Introduction
This is the story of a family. Not a family born of kings, or feudal lords, but a family of common origins. Not a family of generals, scholars, or merchants, but a family of farmers and spinners of flax.
This is the story of a family that has never been mentioned in history books. But it is also the story of a family who lived through, and was touched by, some of the major political, economic, and social changes that have shaped the world in which we live. It is the story of a family that lived through the growth of the Prussian empire, Napolean's successes and failures, the massive European emigration to America, the U. S. Civil War, and the settlement of the American frontier.
In the chapters that follow, we will briefly review the early history of those German lands that spawned our Landwehr forefathers. We will then pick up the history of the Landwehr family in the small village of Schildesche, now located in northwest Germany, in the year 1678. And we will trace the several generations of our family who lived in the villages of Schildesche and Joellenbeck until our branch of the Landwehr family emigrated to America in 1859.
We will follow the family as they set sail for America, as they disembark in New Orleans, and as they settle in their new home in Missouri. We will observe the impact of the Civil War on the family. And we will follow each of the five immigrant Landwehr children as they marry, establish homes, and raise their families in their new homeland. Finally, we will review the histories of six other families related by marriage to our immigrant Landwehr family.
Readers seeking ancestors who achieved fame or accumulated fortunes may be disappointed. But readers who seek only to know and understand their family heritage can be proud of their Landwehr ancestry. For the Landwehr family who came to these shores in 1859 were typical of the millions of German immigrants who arrived in America during the 19th century, and contributed to the settlement and growth of our great nation.
Above all else, this history celebrates the successful emigration of our Landwehr family from their ancestral home in Germany to America's heartland. The immigrant Landwehr family consisted of Anna, widow of Friedrich Wilhelm Landwehr, and her five children--Henry, Philip, Maria, Fritz, and William Landwehr. Anna would live among her children for forty years after their arrival in America, and would see each of her children marry and start their own families in their new homeland. She would live to see each of her four sons acquire their own farms, and establish roots that would give their children and grandchildren a better start in life than they had. Only Anna's daughter, Maria, would be less fortunate in life. After losing her first husband before her 30th birthday, Maria would remarry, and then die at the age of thirty-three, leaving her four children to make their own way in life, and eventually to establish the American roots for Maria's branch of the Landwehr family.
Our immigrant Landwehr family came from a rural area in Germany, and settled in a rural area of Franklin County, Missouri. Like most Americans in the 19th century, the immigrant generation of our family farmed the land for their livelihood. The German immigrant had a reputation for hard work, frugality, and thoroughness. These qualities, together with their shrewd choice of soils, made them outstandingly successful as farmers. In Destination America, Maldwyn A. Jones wrote that:
"Their spare, unpretentious houses contrasted with their huge, well-built barns and stables, their spartan style of living with the care they lavished upon their animals. These characteristics set them apart from their neighbours. So did their careful farming methods. Shunning the wasteful practices of the native American pioneer, the German farmer was prodigal of his labour, and of that of his wife and children."
Probably the strongest attraction of America for the European emigrant was economic--the availability of inexpensive farm land. And all five of Anna's children availed themselves of this land as early as they were able to do so. They did not acquire this land by purchase from the U.S. Government, or by homestead, but through purchases from private owners. Most of the useful land in the area where the Landwehr family settled had been purchased from the government by earlier settlers and immigrants, especially those who had arrived ten to twenty years before our Landwehr family. The opportunity to own land was undoubtedly the most important difference between our family's opportunities in Germany and their opportunities in America, as they would never have owned their own land had they stayed in Germany.
Political freedom was a strong attraction to all Germans. The German attitude toward America was expressed by the German phrase "kein Koenig dort", or "no king over there". Our immigrant Landwehr family surely loved freedom. They were strongly opposed to the slavery that they witnessed in America, and were among the first to rally to the Union cause in the Civil War. Politically, the Landwehrs were conservative, and were followers of the new Republican party.
