From Heuthen To America
The Eichsfeld is a historical region in the southeast of Lower Saxony. Until 1803 the Eichsfeld was for centuries part of the Archbishopric of Mainz, which is the cause of its current position as a Catholic enclave in the predominantly Protestant north of Germany
From Heuthen to America -
Eichfelder emigration in the 19th century
By Dr. Alfons Grunenberg translated from a German magazine Eichsfelder Heimatzeitschrift 55 (2011) p. 89-92
Through the spread of house weaving, the Eichsfeld experienced a modest flowering season in the 18th century The wars in the Napoleonic period and the decline in house weaving, caused by cheap imports from England, were accompanied by drastic price increases and the crop failures of 1816/17 and 1845/46 The resulting economic and social lack of prospects for the wider population led to the question of alternatives And there was the young United States in North America had an almost insatiable appetite for labor and huge unmanaged agricultural land.
Rockstuhl 1 lists more than 1,000 inhabitants that left the country to build a new existence in America. Through the conscientious notations of a home registry 3 by the priest Georg Joseph Osburg in Heuthen (1.5 miles southeast of Kreuzebra, Thuringen, Germany, Laborius Haase home town) more than 250 people left their home in the direction of the New World. The genealogical aspects will be illuminated in this magazine in several episodes in Aloys Scholz's "Ahnenbörse". This essay deals with the emotional and human side, or as Rockstuhl 2 it expresses "thinking and feeling",of the emigration. Georg Joseph Osburg also provides information on this.
Since 1832 the crossing from Bremen took place, later also from Hamburg. The journey with the sailing ship took about 6 weeks, depending on weather conditions and wind conditions, latter 10 to 15 days by steamboat. More than 15% of travelers did not experience the arrival in the New World. Perched in a narrow space, the ship's journey was anything but a nice experience. In this case, approximately one year's income for the crossing plus additional costs had to be estimated. The main migration wave was around 1845. The hope for better working and living conditions, better harvest yields and gold rush in California starting from 1848 can be cited as reasons for the acceptance of the hardships. 4
There are 254 emigrants (268 known in 2017) who emigrated to the Americas from the upper Eichfeld village of Heuthen in the 19th century. In most cases, whole families with their children or siblings have embarked on the journey, just like the Eckart family. The marriage of Johann Georg Eckart (*1816) and Maria Catharina, née Volkmann (*1819) was performed in 1843. Three children were born and baptized in Heuthen between 1844 and 1849. Then the five-member family emigrated. There were still contacts between the emigrant families and the relatives living there on the Eichsfeld. It was known in Heuthen that the husband died in America around 1857 and the wife remarried afterwards.
The exchange of information between the continents has also taken place in many other families. Among other things, the news about the Atlantic Ocean came to the conclusion that Johann Franz Bischof (*1816) and Maria Angela (*1817), after their marriage in Heuthen in 1840, celebrated their Golden Wedding in America. The memorandum in the register that Johann Urban Fromm (*1820) died the same day in America as his son, also leads to intact communication channels.
The main reason for emigration was certainly the bad economic situation in which the Eichsfelder were in the middle of the 19th century. But there were other reasons. On the emigration of Franz Gaßdorf (* 1824) and Elisabeth, nee Gaßdorf (*1822) with their four children, they are reported to have secretly moved to America without satisfying the "many creditors" of Heuthen.
The emigrants were actively recruited on the Eichsfeld. The "concessionaire emigration agent" M. Katz campaigned with ads: " Emigrants to America by steamer of the Norddeutscher Lloyd transported to the cheapest transit prices at any time and [it] can contracts set to be taken with me in reception" 5 Even in Heiligenstadt had the Hapag Lloyd a business office on the Wilhelmstraße.
There were also native Heuthenians participating in the promotion of the New World. Johann Urban Dunkel (*1832) "made many journeys to North and South America for about 13 years," as did Johann Joseph Hey (*1842) who "traveled fifteen years as a heater for many trips to America".
Emigration usually took place together with family members, as did the siblings Johann Heinrich (*1833) and Maria Magdalena Jünemann (*1836). They left the Eichsfeld in 1862. But also the planned the emigration for the other members of the family, usually the older siblings first went to America. Veronica Volkmann (*1848) emigrated in 1870. Her younger sister (*1850) followed her a year later. Was it possible to keep a back door opened for their return?
