ERIC KRAUSE

In business since 1996
 - © Krause House Info-Research Solutions -

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POSSIBLE FURTHER RESEARCH 

SOME KRAUSES - FROM SILESIA

SILESIA

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Schlesien_1905.png

1692

AUGUST

MELCHIOR KRAUSS

Langneundorf, Silesia
 

i. Anna Krauss was born about 1703. She died in 1731.
ii. Maria Krauss.

1706

AUGUST

HARPERSDORF, SILESIA

BALTHASAR KRAUSS

1712

LANGNEUNDORF, SILESIA

MARIA KRAUSS

1719

WINZIG, SILESIA (WINSKO, WOLÓW, SOUTHERN POLAND)

KARL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH KRAUSE

CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED KRAUSE

1720

LIEGNITZ, SILESIA

MATTHAEUS KRAUSE

Unknown Date

VIRGIN ISLANDS FAMILIES

POSSIBLE BISCHOFSWALDE KRAUSE

[(Biskupin) BRESLAU COUNTY, SILESIA (Today In Poland) ]

BEFORE 1732 / 1752 / 1782 / 1819

About current distribution:

Krause. Today there are some 40,000 telephone book entries for Krause in Germany making it the 29th most common German family name; there is only an additonal 300 in Austria. They are scattered throughout the country but found mostly in the areas north of where Kraus families are concentrated.

Kraus. Today there are some 21,500 telephone book entries for Kraus in Germany making it the 69th most common German family name. They are scattered throughout all parts of German but are concentrated in the south: Bavaria, Wittemberg, and southern Hesse, with an additional 1,500 in Austria.

Krauss. Today there are some 2000 telephone book entries for Krauss in Germany making it only the 373rd most common family name there. There are only another 140 in Austria.

About religion:
if you are not prepared to find that you had ancestors who practiced other religions, then probably you should let genealogy alone. Among the Krauses we will find several kinds of Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, and a whole raft of Protestant types), Jews, and Muslims. We will find few if any family lines going back to the beginning of family names that has been of one faith the whole time; and we are likely to find some lines that have been all of the above at one time or another in their history! An, of course, the current "European" faiths are all very young. Our family genes go way, way back, long before there was an Old Testament or a Koran ... so all of our lines have been of a different faith at other times in their histories.

About race:
skin color and other things we today associate with race can change very quickly. If you marry someone of another race, and your child does the same, and your grandchild does the same, your great grand child will look far more like the person you married than like you. So you are likely to find ancestors who look very, very different from you! In a very small number of generations, fair can become dark, and dark can become fair.

About prehistory (via DNA):

Every male human carries a bit of DNA which he gets from his father, who got it from his father and right on back. Within that bit there is a small segment which seems to have nothing to do with how we look, or act, or anything else of any practical importance. But every 5,000 to 10,000 years a small change may occur which is permanent. That man will pass that small change on to all his descendants and so on forever. These small changes are called "Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms" or SNPs for short. They are studied and labeled. They allow us to track our ancestry, way, way back.

Alpha: All male humans tested to date (Oct. 2006) carry a set of SNP which comes from one male who lived in what is now the East African plains some 120,000 years ago. I will here call him Alpha. There were lots of other humans then, but this one male was the only one with the SNP set which we now all have in common. As luck would have it, somewhere along the line the male lines from every male alive then have apparently died out. So in a very real sense, all humans tested so far on every continent are cousins. We are all descended from Alpha.

His descendants are classified into "Haplogroups" which are labeled with letters of the alphabet, A-R based on the SNPs which are in the DNA we got from our fathers. In the following I will identify each of our significant ancestors by the number of his significant SNP.

[haplotypes that share a common ancestor]

M42: About 80,000 years ago in Alpha's homeland a baby boy descendant of his was born with a new SNP. Actually by then a total of four SNPs (M42, M94, M139 and M299) had occurred in his line, but the male lines of his cousins died out and only his has survived. He is our ancestor. Some of his descendants moved up into what is today Ethiopia. All of the males alive today, except those in Haplogroup A, descend from him.

M168: among those folk some 50-60,000 years ago another boy was born a new SNP. Actually in his line by then a total of three SNPs (M168, M294 and P9) had occurred, but as with M42, no male has survived in this line except those carrying all three of these SNPs. We will call this ancestor M168. Some of his descendants went east through India, Southeast Asia, and even the Pacific Islands. But others went north and west into what is now the Sahara, only to be forced out as water there dried up. Those folk escaped through what is now Egypt into the Middle East. Our ancestors were among them. All males today, except those in Haplogroups A and B descend from our ancestor M168.

M89: then, about 45,000 years ago, probably in what is now Iran or Iraq, another boy was born with new SNP. Actually in his line by then a total of three new SNPs (M189, M213 and P14) had occurred, but as with M168, no male in this line has survived except those carrying all three of these SNPs. We will call this ancestor M89. He turned out to be the ancestor of most folks who today live in or come from Europe, the Middle East, as well as most Asians and Native Americans, including the Krauses; this is all the males in Haplogroups F through R.

Among his descendants who stayed, at least for a time, in the Middle East, were Haplogroups G, I and J. So far we have found Krauses who belong to each of those three haplogroups.

M9: it seems that the bulk of M89's descendants kept going north. There weather was bitter, life was very hard, but food was plentiful. It turned out that the closer they got to the mile-high ice-cap which covered much of Europe and Asia, the more they were on grassland-tundra in the midst of huge herds of giant mammals which provided them food in abundance. Among those who went north another boy was born, some 40,000 years ago, with a new SNP. It is called M9 and so we will call him. He is the ancestor of all males in Haplogroups K through R.

M207: One of M9's descendants was born with this new SNP. This boy was the porgenitor of Haplogroup R. Haplogroup R folks populated the areas right up against the ice-cap and when they could go no further north, many of them (R1b) kept moving west right across Europe. Some (R1a) stayed for a long while on the steppes of central Eur-Asia, and then moved into eastern Europe. Krauses have been found among both R1a and R1b.


Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown
Children
Haplogroup G Kraus
Haplogroup I Kraus
Haplogroup J Kraus
Haplogroup R Kraus
Haplogroup Unknown Kraus

Father: Ancient Kraus

Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown
Children
GERMANY1 Krause
POLAND1 Crouse
VOLGA Kraus
WUERTTEMBERG Kraus
BOLTENHAGEN Krause b: BEF 1820
ALABAMA Crouse b: BEF 1795 in South Carolina?
NUEDLINGEN Kraus b: BEF 1680 in Bavaria?
POMERANIA4 Krause b: BEF 1800
KOTHEN Kraus b: BEF 1807 in Bavaria?
KRAKOW Kraus
HUNGARY Kraus b: BEF 1859 in Hungary
Kramsk Krause b: BEF 1840
POMERANIA6 Krause b: BEF 1832 in Pomerania, Prussia
BRESLAU1 Krause b: BEF 1732
LANDSBERG Krause b: BEF 1787 in Landsberg, Prussia
CROTTINGEN Krause b: BEF 1803 in Crottingen, East Prussia
BERNECK Kraus b: BEF 1638 in Berneck, Brandenburg-Bayreuth Margraviate?
HESSE-DARMSTADT Krauss b: BEF 1829
SCHWED-STAHL Kraus
Miscellaneous Stahl Kraus

Father: Haplogroup Unknown Kraus

Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown
Children
Johann David Krause b: 29 SEP 1752 in Breslau, Germany

Father: BRESLAU1 Krause b: BEF 1732

Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown
Children
Johann David Krause b: 03 APR 1782 in Breslau, Germany

Sources:
Title: Joan Reed e-mail to rak, 17 January 2007
Text: my earliest known Krause ancestor: Johann David Krause b Sept. 19, 1752, in Breslau, Germany.

Father: Johann David Krause b: 29 SEP 1752 in Breslau, Germany

Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown
Children
Heinrich Rudolf Krause b: AUG 1819 in Breslau, Germany

Sources:
Title: Joan Reed e-mail to rak, 17 January 2007
Text: Johann David Krause, b Apr 3, 1782, Breslau, Germany.

  1. ID: I04583
    Name: Heinrich Rudolf Krause
    Sex: M
    Birth: AUG 1819 in Breslau, Germany 1
    Death: 1937 2

Father: Johann David Krause b: 03 APR 1782 in Breslau, Germany

Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown
Children
Fedor Krause b: 10 MAR 1857 in Friedland, Walsenburg, Breslau

Sources:
Title: Joan Reed e-mail to rak, 17 January 2007
Text: Heinrich Rudolf Krause b Aug 1819 Breslau, Germany.
Title: Kraus, Richard A
Note:
Source Medium: Manuscript

Text: Wikepedia says Fedor 1857-1937 was a German neurosurgeon in Berlin, a pioneer in neurosurgery/brain surgery. Today in Germany they award the Fedor Krause Medal to outstanding work in neurosurgery.

