The First Year in America
When they first set foot on Franklin County soil, Anna Landwehr was forty-three years old, Henry was twenty, Philip was almost eighteen, Maria was fourteen, Fritz was ten, and William was almost six. We can only guess at their emotions as their journey finally ended. Certainly the younger children must have been homesick. The older children may have had some understanding of the greater opportunities awaiting them in their adopted land, and their homesickness may have been tempered by the excitement of their new surroundings. Anna surely felt both joy from seeing her sister again, and some anxiety in regard to how she would care for her family. All of them must have been relieved that the long and arduous journey had finally ended.
After their journey of over eight hundred miles since disembarking at New Orleans, the Landwehrs were undoubtedly comforted by the strong German influences that surrounded them in their new community. While their language and customs certainly differed radically from those of many Americans, the Landwehrs settled in an area heavily populated by other German immigrants with backgrounds very similar to their own. The reason for the predominantly German population can be found in the history of the area.
The first white men to arrive in the area later to be known as Franklin County were French hunters and traders, who named many of the streams in the county. Daniel Boone lived in the southwest part of the county until 1803, when he moved across the Missouri River to the area that would later become Warren County.
The first white settler arrived in 1803, only fifty-six years before our Landwehr family. At that time, the land was part of the "St. Louis District", and was still under Spanish control. A handful of early settlers received the last of the Spanish land grants in 1803 and 1804. The early settlers were part of the leading edge of the westward movement of the American frontier. Most were Methodists and Baptists from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, who brought Negro slaves with them.
The land that would later become Franklin County first became an American possession as a part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804. In 1812, when the Missouri Territory was organized, it was subdivided into five counties. These five counties were gradually broken down into smaller counties, and Franklin County was formed out of St. Louis County in 1818. Missouri's application for admission into the Union as a slave state caused a nationwide dispute between slavery and anti-slavery sympathizers. This dispute was not settled until 1820, when Congress passed the Missouri Compromise. Under this legislation, Missouri entered the Union as a slave state on August 10, 1821. By the time Missouri was admitted into the Union, the number of counties had increased to fifteen. One of those was Franklin County, which was organized December 11, 1818. The county was named after Benjamin Franklin, and the first county seat was at Newport (the county seat was moved to Union in 1827).
Only three years later, in 1824, an event occurred that would later contribute to a massive German migration to Missouri, and to Franklin County. Gottfried Duden, born in 1785 in Remscheid, Duchy of Berg, Germany, was a son of a wealthy apothecary. He studied law and medicine, began his career as an attorney in the Prussian civil service, and was a soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Then, as a civil servant, he observed first-hand the sufferings of his fellow countrymen. The chaotic political, social and economic conditions in Germany in the early nineteenth century created discontented and disillusioned masses. The Napoleonic Wars and the Napoleonic codes, Prussian rule, and increased population growth had caused disasterous effects. Thousands of Germans had begun to emigrate to other lands. Duden concluded that excess population caused most of the evils of Germany. Determined to find relief for himself and his countrymen, he obtained a leave of absence to study medicine, and sailed to America with a friend.
After landing near Baltimore in August, Gottfried and his friend travelled to St. Louis by wagon, a trip of eight weeks. After scouting for a suitable location, Duden and his friend each bought land near the town of Dutzow, in Warren County, Missouri (just north of Franklin County). Duden built a house, employed a housekeeper and a farmer, rendered medical services to his neighbors, and wrote idyllic descriptions of life in Missouri to a friend in Germany. Duden did none of the grueling work required to build a home and till the land. He was a gentleman farmer, hiring what he needed to be done.
After a stay of over two years, Duden returned to Germany in 1827. In 1829, Duden published his Report of a Journey to the Western States of North America and a Stay of Several Years Along the Missouri (During the Years 1824, '25, '26, and 1827). The Report began with a series of thirty six letters which Duden had written from Missouri to his friend in Germany, and was followed by his discussion of the United States. The Report was widely circulated. His letters were optimistic and full of praise for the land, the crops, and the life in this country: land was cheap and productive, taxes were low, game was plentiful. But his letters also pointed out some of the hardships and adversities immigrants would encounter in the new land, and warned that no one should come without some capital.
