The Whitchurch Family at Silver Creek

St Clair County Illinois rests in the southwestern part of the state and includes the towns of Belleville and Mascoutah.  It borders with the state of Missouri, and the famous prairie town of St Louis-East St Louis, which straddles the border, is within twenty miles of Belleville Illinois.  St Clair County’s earliest form of government divided the county into precincts, but later used the township system.  The Whitchurch farms were located about equidistant from the small St Clair communities of Freeburg and Fayetteville. 

 A description of the area in a St Clair County history, gives detail:

 . . Silver creek, which enters the township on its northern boundary, flows a southerly course, emptying into the Kaskaskia; tributaries furnish water for stock and other purposes. The streams are skirted with a fine growth of timber. The surface is gently undulating, with considerable stretches of rich prairie. The noted Tamarois prairie . . lies partially in this township. The soil is well adapted to all cereals, and produces abundant crops.

Some of the earliest surveys and land grants to immigrant settlers were taken out around the turn of the century.  Family names included Teter, Mitchell, Shook, Griffen, Biggs, Rutherford and Edgar.  By 1814, public domain lands were being purchased from the federal government.  These early purchasers included – James Adams, Matthew Atchison, Pierre Menard, *David Howell, William McIntosh, Samuel Griffith, G Hendricks (to Stephen Whiteside), Samuel Mitchell, William Goings, Thomas Pulliam and Daniel Stookey.

It is not clear exactly when William Whitchurch arrived in the area.  According to family history, William Whitchurch was born in New York City in 1778, and he was married to Elizabeth Howell in 1801 in Knox county Tennessee.  The first record of note in Illinois is when William Whitchurch appears in the 1820 Census, placing him near the Silver Creek “settlement” in St Clair county.  It seems likely that he came to the area about 1815, around the time that *David W Howell, his brother-in-law, purchased, “. . 160 acres, being the NE quarter section 25, April 27th, 1815.“

William Whitchurch was married three times. He was first married to Elizabeth Howell, with whom he had nine identified children.  After her death he was married to Celia Carr in 1824, St Clair county Illinois.  William and Celia had four children.  His final, brief marriage was to Sarah (maiden name unknown).  Sarah was the widow of a Mister Herrin and brought three Herrin children into her marriage with William Whitchurch in June of 1848.  William Whitchurch died three months later, in September 1848.

William Whitchurch and his son built a mill in 1828.  The county history tells us, “. . They did all the work themselves, except the blacksmithing. The stone, which they dressed themselves, was found in David Pulliam’s branch, about three miles south-east of FayettevilIe. It was a round rock about 5 feet in diameter. It was claimed by millers to be equal to any French burrstone. By changing teams, the mill would turn out seventy-five bushels per day. Oxen were mostly used in grinding . . . “

On 21 March 1811, seven families organized the Silver Creek Baptist Church. They met in homes until 1817, when a log church was built.  The church was constituted on the Bible of the Old and New Testament, and stated a stand against slavery.  Members of the Whitchurch family participated in the life of the Silver Creek Church. The deaths of William Whitchurch’s second wife, and two sons appear in the records:  Celia Whitchurch in November 1845, Wessel Whitchurch in January 1849, and James [White] Whitchurch in Nov 1852.

Today the Old Silver Creek church is gone. Families joined with the congregations of Freeburg, Fayetteville and Mascoutah.  An 1863 township map for St Clair County, shows William Whitchurch’s son Gilbert Whitchurch still in possession of the family farms along Silver Creek.  But, by 1870 Gilbert had moved on to Dekalb County Missouri.  A number of Whitchurch descendants remained in the Silver Creek area well into the twentieth century.


*The History of St Clair County Illinois refers to the early settler of the NE corner of section 25 as Daniel Howell.  But, a review of the land records confirms that it was David W Howell.  

Sources:
History of St Clair County, Vol 2; Wilderman, 1907.
St Clair County History; Brink, McDonough and Co, 1881.
Freeburg Centennial Booklet, 1859-1959; available online.


