DICKES FAMILY
Henry Adam Dickes Family
Standing: Walter Hubert Dickes and Frederick Ronald Dickes
Sitting on arm of chair: Carl Byram Dickes
Seated: Thaddeus Rich Dickes
Mother: Anna Eliza Rich Dickes
Father: Henry Adam Dickes
By Wanda Dickes Genth Maroney
1. John Philip Dickes was born in 1796 in Kalkofen, Germany, and died November 1, 1852 in Winterborn, Germany. He married Maria Magdalena Steitz. She was born June 17, 1810 in Winterborn, Germany, and died August 19, 1870 in Mercer County, Ohio.
In studying the history of a Nation, a Country or a family we approach the subject more in-telligently if we make sure of the locale of the subject we are considering. Let us therefore familiarize ourselves with the relation existing between Germany and France and the disputation of that part of those countries which was disputed territory for many years and see what cause the trouble.
The part of Europe with which we are concerned was ruled by “Charles the Great” and goes back to the Treaty of Verdun in 843. After the death of Charles, his domain was divided and given to his three grandsons. Charles, the Bold, was given the western part of the country which was the nucleus of France as we have known it before the present war. To Ludwig, the German, he gave the eastern section or the trans-Rhine country as far as the Elba River, and to Lothaire, the oldest grandson, who became the Emperor, he gave the central portion which was called The Middle Kingdom.
Lothaire soon died and his son, Lothaire the second, became the ruler but reigned but a short time dying without an heir to take his place. His Uncle Charles and Ludwig tried to divide Lothaire’s kingdom and the battle was on, lasting down through the Middle Ages. Ludwig, the German, became the ruler of Alsace and other parts of the country. The boundary line was changed from the Rhine River to the Vosges Mountains and the countries of Germany and France came into existence. After many years the territories were divided into small feudal states. In Alsace the German Princes held feudal privileges which were outlawed in the provinces of Lotheria which now was called Loraine.
In the 12th century a new power came into being known as “A Free City,” by means of privileges bought from Emperors who needed money to carry on conquests or for personal ambitions. Strassburg, a free city, became known as a “City State” and the stirring strains of “The Marseillaise” which later became the National Anthem of France was first sung in Strassburn in 1792 breathing defiance to German invaders from Prussia.
With this historical background we can understand how hatred was engendered in those peoples. Alsace was fundamentally German while Loraine, whose people were mostly French, wanted to belong to France, yet the families in the disputed territory did not take that into consideration when Cupid held the reins and so the rivalry was forgotten when the STEITZ-DICKES wedding was celebrated. The Steitz family were German. The name Dickes is of French origin, but the family may have been a mixture as many families in that territory had intermarried. At the time our family history starts, the Dickes family were German subjects and loyal to the German government.
PHILIP STEITZ, Mary’s father, was a commissioned officer under Napoleon. In 1815 when Napoleon lost, the part of France where the Steitz family lived was ceded to Germany under the government of Rhine Bavaria and Philip Steitz resigned and settled down to a life of construction in a place of destruction, in the village of Winterborn, Germany, three miles from the town of Furfeld and about nine miles from Kreuznach, and thirteen miles from Bingen on the Rhine.
Through the American Geographical Society of New York we obtained the following information: Winterborn is the capital of the “Gemeinde” of that name, which in turn is within the boundaries of the “Amt” Obermoschel. The whole district used to be called the Kirchheimbolanden Bezirk, but is now divided into two Berzirken, “Rockenhausen” and “Kirchheimboanden.” Winterborn is within “Rockenhausen,” which also contains the Amt Obermoschel.
Mr. Steitz, having been a military man, later became Burgomaster of the town of Winterborn. He was from a wealthy family and invested in land in the fertile Rhine valley, planting his land in grapes and the large German prune.
Five children, four girls and a boy, came to the Steitz home. MARY, the third child, our Grandmother Dickes, born June 17, 1810, was a beautiful girl with dark blue eyes and light curly hair. Mr. Steitz was especially fond of Mary and frequently took her with him when going about the fruit farm calling her “A Flash of Sunshine.”
Mary was courted by a young man by the name of JOHN DICKES, who asked for her hand in marriage. Because of her youth, Mr. Steitz opposed it and told Mr. Dickes he would not have objected had he asked for Elisabeth, her older sister, but would not consent to Mary’s marriage until she was eighteen. Mr. Dickes replied, “I respect Elisabeth, but I love Mary and will wait for her,” and he began to plan a home for her.