This type of promotional literature, which enticed foreigners to settle in Missouri and other midwestern states, contributed significantly to the German influx which began in the 1830's. Duden has been called "the person who did the most to publicize the opportunities in Missouri throughout the German states and thereby to stimulate the migration of his countrymen". As the result of his publication of his Report in 1829, and his additional books on the subject in the 1830's, thousands of Germans came to Missouri. Some were disenchanted when they found that the land was not as idyllic as portrayed by Duden, and attacked his work. Most immigrants, however, were successful in their adjustment to the frontier, and were happy with their new life in Missouri.
Among the Germans who read Duden's Report, and were induced to leave their homeland and come to Missouri, was Friedrich Muench. A preacher and philosopher, Muench helped lead two hundred families who had formed an association called Die Giessener Auswanderungs Gesellschaft. The families settled in Warren and Franklin Counties in 1832. Friedrich Muench was active in both public and religious affairs. He served in the Missouri Senate for several years. He wrote two books about the State of Missouri which were widely read in Germany, and encouraged further immigration to the state.
As German immigrants continued to stream into the lower Missouri River valley, they tended to establish their new home near earlier German immigrants, leading to the development of German communities, then villages and towns. A settlement of particular interest is the town of Hermann, located on the Missouri River in northeast Gasconade County, just a few miles from the area where our Landwehr family would eventually settle in northwest Franklin County. Hermann represents one of the most successful attempts of various German organizations to establish German towns in America.
Hermann was founded in 1837 by the Deutsche Ansiedlung Geschellschaft (German Settlement Society) of Philadelphia to perpetuate in America the German language and Germanic culture and ideals. The Society chose this site because they believed that its semi-isolation combined American advantages with the best opportunity for reaching their goal, and because Missouri was the home of Friedrich Muench. Hermann grew rapidly, and by 1839 (only two years after its founding), it had a population of 450, with ninety houses, five stores, two hotels and a Post Office.
The German emigration to Missouri, then, began about 1830. Travel at that time was mostly by boat. The German immigrants found that most of the choice spots in the bottoms along the mighty Missouri River were already occupied by the early settlers. Therefore, many of the immigrants followed the creeks back from the river, settling on the hills along the creeks, where they began the hard life of pioneer farmers.
But the Franklin County that our Landwehr ancestors found in 1859 was no longer a part of the frontier. The frontier had moved further west. The Missouri Pacific Railroad was built through Franklin County in 1853 and 1854, five years before our ancestors arrived. The St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad was built about the same time as the Missouri Pacific, and was the southwest branch of that railroad.
When the Landwehr family arrived in the fall of 1859, many of the families living in northwest Franklin County were German. And many of these German families were from the same part of Germany that the Landwehr family left behind. The family history written by Katie Wolff provides us with a valuable glimpse of our family's first year in America. Referring to Anna Landwehr and her five children, Katie wrote:
"They settled down in Senate Grove with her sister, but she had a family of her own and the house was too small for all of them. The two oldest boys soon found work, and the girl, too, went to St. Louis to work..."
If we insist on historical accuracy, the family did not settle in Senate Grove, as that name was not associated with the community until 1891. But they did settle near the site that would later bear the name of Senate Grove. Anna's sister, Hannah Doermann, lived four miles west of New Haven, and exactly two miles due east of the present site of the Senate Grove Methodist Church. A map of southern Warren County and northwest Franklin County, including New Haven, is provided by :figref refid=warren.. A map of the immediate area where the Doermann farm was located is provided by :figref refid=mmeyer..
