, with a shul dating to 1765 in one wing. In 1838, 734 people lived in 104 houses, while fourteen Jewish families shared four of them. The Jewish cemetery held roughly 300 gravestones. Many belonged to Levites, tying the pitcher on Nathan’s grave to the village he came from.

1838 cadastral map of Purschau, now Pořejov, with house numbers on the buildings
On the 1838 map, the old manor and shul are house no. 1; the Freisleben property, house no. 8, stands nearby.

The family first appears nearby in 1783. Jacob Nathan lived in Tachau with his wife and two children, earning his living from ribbons and knives. By 1793, records call him Jacob Freyßleben and place him in Purschau with his wife Sara and two daughters whose names were rendered “Ja” and “Rößl.” One register reads Sara’s birth name as Bloch and places her birth in Floss in the Palatinate.

In 1793, Jakob paid Joseph Stahl 140 gulden for half of house no. 8. On 24 July 1819, Purschau’s Jewish household register named his first son, Nathan, as the holder of the family’s legally limited position. A provisional reading of the land book suggests that Nathan took over Jakob’s half of the house three years later for 300 gulden.

Purschau Jewish family book, folio 121: Nathan named as Jakob’s first son and written onto the legal family place
Nathan’s name appears on the legally limited family position in Purschau’s handwritten familiant book.

After turning over house no. 8 to his son Nathan, Jakob appears to have moved his household to house no. 1, a former castle that housed the village shul and many Freisleben families.

In May 1832, the next generation appears at house no. 8. A birth entry names Daniel, son of Nathan and Barbara, and identifies Nathan as Jakob’s son.

Purschau birth register, May 1832: Daniel Freisleben, house no. 8, father Nathan son of Jakob, mother Barbara
House no. 8 joins Daniel to parents Nathan and Barbara in May 1832.

Then, on 28 June 1842, Nathan sold half of house no. 8 to Andreas and Anna Stahl for 200 gulden. Andreas signed his name. Anna made three crosses. Rosa, also written Rosalia, signed a related filing as Nathan’s wife.

The sale came in the year the family is believed to have arrived in Lumberland. That July another Purschau merchant, Leopold Freisleben, reached New York aboard the Stephanie. The Freisleben story was moving west.

1842 sale: Nathan Freisleben to Andreas Stahl and Anna Stahl, with Andreas Stahl’s signature and Anna Stahl’s three crosses
At the foot of the sale, Andreas wrote his name and Anna marked three crosses.
Nathan Freisleben and his wife Rosa Freisleben sign together on the house no. 8 papers
Rosa’s own signature survives on the papers for house no. 8.

A child in the snow

Two years after the sale of house no. 8, a Freisleben child set out from a neighbor’s home near Lumberland. The other children walked ahead. When they reached home without the child, a search began.

For ten winter days, the child was missing. Searchers finally found the body face-down in the snow beside a little-used path. The Republican Watchman reported the death in March 1844 under the name “Mr. Friesleban.” Nearly sixty years later, the same tragedy had grown in the telling: ten days had become five months, and the child had become Nathan’s granddaughter, buried with him.

Republican Watchman, March 1844: a child of Mr. Friesleban lost in the Forestburgh woods
The contemporary report preserves the ten-day search later remembered in “A Lonely Grave.”

Jakob’s last years in Purschau

Jakob remained in the village his family was leaving behind. He died there on 2 October 1846, recorded as a ninety-year-old merchant of house no. 1. Five years later and thousands of miles away, Nathan’s Hebrew epitaph would name his father as Yaakov Segal and his home as Purschau, carrying both father and village into the Lumberland woods.

1846 death entry for Jakob Freisleben of Purschau, house no. 1
Jakob’s final Purschau entry places him at house no. 1.

By Lebanon Lake

Lumberland, Sullivan County, New York

Map of Lebanon Lake and the surrounding farms in Lumberland, Sullivan County, New York
Lebanon Lake and the surrounding Lumberland farms on an 1875 map.