On a hillside near Winterborn, overlooking the Rhine valley, a stone house was built and to this house JOHN PHILIP DICKES took MARY STEITZ DICKES as his bride. Her dowry included many pieces of fine linen, blankets, and other house furnishings, but the most valuable part of her dowry was a deed to part of the fruit farm over which she had roamed as a child with her father.
Mr. and Mrs. Dickes were the parents of fifteen children, fourteen of whom were born in Winterborn, Germany. Three of the children died in infancy. Philip, the youngest child, was born after the family reached America.
JOHN DICKES, JR. was the oldest child and when he finished school he was asked to step aside, fall in line to march to the recruiting office to be measured for an army uniform which meant compulsory service in the German Army. When John told his father what had happened Mr. Dickes became very angry and said, “No son of mine will fight in the German Army” and before sun-up next morning John Dickes, Jr. was on his way to America, the land of freedom and opportunity.
Coming by sail vessel he finally reached New York, then by boat and stage to Buffalo, New York, and from there to Cincinnati, then north into Ohio to a settlement in Mercer County by the name of Skeele’s Cross Roads which is near the present city of Celina. Near Skeele’s Cross Roads lived two families who formerly lived in Winterborn, Germany and knew the Dickes family and where John was made a welcome guest.
John reached the SHUNK home in 1849 when the Gold Rush was casting its spell over those who were dissatisfied, ambitious or adventurous so John and Henry Shunk cast their lot with others and set out for the gold fields of California. Before starting west John wrote his parents of the many opportunities the new world offered and the tales of “Gold being scooped up by the bucketfuls in California” and urged his father to sell and bring the family to this land of freedom and opportunity.
With such glowing tales from the new country and the oppression in Germany growing worse, Mr. Dickes decided to make the venture.
It was late in October when the decision was reached. The fall rains had set in when preparations for sale of their home started. The stone house with its furnishings, vineyards, orchards and everything sold and the money changed into American gold and first-class passage for his large family when fate stepped in. Mr. Dickes had to expose himself to the cold fall weather. He contracted a heavy cold which developed into pneumonia. Their family doctor was away and left his patients to a young doctor who sometimes drank more than just a social glass. Cupping was often resorted to at that time and under the influence of liquor he proceeded to cup or bleed Mr. Dickes. He bled him too much and Mr. Dickes sank away or fainted. When he revived he requested his wife to take the children and go to John in California if anything happened to him. How little he realized how far that was, yet no doubt he did realize that with everything sold – not even a chair she could claim as her own – there was nothing else for her to do. Again he sank away, this time reaching “The Promised Land” ahead of the family he loved so well. Mr. Dickes took sick on Tuesday. Friday the young doctor entered their home and on Tuesday he died, was buried on Friday, and the next Monday the family left Winterborn, Germany, in search of a new home in a new country.
It has been said: “The greatest battles that ever were fought, were fought by the mothers of men” and the history of Mrs. Dickes from now on verifies this. Her husband in a new grave, her home and all its furnishings sold, her oldest child in California, ten children to mother and another unborn, she must face the winter storms of the Atlantic on a slow sail vessel and go to a new country, not able to speak or understand its language or make her wants known, yet it was such courageous characters that formed the backbone of the American Nation.
MARY STEITZ DICKES, born June 17, 1810, and became a widow about the first of November, 1852. She brought the following children with her: ADAM, RHINEHARDT, JONA, PHILPENA, ELISABETH, HENRY, LOUISA, MARY, KATIE AND BARBARA. PHILIP, the youngest child, was born in Buffalo, New York, soon after they reached their chosen land.
Down “the Rhine River” through the North Sea to London the family traveled. The ship they would have taken had Mr. Dickes lived, sank and all on board perished with her. Their tickets were exchanged for tickets on “The Great Eastern” which later laid the Atlantic Cable and which sailed November 12th, 1852. They were 52 days and 53 nights on the water. Some days because of storm the ship was blown back as far as they had traveled the day before.