Anna Landwehr and her children probably arrived at her sister's farmstead about the end of November. Winter would soon be upon them. Adequate shelter for Anna's family must have been a primary concern for both Anna and her sister. But Hermann and Hannah Doermann had four children of their own, ranging in age from two years to nine years. Katie Wolff's history recounts that "the house was too small for all of them." Alternatives would have to be found to house the family.
Anna's actions to provide for herself and her family probably were similar to the actions of thousands of other immigrant families in similar circumstances. Those in the family who were capable of providing for themselves did so. Those who were not capable of providing for themselves were cared for by relatives, or by others who were sympathetic to their plight.
We don't know how long it took for Anna to find other homes for each of her children. We know that Anna very quickly found another home for herself, when she remarried about one month after her arrival at her sister's home. On December 31, 1859, "Mrs. Elizabeth Landwehr" (Anna) was married to "Mr. Heinrich Guese". The marriage was performed by Gerhard Timken, the local German Methodist minister. :fig id=anna1 frame=box depth='6.3i'.
:figcap.Wedding portrait of Henry and Anna (Bonsen) Landwehr Guese
:figdesc.Henry and Anna were married December 31, 1859.
Courtesy of Ella (Linenschmidt) Trietsch.
:efig
:fig id=warren frame=box depth=8i.
:figcap.Map of southern Warren and northern Franklin Counties
:efig.
:fig id=mmeyer frame=box depth='6.7i'.
:figcap.Map of Senate Grove area
:figdesc.From Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri, published
in 1878.
:efig.
Heinrich 'Henry' Guese was about forty-two years old when he and Anna were married. He had brought his family to America from Lippe-Detmold seven years earlier. After settling in the New Haven area, Henry's wife and eldest daughter died, leaving Henry a widower with five children to raise. Henry's oldest son, Fritz Guese, owned a farm one and one-half miles west of the Hermann Doermann farm. Henry Guese was probably living with his son, Fritz, when Henry and Anna were married in 1859. For further information about the Guese family, see :hdref refid=guese..
The fact that Anna and Henry were married so quickly after Anna arrived in Franklin County raises questions about their marriage. Did Henry Guese and Anna Landwehr know each other in Germany? Was their marriage arranged before Anna emigrated to America, or was it planned after Anna's arrival?
Henry Guese was from Lippe-Detmold, a small German state whose border was less than ten miles from the Landwehr's home town of Joellenbeck. While it is not impossible that they knew each other before they emigrated to America, it seems unlikely. Regarding the question of when their marriage was arranged, we have no way of knowing the answer. Both Henry Guese and Anna Landwehr probably spoke the same dialect of the German language, they both were in need of a spouse, and Anna settled near the farm where we believe that Henry lived. Under these circumstances, a hastily arranged marriage would not have been unusual.
Our next opportunity to check on the Landwehr family's housing arrangements occured the following fall, about ten months after their arrival. The 1860 Federal census, taken in late September and early October of 1860, gives us some information about the arrangements that had been made for the family. Anna was living with her new husband, Henry Guese. Living with them were Henry Guese's two youngest sons, thirteen-year-old Philip, and eleven-year-old William. Henry Guese did not own a farm, and it appears that he and Anna may have lived in a separate house on the farm owned by Henry's son, Fritz Guese.
We have not been able to locate Henry Landwehr, Anna's oldest son, in the 1860 census, but assume that he was working as a farm hand in the area around the Henry Guese home. Philip Landwehr was living with Henry and Louisa Schroder, and was working for them as a farm laborer. While we don't know the exact location of the Henry Schroder farm, there were only six dwellings separating their home from the Henry Guese home in the census records, so Philip was living in the same neighborhood as his mother.
We have not been able to locate Maria Landwehr in the Franklin County census records in 1860. Katie Wolff's history informs us that "the girl went to St. Louis to work". So, it would appear that Maria left the security of her family during the first months following their arrival in Franklin County, to go to work in St. Louis. She was very young, celebrating her fifteenth birthday in February of 1860, but it was not unusual for girls of that age to work in St. Louis.