Father: Heinrich Rudolf Krause b: AUG 1819 in Breslau, Germany

Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown
Children
Living Krause

Sources:
Title: Joan Reed e-mail to rak, 17 January 2007
Text: Doctor Professor Fedor Krause b Mar 10, 1857 in Friedland, Wasenburg/Breslau, Germany (now Wroclow, Poland).
Title: Kraus, Richard A
Note:
Source Medium: Manuscript

Text: I cannot find Friedland, Walsenburg ... one reference said it was in Schlesien ...  [Friedland Bez. Breslau Schlesien, Kirchtürme,Umgebung]
Title: Joan Reed e-mail to rak, 21 January 2007
Text: he died in 1937

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=dickkraus01&id=I04584

1757-1828

JOHANN WILHELM KRAUSE

1804

[BRESLAU]

LEBERECHT FRIEDRICH EHREGOTT KRAUSE

[ Leberecht Friedrich Ehregott Krause(1804-85) ]

Krause, Grabau, von Rohr and the 1839 emigration to America

After August Kavel perhaps the earliest advocate of emigration for the oppressed Old Lutherans was Leberecht Friedrich Ehregott Krause. He was an underground pastor. He was expected to lead the second emigration party out of Prussia, but he did not do so.

Krause's is a strange story. We know little about his early life. He was born in Silesia. He apparently received his education in Breslau. In 1831 he received a certificate of eligibility for a call into the ministry. In other words, he passed the first theological examination. He must have expressed a willingness to join the Prussian Union and use the new agenda. He served as a private tutor in Kozmin, a town in the province of Posen. He later said that the Lord led him there. In 1833 he moved to a town named Hermannsdorf, possibly as an assistant pastor, working with a Pastor Berger who had anti-Union sentiments.

Sometime in 1833 or 1834 Krause informed the superintendent of the state church in his area that he was convinced the Union was wrong. He withdrew from the state church and joined the Old Lutherans. About this same time the Pastor Berger with whom he served was suspended from the pastorate at Hermannsdorf and moved to Breslau. Krause moved to a town in Posen called Gross-Tschunkawe. There he lived with a man named Koschuetzki, who was an Old Lutheran. Krause began holding church services in the man's house. Soon gendarmes were posted outside the house watching the movements of Krause and the other people who came and went. Krause was assigned to serve the Old Lutherans in at least five towns in the southeastern part of Silesia. About 400 souls were placed under his spiritual care. He was ordained into the ministry of the Old Lutherans in May 1835 together with several other candidates by J. G. Scheibel. This occurred in Lobau in Saxony.

It is reported that in March 1835 he visited August Kavel in Klemzig in Brandenburg. Very likely the men discussed the possibility and advisability of emigrating. Kavel and his congregation were by that time actively investigating emigration. Krause had expressed an interest in emigrating in several letters written in the months just before the visit with Kavel.

Emigration no doubt came to be viewed even more favorably after July 1835 when he was arrested in a village named Schiebedawe for conducting an unauthorized church service. Until his trial he was kept in custody in an inn in Militz. The trial ended with his being sentenced to a year's imprisonment in the jail in Militz. It is recorded that Old Lutheran elders also were arrested for participating in unauthorized services. One elder was fined the one horse, the one cow and the 13 pigs he owned and in addition had to serve nine weeks in jail.

Having completed his jail sentence, Krause was moved to Erfurt in the province of Saxony. Here he is reported to have lived with an instrument maker named Schujahn. He could come and go pretty well as he pleased, but was kept under surveillance. Another Old Lutheran pastor named Wehrhan was also transferred to Erfurt. Soon government officials were informed that a separatistic movement was developing in Erfurt. Krause was reported to live a rather withdrawn life. He spent much time studying. Afternoons he went out and often did not return until late at night. He received a considerable number of visitors. Krause looked up Grabau soon after coming to Erfurt and soon was observed to be associating with him frequently. Government officials then took steps to move Krause to Muenster in Westphalia.

At the beginning of 1837 a Cabinet Order was issued suspending all previous sentences against Old Lutherans. Krause now was apparently free to leave Erfurt. He received a letter from Scheibel encouraging him to do so. After some indecision, he did leave in May to return to Silesia. There he became an underground circuit rider again, ministering to Old Lutherans in a fairly large area. He is also known to have visited Scheibel.

At first church leaders in Breslau were happy to have Krause serve a considerable number of their people. They always were short of pastors because of numerous arrests and imprisonments. Their joy over the return of Krause faded, however, when they learned that he was promoting emigration among the Old Lutherans wherever he went in Silesia. They strongly urged him to keep in close contact with and consult the other Old Lutheran pastors about the matter. No doubt it was hoped that the others would get him to change his mind. That did not happen.

As he traveled about Krause found a considerable number of lay members who either were considering or had already decided to emigrate. This could only confirm him in his intention to emigrate and in his continuing to encourage others to go with him. Officials heard in June 1838 that Krause told his congregation he would live where the greater number of his members lived. Prof. George Huschke of Breslau heard in September of that year that Krause was actively preparing to emigrate. Huschke expressed the wish that he would leave soon. He had given up trying to persuade him to stay.

Some time in the fall of 1838 an emigration company was organized. Krause and two laymen were elected to serve as advance men and agents to determine the best way to travel to America. On November 2 Krause and one of the laymen left Hamburg for New York. Their assignment was to seek out the best transportation agencies and possible places for settlement.

Krause quickly demonstrated that he was a poor choice for the rather heavy responsibility given him. Even the ship they took to New York turned out to be a poor choice. Krause was miserable the whole time of the crossing. The ship was sloppily run, the food was poor, and the passengers did not meet his standards of cleanliness and conduct.

When Krause and his companion arrived in New York, no one was there to meet and welcome them--much to Krause's disillusionment. His first requests for assistance and financial support were rebuffed, and Krause fell into a siege of homesickness, self-pity and general depression. He sent off a letter from America which roundly criticized all Americans as rude, unfriendly and greedy for money. He advised his people back in Silesia to stay at home.

It soon became apparent, however, that things were not as bad as Krause had pictured them. Within a few days he had received aid or offers of aid from several sources. A group of recent immigrants in Buffalo was looking for a Lutheran pastor. They invited him to come and serve them. Apparently forgetting about the assignments given him back in Breslau, he settled down in Buffalo for almost a year serving this little group as their pastor. Finally, just before the emigrants he had done so much to recruit in Silesia reached Buffalo, he returned to Germany. Neither von Rohr nor Grabau, whose paths he crossed on the way from Buffalo to New York, were able to persuade him to stay with his emigration party in America.

He insisted that he had to go back to Germany to restore his health, to save later emigrants from unscrupulous shipping agents, and to get married. He may also have had misgivings about the adequacy of his ministry in Buffalo.

Krause reached Hamburg on November 21,1839, and apparently continued on at once to Breslau. This was a questionable move, since he was not in good standing with the Prussian government. When he had left the year before, he lacked the proper documents and authorization. In Breslau he at once went to the home of the Pastor Berger under whom he had served in Hermannsdorf in 1833 and 1834. It was his daughter that he expected, or at least hoped, to marry. Pastor Bergen however, refused to give his approval to the marriage, and his daughter was not willing to emigrate to America. However firm or tentative Krause's plans may have been, they quickly came to naught.

Krause took up residence with his sister who lived in Breslau. In this center of the Old Lutheran movement he received a visit from one Old Lutheran official. Otherwise he was largely ignored by all the Old Lutherans. He felt himself very much neglected. As had happened in New York, he again was beset by depression and self-pity. Constantly on the lookout for police, he complained of the uncertainty in which he lived and felt he could not stand it much longer.

Regardless of how neglected, unappreciated and depressed Krause may have felt, it is difficult to understand or explain the actions that followed. He turned himself in to the police, who promptly put him in prison under strict security. This led to even greater depression. Feeling completely forsaken and ignored by all the Old Lutherans, he turned against them and offered to aid the police in eliminating all the Old Lutheran "trouble makers" from the scene. News of his offer was transmitted at once to Kultus-Minister Altenstein and even the king in Berlin. Krause was released from prison and an interview was arranged with Altenstein. In this interview he gave much information about the Old Lutherans, their church organization, their circuit riding pastors, and their plans and objectives. He did not stick entirely to the facts, but gave answers he thought the questioners were looking for. He made false statements about the Old Lutheran leaders to put them in a bad light. In other words, he acted the part of a traitor and an out-and-out scoundrel.

Then on May 5,1840, another drastic shift occurred. He asked the Old Lutheran pastor in Berlin to visit him and confessed all he had done and asked for forgiveness. He wrote a letter to the leaders in Breslau confessing all he had done against the Old Lutherans in betraying them to the government. He attributed his actions to anger and resentment at being ignored and neglected. He called his conduct godless. He recanted all he had done and again applied for a position as a pastor in the Old Lutheran church. The Old Lutheran leaders forgave him his treasonous conduct but rejected his application for a position as pastor.

