Germans began settling the Missouri River hills west of St. Louis in 1833, and many came with one man's book in their baggage. In 1837 a society of Germans in Philadelphia bought land in Gasconade County and named its town Hermann. Two county histories, the 1885 History of St. Charles, Montgomery and Warren Counties and the 1888 Goodspeed History of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Crawford and Gasconade Counties, name the first families, their churches, schools and papers, and the vineyards that came to support Hermann and Augusta.
Written from 2 old histories, all free to read on the Internet Archive: History of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Crawford and Gasconade Counties, Missouri (1888); History of St. Charles, Montgomery and Warren Counties, Missouri (1885). Everything below comes from those books, and where they give an opinion, we say so.
Why they came: Duden's book and the first societies
The 1885 history of St. Charles, Montgomery and Warren counties starts with Gottfried Duden, an educated German who came to America in 1824-25 and spent nearly a year in St. Charles, Warren and Montgomery counties. Back home he published a book of 350 pages about the country. It sold in huge numbers, and the 1885 writer says every immigrant family carried a copy, its descriptions so exact that newcomers knew the farms and their owners' names as they passed. Expecting trouble, some came armed; the book pictures a "stout burgher marching at the head of his family" with a saber at his side.
Louis Eversman traveled with Duden and stayed when Duden went home, so the 1885 history counts him the first German settler in this part of Missouri. Most of the first immigrants, the book says, came from Hespers, Germany, in 1833, in companies named for their home places. The Berlin Society brought Charles Madler, Charles A. Miller, William and Ferdinand Roach, Henry Walks, Henry Seitz, Louis, William and Conrad Haspes, August Rixrath, Daniel and Philip Renner, Jacob Sack and Charles V. Spankern, most of whom settled near Augusta. Others who came about then were Charles Wincker, George H. Mindrup, Francis Krekel and the Mallinckrodt brothers, Julius, Emile, Herman and Conrad. Also in 1833, Prussian families settled at Dog Prairie in St. Charles County, among them Antone Arens and his wife Amelia Ostoman, Francis Moledor and his sons Frank and Casper, John Freymuth, and Baltasar Yetsch of Alsace.
The Gissen Society arrived in 1834 under Frederick Muench, who had been a Protestant Liberal pastor in Germany for 13 years and gathered the society from his own congregation. Its families included Gotlieb Beng, John Kessler, Jacob Jeude, Frederick Beck, Dr. Frederick Kruge, Henry Becker, Charles Kesel, and Andrew and Louis Klug, and they settled in eastern Warren and western St. Charles counties. The same book's sketch of Muench's son Adolph says the family came as early as 1832, so it gives two dates. That sketch calls Friedrich Muench the leader of the German element and says his two books on Missouri spread all over Germany.
The German Settlement Society of Philadelphia
Hermann was planned in Philadelphia. The 1888 Goodspeed history says the German Settlement Society's first recorded meeting, on June 10, 1836, considered founding a German town. The Rev. Heinrich Ginal presided. Thomas Padaraque spoke for Texas, but the members could not agree, and some preferred northwestern Pennsylvania. At a June 25 meeting Padaraque proposed 104,000 acres in Jefferson County, Missouri, at $1.25 an acre. On August 9, 1836, the constitution was read and some fifty people signed, with J. C. Wesselhoeft as secretary.
On July 27, 1837, George F. Bayer was sent to find land, and the book calls his trip a great success. On October 5 the members heard that land had been bought in Missouri and voted to name the town Hermann. Bayer became general agent at $600 a year. No member could buy more than 200 acres. Market Street was to be ten feet wider than Philadelphia's, with a market house down the middle.
The deed, dated November 14, 1837, ran from Bayer and his wife Catharine to four trustees: Adam Maag, a bottler; Adam Smith and Jacob Hummell, morocco dressers; and Frederick Klett, a druggist. It covered forty-five tracts in Gasconade County, some first entered by settlers such as Stephen Atkins and Godfrey Schoenthaler, in all 10,467 acres for $1. In September 1839 the society agreed to deed everything to the town council at Hermann.
“Each family had a copy of Duden’s book, and so accurate were his descriptions of places and names that they knew the farms and the names of their owners as they came to them.”
The first winter at Hermann
Bayer fell sick at Pittsburgh, but a first party went on: Christopher Oelschlager, his wife and child; G. Henry Gentner and his wife, married November 7, 1837; Daniel Oelschlager, his wife and child; Henry Johns, his wife and two children; and George Riefenstahl, his wife and five children. They caught the last steamboat up the Missouri that season and landed at Hermann on December 6, 1837.