The immigrant Landwehr children were all reasonably well educated. Henry and Philip, the two oldest children, received their education in the state schools of Prussia before their emigration. Maria and Fritz probably started their education in Germany, and Fritz continued his education after the family's arrival in Missouri. William probably received all of his education in Missouri. All of the children were literate--able to read and write.
It is said that religion was the chief concern of most immigrants, and it was certainly important to our immigrant Landwehr family. Not only were most immigrants deeply pious; in Europe the church had been the institutional center of their lives. Their yearning for continuity thus led them to reconstruct familiar forms of worship. In Germany, immigrants had been members of established churches, but in America church and state were separated, churches being purely voluntary institutions. That meant that the tasks of organizing and supporting a church rested upon the immigrants themselves.
The state church where the Landwehr family lived in Germany was the Lutheran Evangelical Church. In Missouri, they affiliated themselves with two German Protestant churches. One was the German Methodist Episcopal Church, and the other was the German Evangelical Church. The immigrant generation of the Landwehr family were active in their churches, and were deeply involved in the founding of a German Methodist Episcopal Church at Champion City, Missouri.
The Landwehrs, like most German immigrants, worked hard. Starting with nothing, the four Landwehr boys all aquired farms, raised families, contributed to the growth of their churches and communities, and accumulated modest estates to pass along to their children.
Family ties were important to the immigrant Landwehrs. Without a doubt, the family was more important to all people in the 19th century than it is to many people today. The events of their lives suggest that the five Landwehr children and their mother were very supportive of each other and made concerted efforts to live as neighbors, and no hint of any problems between the families has come to our attention.
Three of the Landwehr children lived in their adopted homeland over sixty years prior to their deaths. Yet, like hundreds of thousands of other German immigrants, they retained much of their German culture. Until evidence of German culture became a serious problem with the outbreak of World War I, the immigrant Landwehr children (and their children and grandchildren) lived in German communities, spoke German in their homes and in the local German businesses, were cared for by German doctors, attended services in German churches where they listened as German ministers conducted services in the German language, read German-language newspapers printed in cities with large German populations, and observed German customs in their homes.
Since the German immigrants attempted to maintain their German culture, it is not surprising that they were slow to inter-marry with families with different cultural backgrounds. It is interesting to note that the five immigrant Landwehr children, and many of their children in turn, not only married husbands and wives with similar German roots, but husbands and wives whose families emigrated from villages within a very few miles of Joellenbeck, the German village that was home to our Landwehr family.
Our family history would not be complete without a few words about the origin and meaning of our family name. The history of the word "Landwehr" can be traced back to the year 847. The word originally meant "fortification", and was translated into Latin as defensio terrae. Individual surnames originated for the purpose of more specific identification. The four primary sources for second names were: occupation, location, father's name and personal characteristics. According to Elsdon C. Smith's New Dictionary of American Family Names, the surname Landwehr was characteristic in origin and meant, "a German citizen enrolled as a soldier but not on active duty." This suggests that our Landwehr ancestors may have had a tradition of local military service.
As our research carried us back in time, into the registers of the Evangelical Lutheran churches of northwestern Germany in the 19th century, the spelling of our family name remained consistent. The only observations that sparked our curiosity were the records of the "Landwehrmann" family, which appeared as frequently as those of our Landwehr family. And, on occasion, we found that our family name was erroneously recorded as "Landwehrmann".
As we pursued the ancestry of our family further back, into the 18th century, we still found no change in the family name. It was not until we turned back the pages to the turn of the century, about 1700, that we began to note variations. During the period 1678 to 1703, references to our Landwehr family were found in at least three forms:
While we cannot determine the exact origin of the name of our family, it would appear that we have approached that point in history when our family first assumed the Landwehr surname. Perhaps one branch of the family shortened the name to Landwehr by dropping the prefixes "bei der" and "von der", while another branch of the family adopted the "Landwehrmann" variation.
If we could trace the Landwehr surname back to our ancestor who was first identified with the Landwehr name, we might find a sheriff, some type of policeman, or a member of a military unit. Until more definitive information becomes available, we feel comfortable with the assumption that our Landwehr surname was derived from a description, such as "bei der Landwehr", of an early ancestor who was a "defender of the land".