Soon after, he moved to Hamburg where he again spoke out strongly against the Old Lutherans because they opposed emigration. In May of 1841 he set sail once again for America, taking 60 emigrants with him. Not long after his arrival in America, he married a widow in his emigration company. In the fall of 1841 Pastor Grabau assigned him as pastor to the Freistadt-Milwaukee congregation, which had been without the services of a pastor since the fall of 1839. One wonders how much, if anything, Grabau knew of Krause's unpredictable and reprehensible conduct in Germany. Krause served the Freistadt-Milwaukee parish for seven years. Details of his difficulties there will be discussed in connection with the examination of the founding of the Buffalo Synod.

A call from the congregation in Martinsville, New York, in 1848 brought him close to Grabau, who had defended him in his difficulties in Wisconsin. Again controversy arose. The congregation, which had just finished building a church, refused to build a parsonage as Krause wanted. He excommunicated the whole congregation. The congregation responded by bringing charges against Krause before the Buffalo Synod, accusing him of 26 different sins. He was excommunicated in January 1851.

Later that year Krause applied for membership in the Missouri Synod. After returning to Freistadt and Milwaukee and successfully seeking forgiveness for offenses committed while he was pastor there, he was accepted into the Missouri Synod and assigned to a congregation at Macomb, Michigan, which had just withdrawn from the Buffalo Synod. His ministry in Macomb and the Missouri Synod lasted three years. Although exact information is not available, he spent several years in Germany again.

By 1856 Krause was back in America, again in the role of the penitent seeking pardon and readmission to the Buffalo Synod. Although he was granted forgiveness, not surprisingly, no position was found for him in the Buffalo Synod. He turned westward then and became pastor of a congregation in Winona, Minnesota. The year 1865 found him on the move once again as he accepted a position at Ellenville, New York, in the Ohio Synod. Apparently having exhausted the possibilities in America, he accepted a call to a congregation in Lobethal in South Australia in 1871. When his connection with that congregation was terminated in 1876, he organized a congregation of his own. That congregation disbanded in 1879, but he found another congregation nearby that was willing to call him. Here he remained until his death in 1885.

Krause apparently had a talent for promoting and recruiting for the Old Lutheran emigration in Germany. But he lacked the capabilities necessary to organize and lead the emigrants he had recruited. He also lacked the abilities needed to serve the emigrants as their pastor once they had reached the New World. The 1839 emigration company badly needed clergymen to serve as leaders for the trip, and they needed clergymen to serve the congregations organized in America. Krause did not help to fill these needs. Rather, by his inappropriate conduct he made matters worse. Credit is due him for his underground ministry and for his willingness to endure imprisonment for the sake of confessional Lutheranism. After that, unfortunately, he became a detriment to the Old Lutheran cause.

Wilhelm Iwan in his exhaustive two-volume study of the Old Lutheran emigration from Prussia, Die Altlutherische Auswanderung um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts,5 calls Krause unstable, undependable and weak. Those adjectives fit Krause well. Not only did he cause disruptions and division in several of the congregations of Prussian immigrants which he served, his conduct brought disrepute on the whole emigration movement in Germany and on the Buffalo Synod among emigrants in the New World. The adjectives unstable, undependable and weak certainly do not fit Johann Grabau, however, the man on whom we focus our attention next. He was of an entirely different mold.

Johann Andreas August Grabau became the leader of the 1839 emigration and the church body which grew out of it in America. His story is also a tragic one in a way. He was born in the village of Olvenstadt near Magdeburg in the Prussian province of Saxony in 1804. His parents, farmers by occupation, were truly pious people. Reading of the Bible and prayer were daily exercises in their lives. Johann began his schooling in the village school at the age of five. He later recalled that the rationalistic and Reformed influences were quite noticeable in his confirmation instructions. Zwingli was praised and Luther belittled. The Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper was presented and emphasized as the correct one.

In the fall of 1818 Grabau was enrolled at the Cathedral Gymnasium (high school) in Magdeburg, where he proved to be an excellent student. When his father died in 1822, his mother feared her son would not be able to complete his education at the gymnasium. Johann, however, was determined to go on with his studies. He lived at home and walked daily to Magdeburg to cut expenses. Soon he also succeeded in obtaining a stipend that permitted him to room in Magdeburg and pay other expenses. His reports at the gymnasium and also later at the university called attention to his exceptional diligence in his studies and his praiseworthy conduct.

The fall of 1825 found Grabau matriculating at the University of Halle. Here he regularly gained the approval of faculty members for the excellence of his work. He graduated in 1829. On his first examination for the ministry, also taken that year, he was given a cum laude and commended for his knowledge of the Scriptures, his aptitude in developing and setting forth his thoughts and for the power of his speech. After a brief period of serving as a private tutor, he taught for a year at a girls' academy at Magdeburg and then for two years as rector of a school in Sachsa. Then, in the spring of 1834, having passed the second examination for the ministry successfully, he was ordained and installed as pastor of St. Andrew's Church in Erfurt.

In the process of taking and passing his theological examinations and being ordained, Grabau accepted and committed himself to the Union. At first he received favorable comments from church officials for his "purity in spirit." In 1835 his bishop again made favorable comments, but added that his preaching was "too Lutheran."

By early 1836, Grabau was in correspondence with Scheibel Apparently, some of his members informed him about events in Silesia, including the case of Hoenigern, and provided him with literature opposing the Union. Krause and another Old Lutheran pastor were transferred to Erfurt from Breslau on probation. They no doubt informed Grabau further about the Old Lutheran opposition to the Union and its theological basis. By August of 1836, Grabau refused to take part in the ordination of a candidate, declaring that he no longer was in agreement with the Prussian ordination formula, which committed the ordinand only to faithfulness to the "Evangelical Symbols." After his sermon on September 11, 1836, he announced to his congregation that he no longer could use the new Union agenda, even though he had accepted it at his examination, because he now was convinced that it did not express the old Lutheran faith purely and faithfully.

Grabau then asked the members of the congregation to decide whether they wanted to keep him as their pastor. On September 20 he was suspended by the consistory. In early October there was a two-day meeting with Bishop Draeseke, who tried to convince Grabau that he and the Old Lutherans were mistaken in their views on the Union. But Draeseke had no success. In December, Grabau announced his withdrawal from the Union Church. By then he was holding services with those members of his congregation who wanted to keep him as their pastor. The mayor of Erfurt informed higher officials that most of the people who supported Grabau were uneducated weavers and factory workers. Grabau began traveling about the area, serving and strengthening his supporters. On March 1, 1837, he was suddenly arrested and carried off to the prison at Heiligenstadt without even an opportunity to go to his house to pack needed clothes and other things. The warden, however, sympathized with Grabau and provided special treatment for him. He could write letters and receive visitors. Heinrich von Rohr was among those who visited him.

Grabau appealed his arrest and imprisonment. The Oberlandesgericht, the supreme court of the land, ruled that he had been arrested and imprisoned only because of his withdrawal from the United Evangelical Church and the holding of private meetings. He was not charged with a criminal misdemeanor. There was no law which authorized such an imprisonment. The police had infringed on his personal liberty. The court then ordered Grabau released. The government officials in Erfurt replied that they had acted in accordance with the directives of a higher church ministerium. Grabau was being detained for reasons of state.

When Grabau learned that he had been ordered freed by the courts but detained only on the order of a higher official, he began to think of escaping. Von Rohr, who learned of this, soon developed a plan to free Grabau. One day he came to the prison with a horse and a closed wagon. A companion went into the prison and informed Grabau that von Rohr was there with horse and wagon. When Grabau went for his daily walk with a prison guard, he was able to jump into von Rohr's wagon, and the two drove quickly away. By the time the prison guards sent out searchers on horseback, Grabau, von Rohr and the horse and wagon had disappeared. Von Rohr took Grabau to Pommerania, where he lived undercover with some Old Lutherans for some months. Finally, in the late summer of 1838, he returned to Erfurt. But already on September 21 he was recognized, reported and arrested. He was taken back to the Heiligenstadt prison under heavy guard. This time he was given no preferential treatment. He was kept under close watch constantly. The prison warden, who was sympathetic toward the Old Lutherans, did not dare now to give Grabau favorable treatment. Grabau, who became quite ill, became an advocate of emigration. He applied for release from prison and authorization to emigrate.