A farmer named Willis Hensley lived on the town site, and none of the houses there had glass windows. Gentner, a carpenter, made a sash window for Hensley's house. When Hensley's daughter saw Mrs. Gentner's calico dress, nothing would do but one of her own, so some of the men crossed the river on the ice and hauled goods back on a hand sled. Daniel Oelschlager moved into Hensley's stable with the only stove in Hermann.
About a month later Jacob Rommell walked out from St. Louis and cut the first timber. In 1838 came the families of Krauter, Kroeber, Meyer, Rohrbacher, Maushund, Nieder, Weber, Quandt, Nuesche and Morlock, along with Francis Jacob Langendoerfer, Charles Trautwein and Charles D. Eitzen, about 150 people that year. The 1839 arrivals included William Edward and Louis Pommer, whose father died on the way, George Noe, Paul Hoffmann, John Bohlken and Gottlieb Grossmann. By early 1840 the town had about 200 people.
H. W. D. Wiedersprecher kept the first store, and his clerk, C. D. Eitzen, bought him out in 1841. The first births were Hermann Strecker, Hermann Bensing, Sr., and Charles Hoelin. Hard times came in 1842 and 1843, and many left for St. Joseph or St. Louis. Bayer, born in Weingarten, Baden, in 1800, had died at Hermann on March 18, 1839. By 1888 the town held about 1,500 people.
Town, school, church and paper in Hermann
The county court incorporated Hermann on February 4, 1839. The first elected trustees, Frederick Leder, Heinrich Heckmann, Hermann Bock, Julius Leupold and Silvester Doess, ordered their journal kept in both English and German. The town school taught both languages from the start. In 1839 the trustees hired a Mr. Hume at not less than $350 a year and bought 100 copies of Wilmsen's Kinderfreund and fifty of Webster's spelling book.
St. Paul's Evangelical Church was organized July 17, 1841, by A. Leimer, J. A. Sitzer, D. W. Widersprecher, C. D. Eitzen, J. H. Bohlken and others, and its brick church on West Wharf Street was built in 1844. St. George's Catholic Church was organized in 1840 by Magnus Will, Coelestin Dibold, Bernard Niehoff and thirty other members. Its parish sketch says the stone church was begun in 1845 and finished in 1850, while the town sketch says a Catholic church was built in 1844.
The 1888 book names two different first newspapers. One passage says a Mr. Muellenstehle started Die Volksfreund (the scan reads Volksfreuyid) in 1840 and that it "advo- cated the abolition of slavery." Another says the first was the weekly Hermann Wochenblatt (printed Wochenhlaft), begun in 1843 by Edward Muehl and C. P. Strehly, which Jacob Graf later renamed the Hermann Volksblatt. In 1888 Graf Bros. still published it in German, with the Advertiser-Courier in English.
“They were to have ten years in which to pay for their land, without interest, and they were required to plant one-fourth of an acre yearly until two acres had been planted.”
Vineyards and wine
Hermann's town board tied land to grapes. On February 12, 1844, it put the society's remaining land up at auction at not less than $1.25 an acre, with special terms for anyone who would plant the vine: ten years to pay with no interest, if the buyer planted a quarter acre a year until two acres were in grapes.
The Stone Hill Wine Company, started in 1861 by Poeschel & Scherer, was by 1888, in the history's words, "the main industry and support of Hermann." It owned thirty-five acres of vines, bought grapes from growers in nearby counties, and made about 200,000 gallons a year. Twelve of its casks were named for the twelve apostles, each carved with that apostle's portrait. The book claims its wines were the purest in the world and lists medals from Vienna in 1873 to New Orleans in 1885.
Across the river the 1885 history counted 400 acres of vineyards in St. Charles County, half in Femme Osage township near Augusta. Augusta growers began experimenting in 1840, and staked vineyards appeared in 1850. The Catawba vines planted before 1860 failed; by the time of the book two-thirds were Concord. Augusta had 20 wine cellars holding 100,000 gallons. George T. Heldman, born in Prussia in 1843, made about 4,000 gallons a year from five acres. George Muench made about 7,000 gallons from seven acres; his father, also George, came from Hesse-Darmstadt in 1837 and started the vineyard in 1860. Friedrich Muench was remembered as one of the first men in the state to encourage wine culture.
