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By Tim Niess
Kastellaun, Rhineland Prussia 1726:The Great Northern War had just ended the twenty years of battles between Sweden, Prussia, and Russia. Unfortunately, this followed the Thirty Years War, which had devastated the economy of Prussia. Frederick II has proclaimed himself the first King of Prussia. The unrest of wars and economic depression is laying the foundation of a great migration of people from this region of the world to the new world known as America. Families are running out of space, opportunity, and time. In 1796 in nearby Steffeln, a village of about 240 souls, a son was born to Petri and Elizabeth Blonigan. His name was Mathias. Steffeln is one of the most southern areas of the Rhineland, and borders France and Belgium. John Weber is born in Trier in 1818, and will soon meet his future wife Maria. They will be connected to the Blonigan family in half of a century; half of a world away in a territory known as Iowa. In Olpe, Johann Anton Nies and his wife Brigitta are raising their family. Their first born, Thomas Josef is welcomed into this world in 1809. Also in Olpe, Johann Jakob Weber and his wife Elizabeth give birth to a son Christian August in 1798. Jois and Annae Gertrudis Adams start their family in Hirten. There are five children born from 1727 to 1737. The children are Maria Catherina, Catherina, Joannes, Maria Gertrudis, and Jois. These five families are destined to become joined more than a hundred years in the future. Let us begin with the Adams family. Aachen is the western most city in Prussia. It has been a vacation spot for kings and queens during the past one thousand years because of the hot springs that abound. Charlemagne originally brought Christianity here in the early ninth century. But it has also been embroiled in the wars between France, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, and Austria. It is near here in Hirten that Johann Peter Adams and Anna Gerturdis Adams are beginning their married life. They are married May 30, 1786.There are three children born from 1788 to 1799. The children are Johann, Nicolaus and Mathias. This is in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, a war in which Prussia lost the Rhineland to France and Belgium for a period of ten years. In America, Thomas Jefferson is in his second term as President and awaits the reports of Lewis and Clark who are exploring the vast western territories of the Louisiana Purchase. One of the first territories they venture into will become the state of Iowa. Johann Adams marries Margarethe Jax in 1815. They have seven children from 1816 to 1831; Heinrich, Mathias, Anna, Maria, Nicholas Michael, Margaretha, and Peter.
The great issue of the time was whether Germany should either unite it’s kingdoms into one federated country, or unite the kingdoms with each monarchy and aristocracy staying in place after King Frederick the III died in 1840. The Rhineland had a very strong Catholic population. Other areas of Prussia were heavily populated with the Lutheran Protestant church, and this would become a major factor in fighting the unification because of persecutions of Catholics. It would be at this time in 1841 that several residents of The Rhineland would make a life changing decision to immigrate to The United States of America in McHenry County Illinois, to farm and to establish a church where they would be free to practice their Catholic faith. The stories of those who risked everything to come to America begin here. The end of many months of planning, saving money, and preparing for a trip to the new world of opportunity and freedom…to this America, came at last. Many things needed to be taken into account. There was the arranging of the trip from Hirten to the port of Bremen. Once boarded, the group of Prussians would port in New York Harbor. Then there would be a trip on a small steamship following the Ohio River west to Indiana, and wagon train up to the most western slave free state, McHenry County, Illinois. A path thousands would follow. The German immigrants were steadfast abolitionists. Traveling to Illinois, they laid claim to a parcel of beautiful farmland northwest of Chicago along the Fox River. One of the first things to do was to build a church. Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church was founded that year by Nicholas Frett, Nicholas Adams, Johann Baptist Muller, and Jacob Schmitt in what was later to become Johnsburg, Illinois. The first priest to serve this new congregation was delivered there by friendly Indians who found him lost in the woods.
So Nicholas Michael Adams, then 29 years old followed the path of other Adams family members to New York with a host of families bearing the names of Hemann, Pitzen, Klapperich, Blake, Schmitt, Hackenmiller, Steffens, Brown, Bantes, Wagner and May. He landed in New York harbor in 1855. Franklin Pierce is the President of the United States, and through a series of mishandled opportunities is setting the stage for the American Civil War.