In the fall of 1860, eleven-year-old Fritz Landwehr was living with Fred and Mary Stoppelman, and their thirteen-year-old daughter. Next door to the Stoppelman family, six-year-old William Landwehr was living with Henry and Catharine Drewel, and a sixteen-year-old Stoppelman girl. The Stoppelman and Drewel families had both earlier immigrated from Prussia, and had become established on their own farms. The census records indicate that Fritz and William Landwehr, and the two Stoppleman girls, all attended school that year.
While we cannot be certain, a study of both census records and land records suggests that the Stoppleman and Drewel farms were probably located about two miles north and two miles west of the farm where Anna and Henry Guese were living. That location would be approximately four miles south of the village of Berger, and would be very near the Bethany Evangelical Church. This theory is strengthened somewhat by the fact that the Post Office serving the Stoppelman and Drewel farms in 1860 was Berger Station (the early name for Berger), while the New Haven Post Office served the Guese, Doermann, and Schroder farms.
While we don't know where Fritz and William attended school, we can speculate. The Stoppleman and Drewel families were affiliated with the nearby Bethany Evangelical Church. Some of the early German Evangelical Churches provided "German schools" for the children of their congregations. We know, for example, that the St. John's Evangelical Church in Union, the Ebenezer Evangelical Church north of Gerald, and the St. John's Evangelical Church at Berger all provided "German schools". We don't know whether the Bethany Evangelical Church provided a school, but it is possible.
A history of the Ebenezer Evangelical Church, north of Gerald, gives us some appreciation of how these early schools operated. The Ebenezer Church school was organized in 1856, about two years after the congregation was organized. Classes were to meet from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the winter, and from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the summer, with two weeks of vacation in the spring, and another two weeks in the summer. The school was naturally taught in German, and subjects included German Reading, English Reading, Evangelical Catechism, Bible History, Writing, Arithmetic, Singing, American Geography, and Church History. Parents paid 37 1/2 cents per month per child, with a reduced rate of twenty-five cents per month per child available to those parents who sent three or more students.
The villages of Berger Station and New Haven served German immigrants living in the area where Anna and her family settled. The town of Hermann was only a few miles more distant, and the small village of Boeuf Creek (later known as Detmold) was located only a few miles southeast of the Guese farm. But the country store most convenient to Anna's new home was probably the Meyer's Store, located on the Chris Meyer farm just over one mile northwest of the Fritz Guese farm (see :figref refid=mmeyer.). This is speculative only because we don't know the year when the Meyer's Store first began serving that neighborhood.
The Meyer farm was the site of both the Meyer's Store and a Methodist Episcopal Church. Located just north of the Meyer's Store, the Immanuel Methodist Church was the earliest German Methodist Episcopal Church in the area. The congregation was founded in 1844, and the church was known for some time as the Meyer's Church. Further information about the early history of the Methodist Episcopal Church in northwest Franklin County is provided by :hdref refid=meth..
The Meyer's Church stood on top of a hill, nestled among the cedars. The church and graveyard were abandoned in 1878, when a new building was dedicated at another site. When this author visited the site of this early church with Forest Tugel in 1977, one hundred years after it was abandoned, the only remains were a portion of the church building foundation, overgrown with cedars, and a few toppled gravestones, lying hidden in the tall grass. But one could still clearly observe the path through the oak trees which marked the route of an early road--a road that climbed the hill to the church from the north, and then continued southeast toward the old Meyer's Store. It was a road that our Landwehr family probably travelled many times. All available information suggests that Anna Landwehr affiliated with the Meyer's Church soon after she arrived in Franklin County, and settled in that neighborhood.