For more details on William Whitchurch, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

About the photo:
Turkey Hill Farm; from History of St Clair County Illinois; Brink, McDonough and Co, 1881.

Moving back in time:  Otis Sylvester Garrett 1894 > Isaac Sylvester Garrett 1860 > Celia Whitchurch 1833 > William Whitchurch 1778.
William Whitchurch is my husband’s 3xgreat-grandfather.

Lippe Detmold: German Homeland of the Biesemeier Family

Our Biesemeier ancestors were settled in the Principality of Lippe by the 1600’s.  Many Biesemeier births, marriages, and deaths appear in the Evangelical church records at Horn and Bosingfeld beginning in the late 1600’s.  

Lippe is a small but ancient region in northwestern Germany.  It is located between the Weser River and the Teutonburg forest. On a modern map you would find it about 200 miles north of Frankfurt and 180 miles east of Amsterdam.  Originally included in the duchy of Saxony, Lippe became a lordship in the twelfth century and a county in 1529.  By the 1700’s Lippe was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire.  As Lippe underwent several divisions, the area where the Biesemeier family lived became known as Lippe-Detmold.  Detmold was the largest town in the area. By 1815, Lippe was a member of the German Confederation.  Today Lippe is part of the state of North Rhine - Westphalia.  

Cord Biesemeier was probably born between 1780-1790 in the Lippe region.  Some researchers record his birth in the year 1771 in Stumpenhagan (Bega) in Lippe Detmold, but this seems early. His marriage to Wilhelmine Ellerbrock is recorded in the town of Horn, Lippe Detmold in 1818.  

From his 1818 marriage agreement we learn that Cord Biesemeier is a Kotter – a farmer or cottager, who rents his land.  And, that he and his bride will be living on, and operating the Biesemeier farm at number 18 in Leopoldthal.  His father, Friederich Biesemeier will continue to operate half of the farm, until he goes into retirement.  His bride, daughter of Johann Ellerbrock, hails from Frommhausen number 18.  

The towns of Horn, Leopoldstatt (Leopoldthal), Stumpenhagen (Bega), and Fromhausen are all listed as historic towns of Lippe Detmold.  Horn is the largest, and today adjoins the town of Bad Meinberg, an early spa location.  All of these towns lay within about a 15 mile radius of the city of Detmold.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the farms of Lippe were clustered together in hamlets. The land belonged to the nobility and was leased to tenant farmers. Farms tended to stay in the hands of one family for generations, most often passing to the oldest son, but occasionally being divided for use by the next generation. Families tended to be relatively small and not all the children married.

The valleys of the Lippe region sport good amounts of arable land and supported numerous small, but prosperous, peasant farmers. The climate is considered mild and agreeable.  This allowed for the raising of grains, beans, tobacco, and a variety of vegetables and fruits. Apple wine and plum brandy were popular in the area.  Dairy products abounded and the Lippe families raised horned cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and fowl.  Game hunting and fishing provided further protein.  

Researcher Maggie Blanck includes this delightful description of typical farm buildings in 1865, northern Germany.  It comes from an article titled, The Sacristan’s Household, published in Anthony Trollope’s Saint Paul Magazine:  

The whole centre of the building is a large and lofty barn, piled high with hay and straw and store of grain. It is, too, a storehouse for farm implements, and so huge are its proportions, that a harvest waggon laden with sheaves, and drawn by three or four sturdy horses, can pass easily through the doorway, and stand beneath its ample shelter. From the barn, which entirely occupies the central length and breadth of the building, is the only possible ingress to the dwelling-house. On the right hand and on the left are doors and windows giving access to the living and sleeping rooms of the family. Nearly all the light and air which reaches these apartments gains admission through the wide-open double doors of the barn . .  

