The German “Pilgrims,” as the first colony was called, arrived at Milwaukee early in October, 1839, their leader being Henry von Rohr. Within a month they had decided on a location, in the western part of township 9, range 21 east (the town of Mequon, Ozaukee County), and had made numerous purchases of government land. They selected a tract of high, rolling land, heavily timbered, well watered, and with an extensive marsh near by in the public domain which would furnish free hay and pasture.[7] The situation was similar to that which was chosen, near Watertown (in the town of Lebanon), a few years later by a German colony from the same region. They also took a tract of heavily timbered upland neighbored by an extensive marsh. “Here,” said their leader, “we have both wood and hay” (“Holz und Heu”).[8]
Many of the colonists in these two congregations were very poor. Those who had means lent to the indigent to enable them to emigrate. For them it would have been madness to go to the prairies, where such absolute necessities as fuel, building material, and fencing might cost ready money and at best would be difficult to procure. In the woods trees cut on the spot were used to build cabin and log house, stable, garden and field enclosure. Some of the German families were months without draft ox or even cow. All work was performed by hand, including the carrying of logs from the spot where the trees were felled to the place where they were to be rolled up to make the cabin wall. To such settlers, bringing timber from a distance would have been among the impossibilities. Their place was in the forest, where labor alone was required for making the beginnings of a self-sustaining home.
In thousands of later instances, Germans who came to Wisconsin on their own slender means were in a similar case to these early seekers of religious freedom. An immigrant of 1848, J. F. Diederichs, has left a diary and letters from which the process of home making in the woods can be reconstructed.[9] Diederichs, after considerable search, found eighty acres of good government land nine miles from Manitowoc, where early in winter he settled down to work alongside of several other Germans who were as poor as himself. The location was favorable, being near a port. “What good is there,” he writes, “to possess the finest land and be 6, 8 or 10 days journey from market.”[10] The first step was to build a cabin, the next to bring his family from Milwaukee and with a few dollars borrowed for the purpose to lay in supplies for them. Then he erected a comfortable log house and continued clearing till, by the middle of May, he had two acres ready partly for garden and partly for potatoes, corn, and beans to provide the family with food. Diederichs realized that “to begin such work at the age of 44 is some job,” and recognized that not he and his wife but the children would be the chief beneficiaries. Nevertheless, the joy of creation was not wholly denied him. He had, he said, the “prettiest” location; house set on a commanding knoll, with a pure limpid stream flowing within a few yards of it, along whose course was some open land, making a “layout for the finest pastures.” And there was timber enough on his eighty to be worth $30,000 in the home town of Elberfelt. Of this, he would gladly make his friends in Germany a present of about $20,000 worth!
The question of nearness to market was a determinant also in the cases of Germans who were well enough off to take open lands. William Dames found, for himself and associates, a favorable tract near Ripon. It contained 160 acres prairie, 320 acres openings, and 160 acres of low prairie or meadow land. The advantages of that neighborhood, he wrote, were these: first, the prospectively near market, by way of the Fox River Canal to be completed the following spring; second, the excellence of the soil; third, the ease with which the land could be made into productive farms. There one need not subject himself to the murderous toil incident to farm making in the woods. And, fourth, the healthfulness of the climate and the superb drinking water.
One bit of information which Dames conveyed to his fellow Germans who were contemplating immigration to Wisconsin, was that the Yankees (by which term he described all native Americans) and the Scotch settlers of that neighborhood were becoming eager to sell their partly improved farms, preparatory to moving into the newer region north of Fox River. He advised Germans able to do so to buy such farms, which were to be had in plenty not only in Fond du Lac County but near Watertown, near Delafield, and even near Milwaukee—prices varying with the improvements, nearness to the city, etc. He seemed to think the Germans but ill adapted to pioneering. Let the German immigrant, he said, buy a partly cleared farm; then he could follow his calling in ways to which he was accustomed. Moreover, since such farms produced fairly well even under the indifferent treatment accorded them by the Yankee farmers, the German farmer need have no fear of failure.
The advice to purchase farms already begun was widely followed by the financially competent German immigrants. Ownership records of one Milwaukee County township show that the lands were originally taken mainly by Irish and Americans, yet in 1850 nearly one-half of the settlers were Germans; and there is no reason to regard that case as singular. Probably the Germans who bought improved farms were as numerous as those who bought Congress land. Many poor men worked as farm hands for some years and then bought small improved farms in preference to buying Congress land.
The experience of an 1849 immigrant, Johannes Kerler, illustrates the less common case of Germans who arrived with considerable means. Kerler brought with him to Milwaukee a sum, derived from the sale of a profitable business, which would have enabled him to buy scores of mill sites and town sites in the public domain. Instead, he limited his investment to a 200-acre farm seven miles from the city, paying for the land, including all crops and livestock, $17 per acre. The buildings consisted of a log house and a cabin. One-half the farm was divided between plow land and meadow; the balance—100 acres—supported a dense forest growth. Kerler at once erected a barn for his cattle, and a good two-story frame house for the family. Then he went to farming and quickly transformed the earlier crude homestead into a fruitful and beautiful farm, the show place of the neighborhood.[11]
Social forces are among the imponderables, and yet their influence in controlling the distribution of immigration must have been considerable. The fact that nearly all incoming Germans landed in Milwaukee, where were acquaintances and often friends, tended in a hundred subtle ways to attach the newcomers to that community. Before 1850 Milwaukee had come to be looked upon as a German city. “There,” said one immigrant, “more German than English is spoken.” It had its German churches, schools, clubs, societies, and recreational features, all of which constituted powerful attractions. It was the most important industrial center of the state, with a relatively large demand for the labor which with farm work was the poorer immigrant’s sole means of getting a financial start. In addition, it was the commercial metropolis, and that the German was firmly tethered to his market has already become clear.
The construction of the Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad, begun in 1849 and completed to Prairie du Chien in 1857, partially freed the German immigrant from his dread of being marooned in the interior. Desirable government lands accessible to the proposed railroad were generally taken up several years before the completion of the road, and among the entrymen in certain districts were many newly arrived Germans. This was true to some extent in Dane County, but more noticeably so farther west. In Iowa County and in Grant were sheltered pleasant and fertile valleys, opening toward the Wisconsin, which would be served by the railroad when completed, and which had long been in touch with the world by means of steamers plying on the Wisconsin. In those valleys, and on the wider ridges between them, the Germans competed with others for the choicest locations on government and state lands. Land entry records for two townships in Blue River valley show, by 1860, out of an aggregate of 122 foreign born families 59 of German origin, while the American families numbered 93. A similar proportion doubtless obtained in other towns south of the river.
Directly opposite these townships, in the same survey range but lying on the north side of Wisconsin River, was the town of Eagle, whose settlement was almost exactly contemporaneous with that of the Blue River valley. But Eagle, in 1860, had 20 foreign born families to 108 American, and of the 20 only 13 were German.