Young Nicholas Adams worked hard for other farmers to get established and married Anna Maria Steffens on November 13, 1856. Nicholas and Anna (whom he called Mary) had the first 5 of their 11 children beginning in 1857 with the birth of their son Caspar. Michael, Mathias, Susan and John followed by 1866. Land was becoming scarce for these growing families, and once again these Rhinelanders followed each other west to another place with rich farmland to be settled in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota. So in 1867 Nicholas and Mary packed up their wagon and traveled over 300 miles to Adams, MN. Traveling by wagons pulled by horses or oxen would have taken 3 to 4 weeks of grueling effort going across rough ground, fording streams and rivers where possible, and trying to avoid marshes and mud. One of the other families that traveled west at that same time was Johann and Maria Hackenmiller, with their children Hubert, Joseph, Catherine, Elizabeth, Christina, Stephan and Gertrude. While farming in Adams, Nicholas and Mary’s family added Peter, Margaret, Benjamin, Jacob, Joseph, and finally Martin in 1878. In 1880 they would move to the town of Stacyville, Iowa, where Nicholas would die in 1882 at the age of 57. He is buried in the cemetery of Visitation Catholic Church in Stacyville. Mathais (now going by Matt) Adams would catch the eye of Christina Hackenmiller and purchase a 40 acre farm near her parents west of Meyer, IA. Matt and Christina would marry May 13, 1884 and begin farming together. With beautiful auburn hair she was referred to as “Rut Christina” or in English, “Red Christina”. They had 10 children from 1885 to 1902. Those children include Aloysius, Katherine, Hubert, Felix, Alphons, Regina, Cecelia, Edward, Anton and Margaret. Mary Adams would join her husband Nicholas in heaven on March 10, 1887 and is buried next to him.
The Nies FamilyJohann Anton Nies and his wife Brigitta were married in Olpe,
Prussia on January 1, 1808. Their first born was Thomas Josef on
They would call each other Gustav and Katherine. Gustav recalled to her about the wonders of America and how he would like to raise his family there, but Katherine could not leave her beloved Deutschland and in Olpe they stayed. From 1887 to 1900 there were 10 children born. They included Regina, Edmund, Eduard, Josef, Thomas, Gustav, Emilie, Anna, Katherina and Clementine. When Josef was five years old he was sent to Blyer Heide in Holland for three years to be
In 1903 Gustav moved the family to Munster where Josef began an apprenticeship with a druggist. Otto Von Bismark's unified Germany had not solved all the economic problems of the country. There was still much discontent in Europe in the early 1900's; and it was beginning to look again that war was on the horizon. President Theodore Roosevelt was bringing about economic reform in America that was beginning to show positive results. Gustav did not want his sons to fight and die for Kaiser Wilhelm. So fearing that a great war was to break out in Europe, he gave his sons an opportunity to go to America, Russia, or South America.
He reconnected with Ben in 1916 to encourage him to join Joseph on a trip to California, where they would then travel to the southern tip of South America returning north along the Atlantic Ocean. Ben had just rented a farm and declined, but told Joseph that he should try to get work with one of the many German farmers nearby. Joseph’s first job as a farmhand was for Theodore Rundy. He wore out his shoes in a few months and needed to purchase a new pair. Hubert Adams owned a general store in Meyer, and this handsome young Rhinelander marched in to inquire about a new pair of shoes, not realizing that his life was about to take an unexpected turn.
The romance blossomed and Joe, who had changed the spelling of his last name to Niess, married Celia on October 17, 1917 and went to Wisconsin to farm in partnership with Ben Grote. The following year they returned to Meyer and rented the Adams family homestead. There they raised twelve children from 1918 to 1936. They were Edmund, Helen, Francis, Catherine, Gustav, Mary, Mathew, Rita, Margaret, Celia, Joseph, and Joan.
Gustav Nies died in Munster, Germany in 1918. Joe's mother, Katherine Niess eventually came to America in 1922 and lived with Fr. Edmund as his housekeeper in Wendelin, Illinois until her death in 1935. The great European war Gustav Nies feared came and went; only to be followed by another great war involving his homeland in 1939. His grandsons Edmund, Francis, and Matt would join the U.S. Navy and Army to take up arms against Germany and Japan. Edmund would lose his life in the South Pacific at Pago Pago in February 1944, fighting the Japanese on a PT boat. He is buried at Pearl Harbor. Francis served in the navy and
Christina (Hackenmiller) Adams died on February 21, 1940, and Matt Adams died on April 6, 1944. They are buried side by side, in the Sacred Heart Cemetery in Meyer, Iowa.