Interesting studies of German House Inscriptions (Hausinschriften) have been helpful to family historians. In certain rural regions of the German-speaking world they were part of the cultural tradition and custom for many centuries. They were often carved into wooden beams of half-timbered houses, but are also found over driveways and entrances. Several inscriptions related to the Biesemeier family appear in the Lippe region.  One of particular interest was located in Leopoldstal, number 3 Kuhlmanns.  It represents the household of Johan Biesemeier and Frederica Kuhlman.  Johan is a possible brother of Cord Biesemeier. The German inscription reads:

ES IST O GOTT DEIN WILLE DAS BAUEN NUR AUF ERDEN DU GIEBST DEINEN KINDERN BROD UND WOHNUNG HIER AUF ERDEN
JOHAN BERNHARD BIESEMEIER AUS DEN LEPPOLDSDAHL FRIEDERIKE KUHLEMANS DASELBST DEN 5. JULIUS 1810 M.T.S.P

English:
It is O God your will to build only on earth, you give your children bread and accommodation here on earth; Johan Bernhard Biesemeier from Leopoldstal, Friederike Kuhleman, this is 5 July 1810.
 

For more details on Cord Biesemeier, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

Further Reading:
LWL Open Air Museum at Detmold;  lwl-freilichtmuseum-detmold.de/en/
Lippe Detmold DE; Geographical DNA Project for the area now known as Lippe, North Rhein-Westphalia;
https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/lippe-detmold-de/about/background
Maggie Blanck Website; http://www.maggieblanck.com/index.html
Der Genealogische Abend: Naturwissenschaftlicher und Historischer Verein für das Land Lippe [Genealogy: Scientific and Historical Association for the state of Lippe]; http://nhv-ahnenforschung.de/

About the photo:
The district of Leopoldstal in Horn-Bad Meinberg, Lippe, North Rhein-Westphalia; shared by Grugerio, Aug 2014; Creative Commons.

Moving back in time:  Elba Josephine Hoffman 1898 > Josephine S Biesemeier 1866 > Rev William Biesemeier 1833 > Cord Biesemeier 1796.
Cord Biesemeier is my husband’s 3xgreat-grandfather.

Richard White Hancock and the American Civil War

In April of 1862, when Dick Hancock was a few months short of his seventeenth birthday, he joined the Missouri State Militia, supporting the Union troops.  He was a member of the 6th Missouri Regiment, Company E, cavalry unit.  He inflated his age by a bit, in order to enlist.  The company Descriptive Book gives details:
 
Richard W Hancock; Co E, 6th Regt Mo State Militia Cavalry;  enlisted 12 April 1862 at Cameron Missouri by Capt Murphy for a term of 3 years; age 18; 5 feet 10 inches; fair complexion; blue eyes; dark hair; born Scott Kentucky; occupation farmer.

Richard White “Dick” Hancock was born in 1845 in Scott county Kentucky, one of the younger of Edward Hancock and Jemima White’s nine children.  About 1855 his family removed to Missouri, where the Hancock family lived for a number of years near the community of Victoria in Daviess County.  In the early years of America’s Civil War young Dick answered the call to serve with the Union.

Dick Hancock’s military “returns” show him serving in several different capacities through the war years.  In February of 1863 he was recorded as a hospital nurse, and in January 1864 he was “absent” doing recruiting service in Northwest Missouri.  Several returns listed him as “away for service in the field”.  By late 1864, during the months of November and December, he was working as a cook for the troops.  

The Missouri State Militia forces were authorized, subsidized, and equipped by the federal government.  Their primary activity remained within the state.  The war in Missouri was more of a local affair.  Union supporters were in the majority.  Confederate sympathizers and secessionists made guerilla style attacks on their neighbors.  Engaging these guerilla bands became the primary work of the State Militia.  After enlistment, Dick Hancock was stationed at Cameron Missouri, but within a short time the troops of the 6th Regiment began to move around the state.  In the Fall of 1862, “guerrilla bands of every size and description, sometimes operating in conjunction with small Confederate forces based in Arkansas, swarmed out of the woods and swamps and attacked towns and railroads, carried off horses and weapons, and killed Unionist civilians by the hundreds.”

The leaders of the State Militia began an effort to “starve out” the opposition by identifying the civilian population that provided food, shelter, horses, and new recruits.  Relatives and supporters of the guerillas were often fined or imprisoned; their properties and communities were sometimes put to the torch.  “This was a war of stealth and raid without a front, without formal organization, and with almost no division between the civilian and the warrior.”