Finally, on March 12, 1839, he was released from prison in order that his wife could care for him. He was not to engage in any ministerial acts or leave the city of Erfurt until he emigrated. He was kept under constant police watch. On April 26 he was informed that his emigration permit had been granted. A considerable number of his members in Erfurt and Magdeburg also were ready to emigrate with him since they had been informed that it was the king himself who had again declared that a separate Lutheran church outside the Union would not be permitted. In view of the fact that Grabau had been imprisoned for quite a while, it was fortunate that von Rohr and several other laymen had taken on the responsibility of making arrangements for the congregations for the trip. The company left Hamburg on June 27 and 28 in six ships. Grabau reached New York on September 18. By October 5 the company reached Buffalo, and the first church service could be held by Grabau there. We will take up Grabau's career again after considering the earlier life of his co-leader, von Rohr.

Although he was not a clergyman, at the time, Karl Georg Heinrich von Rohr deserves special attention as one of the main leaders of the first Prussian emigration. He was born in 1797 in Billerbeck, Pommerania. Members of the von Rohr family, which hailed from the Mark Brandenburg and could trace its ancestors back to the twelfth century, had provided numerous army officers and government officials through the centuries. The father of Heinrich served as a privy councilor. His work carried him to various parts of the kingdom. The father determined that Heinrich should become an army officer. At the age of eight he was sent to a school for cadets at Stolp in Pommerania. At the age of eleven he was appointed a page at the court of Frederick William III. He thus became familiar with the family of Prince Wilhelm, who displayed their liking for him by gifts and court favors. He was commissioned a second lieutenant at eighteen and assigned to the "Kaiser Alexander" regiment of the grenadier guards. Von Rohr was stationed for a time in Paris and could associate with the many officers and diplomats of various nations who were there to settle affairs after the Napoleonic wars. Like other young officers, his chief interests in his twenties were dancing, hunting, gambling and the theater.

A rather radical change took place at his wedding. It is reported that both he and his bride, Emilie Willmann from Berlin, were deeply affected by the wedding sermon. Von Rohr determined to serve the Lord more fully, to search his Word and seek his guidance.

The Lord used a series of severe trials to draw this man closer to himself and direct him on unexpected paths. He began to seek spiritual enlightenment by hearing the sermons of theological greats such as Schleiermacher and Hengstenberg. He read frequently in the Scriptures and took instructions from his pastor. He sought the companionship of other earnest Christians. This spiritual growth was intensified when he lost his wife after the birth of their first child. In 1834 he was promoted to the rank of captain and sent to Magdeburg. His son developed cancer of the mouth. Several operations were performed in which the child displayed a moving faith and courage. Von Rohr then married again, this time Julie Mangold, the daughter of a pious Berlin surgeon.

A brief visit early in 1836 by an old acquaintance would prove to be of far-reaching influence in his life. August Kavel, who earlier had served as a private tutor in the home of von Rohr's parents, stopped in for a visit on his way to London to make arrangements for the emigration of his followers to Australia. From Kavel, von Rohr learned for the first time in detail of the battle against the Union being waged especially in Silesia. This visit led von Rohr to begin reading the Lutheran Confessions and the writings of Scheibel. At the end of 1836 he informed his chaplain that he was withdrawing from the Union church. Again, as with Grabau, Bishop Draeseke was called on to attempt to get von Rohr to change his mind, again without success. Apparently because of his close ties to the court, von Rohr had difficulty in finding an Old Lutheran pastor to baptize his child, which was born in October 1836. A certain Pastor Kaul finally agreed to baptize the child in a special service held at night. Not long after he did so, officials began questioning all those who participated in Old Lutheran services in the von Rohr home in an attempt to learn the identity of the man who had performed the baptism.

Von Rohr was dismissed from the Prussian army in February 1837. This left him without an income or a job. A month later his infant son died. Then later in the year his oldest son, Max, died of cholera, and his wife followed four days later. Von Rohr was left with a two-and-one-half-year-old daughter, Julie, whom he had to care and provide for. For some months he struggled under his great losses. Friends came to his support with generous gifts. To solve his need for an occupation and income he opened a used theological book store. The works of the old orthodox Lutheran theologians, which had been selling for a dollar a hundred pounds as a source of wrapping paper, were being rediscovered by the Old Lutherans. Von Rohr began traveling about the country to buy these books wherever he could find them. In selling them, he visited the centers of confessional Lutheranism in various parts of Germany. He became acquainted with and visited Scheibel in Glauchau, Loehe in Neuendettelsau, and Grabau in his prison cell in Heiligenstadt. No doubt these men contributed to his theological development. He began to study the biblical languages.

On November 8, 1837, he committed himself to the Old Lutheran cause at a more serious level by helping Grabau escape from prison. As a result, he was arrested and imprisoned for a month and a half in Magdeburg in January. In the months after his imprisonment, he became involved in planning and organizing the emigration of the Old Lutherans. Already from prison he wrote to Kavel in London requesting advice for travel plans. In a letter to Scheibel he wrote that the prospective emigrants were praying for God's help and guidance in obeying the Lord's will and denying their own will. He promised that they would consider Scheibel's reasons (for not emigrating) and were awaiting the opinions of other brethren in Breslau before making a final decision. The advice of Grabau, who by this time favored emigration, carried the day with von Rohr. He committed himself to the emigration. He began visiting those who were considering joining the emigration company. The principles which were to guide the emigration company were drawn up.

It was stated at the outset that the emigration company did not intend to establish an independent civil community. It was also stated that the company was not, to be a communal society. To demand common ownership of property was called sinful. Members were not to be required to contribute all of their share of the costs, or a specific part of their possessions. The common treasury was to be funded by voluntary contributions, given out of love. The responsibility of the company was to transport participants from Hamburg to New York. Congregations were asked to raise the funds to pay the costs for travel to Hamburg. Once the company arrived in New York, the individual members were left to their own resources. Three families stayed in New York, two in Albany, and the majority settled in Buffalo. Those with the most ample means traveled on to Wisconsin.

Basically, only members of the Old Lutheran congregations who were verified to be members in good standing were eligible to join the emigration. Exceptions were made for family members of Old Lutherans, so that the emigration did not needlessly divide families. On the whole, the guidelines drawn up were sound and fiscally responsible. There was none of the loose handling of funds for the benefit of the leader as was the case with the Stephan emigration.

Thanks to an offer made by two merchants who visited von Rohr unexpectedly in prison, the company sailed from Hamburg to Hull, then took canal boats from Hull to Liverpool, and then sailed from Liverpool to New York. This saved one fourth of the lowest price available for sailing directly from Hamburg to New York. With a view to preserving the health of little children, a cow or goats were to be taken along on the ships. The men were to get a daily ration of brandy.

The participants as they were finally assembled in Hamburg came from the area around Stettin in Pommerania, Erfurt and Magdeburg in the Province of Saxony, Berlin and its environs in Brandenburg, and, as a late development, Breslau in Silesia. The Silesians constituted the party that Krause was supposed to have led to America. When Krause stayed in America for a whole year, these people joined Grabau's party.

Unfortunately, disagreements developed between Grabau and these Silesian emigrants. Krause and the other Silesian agents had negotiated with a representative of George Fife Angas over the possibility of their group's emigrating to Australia. When Grabau arrived on the scene, he thought the Silesians should either sail to Australia, or make a cash settlement or at least apologize to Angas. The Silesians in the emigration party adamantly refused to do any of these. They felt they owed Angas and his company nothing. They had not authorized Krause to negotiate a trip to Australia. When they failed to follow Grabau's thinking in the matter, Grabau, who had taken over the spiritual care of these people since they came to Hamburg, refused to commune them. The upshot was that a part of the Silesian company sailed in a separate ship across the Atlantic and was not inclined to accept Grabau's leadership and ministrations when they reached Buffalo.

For a time it also appeared that another large group would be combining with the Prussian emigrants. In November 1838 von Rohr, learning of the Saxon emigration, held a meeting with Stephan and the other Saxon pastors. There apparently was interest in combining the emigration efforts on both sides. But when Stephan demanded that the Prussian pastors be re-ordained by him before they could cooperate, von Rohr broke off the negotiations.

With all contracts, negotiations and other business complete, von Rohr left Hamburg for England on June 2, 1839. He traveled to England, since the four representatives had resolved to make necessary arrangements there for the travel of the company. He then took a ship to Baltimore rather than New York and traveled overland by way of Philadelphia to New York. In Philadelphia he met with some of the leading pastors of the Philadelphia Ministerium. He sensed in these men a "Union spirit." He became convinced that the Prussians could not work together with the men and churches in the East.

As was mentioned earlier, by September 18 all the emigrants arrived in New York. Von Rohr, who had reached New York earlier and had investigated the possibilities for the party, offered three possible options for the new arrivals to take. They could stay in New York, where they could find work at once in the water works that the city was installing. They also could go to Pennsylvania and find work with the railroads. Or they could travel by way of the Hudson River and the Erie Canal to Buffalo, where those whose funds were exhausted at that point could find employment working on the west end of the Erie Canal. Those whose resources made that possible could continue on at once to Wisconsin.

