Hi,
It's exciting when things start coming together, isn't it?
First of all, the town name:
I can only find one Hö
ningen, down near Mannheim.
There is one Hö
nningen near Ahrbrück, Rheinland-Pfalz.
BUT...in your document it says Hö
nningen am Rhein. If I put this into Google maps, it comes up with
Bad Hönningen (Bad means spa town), which is directly on the Rhein (Rhine) river, about 30km southeast of Bonn.
The two Hönningens are also about 30km apart.
Bad Hönningen also has an impressive castle, Schloss Arenfels:
https://www.schloss-arenfels.de/Burg Hohensolms:
Two lineages shared the castle in the 17th century, the Butzbach line, who renamed themselves Solms-Hohensolms after moving into the castle, and the Solms-Lich line. The former took care of their part, but the Solms-Lich bunch let their part of the castle fall apart.
Graf Ludwig von Solms-Hohensolms (1646–1707) had a mint in the castle (mint as in where coins are made
) at the end of the 17th century.
Lots of piccies of the castle here:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg_HohensolmsCatharina/Schloßmagd: A Schloßmagd was a (hand)maid in a castle, so I would think that she was indeed a maid at a castle. But which one..?!
(As far as I can see, there are no places with a name like Schloßmagd/Schlossmagd. It would be a very weird place name, but I checked, to be sure.
)
One little thing I wanted to add: You have only referred to Hans Caspar. In the letter which you uploaded, it says Hans Caspar Schneider. Is Schneider his surname, or was he a tailor? (There is, however, no comma between Caspar and Schneider...)
Best regards,
Karen