Father Osburg rarely noted the exact goal of emigration in the registry. Anna Maria Eckart (*1820) died in Milwaukee, Maria Josepha Jünemann (*1863) lived in St. Louis and Julius Volkmann (*1811) in Chicago. Focuses are not to be identified. However, it can be assumed that there were these. Evidence of this is the depiction of siblings and the marriage of Eichsfelder in the New World. Thus the native Johannes Löffelholz (*1836) married a woman from the neighboring village of Geisleden in America. The unmarried Hermann Thiem (*1848) came back to Heuthen in 1871 with the Josepha Gassmann (*1852) from Heuthen. Both married 10 years later in their birthplace. They had probably come closer to America.
Not only the most "abled bodied" were looking for a new life in the USA. The "somewhat blatant" Maria Anna Eckart (*1809) and the "lame" Joseph Thiem (* 1840) are exemplified here.
In the New World the Heuthenians who grew up exclusively in the Catholic environment were confronted with other worldviews. So it was not that some of the old religion turned their backs. Carl Heinrich Kruse (*1845) is described as "disbelieving and freemason". Others, such as Anton Digmann (*1833), called father Osburg a "good Catholic" after visiting the place of birth in 1871. To disseminate Catholicism in the USA were also nuns with the emigrants. Maria Genoveva Hinckelbein was one of them. She is mentioned in 1861 as the godmother of Genoveva Heinemann, born in Heuthen. Whether the nun was present personally at the baptism or was represented, is unfortunately not known.
The longing for the old homeland also occupied the emigrants even decades after the settlement in America. Many emigrants visited their birthplace, Heuthen. Johann Heinrich Aureden (* 1827) had emigrated at the age of 30 with wife and two children. In 1884 he visited the Eichsfeld at the age of 57, after a 27-year stay in the USA, for four weeks. Johann Urban Gottfried (*1858) visited the old homeland after 11 years.
For some, it was not a visit. Heinrich Kruse (*1817) had emigrated to America at the age of 33 with his five-headed family. After 49 years in the USA he returned permanently at the age of 82 years. For him, Heuthen was more in his heart than reuniting with children and grandchildren. It is also interesting, that a note by father Osburg, stated: "Although he could not write and read, he saved more than 8,000 marks in America." America was also the land of unlimited possibilities.
Other emigrants could no longer cope with the living conditions in their place of birth and left the Eichsfeld a second time. At the age of 71 Maria Eva Eckardt (*1820) came back to Heuthen. The entry "was here 1891/92, but has again traveled back to America," suggests disappointment. Eichsfeld had also changed after the decades of emigration. Interpersonal relations were not associated with expectation.
The hoped-for happiness in the US was unevenly distributed. Johann Peter Paulus Gaßdorf "traveled to America in 1880". Certainly with great expectations, which however an abrupt end found. He was "killed there". On the death of Georg Nicolaus Jünemann and the fate of his family, the newspaper "Eichsfeldia" in issue no. 57 of 1866 reports: " On the 16th of April, the 'Germania' brought the telegraphic news from St. Paul, Minneapolis, North America, that on the 14th of that month in St. Cloud, Min, a tornado had brought horrendous disaster among men and property. The closer details of this disaster are hair-raising. The most industrious towns of St. Cloud, Sauk Rapids and Rice the count dead 74, wounded over 300. Among the dead in St. Cloud is a Eichsfelder, Nicolaus Jünemann from Heuthen, whose wife and son Bernhard were wounded , While the houses of 400 others in this city was turned into a rubble heap. The corpse of the young man was buried with other of the victims on the churchyard at St. Cloud, with the participation of thousands of victims, After a solemn legitimate office for the deceased was celebrated in the Immaculate Conception Church, in which the son of the young man, who had joined the Benedictine order and was preparing for the sacred priesthood at St. John's University, was a master of ceremonies . One concept of the violence of the storm is the fact that a church bell weighing 1500 pounds was 100 feet from the ruins of the church. "
Others went the way they had hoped for from the land of unlimited possibilities. Johann Adam Schäfer (*1820) had "a great estate there". He reported on this during his visit to Heuthen in the winter of 1869/70. His son Johann Heinrich Schäfer is even called "very rich". No wonder he was a gunsmith. These shops run well at any time and in any place.