Already on September 25, before Grabau arrived in Buffalo, a congregational meeting was held in which it was resolved to hold new elections of elders. Meetings of the elders were to be held once a week, and schools were to be established at once. Assignment of the three teachers in the emigration company was to be made by Pastor Grabau and the congregations in Buffalo and Portage. One of the two pastors (Grabau or Krause) was to stay in Buffalo, the other to go on to Milwaukee. The organ brought along by the people from Magdeburg was to be repaired, the expenses being shared by all. If the organ brought by the Silesians stayed in Buffalo, the Magdeburg organ was to be taken to Milwaukee; if the Silesian organ did not remain in Buffalo, the Magdeburg organ should. It certainly speaks loudly of these people's strong concern for the preaching of the gospel and education that while most of them were still lodged in warehouses with not even a beginning of the building of permanent homes, they made matters of church and school their main concern--and that with no pastor present.

Some time between the congregational meeting and Grabau's arrival in Buffalo, von Rohr set out for Wisconsin with forty families, most of them Pommeranians. Apparently no records exist concerning the trip to Milwaukee, but it is assumed the company traveled by ship. Once they had arrived in Milwaukee, von Rohr, A. Radue and M. Schoessow were chosen to find a suitable area for the settlement of the immigrants. With the help of a saw mill operator named Tuerk, they traversed the area north of Milwaukee, finally deciding on land in Township IX in Washington County. The land was purchased from the government for $1.25 an acre. The land was then assigned by lot to the members of the immigrant party. Forty acres were set aside for the church, school and residences of pastor and teacher. On November 5 the first immigrant land purchases were recorded in the government land office in Milwaukee. By November 14, von Rohr is reported to have completed a log cabin to shelter his family on the land he had chosen. During the first winter his skills as a hunter provided game for his and his neighbors' tables when food was in short supply.

In the fall of 1840, after a year of clearing land and raising a first crop, von Rohr was prompted by repeated requests from Grabau to move back to Buffalo and prepare himself for the ministry. For four years he taught school at Grabau's Trinity congregation during the day time, studied theology under Grabau from about four to six in the afteroon and studied for his next day's teaching and seminary classes in the evening.

Upon his ordination in 1844, von Rohr was assigned to a congregation at Humberstone, some twenty-five miles west of Buffalo in Canada. In 1846 he accepted a call to Holy Ghost Church in New Bergholz. Here he served as a faithful and effective pastor until his death in 1874. Von Rohr no doubt was a very capable army officer. He gave up what surely must have appeared to be a promising career to follow the dictates of his conscience in withdrawing from the state church. Although he had to undergo some very difficult times because of the loss of his commission and personal family losses, he became a pillar of strength among those who emigrated from Prussia in 1839. His leadership talents and skills honed during his twenty-year army career were of great benefit to the emigration company as he effectively organized and prepared the way for the trip to America. Grabau must have much appreciated the strength and stability of this man as he dealt with Krause and Ehrenstroem. His congregation at New Bergholz and his brothers in the Buffalo Synod, too, benefited greatly from his gifts and his steady work.

Ehrenstroem, Kindermann and the 1843 emigration

It has been demonstrated earlier that Frederick William III and his persistent furthering of the Union of the Reformed and Lutheran Churches and his adamant refusal to permit the existence of a Lutheran church outside the Union were the cause for the "underground" Lutheran church in Prussia and the emigration of a portion of that church in 1839. His son, Frederick William IV, as Crown Prince had been embarrassed by and opposed to the severe restrictions and punishments imposed on the Old Lutherans. In August 1840 he ordered all the imprisoned pastors released. But he had no intention of doing away with the Union. He saw a united Protestant church in Prussia as a stronger counterweight to the Catholic Church, which was strong in portions of Silesia and the Rhine province. In 1841 the Old Lutherans were permitted to exist as a separate Lutheran church society. But they still were not allowed to have churches, bells and steeples of their own. Their members still had to pay the taxes which provided the funds to pay State Church pastors and maintain and build their churches. Old Lutheran children still had to have a diploma from a State Church school to go on to a higher education or get many jobs. Old Lutheran schools still either were not allowed at all or were not recognized for some time. With the death of Frederick William III some thought the Old Lutherans no longer should have reason to protest or emigrate. But that did not prove to be true. In fact, it was in 1843 that the emigration reached its peak. We will begin our study of the 1843 emigration by again giving special attention to the pastors who led it.

Karl Wilhelm Ehrenstroem was born in Stendal, Brandenburg, in 1803, the son of a tailor. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Halle. In 1826 he passed his first theological examination, which gave him the license to teach the next year. His second theological examination was not taken until 1835, and this was in the Old Lutheran Church. In connection with the first examination he declared himself ready to join the Union. Most of his grades were "good." On his examination sermon he was given an "outstandingly good." He is described as having a large, imposing figure, being slightly cross-eyed but highly gifted, and with a persuasive eloquence which could have a strong influence on his hearers.

As a student he was said to have lived a rather worldly life and enjoyed his schnapps. But that seems to have changed after he left the university. In 1826 he was appointed rector of a school at a town named Meseritz in Posen. Here he was also obliged to preach occasionally. During his tenure at Meseritz he began holding prayer meetings in his residence and elsewhere. In spite of repeated warnings he continued the practice. The result was that he was finally dismissed.

Meanwhile, Ehrenstroem had developed a friendly relationship with two Old Lutheran pastors, Lasius and Wermelkirch, who lived nearby. Through these contacts he was persuaded to withdraw from the State Church in 1833. Soon after, he was called by the small Old Lutheran congregation in Meseritz. He was also asked to serve others in Brandenburg and Posen. His life now became one of constant travel in disguise and being on the watch for the police. The government seems to have pursued him with special determination because of a fear of his persuasive powers with people.

Ehrenstroehm's first arrest came in September 1836. In his hearings after the arrest he already spoke of the possibility of emigrating. He was arrested a second time and imprisoned in 1837. He was released not long after, however, because the prison was full. In an appeal for release he had promised to abstain from ministerial work. Given the choice of going elsewhere in Germany or emigrating, he said he would emigrate. Upon his release he told officials he was heading for Hamburg. Actually, he went only as far as Berlin, where he went into hiding.

Old Lutheran officials persuaded Ehrenstroem to give up emigration ideas entirely. He began to minister to the Old Lutherans in Berlin. The work was cut short when a disgruntled former member betrayed him to the police. He told the police he had changed his mind and decided not to emigrate. He spoke of his strong dislike for the Union and his intent to obstruct it in any way possible.

After four months of imprisonment in Berlin he was transferred to Danzig. Officials again tried to persuade him to give up ministering to Old Lutherans. He agreed to talk to a church official who thought he could persuade him. But Ehrenstroem used the arrangement as an opportunity to escape. He managed to elude the police from September 1839 to some time in 1840. When arrested this time, he was kept under close watch with a change of guard every four hours.

Meanwhile, Frederick William IV ascended to the Prussian throne. As was mentioned earlier, he was opposed to imprisoning the Old Lutheran pastors and in the summer of 1840 ordered their release. Ehrenstroem, however, no doubt because of his deception of officials, was not released until November 1840, and then only upon promising to report any change of address and to desist from seeking to gain adherents for the Old Lutheran cause or spreading the movement in any way. This, by the way, is clear evidence that Prussian officials, if not Frederick William IV, were not minded to grant the Old Lutherans the status of a recognized church at this time. It took strong urging from several members of the Danzig Old Lutheran congregation to persuade Ehrenstroem to agree to this promise. He was released and placed under surveillance.

Soon, however, he was again permitting himself strong outbursts against the Union and the Prussian government. He was warned about his conduct by government officials. In mid-1841 he left Danzig and moved to the province of Ukermark. The Old Lutherans then officially assigned him to Ukermark as his field of labor. He also was to assist Pastor Gustav Kindermann in Pommerania. During the next two years he continued to be a most hostile foe of the State Church.

But he also became increasingly critical of the Old Lutheran officials in Breslau. He criticized them for their opposition to emigration. He criticized them, too, for allowing Bible classes and devotional hours to be led by people who were untrained theologically. He was critical of some of the people who were being accepted as members into the Old Lutheran Church. Everyone who had a bone to pick with the Union State Church, he claimed, was accepted, whether he was Lutheran, Calvinistic, Schwenkfeldian, millennialistic, anabaptistic or pietistic in his beliefs. Finally, Ehrenstroem was suspended by the Breslau officials. Because of the great shortage of Old Lutheran pastors, he could not be replaced and continued serving the people that had been assigned to him in Ukermark and Pommerania.

In a late 1842 letter to the Breslau officials Ehrenstroem reported that he and his congregations did not accept the resolutions of the 1841 Breslau convention because they made too many concessions to unionism and indifferentism. He and his congregations no longer felt themselves one with the synod. Hence they had decided to emigrate.