Toward the close of the War the 6th Regiment was called to Westport (today a part of Kansas City).  The Battle of Westport occurred on the 23rd of October 1864, and is sometimes referred to as the “Gettysburg of the West”.  It is probably the only formal battlefield that Dick Hancock attended.  The Union forces of Major General Samuel R Curtis soundly defeated the Confederates.  This was one of the largest actions to occur west of the Mississippi River, involving more than thirty thousand troops.  It was also the last major action in the area.  

Dick Hancock continued with his regiment for several months after the Westport battle.  This was the time period when he was noted as a cook for the troops.  Discharges began for the 6th Regiment in February of 1865.  About this time Dick Hancock’s horse and equipment was valued by the government at sixty-five dollars. After his service, young Dick, still a teenager, returned home to the family farm near Victoria Missouri.  He was soon to turn twenty years of age, and in the following year he married Elizabeth Taylor, and settled in neighboring Dekalb county Missouri.  


For more details on Richard White Hancock, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

About the Photo:  Encampment of Union cavalry scouts near Hancock Maryland; WW Charles for Harper's Weekly, 1 Feb 1862; from the National Park Service Historical Collection.

Moving back in time:  Otis Sylvester Garrett 1894 > Margaret Susan Hancock 1869 > Richard White Hancock 1845.
Richard White Hancock is my husband’s greatgreat-grandfather.

Oswego Kansas – A Home for the Garrett Family

In 1867 President Johnson ratified a treaty with the Osage tribe which facilitated more confident settlement in the southeast corner of Kansas.  Families began to come into Labette county in greater numbers – establishing farms and populating several new or informally established communities.  One of these communities was called by the name Little Town.  It had started up a few years prior to 1867, and was showing promise.  Not long after the Osage treaty, Little Town incorporated, changed its name to Oswego, and set out on a rigorous program of growth.

 

William Cutler’s 1883 History of the State of Kansas, includes a brief, but informative account of JH Garrett.  From this short bio we discover that in August 1867 Joseph Henry Garrett left his home in Illinois, and “located on a claim one mile and a quarter southwest of Oswego Kansas . . . “

Joseph H Garrett was the son of John Garrett and Jemima Walker.  The earliest of the John Garrett family is not clearly defined, but records suggest that they came from Virginia to Tennessee, and first appear in the records of Benton county Tennessee in the late 1830s.  Most of John and Jemima’s seven children were born during their years in Tennessee, including their sons Isaac Walker Garrett in 1831, and Joseph Henry “Joe” Garrett (above mentioned) in 1841.  About 1850 the Garrett family removed to the county of St Clair in Southern Illinois, where they lived for the next seventeen years.

August of 1867 is the time pinpointed for the move of Joe Garrett from Illinois to Kansas.  The 1870 census suggests that his parents and several siblings also moved to Labette county Kansas about that time.  In the 1870, John Garrett, age sixty-five, and Isaac W Garrett*, age thirty-nine, are living in the town of Oswego, along with their families.  Joseph Garrett, age twenty-nine, is living with his wife and young daughter in nearby Richmond Township.

Like most people of that time, the Garretts had always farmed, but they also were skilled wood craftsmen and builders.  By 1870, farming probably primarily supplied family needs, while the building trade produced income.  The 1870 census gives Isaac W Garrett’s profession as builder.  His younger brother Joe Garrett farmed outside of Oswego for three years before moving into town, and “giving his attention almost exclusively to contracting and building”.  

The Garretts certainly arrived in Oswego Kansas when builders were in demand, and their hands assuredly contributed to many of the new construction projects.  

The History of Labette County Kansas and its Representative Citizens, by Nelson Case 1901, gives a detailed account of the growth of Oswego Kansas in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s.  The Garretts are not specifically mentioned in the history, but there can be little doubt that they played their part in the early development of the town.  Case’s history describes how the first buildings (1865-1867) were of hewn logs, but with the advent of a sawmill in 1867, frame structures began to appear.  “At the close of 1867 there were in Oswego ten frame buildings and eleven log houses, with a population of sixteen families numbering about one hundred individuals.  There were in all five stores . . . one blacksmith shop and one hotel.”  A year later, “ . . . at the close of the year (1868), there were one hundred frame buildings in town, a very fair proportion of which were occupied by business of one kind or another.  Nearly all of the lines of business usually found in frontier towns were at that time fairly represented.”