Besides the money Mrs. Dickes carried with her, she had 5 sacks each containing $500 in gold hidden in a chest of linens and bedding. BARBARA DICKES, the youngest child and the only member of the family now living, was so ill on board ship that the ship physician told the family he feared she would die. The brothers had seen a person buried at sea and felt they could not let their baby sister share a similar fate so they planned a way to bring her to shore in case she did die.
They carried a hamper with changes of clothing to wear while sailing and decided to put on extra clothes in order to make room in the hamper for the tiny body which they would hide among pillows in the hamper and in this way bring the body ashore for burial. When they went to unlock the chest they found the lock had been broken and a bag of gold hidden near the top of the chest had been stolen. This discovery perhaps saved the rest of the money for after some pillows had been taken out the chest was sealed by orders of the Captain and was not disturbed again.
The baby recovered and the family arrived in New York City on January the 2nd, 1853. The family arrived at Buffalo, New York, January the 5th, where Philip Dickes was born January the 7th, a stranger in a strange land but with freedom and opportunity.
The family stayed at the hotel until some time in March, then migrated to what was then called “The Cranberry Patch,” near Skeels Cross Roads, about 13 miles northwest of Celina, in Mercer County, Ohio, where they stayed with the Shunk and Lininger families whom they had known in Germany.
Mrs. Dickes bought a farm of 60 acres of land, a team of horses, a yoke of oxen, a wagon, plow, cook stove, beds, table and chairs which took most of her money.
Kindly neighbors helped them to clear the land, build a hewed log house and start a home, but how different from the home they had known. They had been used to comfort and luxuries, now only the bare necessities of life, among strangers in a strange land, but with hope to face the future and make the best of things. It took a long time for a letter to go by stage coach across the United States, then by sail vessel to Germany and back to California and because of this, Mrs. Dickes and John lost track of each other. In time John learned from his aunt Elisabeth of the father’s death, of a new baby born after the family reached America, and that his mother and family were on a farm about 12 miles north of Celina, Ohio. John did not like the ruffians he found among the gold prospectors and as soon as he had a fair streak of luck, he started east in search of the family. He like the people he found in St. Louis, a thriving German town, so he stayed there for some time before going on eastward.
Elisabeth, the second girl and eighth child, had finished the lower school in Winterborn, and the father had planned to send her to the upper school as it was called in Winterborn, for she had expressed a desire to be a teacher, and when talking about America her father told her she should go to a teachers training school when they got here. There were seven little mouths to feed, they could not eat the trees, so the older children worked around in the country to help provide food till the farm could be made to produce food for them.
Adam, Jona and Rhinehardt were busy clearing the farm, splitting rails, building fences and doing the hard work the pioneers were forced to do. One Sunday afternoon the boys with the boys in the neighborhood, were trying to see how far they could jump and Jona was hurt by something giving way in the side, which no doubt was a rupture, and after a few days of intense suffering he died, leaving the family with another sorrow – a new grave in a new land.
The family had been in America about four years – hard years- but being industrious and frugal they had prospered. They had the usual farm stock and a flock of sheep. The upper Wabash River wound through the farm giving ideal pasturage for sheep. Mother Dickes, as she now was called, and the girls carded and spun the wool into yarn or thread from which they wove cloth and blankets. The girls were taught to knit and sew and many hands helped lighten the load.
One snowy, winter’s night a stranger appeared at the wood pile where the boys were gathering chips and wood for the house and asked who lived there. He was told Mary Dickes and family. He then asked if he could get something to eat and the boys took him to the house where he asked the same question.
Mother Dickes said “Yes! It would be cruel to turn one away on a night like this.” While preparing supper she said, “I have a boy out west, if the Indians haven’t killed him, and I’ll do for you what I pray some mother would do for him if he went to her door cold and hungry tonight.”
The stranger, with a full dark beard, broad shoulders, and mischievous blue eyes, watched her every movement and she, realizing it, grew alarmed for fear he might have planned to rob or harm the family. He also tried to make up with the little boy by giving him a “new penny.’ Philip showed the money to his mother and her alarm increased for it was a five dollar gold piece, and thinking the man had made a mistake or was trying to pay for his lodging, she told Philip to give it back. The child obeyed and going to his mother asked her who the man was. Putting her arm about the child she told him she did not know. The boy watched the man for a few minutes and again asked the question and his mother said audibly, “Child I don’t know who the man is. If you want to know so badly, ask him.” The stranger arose from the table and walked over to where Philip and his mother were standing and putting his hand on her shoulders said, “Mother, don’t you know me? I’m John.”
