By the Cousins Four

Dear Reader,

We begin to write this scene in fall 2001. Since the last scene was finished, the Cousins Four have continued to be engaged in researching their ancestors. We all now see this as a long-term project as we try to understand what happened before us. The further we move to the present, the more we have access to records which help us understand the movement of lives we are following. At the same time we are looking back, we are dealing with the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, events in the U.S. and now the retaliation attacks by the allies. It is a sobering time, but also a good time to go back and find those before us had extremely difficult times and found ways to move ahead with their lives and have a positive impact on the lives around them.

This scene is set in 1876. By this time most of the Moschels who were to move to the U.S. had done so as far as we can tell. There are incidents of groups of people from Webenheim moving together to the U.S. and relocating to areas where the Moschels and other Germans had already established residence. We have one example of one Moschel, Nicholas (born 1811 and brother to Johann, Christian, and Philipp) returning for a visit to Webenheim in 1870 and returning with 8 other Webenheim residents, which we have dubbed the Gang of 8. It shows Moschel relatives were still assisting those who wanted to emigrate in the 1870's.

In this scene we are interested in two places in the U.S. (Illinois and Nebraska) and Germany, specifically areas around Webenheim.

In the U.S.

The U.S. in 1876 was a place still in the latter phases of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The 13th - 15th amendments had been added to the Constitution. Essentially they abolished slavery, then gave them citizenship, and then gave them the right to vote. It is a legacy of the democratic idealism that swept Congress in the late 1860's. Reconstruction failed to alter the social structure of the South and Black Codes allowed for racial segregation in public places, prohibition of interracial marriages, prohibition of jury service by blacks, and blacks could not testify against whites. Thus, African-Americans males were citizens but not allowed all aspects of freedom and democracy. Women suffrage was still decades away from being a reality.

1876 Centennial

In 1876 the U.S. was celebrating being a nation for 100 years. The country was in the aftermath of a financial depression which started in 1873 and was second only to the Great Depression of the 1930's in its devastating financial effects on the nation. Even though there was a depression, the country celebrated a Centennial exposition in Philadelphia. The exposition had over 30,000 exhibits, most that appealed to scientists and the technology of the day, like locomotives, but there were also natural phenomenon exhibits and controversial exhibits of Native Americans.

The president of the U.S. in 1876 was Ulysses S. Grant, the winning general of the Civil War. Even though Grant was a successful general in the Civil War, his presidency is not viewed that positively. Grant is accused of running the presidency much as he did his army, bringing much of his Army staff to the White House. Grant, although honest, accepted presents from the financial men who eventually caused the Panic of 1873 which then caused the depression that followed. Grant was elected for a second term, and he lived a fairly large portion of his life in Galena, Illinois.

In Illinois

Shelby M. Cullom

Illinois had been a state since 1818 or for 58 years by 1876. As history would have it, the person who was elected governor of Illinois in 1876 was Shelby M. Cullom, who happens to be the first cousin three times removed of three of the Cousins Four. That's right. Shelby M. Cullom is related to Elly Hess, Greg Rittenhouse, and Theresa Ripley. Reading any account of Shelby Cullom's life is like reading the political history of the day. The longest version of that history is the autobiography written by Cullom entitled Fifty Years of Public Service. Shelby's early life included teaching and breaking prairie and two episodes of bad health. Cullom studied law under the instruction of Abraham Lincoln in the early 1850's. Cullom was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives and was elected as the youngest speaker of the house in Illinois in 1861 and again in 1873. He was also U.S. representative from Illinois to Washington D.C. from 1865 to 1871.

The 1873 financial panic and resulting depression was the main theme of any administration throughout the U.S. at the time. It was a time not known for bringing on new issues, but dealing just with the financial reality of the day. Governor Cullom did have to deal with a great number of labor disputes during his tenure as Governor.