By 1850, several Freisleben households and farms stood in the hills around Lebanon Lake. The census taker wrote the surname as Frislabend. One household has been read as Nathan and his wife Rosa, but the farmer is listed as seventy, while Nathan’s gravestone would make him about fifty-eight in 1850. Daniel, then about eighteen, also appears among the Frislabend entries. Nearby, Leopold and Sarah were raising their children, including the younger ones born after the family reached New York.

Another Freisleben family was missing from that census sheet. Isaac and Roosa appear in Lumberland records the following year, when they mortgaged land at Halfway Brook.

These were the families George West remembered from boyhood, building homes and farms in the wooded hills. In the wilderness around Lebanon Lake, they maintained Jewish life much as they had in Purschau: a small community surrounded by non-Jewish neighbors.

Cropped 1850 Lumberland census line for a seventy-year-old Frislabend farmer born in Germany
The handwriting renders the family name as “Frislabend.”
Lumberland household of L. Frislabend and S., with children H, E, M, and J
Leopold and Sarah’s household included children born after the move to New York.
Mortgage-sale notice for land of Isaac Friesleben of Lumberland and Roosa Friesleben his wife
Isaac and Roosa’s mortgage placed another Freisleben household at Halfway Brook.

On 22 December 1851, Nathan died at fifty-nine. He was buried near the lake, with the surrounding quarter acre reserved from sale. The stone kept his name in Lumberland. Decades later, George West would credit the wall to a wealthy son living in the West. The search for that son leads to Daniel Freisleben.

Daniel goes west

Daniel likely reached America with the Freisleben family around 1842, when he was ten. The 1850 census places him among the Frislabend households in Lumberland. Seven years later, an Austrian government notice ordered him and other emigrants home within six months. Daniel stayed. He crossed the country and made a new life as a merchant in Oroville, California.

Printed list naming Daniel Freisleben of Purschau among men ordered home from America
Even after Daniel left, the Austrian authorities still listed him under Purschau.

After Nathan’s death, Rosa went west to Oroville. She was buried there in 1868 at sixty-eight, not beside Nathan inside the stone wall as George West later recalled. Her grave named her simply and directly: “Mother of D. N. Freisleben.”

Rosa Friesleben’s gravestone in Oroville, California, identifying her as the mother of D. N. Friesleben
Rosa’s grave in Oroville: “Mother of D. N. Friesleben.”
Interior of the D. N. Friesleben store in Oroville, California, about 1880, with clerks behind the counter and the D. N. Friesleben sign overhead
Daniel’s name above the back counter of his Oroville store, about 1880.

In Oroville, Daniel prospered. By about 1880, his name hung above the back counter of his store. His family also endured repeated loss. His son Nelson died in 1862. Eda lived for one month in 1867. Louis died at six in 1869; his grave names D. N. and L. Freisleben as his parents. Daniel’s wife Lena, born in Altenschoenbach, Bavaria, joined the children in the family plot when she died in 1889 at fifty.

Daniel later married Ella M. Friesleben. When he died on 25 January 1897 at sixty-four, his death notice named Ella and four children: Mrs. L. C. Jacobs of Oroville, Mrs. C. E. Brooking, Ruth E. Freisleben, and Harold M. Freisleben. It also named his sister, Mrs. B. Phillips.

His body traveled home to Oroville. His estate, valued “in round numbers, at $200,000,” made him the wealthy man George West’s description calls to mind.

Death notice for Daniel N. Friesleben, a native of Bohemia, aged 64, remains to be shipped to Oroville
Daniel died away from Oroville, then made one final journey home.
Notice that the Friesleben will was filed at Oroville, estate valued in round numbers at $200,000
The fortune behind George West’s “wealthy son”: about $200,000 in 1897.