This is the story of a family that has never been mentioned in history books. But it is also the story of a family who lived through, and was touched by, some of the major political, economic, and social changes that have shaped the world in which we live. It is the story of a family that lived through the growth of the Prussian empire, Napolean's successes and failures, the massive European emigration to America, the U. S. Civil War, and the settlement of the American frontier.
In the chapters that follow, we will briefly review the early history of those German lands that spawned our Landwehr forefathers. We will then pick up the history of the Landwehr family in the small village of Schildesche, now located in northwest Germany, in the year 1678. And we will trace the several generations of our family who lived in the villages of Schildesche and Joellenbeck until our branch of the Landwehr family emigrated to America in 1859.
We will follow the family as they set sail for America, as they disembark in New Orleans, and as they settle in their new home in Missouri. We will observe the impact of the Civil War on the family. And we will follow each of the five immigrant Landwehr children as they marry, establish homes, and raise their families in their new homeland. Finally, we will review the histories of six other families related by marriage to our immigrant Landwehr family.
Readers seeking ancestors who achieved fame or accumulated fortunes may be disappointed. But readers who seek only to know and understand their family heritage can be proud of their Landwehr ancestry. For the Landwehr family who came to these shores in 1859 were typical of the millions of German immigrants who arrived in America during the 19th century, and contributed to the settlement and growth of our great nation.
Above all else, this history celebrates the successful emigration of our Landwehr family from their ancestral home in Germany to America's heartland. The immigrant Landwehr family consisted of Anna, widow of Friedrich Wilhelm Landwehr, and her five children--Henry, Philip, Maria, Fritz, and William Landwehr. Anna would live among her children for forty years after their arrival in America, and would see each of her children marry and start their own families in their new homeland. She would live to see each of her four sons acquire their own farms, and establish roots that would give their children and grandchildren a better start in life than they had. Only Anna's daughter, Maria, would be less fortunate in life. After losing her first husband before her 30th birthday, Maria would remarry, and then die at the age of thirty-three, leaving her four children to make their own way in life, and eventually to establish the American roots for Maria's branch of the Landwehr family.
Our immigrant Landwehr family came from a rural area in Germany, and settled in a rural area of Franklin County, Missouri. Like most Americans in the 19th century, the immigrant generation of our family farmed the land for their livelihood. The German immigrant had a reputation for hard work, frugality, and thoroughness. These qualities, together with their shrewd choice of soils, made them outstandingly successful as farmers. In Destination America, Maldwyn A. Jones wrote that:
"Their spare, unpretentious houses contrasted with their huge, well-built barns and stables, their spartan style of living with the care they lavished upon their animals. These characteristics set them apart from their neighbours. So did their careful farming methods. Shunning the wasteful practices of the native American pioneer, the German farmer was prodigal of his labour, and of that of his wife and children."
Probably the strongest attraction of America for the European emigrant was economic--the availability of inexpensive farm land. And all five of Anna's children availed themselves of this land as early as they were able to do so. They did not acquire this land by purchase from the U.S. Government, or by homestead, but through purchases from private owners. Most of the useful land in the area where the Landwehr family settled had been purchased from the government by earlier settlers and immigrants, especially those who had arrived ten to twenty years before our Landwehr family. The opportunity to own land was undoubtedly the most important difference between our family's opportunities in Germany and their opportunities in America, as they would never have owned their own land had they stayed in Germany.
Political freedom was a strong attraction to all Germans. The German attitude toward America was expressed by the German phrase "kein Koenig dort", or "no king over there". Our immigrant Landwehr family surely loved freedom. They were strongly opposed to the slavery that they witnessed in America, and were among the first to rally to the Union cause in the Civil War. Politically, the Landwehrs were conservative, and were followers of the new Republican party.
The immigrant Landwehr children were all reasonably well educated. Henry and Philip, the two oldest children, received their education in the state schools of Prussia before their emigration. Maria and Fritz probably started their education in Germany, and Fritz continued his education after the family's arrival in Missouri. William probably received all of his education in Missouri. All of the children were literate--able to read and write.