One other major event in the state during this era was the Chicago fire of 1871 which supposedly was started in the O'Leary's cow barn. The fire eventually destroyed 17,000 buildings and left 100,000 people homeless and took 300 lives.

In Nebraska

Nebraska became a state in 1867. It was only about one-fifth of the size of the Nebraska-Kansas Territory established in 1854, land being siphoned off for the Colorado, Dakota, and Idaho territories. The state in 1867 was 75,995 square miles. In 1860 the population in what was to become Nebraska was 28,841, by 1870 the population was 122,993, and by 1880 it was 452,402.

The expansion was mainly brought about by the construction and expansion of the railroads, which by 1866, were taking passengers as far as Kearney, Nebraska, and by 1868 to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and a year later the railroads spanned the continent. The second major reason for the population growth in Nebraska is an item we have already discussed in Scene Three--the availability of free land.

There was a great advertising campaign to get people to emigrate to Nebraska. The first Governor, David Butler, established a Board of Immigration to encourage U.S. citizens and foreign residents to come to Nebraska. Some believed the land beyond the Missouri was unsuitable for agriculture and had to overcome descriptions of the great American desert. The 1880 census of Nebraska showed the largest foreign group in Nebraska was from Germany (31,125 people) with the next largest group being Sweden (10,164).

A swarm of locust devouring a wheat field

Nebraska, like the rest of the nation, felt the financial panic of 1873. Agricultural prices tumbled and farmers could find no market for their wheat and corn. To add insult to injury the next year vast hordes of Rocky Mountain locusts descended on the crops and as one writer put it "ate them off the face of the earth." Almost every pioneer story of that era mentions the experience of the descent of the grasshoppers. The already hard times of bad markets and a drought were made unbearable as the grasshoppers ate their food for their own survival. The grasshopper infestation lasted through 1876. They tried to solve the grasshopper problem in many ways, none successful, but finally it resolved itself and so did the drought. After 1877 the area went through a wet cycle.

But for the early 1870's the farmer's economic position worsened. Farm prices for all crops generally declined in the 1870's. The price of land dropped as well. The assessed value of land went from $4.79 an acre in 1870 to $2.86 an acre in 1879. Farmers also experienced high rail freight prices. It was not the best of times. Farmers fought back by starting the Grange movement in 1869 and it was first established in Nebraska as a social and educational institution in 1872. The Nebraska Grange started adopting methods of cooperative buying, used elsewhere, and started cooperative stores and even tried to start manufacturing farm machinery. By the end of the 1870's the economic conditions began to change. Political change also occurred with the initial governor being impeached and a new state constitution put in place in 1875 which was modeled on the Illinois constitution.

In Germany

We left the story of Germany in 1862 when Otto von Bismarck had been made prime minister in September 1862. At the time he spoke these words on September 30, 1862, "The great decisions of our time will not be made by speeches and majority resolutions--that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849--but by iron and blood." It was Bismarck's purpose to unite Germany, whatever that took.

Iron and blood played a part on three occasions. The first occasion was in 1863 when the Danish parliament separated the disputed duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Bismarck supported the Danish crown against the Danish army and occupied the duchies on behalf of the German confederation. German liberals were enraged by his Machiavellianism and not turning the duchies into a self-determined state within the Confederation.

The second occasion was a dispute between Prussian and Austria over the administration of the Danish duchies which led to the Austro-Prussian war (also called the Seven Weeks War) in 1866. It ended in a Prussian victory, which meant the exclusion of Austria from Germany. Prussia's victory in the war enabled it to organize the North German Confederation. What still remained a question were the remaining southern states, which did sit with the Reichstag of the Northern German Federation as a Customs Parliament (Zollparlament)--it was a legislature without a state.

The third occasion of blood and iron brought the southern German states into the fold. The military action was a war with France in 1870 over the succession to the Spanish throne. The southern states, which had fought against Prussian in 1866, joined on Prussia's side. A month after the war started the French army was subsided on September 2 and the southern states acceded to the Northern Germany Confederation. The Franco-Prussian War accelerated the work of unification. Four months after the victory in France, Wilhelm I of Prussia was crowned Deutscher Kaiser at the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. Finally, Germany was a modern European nation state.