Daniel lies in the Oroville Jewish cemetery near Rosa, Lena, and the three children who died young. A tall monument carries FRIESLEBEN across its base and gives his birth as 8 May 1832, closely matching the May 1832 entry from Purschau’s house no. 8. It also names Ella M. Friesleben, 1867 to 1957, and Harold M. Friesley, 1892 to 1949. Daniel’s death notice identifies Ella as his wife and Harold as his son. His Hebrew inscription calls him a man greatly beloved. Nearby, a marker placed by Congregation Beth Israel of Chico tells how Oroville’s Jewish cemetery was established in 1859, received its deed in 1871, and became the resting place of the region’s early Jewish families.

Granite Friesleben monument in Oroville, naming Daniel N. Friesleben, May 8 1832 to January 25 1897, Ella M. Friesleben 1867 to 1957, and Harold M. Friesley 1892 to 1949
On Daniel’s monument, the May 1832 birth date from Purschau reappears in California.

Back at the wall

Daniel was Nathan’s son and Jakob’s grandson, the third generation of the family tied to houses no. 8 and no. 1 in Purschau. His 1832 birth record names Nathan as his father and Jakob as his grandfather. His later fortune in California identifies him as the wealthy son George West described. According to West’s account, Daniel commissioned the wall around his father’s grave.

One question remains: was anyone else buried with Nathan? The 1844 report confirms that a Freisleben child died in the nearby woods, giving the later story a basis in a real family tragedy. Rosa’s grave is in Oroville, while the child’s burial place remains unknown.

The enclosure still stands on utility land near Lebanon Lake, and Jews still come there to daven. Inside, Nathan’s slab names Purschau and his father, Yaakov the Levite. Beyond the wall, the family trail runs from Jakob’s village house to the New York hills and Daniel’s store in California. The trees have grown around the quarter acre, but the wall continues to do what the family intended: guard Nathan’s grave.

Timeline

1783
Jacob Nathan is recorded in Tachau with a wife and two children, trading in ribbons and knives.
1793
Jakob Freisleben is recorded in Purschau with his wife Sara and two daughters. He buys half of house no. 8 for 140 gulden.
24 July 1819
Purschau’s familiant book records Nathan, Jakob’s first son, on the family’s legal household position.
1822
A provisional land-book reading places Nathan on Jakob’s half of house no. 8 for 300 gulden.
1827
Filipina Freisleben, recorded as Jakob’s daughter, dies in Purschau at about twenty-five.
May 1832
A Purschau birth entry records Daniel in house no. 8, son of Nathan and Barbara.
28 June 1842
A Nathan Freisleben sells half of house no. 8. Rosa signs a related filing as his wife.
1844
A young Friesleben child disappears in Forestburgh and is found dead in the snow on the tenth day.
2 October 1846
Jakob Freisleben dies in Purschau, recorded as a merchant of house no. 1, aged ninety.
1850
A Lumberland census sheet records several Frislabend entries, including Daniel, Leopold’s household, and a seventy-year-old farmer.
22 December 1851
Nathan Freisleben dies, age 59, and is buried near Lebanon Lake.
22 January 1857
An Austrian government notice orders Daniel Freisleben of Purschau home from America within six months.
1862
Nelson Freisleben is buried in the Oroville family plot.
1867
Eda Freisleben dies at one month and is buried in the family plot.
1868
Rosa dies at Oroville, aged sixty-eight. Her grave names her mother of D. N. Freisleben.
1869
Louis, son of D. N. and L. Freisleben, dies at six.
1889
Daniel’s wife Lena dies at fifty and is buried in the family plot at Oroville.
1894
A Monticello paper identifies Nathan’s grave and attributes the wall to an unnamed wealthy son in the West.
1897
Daniel dies with an estate valued at about $200,000. His death notice names wife Ella, four children, and a sister.
1903
The grave appears in newspapers as a mystery. A later account connects it to an old rabbi and a child lost in the woods.
Today
The enclosure still stands near Lebanon Lake. Jews still come to daven there.

Sources