It is said that religion was the chief concern of most immigrants, and it was certainly important to our immigrant Landwehr family. Not only were most immigrants deeply pious; in Europe the church had been the institutional center of their lives. Their yearning for continuity thus led them to reconstruct familiar forms of worship. In Germany, immigrants had been members of established churches, but in America church and state were separated, churches being purely voluntary institutions. That meant that the tasks of organizing and supporting a church rested upon the immigrants themselves.
The state church where the Landwehr family lived in Germany was the Lutheran Evangelical Church. In Missouri, they affiliated themselves with two German Protestant churches. One was the German Methodist Episcopal Church, and the other was the German Evangelical Church. The immigrant generation of the Landwehr family were active in their churches, and were deeply involved in the founding of a German Methodist Episcopal Church at Champion City, Missouri.
The Landwehrs, like most German immigrants, worked hard. Starting with nothing, the four Landwehr boys all aquired farms, raised families, contributed to the growth of their churches and communities, and accumulated modest estates to pass along to their children.
Family ties were important to the immigrant Landwehrs. Without a doubt, the family was more important to all people in the 19th century than it is to many people today. The events of their lives suggest that the five Landwehr children and their mother were very supportive of each other and made concerted efforts to live as neighbors, and no hint of any problems between the families has come to our attention.
Three of the Landwehr children lived in their adopted homeland over sixty years prior to their deaths. Yet, like hundreds of thousands of other German immigrants, they retained much of their German culture. Until evidence of German culture became a serious problem with the outbreak of World War I, the immigrant Landwehr children (and their children and grandchildren) lived in German communities, spoke German in their homes and in the local German businesses, were cared for by German doctors, attended services in German churches where they listened as German ministers conducted services in the German language, read German-language newspapers printed in cities with large German populations, and observed German customs in their homes.
Since the German immigrants attempted to maintain their German culture, it is not surprising that they were slow to inter-marry with families with different cultural backgrounds. It is interesting to note that the five immigrant Landwehr children, and many of their children in turn, not only married husbands and wives with similar German roots, but husbands and wives whose families emigrated from villages within a very few miles of Joellenbeck, the German village that was home to our Landwehr family.
Our family history would not be complete without a few words about the origin and meaning of our family name. The history of the word "Landwehr" can be traced back to the year 847. The word originally meant "fortification", and was translated into Latin as defensio terrae. Individual surnames originated for the purpose of more specific identification. The four primary sources for second names were: occupation, location, father's name and personal characteristics. According to Elsdon C. Smith's New Dictionary of American Family Names, the surname Landwehr was characteristic in origin and meant, "a German citizen enrolled as a soldier but not on active duty." This suggests that our Landwehr ancestors may have had a tradition of local military service.
As our research carried us back in time, into the registers of the Evangelical Lutheran churches of northwestern Germany in the 19th century, the spelling of our family name remained consistent. The only observations that sparked our curiosity were the records of the "Landwehrmann" family, which appeared as frequently as those of our Landwehr family. And, on occasion, we found that our family name was erroneously recorded as "Landwehrmann".
As we pursued the ancestry of our family further back, into the 18th century, we still found no change in the family name. It was not until we turned back the pages to the turn of the century, about 1700, that we began to note variations. During the period 1678 to 1703, references to our Landwehr family were found in at least three forms:
- "bei der Landwehr", meaning near, at, in, with, or by the Landwehr
- "von der Landwehr", meaning from, or of, the Landwehr
- "Landwehrmann", meaning Landwehr man
While we cannot determine the exact origin of the name of our family, it would appear that we have approached that point in history when our family first assumed the Landwehr surname. Perhaps one branch of the family shortened the name to Landwehr by dropping the prefixes "bei der" and "von der", while another branch of the family adopted the "Landwehrmann" variation.
If we could trace the Landwehr surname back to our ancestor who was first identified with the Landwehr name, we might find a sheriff, some type of policeman, or a member of a military unit. Until more definitive information becomes available, we feel comfortable with the assumption that our Landwehr surname was derived from a description, such as "bei der Landwehr", of an early ancestor who was a "defender of the land".