German Empire 1871

The empire that was created in 1871 was not what the liberals had wanted. There was no strong populace statement of unity in the constitution like the French and U.S. constitutions; there was no national holiday; there was no Imperial flag; and there was no national anthem. The constitution contained elements of democracy, limited monarchy, and autocracy and remained in force until almost the end of World War I. The 25 states that made up the new Empire retained their existing constitutions, Bavaria's being a relatively liberal constitution.

Beyond politics, social events of the day were important. One of these was the battle between the Bismarck and the Catholics beginning as early as 1864 and lasting through 1879. The target was the German Catholics of southern Germany and the vehicles were the harsh measures of the May Laws, School Inspection laws, and the persecution of the clergy in an effort which is called the Kulturkampf. Translated this a struggle for control of the minds of Germans or battle of civilization. It was a classic struggle of church and state which eventually Bismarck reversed his domestic policies and repealed most of the laws.

Economically at this time Germany had been in a time of boom in the 1860's and early 1870's. There was a bank crash in 1873 and the confidence of business people was undermined, much like it was in the U.S. at exactly the same time. Farmers in Germany, though, were affected by the U.S. when cheap prairie wheat flooded Europe after the U.S. transcontinental railway was completed. In 1876 the first agricultural protection society was started in Germany. The agricultural societies were led by large landowners of the East and by peasants in the West and South who began to make common cause with them. The peasants were often against towns, commerce, and organized labor but they began to see they needed a united front.

With this background we can now look at the specific locations where we find the Moschels.

Chenoa, Illinois

The Peoria, Illinois, area is where most of the Moschel originally immigrated in the 1850's and 1860's. Some of what we label as the "original" immigrants and children of Georg and Maria Moschel of Webenheim have died by 1876. These include Maria Elisabeth and Frederick who died in Peoria and Johannes who died in the Peoria area. Still living in the area is Nickel (Nicholas) Moschel and family. Charlotte Moschel Scherer has moved on to St. Louis from Peoria. Of the next generation, but still original immigrants, Christian, son of Philipp of Webenheim, is living and working as a tinsmith in Peoria. Christian, step son of Margaret Schantz Moschel is living in St. Louis and an owner of a gravel company.

Jacobina Moschel Sandmeyer

For many of the Moschels, though, it has been a move from their original location of the Peoria, area, to the area near Chenoa, Illinois, and the farm land that was there. They were beginning to be owners in this adopted land. By the early 1860's over 5000 acres had been improved by Matthew Scott in the Chenoa, Illinois, area. In 1862 improved land was selling for $20 an acre and unimproved $11 an acre. Many Germans were moving into the area and if not buying from Scott were buying from others. From the years of 1865 to 1873 most of the farms that had been broken earlier and had partial farm buildings, were further improved to add additional houses, barns, stables, wells, orchards, shade trees, and a vineyard. The crops raised were corn and oats with rye, barley, and flax as minor crops.

Two things that made the farmer's life in this area better were drainage and transportation. Wet soil, the bane of the early farmer's existence, was transformed by tile drainage. By 1879 almost every farm in the county had underdrain tiling. The effect of the tile was momentous. Not only better crops, but fewer mosquitoes and deaths from malaria declined. The railroads, as in other parts of the country, made it possible for crops to get to market. By the end of 1895 McLean County (where Chenoa resides) had one of the densest rural rail networks in the world. No farmer was more than four miles from the nearest track.

The Moschels saw a good situation and bought land. Margaret Schantz Moschel purchased land in 1869 and 1870 in neighboring Livingston County, but very near Chenoa. Her children Margaret, Frederick, and Jacob purchased in the area as well as did her niece Jacobina Sandmeyer and husband George. They were there to farm. And then some to leave.