Of course she did not know him. When he left home to go to America, he was a beardless boy. Eight and a half years had changed him more than it had his mother. He knew all the time he had found his family but they did not know him. In two ways his mother recalled him – by his twinkling, mischievous eyes and the soft, clear, musical tones in his voice.
The next day was a day of thanksgiving in the Dickes home. The children were brought from the different farms where they were “helping for their keep” or getting 50 cents a week which was paid to the mother to help with the things that had to be bought. It was a day of reunion and making new acquaintances for two or three children had come into the home after John had left it.
When spring opened John went west again, taking Henry, a younger brother, with him. The farm was now cleared and under cultivation so that Rhinehardt and Adam, with the help of the girls, could get along without Henry.
War clouds now began to threaten the clear sky of their new world and while it was not oppression or acquisition of more territory, it was a more serious condition – the enslavement of human beings. The Dickes family wanted to leave Germany because of tyrannical conditions and were in deed and truth real Americans as were most of the people who came to our shores at that time.
The home had five attractive girls so it became a meeting place for the young people of the surrounding countryside. Dixie Land was a popular song and the boys would sing it, changing some to the words to go like this: On Dickeses land I’ll take my stand and live and die on Dickes land, Hurrah! Hurrah! Rhinehardt felt the call to protect his new, adopted country and was among the first to volunteer for service in the army. He went into camp but before his regiment saw real service, due to army exposure, he contracted pneumonia and died, and was buried in the Lininger cemetery near the state line.
Hard as this blow was, for Rhinehardt had tried to fill the place of husband and father, it proved to be a comfort to the family later on. They at least knew where he was buried, that he had not died alone on the battlefield or starved in a southern prison as many boys did.
Adam Dickes then enlisted in Company C, 32nd Regiment, Ohio Vol. Inf., November 21, 1864, and was discharged July 20th, 1865, at Louisville, Ky. Mother Dickes and the girls did all they could for the boys who went from their neighborhood. They knitted socks and scarfs and baked cookies and doughnuts and sent them to the soldiers where they always found a welcome. She gave to America ten loyal, law-abiding, industrious, frugal citizens, each an honor to the country.
August 19, 1870, MARY STEITZ DICKES died and was buried in Lininger Cemetery, or as it is often called, State Line Grave Yard, in Mercer County, Ohio.
When one stops to think of Mary Dickes, reared in wealth and luxury, happily married, surrounded with an adoring husband and affectionate children, to suddenly have to face the grief and hardships she was forced to endure, and know how bravely she met her battles with a smiling face and a word of encouragement for others, one can’t help feeling that the courage of her father, disciplined under Napoleon, was transmitted to this child, for she was in deed and truth as brave a general as ever donned a uniform.
I recall that when a high school girl we sang “The Watch on the Rhine” and while singing it at home one day, mother looked at me a moment, then said “That song recalls an incident in my home soon after the close of the Civil War. We at home were talking about the home, aunts, uncles, cousins and playmates back in Germany when I started to sing that song. Mother looked at me a few minutes, then said sternly, ‘Lizzie, I never want to hear that sung in our home. We are now Americans and should sing America, for we are enjoying rights and privileges under the constitution of the United States and must live within the spirit and the letter of the laws of our new land’, and started singing America.”
May we, the descendants of this noble, patriotic woman add another stanza to our beloved
America:
America so free, guardian of liberty may you not fail,
To say to every land for righteousness we stand
And that we will demand – right shall prevail.
In Memoriam
The year 1938 was saddened by the death of three prominent members of the Dickes family whose presence was sorely miss at the Family Reunion held at Mercelina Park, Celina, Ohio, August 28, 1938. Today we pause to remember:
Mrs. John (Susannah) Dickes who died in her home in Portland, Indiana, April 4, 1938
Mrs. Henry (Anna Eliza) Dickes who died at her home in Huntertown, Indiana, May 13, 1938
Mrs. John W. (Sarah) Karch, who died at her home near Celina, Ohio, June 2, 1938
As a memorial to these loved ones whose lives displayed that unity and devotion which have been an inspiration to all of us, in the preservation of the family tie, and in token of our love and remembrance for them, let a copy of this memorial be written in the record book of the secretary and be preserved for the members of the Dickes family.