Meanwhile, he continued to attack the State Church and the government in most hostile terms in his sermons. In one instance he is reported to have preached at the top of his voice in a room with all the windows open. Soon a considerable crowd gathered outside to find out what all the shouting was about. This earned him a jail sentence of two months, after which higher government officials ordered him released. But his conduct continued unchanged.

Finally, an investigation was instituted on orders from Potsdam. The investigation reported numerous instances in which Ehrenstroem spoke of State Church clergy as toadying to the rich and mighty, as being self-serving. It was reported that he warned his listeners all would regret not having listened to the prophet. Correspondence was found which made clear that Ehrenstroem was involved in promoting and organizing an emigration in the territories he served. It could not, however, be proved that he had actually induced any specific individual to emigrate. So it was decided to charge him with insulting the royal government and the United Church. He was arrested on April 28, 1843, in the midst of preparations to emigrate. His people then left without him, naming Kindermann as their pastor instead. Ehrenstroem was found guilty on October 23 and sentenced to one year in prison. He was released May 28, 1844, and finally emigrated.

Ehrenstroem took up the work in the congregations at New-Bergholz, New-Wallmow and Martinsville, New York, in the fall of 1844. With the Prussian government and the Union Church left far behind one would expect that he could turn to a more normal ministry. But being critical and negative appear to have become a permanent mind-set for him. He had hardly taken up the work in his New York congregations when he began to admonish and criticize his members for not having a living faith. Numerous prayer meetings and prayer exercises were held to awaken them spiritually. He charged Luther with having falsified the Bible in some passages of his translation. He tried to teach his members Greek and Hebrew so he could prove it to them. Then he burned a Book of Concord and a Bible because he claimed people were making idols of them. When his wife died, he attempted to resurrect her. He also attempted to restore the sight of a blind person, explaining that the time of miracles foretold in Mark 16:17f had come. He took to wearing high boots and a flowing robe with a rope for a belt wherever he went.

By now most of his members had left him, although a handfull still followed and imitated him. The Buffalo churches excommunicated him. With a faithful few he moved to Wisconsin. When they came to a river, he stepped into the water calling out, "Waters, part!” His true believers walked into the water believing they would indeed part. Some almost drowned. After this the last of his followers left him and returned to New York. Ehrenstroem, too, is reported to have returned to New York for a time. The gold rush of 1848 drew him to California, where he lived out his last days in miserable poverty. He died in 1852.

One can be grateful that Ehrenstroem's spiritual and mental aberrations became apparent to all in the end. The congregations he served briefly in New York suffered no more than temporary confusion and division. Not surprisingly, those aberrations were used by opponents of the emigration to discredit the movement. But there still were real grounds for confessional Lutherans to emigrate in 1843. To agree with Ehrenstroem on that point did not necessarily make one a party to his aberrations.

Gustav Adolf Kindermann was the son of a Lutheran pastor. He was born in Ziegenhagen, Pommerania, in 1805. It is reported of him that he was declared unfit for military duty for the unusual reason that his right shoulder was "too high." That deformity did not prevent him from studying theology at the universities of Halle and Berlin. He apparently was not a particularly gifted student. At his first examination he was given a grade of "fair," although he had a "fairly good" in New Testament and Moral Theology and a "good” in Practical Theology. At his second examination a dispute developed with Bishop Ritschl as Kindermann presented and defended the orthodox Lutheran position. As a result, he did not pass the examination. In 1837 he joined the Old Lutheran Church. Some months later he was called to be the pastor of the Old Lutheran congregation in and around Kammin in Pommerania. An examination by a board of the Old Lutherans attested that his theological attainments were weak, but he was nevertheless admitted to the ministerium and in due time ordained.

Although his call was to the congregation in Kammin, he was given responsibility for the spiritual care of Old Lutherans in a large area reaching from Pommerania west into Ukermark and south into Posen and Silesia. The police soon were on the lookout for him. It was reported that he was traveling about dressed as a farmhand. When he managed to evade the police for some months, a reward of ten Thaler was offered for information leading to his arrest. In September 1839 he married in spite of his constant moving about and in spite of the opposition of Old Lutheran officials in Breslau. Within a month his bride was questioned extensively by the police as they sought to determine his whereabouts. Repeatedly his bride changed her place of residence, attempting to escape the surveillance of the police. Amazingly, the police did not catch Kindermann until March 1841. Then he was released again after two days. The police no longer could hold the Old Lutheran pastors in prison. But they would arrest them from time to time as a reminder that what they were doing was contrary to the law.

In the course of 1839 and 1840 Kindermann's relations with the Breslau church officials deteriorated. He criticized other pastors in Pommerania for being too tolerant of conventicles. Officials received complaints from several sources that he spoke as if it was not possible to be saved outside the Old Lutheran Church. In view of his scarcely adequate examination record, Kindermann took a surprisingly superior tone in writing to Huschke in Breslau. Also contributing to the tension between Kindermann and the officials was the fact that he began to encourage emigration among his members.

Kindermann attended the meeting of the Breslau Synod in 1841 but spoke very critically of it afterwards. He apparently was being influenced by some laymen in his congregations. Twice in 1842 special commissions were appointed to investigate the situation in Kindermann's congregation and the nature of his work. As a result, Kindermann was suspended for his contemptuous attitude and speech toward the church officials. Kindermann thereupon announced his withdrawal from the fellowship of the Old Lutheran Church but continued to serve his congregations as before.

In 1839 Kindermann had spoken out in opposition to the Grabau and von Rohr emigration. But in November 1842 he declared that he had given up all hope that the Prussian government would ever grant freedom of conscience. He also made known his disillusionment with the pussyfooting of the officials in Breslau toward the Prussian government and announced his intention of emigrating. Before deciding definitely to emigrate, Kindermann and his associate, Ehrenstroem, had requested full religious liberty and the right for the Old Lutheran congregations to call their own pastors and have them recognized by the government. That request was refused.

Preparations for emigration then began in earnest. A major obstacle to be overcome was acquiring the necessary papers and permits. Information of various kinds had to be provided, and several officials had to give their approval before the application could be sent off. In the process, government officials constantly sought to delay and discourage the would-be emigrants and persuade them that they did not have reason to leave. Officials insisted that religious freedom was offered. They warned of the dangers and hardships that awaited emigrants in America. They pointed to actual disappointments and difficulties that emigrants had written home about. But the emigration preparations went on, and new applications for emigration permits continued to be submitted.

Eventually, a total of over 1600 people emigrated in 1843, primarily from Pommerania and the northwestern part of Brandenberg, called Ukermark. Some traveled from the Oder port of Swinemuende, all the way by sea. Others traveled by horse and wagon to Hamburg and boarded ship there. A, majority traveled by canal barge from the Oder to the Elbe and then to Hamburg and by ship on to New York. It is not known exactly how many ships transported them to New York.

The first contingent left in early June and the last by the end of July. In one instance 150 would-be emigrants on a canal barge were checked for emigration permits at the Prussian border. Over 40 were found not to have the necessary papers and were transported back to their home towns. Church records indicate that later all of these managed nevertheless to slip past government officials and emigrate. Pastor Kindermann acted as the leader for the whole emigration, since Pastor Ehrenstroem was arrested for his sharp criticisms of the government and the church and was imprisoned in Berlin.

The first of these emigrants reached Buffalo on August 4, and the others followed in due time, all ships reaching America safely. A letter sent home by one of the emigrants reveals that some of them were already arguing about Grabau's doctrine of church and ministry on board ship, some calling it more Catholic than Lutheran.

Once all of the company reached Buffalo, Grabau and Kindermann held meetings with the congregation. It was decided that Kindermann should go on to Wisconsin with his Pommeranians while Grabau temporarily served Ehrenstroem's people, who would settle around Buffalo.

Von Rohr proved to be very helpful to the new arrivals. He was familiar with the Buffalo area and had also spent a year in Wisconsin. He could therefore give a comparison of the two regions. Von Rohr now acted as leader of the Buffalo settlers. With a committee he went around and looked over six different possible sites. Information thus gained was then presented to all those who planned to settle around Buffalo. They chose a site in Wheatfield County, northeast of Buffalo between Lockport, Tonawonda and Niagara. About 2,000 acres were purchased for $9.00 per acre from Governor Washington Hunt, with whom von Rohr had developed a friendship.

Governor Hunt had the area surveyed. The land was laid out in 100-acre farms. In the center a village was laid out with one-acre lots. In addition, another 600 acres were purchased a bit later and put aside as a reserve so that some of the poorer settlers might purchase land later at a still reasonable price. Governor Hunt donated 4 acres in the middle of the settlement, which was named New-Bergholz, for a church, school, parsonage and market place. He also donated a pair of oxen for clearing the land and hauling logs for building log cabins. The governor also lent money at low rates to small farmers to assist them in buying land and tools. Another smaller settlement was established two miles north of New-Bergholz, which was named New-Wallmow. A third, which was given the name Martinsville, was located four miles east of Tonawonda on the Erie Canal. Most of the settlers here were fishermen who came from a town on the Oder River called Nipperwiese.