The memory and longing for the homeland that accompanied the emigrants at that time for a lifetime is, to a certain extent, still unbroken among their descendants, even after many generations. The great-grandchildren of the emigrants visit the land of their ancestors from time to time. Many are looking for contact via the Internet. The author himself has numerous contacts with Americans who want to know where their ancestors were located. The Eichsfeld and the village of Heuthen are an emotional sensation when on a tour of the village, a visit to St. Nicholas Church is on the agenda, or contact with villagers bearing the same surname as they do. Whether Hey or Junemann, whether Kruse or Loffelholz: The surname already betrays the origin.
Sources and Acknowledgments
1. H. Rockstuhl, Thuringia - Emigration to America 1787-1871, Publisher Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 2004, pages 19-31 2nd ed., Page 10
3. Georg Joseph Osburg, registry of the Catholic community of Heuthen, Heuthen, 1872, manuscript, Pfarrarchiv Geisleden
4. Karl Paul Haendly, The Kurmainzian Principality of Eichsfeld in the course of its history, its economy and its people 897 to 1933, Mecke-Druck, Duderstadt, 1996, page 560
5. www.gottesleben-genealogie.de
6. Courtesy of Rüdiger Kruse, Hamm
I would like to thank the Rev. Christoph Günter Haase for their always friendly support and help in the examination of the documents of the Pfarrarchiv of Geisleden, Mrs Elisabeth Kruse in Heuthen for the reference to entries on emigration in the registry of the priests Georg Joseph Osburg and Rüdiger Kruse Hamm for the admission of the grave of Wilhelm Kruse.
Dr. Grunenberg, provides emigration lists for the town of Heuthen
Althaus Joseph August C (1833) with brother Althaus Franz(* 1836);
Althaus Johann Joseph (" 1808) with son Althaus Heinrich (- 1836);
Aureden Johann Heinrich (- 1827, oo 1852) with his wife Catharina, born Schwarz and children
Aureden Carl Adam (- 1854) and Aureden Carl Georg (- 1856)
Bischof Heinrich (. 1855) with his wife Sophia born Wiederhold;
Bischof Johannes Franz (* 1816, oo 1840) with Maria Angela born Diegmann (- 1817) and children
Bischof Hermann Joseph (1845), Bischof Apollonia (- 1849), Bischof Dorothea (. 1851) and siblings of father Bischof Hermann Joseph (1822), Bischof Franz Joseph (1827) and Bischof Maria Anna (1830);
Brodmann Christoph (- 1838, 1874):
Brodmann Franz Michael (" 1843), wife Elisabeth born Schwester
Brodmann Anna Maria (1840) and brother in law Löffelholz Joseph Dietrich Dorothea Anna Catharina (1820);
Digmann Carl Joseph (1823) sisters Digmann Maria Anna (1836), Digmann Dorothea(1822, oo) and brother in law Haase Liborius (1821);
Digmann Johannes (- 1834, oo 1856), for relatives see below
Digmann Johann Heinrich (- 1827);
Digmann Johann Heinrich (- 1827) with siblings Digmann Maria Magdalena (* 1824, oo) And her husband Jünemann Johannes and Digmann Anna Margarethe (- 1829, oo) and her husband Digmann Anton and Digmann Johannes (. 1834, oo 1856) and his wife Hüttenmüller Maria Catharina (- 1837);
Digmann Johann Valentin (1802 oo #2 1846) his second wife Anna Margaretha, born Aureden (1821) and kids Digmann Maria Elisabeth (" 1835) and Digmann Anton (- 1833, oo) and his wife Digmann Margaretha and the children from second marriage Digmann Christian (- 1847), Digmann Herrman (- 1849), Digmann Joseph (.1852 USA, t 1865), Digmann Gertrud (. 1854 USA), Digmann Catharina (" 1861 USA);
Jünemann Maria , widow born Digmann (1824) kids Jünemann Bernhard (1851), Jünemann Theresia
(- 1855) and Jünemann Maria Catharina (- 1863); widow Dunkel Dorothea Elisabeth, born Digmann and daughter Digmann Elisabeth Dorothea (. 1851);
Dunkel Johannes ( 1827):
Dunkel Johannes (* 1838) his wife Hey Anna Margaretha (- 1845)
For further information please contact: Alois Scholz, Taschenberg 3,99734 Nordhausen, tel. 03631- 998038, e-mail: Scholz-Nordhausen @ t-onlin