The Blonigan FamilyThe Blonigan family is a large one already in Steffeln. Mathias Blonigan married Anna Catherine Mertes in 1823 and they began their family of 8 children in 1824 through 1842 with Agnes, Petri, Nicolaus, Michael, Margaret, Theodore, Sebastian, and Anna. They are a family of farmers and in a small village of 240, there is not much land available for young people growing up. Economic times were hard and many people were without work. In 1857 Theodore (25) and Sebastian (18) came to America to seek their fortune and future as farmers. They too follow the other Rhinelanders through McHenry County Illinois to get their start.
In January of 1865 Sebastian reenlisted for another three years as John Blohen with the 57'th Illinois, and was promptly loaded on a train and sent to join the army of General William Tecumseh Sherman as he began the siege of
Sebastian and Christina have two children, Steven 1883, and Mary Berlindus 1887. Philip Blonigan grew up and met Anna Weber. The Weber's have a farm a mile and a half from the Blonigans. Jake Weber, Anna's father, was born in Trier, Rhineland, Prussia in 1854 as was her mother Maria Deiderich.
In 1899, Philip Blonigan and Anna Weber get married and began farming next to the farm owned by Sebastian. Philip and Anna have their first child, Anthony in 1901. Edward follows in 1902, with Florence in 1907, and Mabel in 1911.
He is found by the crew and put to work cleaning and cooking for the men. The ship pulls into New York Harbor, and Tsanko, afraid he will be turned over to the police; jumps over board and swims to the shore. Tsanko now calls himself Sam. It is easier for Americans to pronounce, and changes his last name from Topoloff to Bonoff for the same reason. He uses his new cooking skills to get work as a short order cook in New York, then getting a job as a cook on the railroad where he meets other Bulgarians recently emigrated. Working his way west he meets a farmer in Ohio by the name of Chris Thomas; who hires him to be a
The next stop on their itinerary is New Haven, Iowa. Florence Blonigan grows up knowing the meaning of hard work. When she is 13, she becomes a “hired girl”. When neighbors need an extra hand in the kitchen to prepare meals for field hands, or to help after the birth of a baby;
He was strong, gaining a reputation as a hard worker, and was in demand. He also continued to wrestle in local matches. His last match found him on the losing end of a hammerlock hold by another wrestler named Wilkes. By 1925 Sam has met Florence many times as he works throughout the neighboring farms, and he proposes marriage. Sam was working for a farmer by the name of Gus Tupper. Philip
They begin farming on their own first by Orchard, then by renting a farm from Pearl Hobkirk in Burr Oak Township. Sam and Florence grew their family with three daughters. Luella was born in 1929, Dorothy in 1931, and Mary in 1934. Here they are pictured in 1937. Sebastian Blonigan and his wife Christina had moved to Watertown, WS, to live with their daughter Mary Berlindus who had taken vows as a nun. Sebastian was not happy when Iowa became a “dry state”, and wanted to have a good supply of beer for the rest of his life! He died in 1934, and Christina in 1938. They are both buried in Watertown.
Sam and Florence rented the Hobkirk farm for many years, eventually buying it in 1955. Anna Blonigan became ill and she moved into the house of Sam and Florence along with Philip. Anna died in the house in 1944. In 1946 Sam was looking for another hired man. Matt Niess, son of Joseph and Celia Niess had heard from his brother Gus, that “There is this Russian looking for a good man.” Matt had been mustered out of the Army, and working at Hormel Packing Plant in Austin, MN. So he applied for the job and was hired. Durning this time he would find extra work with Florence’s brother Tony on the Blonigan farm. He became aquainted with the Bonoff’s middle daughter, Dorothy. One day in May of 1948, Matt picked up Dorothy during her lunch hour at Osage High School. He was driving a car he had purchased from his brother-in-law Fritz Schrandt. Matt
The marriage of Matt Niess and Dorothy Bonoff; 108 years after young Nicolaus Adams came to McHenry County, IL. in 1841; the families of Adams, Hackenmiller, Niess,
Philip Blonigan lived in Osage, Iowa, until his death in 1964. He and Anna are buried in St. Peters Cemetery in New Haven, Iowa.
The coming years would see the passing of Sam in 1982 and Florence in 1991. They lived very full lives out on the farm and were loved by their children and grandchildren. Joe and Celia Niess were able to stay on the family farm until moving into Stacyville to stay with Helen Bena in 1976. Then in 1979 to the nursing home in Stacyville. Celia died in 1981, and Joe joined her in heaven in 1982. They are buried in Sacred Heart Cemetery in Meyer, Iowa.
Additional Photos
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January 11, 1809, one month before Abraham Lincoln. Five other
children followed and included Maria Theresa, Joannes, Anna Louisa,
and Christian.
