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Venne
– emigration
history
Between
1832 and 1900 about 1.500 people from Venne emigrated to the USA. What made them
go? Most of them had economical reasons. Farming was the main source of
income, but the land could not feed all its people anymore. From the times of
the 30-Years-War (1618 to 1648), when Venne had 650 inhabitants, the
population had grown to 2.000 in the year 1848.
Only one
child could inherit the farm. The sisters and brothers had to marry on other
farms or stay unmarried at home unless they wanted to descend to the lowest
class of the rural society of the 19th century: to become a cottager, the so called "Heuermann (hireman)".
Hiremen rented little farmhouses, cottages, from the biggers farms. The rent
had to be payed in money and, even more important, by working for the
farmowner in his farming business. Children of these hiremen only had
one single fate: to become hiremen like their parents. If they did not find a
house and land to rent, they were not allowed to marry.
Living
standard of the rural society of Venne was extremely low. From an average
family with 6 children only 4 reached maturity. A poor harvest in 1846 even
caused a famine the next year. Everyone tried to make some additional money:
the hiremen jobbed as taylors, wooden shoe makers, carpenters, wagonmakers,
smiths or joiners.
Venne
belonged to the principality of Osnabrueck, one of for a time more than 300
small states in Germany. In 1815
Osnabrueck was incorporated into the kingdom of Hanover which in 1866
itself was incorporated into Prussia. Many young men
tried to avoid beeing drafted to military service.
We don´t
know who the very first Venne emigrant to the USA was, but once
emigration had started it soon became a mass movement. Good news from the new
land caused a chain reaction; more and more came: sisters and brothers, other
family members, relatives, friends and neighbours were given the letters written
by their predecessors telling about ten times higher income and cheap land to
purchase. A dream, never really dared to be dreamed in Germany, looked to be
realizable: to become a selfstending farmer on your own property.
The
class of the hiremen and their children saw a big chance for their lives.
Consequently they produced 90 % of the emigrants. The others were farmers or
their children. In nowaday terms in Germany we call these
kind of people economical refugees. From the former principality of Osnabrueck
it were 90,000; from Venne itself about 1,500 within a period of 70 years
(1830 - 1900).
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania and Cincinnati, Ohio
Taking
a saling ship from the port of Bremerhaven people from Venne (and of course
others from Northwest Germany) reached Baltimore (or later New York). Some
travelled to Pittsburgh and became
members of the lutheran congregations „First Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church“ and „St.
Matthews“. Most of the immigrants travelled on to Cincinnati where they lived
in the German quarter "Over the Rhine" and worshiped in the „North
German Lutheran Church“. Many of them stayed here for their whole lives. The
others worked here for a few years to save money and then bought land in Indiana.
Southeast
Indiana
A
center for the settlement 100 miles west of Cincinnati was the
southeastern part of Indiana. Around 1840
German immigrants founded the lutheran congregations in Sauers (Jackson County) and White Creek
(Bartholomew County). With the
growing of the population of German descent other congregations followed:
Borchers, Dudleytown, Vallonia or Wegan.
Others from Venne went to neighbouring Counties: places like Huntersville (Franklin County), Olean, Dewberry or
Farmers Retreat became the new homestead for people from the parish of Venne.
Southern Indiana
Close
to Evansville (which is
Osnabrueck´s sister city) in Southern Indiana there is a place
called Holland. The telephone
directory looks like been written for the Osnabrueck area. The village of Holland became another
center of settlement of people from Venne.
Northern Ohio
After having arrived in New York some immigrants took the northern route to the
West: they travelled on the Hudson river and the Erie canal to Buffalo and then on the Lake Erie to Northern Ohio. In Woodville, Sandusky County and in its neighbouring village Pemberville, Wood County, several Venne families like the Meyerholz, the
Hurrelbrinks and the Ebkes established their new homes.
St. Louis,
Missouri and vicinity
Southwest
(in Missouri) and southeast (in Illinois) of St. Louis, where many people had
come via the port of New Orleans, we found other traces of emigrants from the
Osnabrueck area: A town on the banks of the Missouri, Washington MO, was
founded by emigrants from a neighbouring parish of Venne in Germany:
Ostercappeln. The Menzes from Schwagstorf moved there. In a little village
called Holstein we found Venne names like Hackmann, Steinkamp and
Schnieder. Venedy in Illinois was founded by
the emigrant families Brockschmidt and Borrenpohl. They named their new home
after their old home: Venne in Germany became Venedy in
Illinois. Close to this
place in Johannesburg and Stone Church other emigrants
from Venne settled down: the Jakobs, Winters, Sanders and Hollands.
Sources of
research
Visiting
the cemeteries of the lutheran churches established by Venne emigrants, many
of their tombstones could be found and identified. In 1874 Venne´s Pastor
David Ludwig Stueve had made a list with the names of more than 600 families
and single persons who had emigrated to the USA. This list
became the basis of our research. The churchbooks in Venne, family trees of
families living in Venne made by Pastor Adolf Mielke about 1915, letters of
emigrants, the permissions to emigrate and the list of passports, kept in the
state archive of Osnabrueck, and the letters of descendants of emigrants sent
to the church in Venne, they all have become other important sources for our
emigrant research in Germany. Also precious are the microfilms and CDs of
many lutheran church books, censuses and passenger lists of emigrant ships.
Using these sources, we were able to extend Pastor Stueve´s list to 1,500
entries now. But we are still finding others. In order to share our hobby and
information with the people of Venne descent we are interested in learning to
know more descendants of emigrants from Venne.
Venne - families
The
families from Venne mentioned below have members who emigrated to the USA. If you are
looking for ancestors by a surname mentioned, you can send an inquiry to Doris and Udo Thörner. Please
share information with us like complete names of the persons you
would like to have looked up in the records of Venne if known: (1)
birthdate (2) when died (3) age when died (4) place of death other
useful information like name of spouse, parents, or children of the
person.
Please accept we will not answer inaccurate inquiries without
detailed information about the person you are looking for (like: "my
greatgrandfather Fred Meyer came from Hanover in the 1800´s. I
would like to know more about him.")
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