At Fort Ross, Sonoma County’s first married couples crossed paths

Maria del Carmen Caseres married John H.J. Hegeler in Sonoma County’s first legal marriage ceremony on Sept. 23, 1846. That’s a fact. Whether or not they were the first married couple in the county, though, is up for debate. At least as far as Lynn Rudy, a local historian and author is concerned.

While she doesn’t know much about the Hegelers’ meeting, she does know a lot about Wilhelm “William” Benitz and Josephine Kolmer, who she says could qualify as the county’s first married couple. Though they weren’t legally married until Feb. 23, 1847, Rudy said the couple had been married under common law in 1845.

Benitz was 30 in 1845 when he met a wagon train in Sonoma, and on that wagon train was 15-year-old Josephine, who was coming to California with her family from Germany. Benitz, also a German immigrant, was from Endingen - the same southwestern German town as the Kolmers.

Benitz is likely known today among Sonoma County residents for his role as one of the early settlers of Fort Ross, where he worked under Sacramento settler John Sutter. In their 20 years at Fort Ross, Benitz and his wife had 10 children.

Hegeler was also a German immigrant. Born in 1819 in Oldenberg, near Bremen, he came to the North Coast as an early settler, working as a ship’s carpenter. He arrived on the West Coast in 1843 from Baltimore after a trip around Cape Horn.

By 1845, he was at Fort Ross with Benitz, according to Rudy.

There, he built a grist mill, and by 1847, had built a home on the Rancho German with his California-born wife, referred to in historical texts alternately as “Maria del Carmen,” “Maria,” “Carmen,” and sometimes, “Ellen.”

The two met because she was the sister-in-law of one of Hegeler’s business partners, Rudy said.

Their marriage certificate reads: “On the 23rd day of Sept. 1846, at the town of Sonoma, in the district of Sonoma, in the territory of California, John H.J. Hegeler and Carmen Caseres of the said district were married by Mr. Manuel E. McIntosh, one of the acting justices of the peace in and for this district; and John B.R. Cooper, William Benitz, and Marrie Hosife of said district were present as witnesses of said marriage.”

According to ancestry.com, Maria del Carmen was born just seven years after Mexico gained independence from Spain on July 28, 1828, at the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Carmel - California’s second mission.

Her father, Francisco Caseres, was a sergeant of dragoons in the Spanish army, and arrived in Mexico in 1816 - the first Caseres to come to the new world, according to research by Ruth McCaughey Burk, another local historian and author. In her book, “An Intimate History of Bodega Country and the McCaughey Family,” she recounts how Francisco Caseres, unwilling to swear his allegiance the new republic of Mexico upon its independence, was ordered by the Mexican governor to leave Alta California, which he did, taking his family with him to Yerba Buena, now San Francisco.

In 1831, still unwilling to swear allegiance, and as the only remaining Spaniard then in the district of San Francisco, he was again ordered away. By 1838, he had apparently changed his mind, and was given a leadership position in the pueblo. The family arrived in the district of Sonoma in 1846.