Respectfully submitted
EDNA DICKES BRUMBAUGH
EDITH WALTER LUKENS
RUTH KARCH McKEE
August 27, 1939
Piqua, Ohio
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CENSUS AND BURIALS
1880 Census of Liberty Township, Mercer County, Ohio 476 C
Adam Dickes married male, 50 born BAV Farmer
Both parents born BAV
Catherine Dickes wife female, 50 born PA Keeps house
Father born Ireland, Mother born PA
John Dickes son, single male, 22 born OH School Teacher
Sarah Dickes daughter female, 14 born OH
Barbara Dickes daughter female, 12 born OH
Henry A. Dickes son male, 10 born OH
Wm. Woodworth other male, 20 born IN Laborer
Both parents born Ohio
1880 Census of Wabash Township, Jay County, IN 405 B (Louisa Dickes)
Marion Cunningham married male, 31 born VA Carpenter
Both parents born VA
Louisa Cunningham wife female, 34 born BAV Keeps house
Both parents born BAV
George Cunningham son male, 8 born IN
Father born VA, Mother born IN
Martha Cunningham daughter female, 2 born IN
Cunningham daughter female 8 Mo born IN
Father born VA, Mother born BAV
1880 Census of Wabash Township, Jay County, IN 406 D (Barbara Dickes)
Jacob Sonday married male, 46 born OH Plasterer
Both parents born PA
Barbary Sonday wife female, 29 born BAV Keeps house
Both parents born BAV
Cary Sonday son male, 10 born IN
Francis Sonday son male, 7 born IN
John Sonday son male, 3 born IN
Jacob Sonday son male, 5 born IN (dead/crossed out)
Clarethel Sonday daughter fem., 10 Mo born IN
1880 Census of Mt. Etna, Huntington County, IN 655 C (Elisabeth Dickes)
Washington Walter married male, 48 born OH Grist Mill
Both parents born PA
Elisabeth Walter wife female, 41 born GER Keeps house
Both parents born Germany
Alice J. Walter daughter female, 12 born IN
Father born Ohio, Mother born GER
Sarah L. Walter daughter female, 8 born IN
Mary L. Walter daughter female, 5 born IN
Ethel E. Walter daughter female, 2 born IN
Edith Walter daughter fem. 11 Mo born IN
1880 Census of Wabash Township, Jay County, IN 407 D (Catherine Dickes)
Vynul Arnett married male, 59 born OH Burris Line
Both parents born MD
Catherine Arnett wife female, 31 born BAV Keeps house
Both parents born BAV
May Arnett daughter female, 5 born IN
Adella Arnett daughter female, 1 born IN
1880 Census of Pike Township, Jay County, IN 532 A
Philip Dickes married male, 27 born NY M.D.
Both parents born Germany
Nancy V. Dickes wife female, 21 born IN Keeps house
Father born MD, Mother born OH
Frank Dickes son male, 1 Mo born IN
1880 Census of Wabash Township, Jay County, IN 405 B (Mary Kuhlman?)
Andrew Sonday married male, 52 born PA Plasterer
Father born PA, no place listed for mother
Mary Sonday wife female, 25 born OH Keeps house
Possible census for John Dickes, eldest son??
1880 Census of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 281 B
John Dicke married male, 43 born PRUS Lumber Mer.
Both parents born PRUSSIA
Mar Dicke wife female, 38 born OH Keeps house
Both parents born HAN.
Julia Dicke daughter female, 14 born MO At school
Dickes Burials at Perry Township Cemetery, (Huntertown Cem.) Huntertown, IN
New Section
DICKES, Betty Jean Kelso 1938-1979
DICKES, Carl B. 1910-1969 320 Scottish Rite
DICKES, Donna E. 1910- OES Carl
DICKES, Erma 1909- Fred
DICKES, Fred 1909- Erma
DICKES, Lowell R. 1932-1967 320 Scottish Rite Wanda
DESCENDANTS OF JOHN PHILIP DICKES
1. John Philip Dickes, b. 1796 Kalkofen, Germany d: Nov. 1, 1852 in Winterborn, Germany
+ Maria Magdalena Steitz, b: June 17, 1810 in Winterborn, Germany
d: Aug. 19, 1870 in Mercer Co., OH
2. John Dickes, Jr., b: Germany d: 1882, near St. Louis, MO
+ Wife Unknown
3. Daughter, Mrs. Goodman of Eureka, MO
John was engaged in the meat packing business near St. Louis. While
smoking hams, the establishment caught fire, and in trying to save as much
as possible, he was trapped in burning rafters which caused his death.