Grabau began holding services in these new settlements on an alternating basis. In his absence, elders would read sermons from some orthodox sermon book. The church at New-Bergholz was named Holy Ghost Lutheran Church, that at New-Wallmow, St. Peter's and that at Martinsville, St. Martin's. After the years of irregular "underground" services and the constant apprehension about arrest, fines and imprisonments, the people were indeed grateful for the freedom of religion and regular church life they now could enjoy in their new home.

In the spring of 1844 the three young congregations sent a letter to the Prussian government appealing for the release of Pastor Ehrenstroem. He was released later in the year and reached Buffalo in the fall of 1844. The people's joy at finally having a pastor of their own was soon turned to distress as it became evident that Ehrenstroem had become a fanatic pietist and worse. Ehrenstroem was excommunicated by his congregations. They then called as their pastor Heinrich von Rohr, who had been serving at Humberstone, Ontario.

Von Rohr remained at New-Bergholz for the remainder of his life. Under his capable leadership churches were built at all three of the congregations at New-Bergholz, New-Wallmow and Martinsville. In 1853 daughter congregations were organized at Johannesburg and Wolcottsville. Johannesburg was organized by 74 families from New-Bergholz halfway between New-Bergholz and Martinsville. Members of the mother congregation helped with the building of the church and school.

At Wolcottsville, 12 miles beyond Martinsville and Lockport, 70 families bought 1600 acres of land with the help of the older churches from a man by the name of Wolcott, who donated 100 acres for the use of the church and 50 for the school. Thus within ten years the settlement at Buffalo had grown to a cluster of six flourishing congregations.

Meanwhile, the larger portion of the 1843 emigration company moved on, as had been determined, to Wisconsin. Pastor Kindermann remained in Milwaukee for half a year. While there, he served the Old Lutherans who were under Pastor Krause's care. Meanwhile, he asked Pastor Krause to look after the spiritual needs of the members of his congregation who settled in and beyond Freistadt.

In contrast to von Rohr, neither Kindermann nor Krause apparently played any part in the selection of new settlement sites. One wonders whether von Rohr would have convinced the Lebanon people to settle in a place closer and more accessible for the Kirchhayn pastor. Some of the new arrivals bought unclaimed land in the Freistadt settlement.

The largest group selected the site six miles northwest of Freistadt which was given the name Kirchhayn ("church woods"). Eighty acres were set aside at the outset for a church, school and homes for the pastor and teacher. The women and children stayed with relatives and friends at Freistadt while the men felled trees, erected log cabins and cleared the first land.

At Easter in 1844 Pastor Kindermann moved into a two-story log cabin which had been built by Ferdinand Bublitz. The upper story was used for church services on Sunday and as a school room during the week. A separate school with an attached teacherage and a separate parsonage were built in the summer of 1844. In 1856 the present stone church was built. Neither the death of Pastor Kindermann the day before Easter nor a lightning bolt which struck and damaged the unfinished church deterred the congregation, which chose the name David's Star, from completing this new house of God.

Meanwhile, another smaller portion of the 1843 emigrants settled in Cedarburg and established Trinity Lutheran Church there, which was also served by Kindermann.

Iwan in his history, Die Altlutherische Auswanderung um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, gives Kindermann rather poor marks for the work he did in Germany. He implies that Kindermann was involved in active recruiting for the emigration and considers his reasons for breaking with Breslau unjustified. He finds his manner of addressing the officials in his correspondence rather arrogant, considering his record in his examination for the ministry. But once Kindermann moved into the parsonage at Kirchhayn, he settled down to solid, commendable work.

When controversy broke out between Krause and the Freistadt congregation, it spread also into Kindermann's congregation. Kindermann tried to keep peace as much as possible. At first he defended Krause, but eventually he told those who had complaints to take them to Grabau, the synod president. Although Kindermann was by no means brilliant, the Buffalo Synod could have used more of his kind of steady ministry.

The fourth part of the people that came to Wisconsin in 1843, after searching for suitable land to the west and north of Watertown, settled in Lebanon Township in Dodge County and in Ixonia Township in Jefferson County, five miles east of Watertown. About 75 families came to the area. They felled the trees, built log cabin homes and cleared some land. Some even planted some winter wheat that first fall of 1843. In winter they called Pastor Kindermann to serve them as their pastor, but he had already accepted a call to serve David's Star congregation at Kirchhayn. For some months he attempted to serve Lebanon occasionally from Kirchhayn, but the distance of over 25 miles, the lack of direct roads and the difficult terrain finally led him to advise the Lebanon people to try to call a pastor from the Saxons in Missouri. Pastor Carl L. Geyer, a cousin of C. F. W. Walther, accepted their call, arriving in Lebanon in late November of 1844. Thus Immanuel of Lebanon became a member, not of the Buffalo Synod, but of the Missouri Synod. Other losses for the Buffalo Synod would follow.

Grabau, the Buffalo Synod and their crippling controversies

The emigrations of 1839 and 1843 which we have examined in detail brought over 2,600 people to the United States. A fairly large number of others came individually or in groups in the following years and strengthened the settlements and congregations we have described. When the "Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Emigrated from Prussia" was organized in 1845 at Freistadt and Milwaukee, it gave promise of experiencing considerable further growth and enjoying a flourishing future. That was not to be.

The first controversy developed before the 1839 group left Germany. When the emigration party from Silesia was left without a clergy leader because Krause had stayed on in America, they decided to join Grabau's party. When Grabau learned that Krause and one layman had negotiated with a representative of George Angas about the possibility of emigrating to Australia, he insisted that the Silesians should go to Australia or at least make a settlement with Angas's representative or apologize, if no settlement was needed. The Silesians, who had authorized Krause and their other representatives only to negotiate for a trip to America, refused to do as Grabau demanded. Grabau in turn barred them from the Lord's Supper.

A part of the Silesian group then went to America by themselves. When they arrived in Buffalo, the controversy continued. Grabau excommunicated them and considered them a Rotte, a rabble or mob, not part of the church. In 1841 when Ernst Moritz Buerger, one of the Saxon pastors, decided to return to Germany, he came through Buffalo. The excommunicated Silesians called him as their pastor, and he accepted. Grabau now considered Buerger a Rottierer, a rabble preacher.

The kind of thinking that lay behind Grabau's treatment of the Silesians both in Germany and in Buffalo was put into words in December 1840 when he issued his Hirtenbrief, or Pastoral Letter. In it he stated that members of a Christian congregation owe obedience to their pastor in everything not forbidden by the Word of God.

The Hirtenbrief was occasioned by events in the congregation in Freistadt because, in the absence of a pastor, two laymen had administered the Lord's Supper. Grabau claimed that only a properly ordained Lutheran pastor could administer a valid sacrament. He also made the procedures for ordination set down in the Saxon, Wittenberg and Pommeranian Church Orders absolute requirements for being ordained. He held that only ordained pastors were to perform marriages and baptisms, although exceptions were allowed for baptisms.

Grabau had had to deal with conventicles in Germany. Their members were people who claimed that ministers were not necessary, that any Christian could conduct a worship service, preach or administer the sacrament. Grabau had good reason to oppose those people and defend and support the public ministry. But he clearly went beyond Scripture in attributing to a pastor the authority which he did.

When Pastor L. F. E. Krause arrived at Freistadt in September 1841 to serve as the congregation's first pastor, he demanded that they sign a document which stated that they accepted 1) the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church, 2) the old Church Orders of Saxony, Wittenberg and Pommerania, 3) the Dresden Catechism, and 4) Grabau's Hirtenbrief as correct doctrinal statements and that they accepted Grabau as an orthodox Lutheran pastor and his congregation as an orthodox Lutheran congregation. Furthermore, they had to confess that they had sinned against proper church order in having a layman distribute the Sacrament of the Altar during their vacancy and that all that did not agree with all the above were separatists, heretics and enemies of the Lutheran Church. A considerable number of Freistadt people refused to sign Krause's document and were put out of the congregation. Several more families left the church as the result of arguments with Krause after word reached Freistadt of Ehrenstroem's doctrinal aberrations.

Another controversy arose in 1845 in Milwaukee. Krause had been renting a horse and buggy to drive into Milwaukee to serve the members there. At a rather poorly attended congregational meeting he asked that the congregation buy him a horse and buggy. He pointed out that this would be cheaper in the long run, and that, in fact, if they would pay three cents a week for twenty weeks the horse and buggy would be paid for. The assembly voted to raise the money for the horse and buggy. But at the next congregational meeting the motion was rescinded, and the congregation went on record as refusing to raise the money.