The America that our Landwehr family found in 1859, then, was a rural America. A rural America of predominantly German farmers, of rural German churches, of small country stores operated by other German farm families, of other Germans like themselves, struggling to provide a new beginning for their families in the land of opportunity. The politics of the nation were probably of little interest to most of these industrious German farmers. But in the industrial cities of the North, on the cotton plantations of the South, and in the political centers of the nation, long-standing national problems were being fiercely debated. National problems which would soon engulf the nation in an inferno that would demand the attention of every American family--from the descendants of the Mayflower families to the newest German immigrant.
After their journey of over eight hundred miles since disembarking at New Orleans, the Landwehrs were undoubtedly comforted by the strong German influences that surrounded them in their new community. While their language and customs certainly differed radically from those of many Americans, the Landwehrs settled in an area heavily populated by other German immigrants with backgrounds very similar to their own. The reason for the predominantly German population can be found in the history of the area.
The first white men to arrive in the area later to be known as Franklin County were French hunters and traders, who named many of the streams in the county. Daniel Boone lived in the southwest part of the county until 1803, when he moved across the Missouri River to the area that would later become Warren County.
The first white settler arrived in 1803, only fifty-six years before our Landwehr family. At that time, the land was part of the "St. Louis District", and was still under Spanish control. A handful of early settlers received the last of the Spanish land grants in 1803 and 1804. The early settlers were part of the leading edge of the westward movement of the American frontier. Most were Methodists and Baptists from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, who brought Negro slaves with them.
The land that would later become Franklin County first became an American possession as a part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804. In 1812, when the Missouri Territory was organized, it was subdivided into five counties. These five counties were gradually broken down into smaller counties, and Franklin County was formed out of St. Louis County in 1818. Missouri's application for admission into the Union as a slave state caused a nationwide dispute between slavery and anti-slavery sympathizers. This dispute was not settled until 1820, when Congress passed the Missouri Compromise. Under this legislation, Missouri entered the Union as a slave state on August 10, 1821. By the time Missouri was admitted into the Union, the number of counties had increased to fifteen. One of those was Franklin County, which was organized December 11, 1818. The county was named after Benjamin Franklin, and the first county seat was at Newport (the county seat was moved to Union in 1827).
Only three years later, in 1824, an event occurred that would later contribute to a massive German migration to Missouri, and to Franklin County. Gottfried Duden, born in 1785 in Remscheid, Duchy of Berg, Germany, was a son of a wealthy apothecary. He studied law and medicine, began his career as an attorney in the Prussian civil service, and was a soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Then, as a civil servant, he observed first-hand the sufferings of his fellow countrymen. The chaotic political, social and economic conditions in Germany in the early nineteenth century created discontented and disillusioned masses. The Napoleonic Wars and the Napoleonic codes, Prussian rule, and increased population growth had caused disasterous effects. Thousands of Germans had begun to emigrate to other lands. Duden concluded that excess population caused most of the evils of Germany. Determined to find relief for himself and his countrymen, he obtained a leave of absence to study medicine, and sailed to America with a friend.
After landing near Baltimore in August, Gottfried and his friend travelled to St. Louis by wagon, a trip of eight weeks. After scouting for a suitable location, Duden and his friend each bought land near the town of Dutzow, in Warren County, Missouri (just north of Franklin County). Duden built a house, employed a housekeeper and a farmer, rendered medical services to his neighbors, and wrote idyllic descriptions of life in Missouri to a friend in Germany. Duden did none of the grueling work required to build a home and till the land. He was a gentleman farmer, hiring what he needed to be done.
After a stay of over two years, Duden returned to Germany in 1827. In 1829, Duden published his Report of a Journey to the Western States of North America and a Stay of Several Years Along the Missouri (During the Years 1824, '25, '26, and 1827). The Report began with a series of thirty six letters which Duden had written from Missouri to his friend in Germany, and was followed by his discussion of the United States. The Report was widely circulated. His letters were optimistic and full of praise for the land, the crops, and the life in this country: land was cheap and productive, taxes were low, game was plentiful. But his letters also pointed out some of the hardships and adversities immigrants would encounter in the new land, and warned that no one should come without some capital.