2. Jonas Dickes, b: Winterborn, Germany
2. Philpena Dickes, b: Winterborn, Germany
+ John Kuhlman
3. Mary Kuhlman, d: 1889
+ Sonday, no children
3. Christena Kuhlman
+ Meyer, residence St. Louis, MO
3. Anna Kuhlman, d: Sept. 17, 1903
+ Hershey, residence Piqua, OH
3. Kate Kuhlman, d: Dec. 16, 1905
+ Johnson
3. Minnie Kuhlman, b: April 11, 1866
+ Jacob Hershey
2. Adam Dickes, b: Dec. 8, 1830 in Winterborn, Germany d: Sept. 7, 1885
m: March 12, 1857
+ Catharine Redmond, d: Oct. 19, 1898
Adam and Catharine buried in Washington Cem., OH
3. John Thomas Dickes, 1858 – 1916
+ Susannah K. Lyons
John Thomas Dickes was a prominent physician and Mason
At Portland, IN
3. Mary Elizabeth Dickes 1859 – 1959
3. Samuel Phillip Dickes, 1859 – 1939
+ Charlotte Boehm
3. Rheinhardt Albert Dickes, 1862 – 1935
3. Louisa Jane Dickes, 1864 – 1864
3. Sarah Dickes, 1866 –
+ John W. Karch
3. Barbara Catharine Dickes, 1868 –
+ Charles E. Harper
3. Henry Adam Dickes, b. Dec. 26, 1870 d: Oct. 2, 1931
m: Oct. 5, 1898 buried Fairview Cem. Shoaff Rd.
Huntertown, IN
+ Anna Eliza Rich, b: Jan. 8, 1873 d: May 13, 1938
at Huntertown, IN. Parents were Byram Rich
and Somelia Brooks, buried Fairview Cem.
4. Hilda Inez Dickes b: Aug. 23, 1899
d: Aug. 12, 1901
4. Thaddeus Rich Dickes b: Feb. 28, 1901
+ Crystal Smith
+ Mary Mae Roth m: Oct. 3, 1928
Thaddeus was the first graduate of
Huntertown High School in 1922.
4. Walter Hubert Dickes, b: Aug. 24, 1904
d: Aug. 8, 1960
+ Dorothy Hurst Nussbaum on
May 9, 1931
+ Edna Amelia Felt on June 30, 1936
b: Feb. 18, 1905 d: Jan. 1982
Edna is buried Long Island, NY
5. Walter Henry Dickes
5. William Felt Dickes
4. Frederick Ronald Dickes, b: Jan. 2, 1909
d: Nov. 19, 2000 Burial Huntertown Cem
+ Carol Key Osborne
+ Erma Evelyn Gandy, b: Apr 27 1909
d: Oct. 16, 1991
Burial Huntertown Cemetery
See “more about” Frederick at end of this
Descendant list.
5. Byram Enlow Dickes
5. Betty Jean Dickes
5. Lyle Thaddeus Dickes
5. Ruth Ellen Dickes
4. Carl Byram Dickes, b: Sept. 3, 1910
d: Oct. 1969, m: Sept. 24, 1928
Burial Huntertown Cemetery
Graduated HHS in 1928
+ Donna Elizabeth Myers
b: May 10, 1910 d: March 27, 1998
Dau. Samuel Myers & Cora Wyatt
Burial Huntertown Cemetery
Graduated HHS in 1928
5. Philip Warren Dickes
5. Lowell Roger Dickes
1932 - 1967
2. Rhinehardt Dickes, b: Jan. 22, 1833 Winterborn, GR
d: January 20, 1862
Rhinehardt volunteered for service in the Civil War, went into camp,
Contracted pneumonia and died. Buried in Lininger Cemetery, near State
Line in OH.
2. Elizabeth Dickes, b: Dec. 17, 1839 Winterborn, GR
d: January 26, 1904 m: Dec. 25, 1870
&n