Old John Garrett and his wife Jemima are shown as operators of a boarding house in 1870 Oswego Kansas.  They are listed among the eight or ten business people and families who established the First Baptist Church of Oswego.  Garrett family names appear occasionally in a scattering of records of early Oswego organizations, including the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic), and the AOUW (Ancient Order of United Workmen).

By the 1880 census, John and Jemima Garrett, in their seventies, are living with their son Joe Garrett’s family in the town of Oswego.  Their home is on Wisconsin Street, and Isaac W Garrett is nearby.  They are continuing with the construction projects, but the flurry of activity is slowing.  Sometime between 1880 and 1900 the family moves on to Missouri, and then Oklahoma.

Certainly the Garrett family left their mark on the town of Oswego Kansas.  A question remains as to when John and Jemima Garrett died, and where they are buried; - during the 1880’s in Oswego Kansas, seems a likely scenario.  One or two Garrett family members are buried in the Oswego Cemetery, but John and Jemima are not listed.  Perhaps a visit to the cemetery, and a search through local newspapers could provide some further clues, or answers.

*Note - The 1870 Census of Labette county Kansas mistakenly records Isaac Walker Garrett as John Garrett, age thirty-nine, born in Tennessee, wife Celia.


For more details on John Garrett, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

About the photo:
A bird's eye view of the city of Oswego, Kansas, the county seat of Labette County.  Created by Augustus Koch, 1877; part of the Kansas Memory Project of the Kansas Historical Society.

Moving back in time:  Otis Sylvester Garrett 1894 > Isaac Sylvester Garrett 1860 > Isaac Walker Garrett 1831 > John Garrett 1805 (of Benton county Tennessee).
John Garrett is my husband’s 3xgreat-grandfather.

Rev William Biesemeier and the German Evangelical Church in Ogle County Illinois

North Grove Evangelical Church of today is a country church that sits about five miles northeast of the small town of Forreston in Ogle County Illinois. The lovely stone edifice, dedicated in 1862, graces a relatively quiet lane – West Coffman Road.  A parsonage adjoins the church and behind rests the North Grove Evangelical Zion Cemetery.

Adeline Zion Evangelical Church is located about one mile south of the North Grove Church, in today’s small community of Adeline.  The original church structure was destroyed in the Cyclone of 1898, and was rebuilt thereafter.  This generally quiet northwestern corner of Ogle County seems bucolic in contrast to Chicago, one of America’s largest cities, sitting one hundred miles to the east.   

In 1860 the German Evangelical churches at North Grove and Adeline were combined into one charge, with alternating services led by the first official pastor, Rev William Jung.  By 1867, Rev William Biesemeier was called to this work, and served the two churches for the next thirty five years, until 1901. The 1870, 1880 and 1900 censuses place William Biesemeier and his family in Maryland township of Ogle county Illinois, and it seems likely that he lived for some years in the parsonage adjoining the North Grove Church.  

A biographical account for William Biesemeier indicates that, beyond his pastoral duties, he also taught school.  This teaching sojourn may have happened at the Green Prairie School, a one-room rural school located nearby.  He is said to “have had in all three hundred pupils.”  Accounts suggest that the churches and schools of the area were conducted in German well into the early twentieth century.  

Rev William Biesemeier had been married in 1863 to Hermine Gassman of adjoining Stephenson County.  They were the parents of six children, four of whom survived to adulthood.  The North Grove Church, and community, was their particular home throughout their childhoods.  In the 1952 obituary of their daughter, Josepine Biesemeier Hoffman, we learn that she “was a talented musician, serving as church organist for fifteen years in the Evangelical Church at North Grove, Illinois . . She received her education in the German and English School of the North Grove community.”

