In 1836, Salomon Katz, a Jew, emigrated to America from a rural German village, Erklen, Westfalen. Arriving in Philadelphia, he began an amazing adventure as Joseph Kinike. Thank you to Ed Bode for the contribution of this material.
From the book: Mastholte, Die Geschichte zweier Gemeinden: Moese und Mastholte by Bert Bertling:
"J. H. Loehner," translated by Peter Koester:
Johan Heinrich Loehner is the most important figure among all emigrants from Mastholte. Johan Heinrich left his homeland as a 16 year old and probably quickly made a success in Missouri. He returned again in 1846 to Mastholte to tell of his success, he had acquired a farm there in his young years.
This must have electrified the Menhchen in 1846. As it happened, not less than 192 persons accompanied him back to America. Not counted are the illegal and/or secret migrants (more than 20 percent). Whether they made it all with one ship the voyage to America requires still more exact investigation.
In the spring of 2007 a Rotary Group Study Exchange Team from Germany came to our region. I had the pleasure of helping to organize their visit to Jefferson City and we were hosts to Peter Koester of that group. We spent a long and most enjoyable evening visiting and examining issues of our common ancestry. The paragraphs above are my notes from Peter’s effort at translating the material on Henry Loehner in Bert Bertling’s book, Mastholte-Die Geschichte zweier Geminden: Moese und Mastholte. NBP 4/1/2013
"Westphalia Mastholte" translated by Edward Bode.
Carl Crede, a month shy of his 15th birthday, kept a diary during his 1855 trip from Germany to the Westphalia community in America. Very few immigrants did this, so it is an especially valuable first-person account that could be considered typical yet unique. The diary is unique in that we see what is important to Carl during this journey through his very young eyes. Carl constantly refers to weather (wind, fog, etc.), passing ships, seasickness, the birth and death of babies. The diary was translated by Adolf E. Schroeder.
Charles Kliensorge, a 21-year-old Westphalia merchant, kept a diary in German describing his 1854 overland trip from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, with a wagon train and cattle herd. Below is a biographical summary of Charles Kleinsorge and a link to a translation of the diary published in the Missouri Historical Review in the July, 1982, edition. The diary was translated by Edward Bode.
(Kleinsorge article begins on page 65 of the PDF document; Page number on the actual document is 421.)
Written in the 1940's, this document describes Joseph Plassmeyer and other immigrants in the vicinity of Westphalia, Missouri in the mid 1800's.
Assembled by the Catholic Pastor at Wadersloh at the request of 2nd Lt. Martin L. Plassmeyer in 1960. Essential to understanding the derivation of the Plassmeyer name.
Gottfried and Gertrude Schwartze are among the earliest settlers in the Westphalia community. They arrived in 1836 along with the Bruns family, the Westerman family, Ferdinand Holterman and others. Among the descendants of Gottfried and Getrude Schwartze still in the Westphalia community and Osage County are members of the Schwartz, Melies, Plassmeyer, Borgmeyer and Brendel families. Their Brendel descendants still live on the farm Gottfried and Gertrude started in 1836 between Westphalia and the Osage River. Two of the daughters of Gottfried and Gertrude Schwartze married Bernard
H. Melies in the 1850's.
By Martin L. Plassmeyer dated August 2011 (revised October 2013) Joseph and Margaretha founded what is now Deer Creek Farm and established the Westphalia branch of the Plassmeyer Family.
Henry and Elizabeth Plassmeyer and family were the first of the Plassmeyer ancestors to emigrate from Prussia in 1857.
Bernard H. Melies probably arrived in the Westphalia community in 1846. He quickly began farming along the Maries River about five miles south of Westphalia and is listed as a farmer in the 1850 federal census. He married Elizabeth Schwartze, a daughter of Gottfried and Gertrude Schwartze, in 1853. After Elizabeth died in 1857, he married her younger sister, Johanna, a year later. Many of his descendants still live in Osage and Cole counties and several hundred live between Columbia and Kansas City, Missouri.
Ignace and Elizabeth (Pequignot) Heislen are the great-great-grandparents of Norbert & Martin Lloyd Plassmeyer, their brothers and their Brandt, Loehner, Patton and Plassmeyer cousins, born in the 1930s and 1940s. Ignace Heislen is from Alsace, probably from near the town of Rouffach. The records are not clear, but he came to eastern Cole County, Missouri, sometime in the early 1840s. Angelique Elizabeth Pequignot went by the name of Elizabeth and is from the Doubs area of France along the Swiss border. She and some of her brothers settled near what is now Loose Creek, Missouri in 1843. Ignace Heislen and Angelique Elizabeth Pequignot married at St. Francis Xavier Church in Taos, Missouri, in 1846, and lived on a farm near Taos and Wardsville.
The couple made their home on a farm along the Moreau River in eastern Cole County, Missouri.
Joseph Woehr and his wife Caroline Anne Wilhelmina Marie Uetrecht Woehr were the parents of fifteen children, six of whom died in infancy or early childhood. Among their surviving children was Anna who married Bernard H. Melies. Joseph Woehr was a woodworker and expert cabinet maker who participated in the building of St. Boniface Church in Koeltztown by making the frames for the Stations of the Cross and other items.