John Stoeckle
John Stoeckle was born in the Grand Duchy of Baden about 1812. His son Henry's 1940 death certificate remembers him as John Stackley; his own will is signed Johann Stoeckle, the naturalization record manages Stackle, Stoackler and Stoakler within one page, and the census taker of 1850 heard something he set down as Suckley. He emigrated in the middle 1840s, and by about 1846 he was in Ste. Genevieve County, among the Baden Catholics who had planted the villages of Zell and New Offenburg in the county's uplands.
On November 18, 1849 he went before the circuit court at Ste. Genevieve and declared on oath his intention to become a citizen of the United States. Two years later, on Friday, November 21, 1851, he came into court again, and on the testimony of Charles A. Seibert and Francis Herzog that he had resided five years in the United States and one in Missouri, and had conducted himself as a man of good moral character, the court admitted him a citizen, renouncing forever all allegiance and fidelity to Leopold, Grand Duke of Baden, of whom he was heretofore a subject.
The census of September 1850 catches the household entire: John, thirty-eight, farmer, born Germany; Magdalena, thirty-three, born Germany; and four children, all born in Missouri, Joseph, four, Francis, one, and the infant twins Charles and Henry, a few months old. The next house on the page belonged to Francis Herzog, the young neighbor who would witness John's naturalization the following year and, thirteen years after that, hold the pen for his will. Charles does not appear again: he died young, and the will of 1864 knows only four children, Joseph, Francis, Henry and Catherine, the daughter born after 1850.
He farmed east of the town, part of his land inside survey 2046, the old grant confirmed to Francis Valle Jr. In January 1852 he witnessed a deed for Johannes Baszler. On November 15, 1864 he made his will, too weak to hold the pen; Francis Herzog signed for him at his direction. He left everything, real and personal, to his wife Magdalena for her lifetime, and after her death to his four children or their legal representatives. The will was proved at Ste. Genevieve on November 23, 1864, so he died within days of making it, about fifty-two years old. The estate settled simply: the executor turned the whole personal property over to Mrs. Madalena Stockle under the will, and the land stayed undivided until the children were grown.
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Cite: Heirology, "John Stoeckle (1812-1864)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-stoeckle-1812-1864-712b94.