The North Grove Evangelical Zion Cemetery rests quietly behind the church.  William Biesemeier and his wife Hermine “Nina” Gassman Biesemeier are buried there, along with two of their sons who died in 1870 – Johannes, age five and Jonathan, age two.  Nina died in 1888, at the age of forty-two years.  William lived many more years, remaining unmarried and serving his congregations until 1901.  He died in 1913, at the age of eighty years.


A brief history of the North Grove church included at the USGenWeb site for Ogle County Illinois gives insights into the life of the community at the dawn of William Biesemeier’s tenure as pastor:  

The history of North Grove Church as an organized congregation officially began on October 20, 1860. However several families came to this area about 1845 and formed a Christian fellowship. These families came from the state of Maryland. The name - North Grove - seems to have been given to the area because it was the northern most timber land in Ogle County, Maryland Township.

The Coffman family was the first to locate in this area. They built their first log cabin in 1840. In the next years after Ogle county had been opened for settlement, these first families wrote to their family and friends in Lippe-Detmold Germany encouraging them to move here. Among the early families who came were the Fosha, Kaney, Schure, Korf, Kilker, Brockmeier, Moring, Paul, Runte, Stukenberg, Tadtman, Vietmeier and Zumdahl families. One of the main reasons for the exodus from Germany at this time was the unsettled political situation there and the compulsory military service.

The little group of Lippurs - so called because of the area they came from and the dialect they spoke - soon grew and prospered. They had not only a common bond of language, origin, thrift and energy but all had a deep interest in the church. In the early days they were served by a pastor from Freeport. The services were first held in the home of a Kaney family and later in the Green Prairie school house. The Rev. W. Kampmeier succeeded in uniting the Adeline and North Grove congregations into one charge and on October 20, 1860; both churches subscribed to the Constitution of the German Evangelical Synod of North America. Mr. Fredrick Moring attended a conference in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1862 and at this time the congregation was officially accepted into the denomination.

At the same time that the North Grove congregation was organized the members decided to construct a church building. The land for the building was purchased from the Schure family for $50.00 and a promise to keep up the fences around the land. Construction was begun in the summer of 1861. The stone for the building was quarried near Adeline on the banks of Leaf River, on land which was later owned by Earl Gesin. The stone was hauled in carts drawn by oxen or horses and most of the work on the building was done by members. This project cost a total of $2.745.00 part of which was raised by assessing each household a certain amount of money for each 80 acres owned. This practice of assignment was used for the building of the parsonage and for the school house on the church grounds. The church was dedicated on February 19, 1862.  The Rev. Wm. Jung was the first pastor . .


For more details on William Biesemeier, visit his page at the Family Stories website.

Further Reading:
North Grove Evangelical Church; from USGenWeb site for Ogle County Illinois.
Zion United Church of Christ of Adeline, Now Zion Evangelical; from the book "The First 100 Years," a book about Leaf River, Illinois, 1982.
“Little Markers”, a history of one room schools in Ogle County Illinois, 1990s; from the historyoglecounty.info website.
Cyclone of 1898 (18 May 1898) from newspaper accounts given at the genealogytrails website for Carroll County Illinois.

About the Photo:  
North Grove Church in Maryland township of Ogle County Illinois; from northgrovechurch.weebly.com.

Moving back in time:  Elba Josephine Hoffman 1898 > Josephine S Biesemeier 1866 > Rev William Biesemeier 1833.
Rev William Biesemeier is my husband’s great-great grandfather.

William Biesemeier and the German Evangelicals

 The German Evangelicals who came to America found their roots in several European church traditions – Reformed, Lutheran, and Pietism.  When William Biesemeier began his studies for the pastorate in 1858 he was associated with the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenverein des Westens (German Evangelical Church Society of the West). This congregation of believers has passed through a long series of name changes, unions and mergers, both in Prussia (Germany) and America.  Today it is recognized as part of the United Church of Christ.