Krause then excommunicated those who were opposed to buying him the horse and buggy. The matter was appealed to President Grabau, who sided with Krause.

The congregation in Milwaukee was about evenly divided on the matter. The Krause opponents appealed to and eventually joined the Missouri Synod. They became Trinity congregation, now in Milwaukee on 9th Street and Highland Avenue. The Krause supporters constituted St. Paul's congregation, today located at 28th and Wisconsin in Milwaukee. There was also a division among the members at Freistadt. Two congregations existed there until 1868, when a reconciliation and merger brought all of Trinity-Freistadt into the Missouri Synod. Krause left in 1848, taking controversy with him to New York, as we heard previously.

[ http://www.wlsessays.net/authors/W/WesterhausEmigrations/WesterhausEmigrations.rtf.  ]

Leberecht Friedrich Ehregott Krause, a native of Silesia, was associated with Grabau’s immigrant community, and served as pastor of those who had settled in Wisconsin from about 1843 until 1847. He seems to have been an eccentric and controversial figure. Cf. Philip von Rohr Sauer, “The Rev. L. F. E. Krause: A Paradoxical Pioneer Pastor.” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 68. 2 (Summer 1995), 80ff. [ http://www.ctsfw.edu/library/files/pb/1940 ]

We have known this man since 1836, during the time when he suffered along with us for the sake of the Lutheran faith in Prussia. He was ordained a Lutheran minister by Dr. Scheibel to serve several persecuted Lutheran congregations in Silesia. For this he was arrested by the United Agenda government, which did not recognize his ordination. He was taken to Erfurt and this is where we first met him. In 1838 he emigrated alone to America after an unsuccessful attempt to join the emigrating Stephanists. [See Translator's Note] He went from Hamburg to New York and then on to Buffalo, where he had a small Lutheran following. After we had made our decision to emigrate, he sent some glowing reports back to us in Germany, ... [http://www.archivaria.com/ThirdSynodalLetter/Supplement5.html#80 ]

1800

SILEZIE

CARL FRIEDRICH AUGUST KRAUSE

JOHANN DAVID KRAUSE

http://www.geneagraphie.com/getperson.php?personID=I58593&tree=1

1816 & 1828

BRESLAU, NIEDERWALTERSDORF

JOHN F KRAUSE & ERNST WILHELM KRAUSE

1807

SAWADE

JOHANN GOTTFRIED KRAUSE

Spouses
1 Johanne Beate LACHMAN

Marriage 25 May 1852, Lobethal, SA2433

Children August Hermann (1857-1935)

2 Anna Elisabeth BARRIEN
Birth 10 Nov 1815, Sawade, Silesia2433
Immigration 27 Oct 1841, ‘Skjold’2433 Age: 25
Death 3 May 1851, Lobethal, SA2433 Age: 35
Father George BARRIEN

Marriage 2 Feb 1837, Prussia2433

Children Johanne Ernestine (1838-1859)
Johann August (1839-1912)
Johanna Pauline (1842-1912)
Johanne Elisabeth (1844-1845)
Theophilus Johannes (1846-1925)
Johanne Maria (1848-1916)
Anna Elisabeth (1849-1891)

http://homepage.mac.com/graememoad/Family/PS100/PS100_359.HTM

1809

Breslauer Namensverzeichnis aller stimmfähigen Bürger 18.03.1809

Breslauer Namensverzeichnis von 1809

1817

MIELITSCH

CARL AUGUST FRANZ KRAUSE

Name Carl August Franz KRAUSE
Birth 3 Nov 1817, Mielitsch,, Silesia, Prussia
Immigration 9 Dec 1849,  Age: 32
Death 5 Sep 1894 Age: 76
Burial Gnadenfrei Cemetery, Marananga, SA

 

1832

Adressbuch der Haupt- und Residenz-Stadt Breslau 1832

Breslauer Adressbuch von 183

2

1842 - 1929

1844

SEIFFERSDORF

KARL JOHANN KRAUSE

1852

Adressbuch der Haupt- und Residenz-Stadt Breslau 1852
Gunter Braun, Erfasser des Adreßbuchs.

Breslauer Adressbuch 1852

1853

Going to America, specifically Texas From Silesia, Rothenberg District and members of the old Lutheran community

1857

FRIEDLAND

FEDOR KRAUSE

1861

FEBRUARY 4

LIEGNITZ

AUGUST KRAUSE

1890

1892

1895

JULY 12

LIEGNITZ

GUNTHER FREDERICK KRAUSE

Historic Addressbooks

1907

 
Lastname Firstname Title Status Occupation Place Adress Year
Krause Anna     Hebamme Bischofswerda Kirchstraße 17 1907
Krause Emma     Geschäftsteilhaberin Bischofswerda Bismarckstraße 7 1907
Krause Friedrich     Schuhmacher Bischofswerda Brauhausgasse 4 1907
Krause Ida     Botenfrau Bischofswerda Am Lutherpark 1 1907
Krause Julius     Tischlermeister Bischofswerda Neumarkt 2 1907
Krause Otto     Zementwarenfabrikant Bischofswerda Am Mühlteich 1 1907
Krause Wilhelm     Glasarbeiter Bischofswerda Kirchstraße 17 1907

http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/search

ANNA KRAUSE - MIDWIFE

Lastname: Krause
Firstname: Anna
Occupation: Hebamme
Address: Kirchstraße 17
Place: Bischofswerda
place.show_all_entries
More about this place in GOV
Source: Adressbuch der Stadt Bischofswerda in Sachsen 1907 (Page 39)
book.show_all_entries
More about this book in GenWiki

http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/show/1080520

WILHELM KRAUSE - GLASS WORKER

Lastname: Krause
Firstname: Wilhelm
Occupation: Glasarbeiter
Address: Kirchstraße 17
Place: Bischofswerda
place.show_all_entries
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Source: Adressbuch der Stadt Bischofswerda in Sachsen 1907 (Page 39)
book.show_all_entries
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http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/show/1080519

EMMA KRAUSE - BUSINESS PARTNER

Lastname: Krause
Firstname: Emma
Occupation: Geschäftsteilhaberin
Address: Bismarckstraße 7
Place: Bischofswerda
place.show_all_entries
More about this place in GOV
Source: Adressbuch der Stadt Bischofswerda in Sachsen 1907 (Page 39)
book.show_all_entries
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http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/show/1080524

FRIEDRICH KRAUSE - SHOEMAKER

Lastname: Krause
Firstname: Friedrich
Occupation: Schuhmacher
Address: Brauhausgasse 4
Place: Bischofswerda
place.show_all_entries
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Source: Adressbuch der Stadt Bischofswerda in Sachsen 1907 (Page 39)
book.show_all_entries
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http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/show/1080518

IDA KRAUSE - POSTWOMAN

Lastname: Krause
Firstname: Ida
Occupation: Botenfrau
Address: Am Lutherpark 1
Place: Bischofswerda
place.show_all_entries
More about this place in GOV
Source: Adressbuch der Stadt Bischofswerda in Sachsen 1907 (Page 39)
book.show_all_entries
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http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/show/1080523

JULIUS KRAUSE - CARPENTER

Lastname: Krause
Firstname: Julius
Occupation: Tischlermeister
Address: Neumarkt 2
Place: Bischofswerda
place.show_all_entries
More about this place in GOV
Source: Adressbuch der Stadt Bischofswerda in Sachsen 1907 (Page 39)
book.show_all_entries
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http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/show/1080522

OTTO KRAUSE - CEMENT MANUFACTURER

Lastname: Krause
Firstname: Otto
Occupation: Zementwarenfabrikant
Address: Am Mühlteich 1
Place: Bischofswerda
place.show_all_entries
More about this place in GOV
Source: Adressbuch der Stadt Bischofswerda in Sachsen 1907 (Page 39)
book.show_all_entries
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http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/show/1080521

Laubaner Adressbuch von 1910

Krause

1939

HIRSCHBERG, SILESIA

[TODAY JELENIA GÓRA, DOLNOŚLASKIE, POLAND]

Google Maps

verzeichnis der Strassen und Hausnummern der Stadt Hirschberg/Rsgb. mit Angabe ihrer Eigent. und Bewohner. Die Stadt hatte 1939 ca 25 000 Einwohner

[directory of the city streets and house numbers Hirschberg / RSGB. indicating their actual. and residents. The city had in 1939 about 25 000 inhabitant]

Lf. Nr. Strasenname Haus-Nr. Eigentümer Oder Bewohner Vorname Beruf/Stand Anmerkung: E-bedeutet=Eigentümer -V - bedeutet=Hausverwaltewr

 [E=Owner V=Caretaker]

1941

Breslauer Adressbuch für das Jahr 1941
Von 2003 bis 2006 mit ca. 30 freiwilligen Helfern wurde dieses Adressbuch erfasst!

Breslauer Adressbuch von 1941