Hadley Twp.-Whether it’s Brocker Road without an ‘e? or Broecker, with’an area descendant of the German immigrant family that helped settle the township says we’re all the same.
Crenghton Broecker, 81,’a direct namesake of the local thoroughfare in the southern section of the township, says he’s researched his family’s history over the past two centuries and determined a death and remarriage about 125 years ago prompted a spelling change of his family’s name.
‘We’re just an old German family that at some point changed the spelling of our name,? said Broecker, who has lived on an Elba Township Farm off Lippincott Road, with his wife, Ruth, 79, for the past 56 years. The couple recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.
Crenghton’s grandfather, Carl Augest Broecker, was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1851, sailed to the United States with his father Carl Ludwig Broecker, and entered the country through Ellis Island, NY about 1872. The family first settled in the Roseville area but decided it was just too wet for farming. So, they walked north on a footpath to Hadley Township, about one-half mile north of the intersection of Hadley and Brocker roads. The family built a small cabin on the site, and later a farmhouse.
‘At some point Carl Ludwig’s wife died, and he later remarried’the kids from his second wife (name unknown) dropped the ‘e? from the name. We are not sure why, but either way, we’re all the same family.?
Carl Augest later purchased 88 acres about a half-mile east of Hadley Road, on the north side of Brocker Road, cleared much of the land with oxen, and farmed. He died in 1945.