This type of promotional literature, which enticed foreigners to settle in Missouri and other midwestern states, contributed significantly to the German influx which began in the 1830's. Duden has been called "the person who did the most to publicize the opportunities in Missouri throughout the German states and thereby to stimulate the migration of his countrymen". As the result of his publication of his Report in 1829, and his additional books on the subject in the 1830's, thousands of Germans came to Missouri. Some were disenchanted when they found that the land was not as idyllic as portrayed by Duden, and attacked his work. Most immigrants, however, were successful in their adjustment to the frontier, and were happy with their new life in Missouri.
Among the Germans who read Duden's Report, and were induced to leave their homeland and come to Missouri, was Friedrich Muench. A preacher and philosopher, Muench helped lead two hundred families who had formed an association called Die Giessener Auswanderungs Gesellschaft. The families settled in Warren and Franklin Counties in 1832. Friedrich Muench was active in both public and religious affairs. He served in the Missouri Senate for several years. He wrote two books about the State of Missouri which were widely read in Germany, and encouraged further immigration to the state.
As German immigrants continued to stream into the lower Missouri River valley, they tended to establish their new home near earlier German immigrants, leading to the development of German communities, then villages and towns. A settlement of particular interest is the town of Hermann, located on the Missouri River in northeast Gasconade County, just a few miles from the area where our Landwehr family would eventually settle in northwest Franklin County. Hermann represents one of the most successful attempts of various German organizations to establish German towns in America.
Hermann was founded in 1837 by the Deutsche Ansiedlung Geschellschaft (German Settlement Society) of Philadelphia to perpetuate in America the German language and Germanic culture and ideals. The Society chose this site because they believed that its semi-isolation combined American advantages with the best opportunity for reaching their goal, and because Missouri was the home of Friedrich Muench. Hermann grew rapidly, and by 1839 (only two years after its founding), it had a population of 450, with ninety houses, five stores, two hotels and a Post Office.
The German emigration to Missouri, then, began about 1830. Travel at that time was mostly by boat. The German immigrants found that most of the choice spots in the bottoms along the mighty Missouri River were already occupied by the early settlers. Therefore, many of the immigrants followed the creeks back from the river, settling on the hills along the creeks, where they began the hard life of pioneer farmers.
But the Franklin County that our Landwehr ancestors found in 1859 was no longer a part of the frontier. The frontier had moved further west. The Missouri Pacific Railroad was built through Franklin County in 1853 and 1854, five years before our ancestors arrived. The St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad was built about the same time as the Missouri Pacific, and was the southwest branch of that railroad.
When the Landwehr family arrived in the fall of 1859, many of the families living in northwest Franklin County were German. And many of these German families were from the same part of Germany that the Landwehr family left behind. The family history written by Katie Wolff provides us with a valuable glimpse of our family's first year in America. Referring to Anna Landwehr and her five children, Katie wrote:
"They settled down in Senate Grove with her sister, but she had a family of her own and the house was too small for all of them. The two oldest boys soon found work, and the girl, too, went to St. Louis to work..."
If we insist on historical accuracy, the family did not settle in Senate Grove, as that name was not associated with the community until 1891. But they did settle near the site that would later bear the name of Senate Grove. Anna's sister, Hannah Doermann, lived four miles west of New Haven, and exactly two miles due east of the present site of the Senate Grove Methodist Church. A map of southern Warren County and northwest Franklin County, including New Haven, is provided by :figref refid=warren.. A map of the immediate area where the Doermann farm was located is provided by :figref refid=mmeyer..
Anna Landwehr and her children probably arrived at her sister's farmstead about the end of November. Winter would soon be upon them. Adequate shelter for Anna's family must have been a primary concern for both Anna and her sister. But Hermann and Hannah Doermann had four children of their own, ranging in age from two years to nine years. Katie Wolff's history recounts that "the house was too small for all of them." Alternatives would have to be found to house the family.