Our story takes place in the summer of 1876 when Margaret Schantz Moschel is once again on the move. This time she is going to move to Beatrice, Nebraska, after having lived in the Chenoa, Illinois, area for probably 17 years.

Our storyteller is once again Margaret Schantz Moschel. What made Margaret move to Chenoa? And what was now making her once again take up roots and leave at the age of almost 63?

Beatrice, Nebraska

Gage County Nebraska

By 1876 some Moschels had moved to Beatrice, Nebraska. Probably the first Moschel to move to Beatrice was Catherine Moschel with her husband, Jacob Klein, in 1872. Catherine, the Moschel who had stayed behind in Webenheim in 1862 after the others left, was the first to move from the Chenoa, Illinois, area further west. She was followed by her brother Charles Moschel who came in 1873. Then brother Ludwig (Louis), who was married to Catherine Klein (Jacob's sister) making the double relation of brother and sister marrying a brother and sister, then moved West as well. The other known Moschel to move to Beatrice was Louise Moschel Muller, half sister to those Moschels already mentioned above. We are uncertain when she moved to Beatrice.

Beatrice was settled in 1857 by a group of 37 pioneers and the town was named after the daughter of one of the judges in the party. In July of 1857 Gage county was organized with Beatrice as its county seat. At the time the nearest trading post and post office was Brownsville on the Missouri River. Early industry in the town was a flour mill and settlers and homesteaders came for a hundred miles around to get their flour.

The population of Beatrice in 1876 is uncertain, but we know in 1862 it was not yet 100 people. It was a town that was to grow to 12,000 by 1888 and it served a wide population area at that time. It took vision to see that this might be the place to be. Evidently some of the Moschels had that vision, or alternatively, things were not going too well in Illinois which is the case of many settlers who moved from one area to another in hope of a better life.

For whatever reason, we have Moschels and Moschels married to Kleins moving to Beatrice to make a better life. They became successful shopkeepers and farmers in this town that was growing rapidly. Our storytellers in early Beatrice are Catherine Moschel Klein and her husband, Jacob Klein. Why did they move to Beatrice? And why did they encourage other relatives to come?

Webenheim, Germany

Webenheim 1865

In 1876 most of the Moschels have left Webenheim. Philipp Moschel is the only one left of his Moschel generation in Webenheim. His brother, Jakob, died in 1868. Philipp's family is also moving to America. His son, Christian, was living in Peoria, Illinois, and working as a tinsmith in 1876. His daughter, Jacobina, moved to the Peoria area and married Herman Gerbing. Jacobina died in 1869. In 1868 Philipp's daughter, Catherine, moved to America. After her sister Jacobina died, Catherine married Jacobina's husband, Herman, on January 31, 1870, and raised her sister's children as well as having one of her own in 1875. The strain took a toll on Catherine and it appears by all available evidence she was institutionalized.

Thus, left in Webenheim in 1876 was Philipp, his wife, and his daughters Louise and Caroline. Louise did not marry, but Caroline married in 1872 and by 1876 she had two small children and was living with her in-laws on the main street in Webenheim. In addition to the family tragedies, the Moschels of Webenheim had to contend very personally with the war against France in 1870.

Our storyteller in 1876 will be Caroline Moschel Schmidt. She will give a daughter's eye view of her parents, and her siblings. What was it like to have most of her nuclear and extended family living in America? What was it like to live in Webenheim during the 1870 war? She will be the first Moschel to give us a description of what it is like to live in Webenheim during a war. Unfortunately, she will not be the last.

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Join us for this journey in 1876 where we try to further understand the story of the Moschels that come to America and those that stay in Germany. We cousins have had great joy in uncovering every fact as it has been revealed and had great pleasure in trying to understand how those facts affected our ancestors. Their life journey has made our life journey more interesting and has increased our ability in understanding the uniqueness of every life.