Pietism originated in Germany with the work of Philipp Spener (1635-1705), who emphasized “personal transformation through spiritual rebirth, individual devotion, and piety.” Several of his early proposals to reform the church have become the undergirding of modern Evangelicals:
Earnest and thorough study of the Bible in private meetings (little churches within the church)
Respectful evangelism that demonstrates kindness to the unbeliever
Theological training that encourages faith and devotional life

Smaller groups within the larger Pietistic movement included more rigorous practices:
Meeting together in conventicles (small groups) in order to mutually encourage piety
Identifying in their life an inner struggle with sin, a crisis, and a decision for a Christ-centered life
Shunning of worldly amusements such as dancing, theatre, and public games
Seeking union with God through spiritual exercises and the contemplative life

These Pietistic practices and beliefs, coupled with the traditions of the Reformed and Lutheran denominations, were significant pieces of the Evangelical movement in 18th and 19th century America.


William Biesemeier emigrated, along with two brothers, from his home in the Lippe Detmold area of Germany to Ogle county Illinois in the year 1854.  After settling in his new American home, he set out for the Seminary of the German Evangelical Church in Marthasville Missouri, where he entered for the 1858-59 school year. This must have been a brave undertaking.  It is unknown what educational opportunities William had participated in during his German childhood.  But, he likely attended the Prussian Volksschule, which provided an eight year course of “. . basic reading, writing, singing and Christian religious education in close cooperation with the churches and tried to impose a strict ethos of duty, sobriety and discipline.”

The Seminary, informally known as the Preacher’s Seminary at Marthasville, had been conceived by a small group of German pastors and teachers in about 1850, and was incorporated in the year 1859.  The original campus included, “. . a Farm House, Bake Oven, Friedensbote (Messenger of Peace) Publishing House, and the Dormitory.”  The seminary existed at this site until 1883 and then moved to St Louis (Webster Grove) and eventually became Eden Theological Seminary.

A list of the students for the year 1858-59 includes William Biesemeier:
1. Kirschmann
2. Haas
3. Christoph F. Stark*  
4. Andreas Muller*  
5. Haberle
6. Buchmiiller
7. Ehlers
8. Kirchhoff
9. Gobel
10. Heinrich Siekmann*  
11. Joachim Fr. Schulz*  
12. Wilhelm Biesemeier*  
13. Johannes A. Reidenbach*  
14. J. Christoph Feil*  
15. Karl F. Off*  
*New Students; Of the nine new arrivals only three could write, and the remainder were not able to write correctly.

During the 1830s and 40s a large number of German families settled up and down the Missouri river, west of St Louis. The Preachers Seminary at Marthasville was “founded to prepare ministers to serve the growing number of German-immigrant congregations on what was then the western frontier.” The early German settlers believed that their leader’s Christian faith should be supported by critical scholarship.  Today’s Eden Theological Seminary maintains an active and diverse archive.  A series of brief articles at their website, under the heading This Week in Eden History, give insight into the life of the seminary and the larger church.

This delightful photo from the Eden archive, is dated late 1850’s, and could possibly include William Biesemeier.  It adjoins the archive article titled Opening of Evangelical Preachers Seminary.

A biographical account of William Biesemeier informs us that he was ordained by the German Evangelical denomination in 1862 in Cincinnati Ohio and received a placement near Ackerville, Wisconsin in Washington County.  An effort was underway to more firmly establish the German  Evangelical church in Wisconsin, and over the next five years William Biesemeier served St John’s Church at Station and St Peter’s Church at Jackson. In 1867 he was called to Ogle County Illinois where he served the churches of North Grove and Adeline for thirty-five years.


For more details on William Biesemeier, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

Further Reading:
The German Church on the American Frontier; Carl E Schneider, 1939.
Evangelical Minister Studied At Seminary in Marthasville; Sue Blesi, Franklin County Historian; 2016.
The Archives at Eden Theological Seminary; www.eden.edu/the-archives-at-eden-theological-seminary

About the photo:
Early building of the Seminary of the German Evangelical Church in Marthasville Missouri.

Moving back in time:  Elba Josephine Hoffman 1898 > Josephine S Biesemeier 1866 > Rev William Biesemeier 1833.
Rev William Biesemeier is my husband’s great-great grandfather.