Augusta, Dutzow, Marthasville and Washington
Augusta began as Mount Pleasant, laid out in 1836 by Leonard Harold. Its own sketch dates German settlement there from 1835, naming Louis Aversman and Conrad, William and Louis Hospers; the county chapter says 1833 and spells the names Eversman and Haspes. Julius and Conrad Mallinckrodt came from Westphalia in 1837, and Conrad taught the first public school in St. Charles County, at Augusta. In 1856, with the temperance laws being enforced, thirteen German residents put up a tent on the river ice and organized the Augusta Harmonie Verein, among them John Fuhr, Frederick Wencker, Henry Vogt, George H. Mindrop and Dr. C. L. Gerling.
In Warren County, Marthasville was the first town; Holstein, Dutzow and Hopewell were its other towns, and a very large share of Charrette township's 3,170 people in 1880 were German. St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church near Dutzow was organized in 1837 by Bartholomew Roesner, Henry Dickhaus, Francis Krekel and others. Harmony Church began in 1843 with George H. Wahlbrink, Henry Bockhorst and E. H. Suhre among its members, and the Evangelical church at Holstein dates from 1848. The first German paper, Der Buerger, was short-lived at Warrenton; the Volksfreund began in 1880. The 1885 book adds that the county voted Democratic before the war, but its largely German population then voted Republican.
Washington, in Franklin County, had German roots too. The 1888 history says C. Eberius put up the first frame building in 1834 and Bernard Fricke kept a tavern in a log cabin. A. W. Kruger opened the first drug store in 1837, and the first church in town was the German Protestant church of 1838. The first German ball, at Fricke's house, drew about twenty people from Franklin, Warren and St. Charles counties at $2.25 a couple, which paid for the fiddling, supper and drinking.
Finding your German ancestors in these two books
The 1885 history prints family lists by group: the Berlin Society, the Gissen Society, the later arrivals, and the Prussian families of Dog Prairie in 1833, the Arens entry naming a wife and five children. The Augusta sketch names the thirteen founders of the Harmonie Verein. The Warren County church histories list founding members, often as husband "and wife," and the biographies of growers like the Heldmans and Muenches give birthplaces, marriages and children.
The 1888 Goodspeed history is strongest on Hermann. The November 14, 1837 deed lists each tract with the person the government conveyed it to, often Bayer himself but sometimes an earlier settler. The arrival lists give the first party by family size, then the families of 1838 and 1839, often with trades. Town and school trustees are named year by year, and the sketch closes with lodge rosters, the charter members of Manwaring Post of the G.A.R., and Hermann's business men in 1888. Spellings vary in the scans, Stuckhoff appearing as Stuckhofi* and Oelschlager once as Oelsclilager, so search every version of a surname.
The counties in this history
Where to look next on this site for families from Gasconade, Warren and St. Charles Counties.
- Gasconade County: Biographies from the county histories
- Warren County: Biographies from the county histories · People in the county history
- St. Charles County: Biographies from the county histories · Research guide
Finding your ancestor in Gasconade, Warren and St. Charles Counties
- Census records (free through 1950) list each person's occupation and town, so a work family shows up decade by decade.
- Death records: search our Missouri database by surname.
- The county histories themselves: the biographical sections of History of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Crawford and Gasconade Counties, Missouri and History of St. Charles, Montgomery and Warren Counties, Missouri hold hundreds of family sketches.
- Newspapers on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America carried obituaries, accidents, and local news.
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Ask about my family →Frequently asked questions
Who founded Hermann, Missouri?
The German Settlement Society of Philadelphia founded Hermann. Its agent, George F. Bayer, bought the land in 1837 and deeded 10,467 acres in Gasconade County to the society's trustees for $1. The first party, including the Oelschlager, Gentner, Johns and Riefenstahl families, landed on December 6, 1837, and about 150 people came in 1838.
Why did Germans settle in Warren and St. Charles counties?
The 1885 county history credits Gottfried Duden, who spent nearly a year in St. Charles, Warren and Montgomery counties and then published a book about the region in Germany. It says every immigrant family carried his book. The first companies came in 1833, and the Gissen Society under Frederick Muench followed in 1834.
When did wine making start at Hermann and Augusta?
At Augusta, growers began trials in 1840 and staked vineyards appeared in 1850, according to the 1885 history. At Hermann, the town offered society land on easy terms in 1844 to buyers who would plant the vine. The Stone Hill Wine Company, founded in 1861, made about 200,000 gallons a year by 1888.
What was the Gissen Society?
It was a group of emigrant families organized in 1834 by Frederick Muench, a Protestant Liberal pastor in Germany, from members of his own congregation. The 1885 history says the families, including Beng, Kessler, Jeude, Beck, Kruge, Becker and Klug, settled in eastern Warren and western St. Charles counties, where their descendants still lived.