Anna's actions to provide for herself and her family probably were similar to the actions of thousands of other immigrant families in similar circumstances. Those in the family who were capable of providing for themselves did so. Those who were not capable of providing for themselves were cared for by relatives, or by others who were sympathetic to their plight.
We don't know how long it took for Anna to find other homes for each of her children. We know that Anna very quickly found another home for herself, when she remarried about one month after her arrival at her sister's home. On December 31, 1859, "Mrs. Elizabeth Landwehr" (Anna) was married to "Mr. Heinrich Guese". The marriage was performed by Gerhard Timken, the local German Methodist minister. :fig id=anna1 frame=box depth='6.3i'.
:figcap.Wedding portrait of Henry and Anna (Bonsen) Landwehr Guese
:figdesc.Henry and Anna were married December 31, 1859.
Courtesy of Ella (Linenschmidt) Trietsch.
:efig
:fig id=warren frame=box depth=8i.
:figcap.Map of southern Warren and northern Franklin Counties
:efig.
:fig id=mmeyer frame=box depth='6.7i'.
:figcap.Map of Senate Grove area
:figdesc.From Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri, published
in 1878.
:efig.
Heinrich 'Henry' Guese was about forty-two years old when he and Anna were married. He had brought his family to America from Lippe-Detmold seven years earlier. After settling in the New Haven area, Henry's wife and eldest daughter died, leaving Henry a widower with five children to raise. Henry's oldest son, Fritz Guese, owned a farm one and one-half miles west of the Hermann Doermann farm. Henry Guese was probably living with his son, Fritz, when Henry and Anna were married in 1859. For further information about the Guese family, see :hdref refid=guese..
The fact that Anna and Henry were married so quickly after Anna arrived in Franklin County raises questions about their marriage. Did Henry Guese and Anna Landwehr know each other in Germany? Was their marriage arranged before Anna emigrated to America, or was it planned after Anna's arrival?
Henry Guese was from Lippe-Detmold, a small German state whose border was less than ten miles from the Landwehr's home town of Joellenbeck. While it is not impossible that they knew each other before they emigrated to America, it seems unlikely. Regarding the question of when their marriage was arranged, we have no way of knowing the answer. Both Henry Guese and Anna Landwehr probably spoke the same dialect of the German language, they both were in need of a spouse, and Anna settled near the farm where we believe that Henry lived. Under these circumstances, a hastily arranged marriage would not have been unusual.
Our next opportunity to check on the Landwehr family's housing arrangements occured the following fall, about ten months after their arrival. The 1860 Federal census, taken in late September and early October of 1860, gives us some information about the arrangements that had been made for the family. Anna was living with her new husband, Henry Guese. Living with them were Henry Guese's two youngest sons, thirteen-year-old Philip, and eleven-year-old William. Henry Guese did not own a farm, and it appears that he and Anna may have lived in a separate house on the farm owned by Henry's son, Fritz Guese.
We have not been able to locate Henry Landwehr, Anna's oldest son, in the 1860 census, but assume that he was working as a farm hand in the area around the Henry Guese home. Philip Landwehr was living with Henry and Louisa Schroder, and was working for them as a farm laborer. While we don't know the exact location of the Henry Schroder farm, there were only six dwellings separating their home from the Henry Guese home in the census records, so Philip was living in the same neighborhood as his mother.
We have not been able to locate Maria Landwehr in the Franklin County census records in 1860. Katie Wolff's history informs us that "the girl went to St. Louis to work". So, it would appear that Maria left the security of her family during the first months following their arrival in Franklin County, to go to work in St. Louis. She was very young, celebrating her fifteenth birthday in February of 1860, but it was not unusual for girls of that age to work in St. Louis.
In the fall of 1860, eleven-year-old Fritz Landwehr was living with Fred and Mary Stoppelman, and their thirteen-year-old daughter. Next door to the Stoppelman family, six-year-old William Landwehr was living with Henry and Catharine Drewel, and a sixteen-year-old Stoppelman girl. The Stoppelman and Drewel families had both earlier immigrated from Prussia, and had become established on their own farms. The census records indicate that Fritz and William Landwehr, and the two Stoppleman girls, all attended school that year.
While we cannot be certain, a study of both census records and land records suggests that the Stoppleman and Drewel farms were probably located about two miles north and two miles west of the farm where Anna and Henry Guese were living. That location would be approximately four miles south of the village of Berger, and would be very near the Bethany Evangelical Church. This theory is strengthened somewhat by the fact that the Post Office serving the Stoppelman and Drewel farms in 1860 was Berger Station (the early name for Berger), while the New Haven Post Office served the Guese, Doermann, and Schroder farms.
While we don't know where Fritz and William attended school, we can speculate. The Stoppleman and Drewel families were affiliated with the nearby Bethany Evangelical Church. Some of the early German Evangelical Churches provided "German schools" for the children of their congregations. We know, for example, that the St. John's Evangelical Church in Union, the Ebenezer Evangelical Church north of Gerald, and the St. John's Evangelical Church at Berger all provided "German schools". We don't know whether the Bethany Evangelical Church provided a school, but it is possible.
A history of the Ebenezer Evangelical Church, north of Gerald, gives us some appreciation of how these early schools operated. The Ebenezer Church school was organized in 1856, about two years after the congregation was organized. Classes were to meet from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the winter, and from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the summer, with two weeks of vacation in the spring, and another two weeks in the summer. The school was naturally taught in German, and subjects included German Reading, English Reading, Evangelical Catechism, Bible History, Writing, Arithmetic, Singing, American Geography, and Church History. Parents paid 37 1/2 cents per month per child, with a reduced rate of twenty-five cents per month per child available to those parents who sent three or more students.
The villages of Berger Station and New Haven served German immigrants living in the area where Anna and her family settled. The town of Hermann was only a few miles more distant, and the small village of Boeuf Creek (later known as Detmold) was located only a few miles southeast of the Guese farm. But the country store most convenient to Anna's new home was probably the Meyer's Store, located on the Chris Meyer farm just over one mile northwest of the Fritz Guese farm (see :figref refid=mmeyer.). This is speculative only because we don't know the year when the Meyer's Store first began serving that neighborhood.
The Meyer farm was the site of both the Meyer's Store and a Methodist Episcopal Church. Located just north of the Meyer's Store, the Immanuel Methodist Church was the earliest German Methodist Episcopal Church in the area. The congregation was founded in 1844, and the church was known for some time as the Meyer's Church. Further information about the early history of the Methodist Episcopal Church in northwest Franklin County is provided by :hdref refid=meth..
The Meyer's Church stood on top of a hill, nestled among the cedars. The church and graveyard were abandoned in 1878, when a new building was dedicated at another site. When this author visited the site of this early church with Forest Tugel in 1977, one hundred years after it was abandoned, the only remains were a portion of the church building foundation, overgrown with cedars, and a few toppled gravestones, lying hidden in the tall grass. But one could still clearly observe the path through the oak trees which marked the route of an early road--a road that climbed the hill to the church from the north, and then continued southeast toward the old Meyer's Store. It was a road that our Landwehr family probably travelled many times. All available information suggests that Anna Landwehr affiliated with the Meyer's Church soon after she arrived in Franklin County, and settled in that neighborhood.
The America that our Landwehr family found in 1859, then, was a rural America. A rural America of predominantly German farmers, of rural German churches, of small country stores operated by other German farm families, of other Germans like themselves, struggling to provide a new beginning for their families in the land of opportunity. The politics of the nation were probably of little interest to most of these industrious German farmers. But in the industrial cities of the North, on the cotton plantations of the South, and in the political centers of the nation, long-standing national problems were being fiercely debated. National problems which would soon engulf the nation in an inferno that would demand the attention of every American family--from the descendants of the Mayflower families to the newest German immigrant.