WARTBURG: DREAM AND REALITY OF THE
NEW GERMANY IN TENNESSEE
By KLAUS G. WUST
In any history of the German element of the United States, Tennessee
will occupy only a minor place. Although Germans and German Swiss have
been present in that state throughout its existence, their numerical strength
has never been large enough to have made itself felt. Their contributions
to the various trades, professions and industries were in most cases commen-
surate with their numbers. Only as farmers may they have given more than
their share toward the development of sound farming practices and toward
a much needed diversification of agriculture.
East Tennessee was the end of the road for the onwardpushing Penn-
sylvania German in the decades after the Revolutionary War. What had
still been a forceful wave of migration in Western Maryland and in the
Great Valley of Virginia, became a mere trickle beyond the New River.
By 1790, the first permanent settlements of Germans from Pennsylvania
and from the Shenandoah Valley were established in Green, Washington
and Sullivan counties, soon to be followed by the infiltration of the Clinch
and Holston river valley by German farm families. The fertile mountain
valleys of East Tennessee offered the type of land suitable for the small
farms the Germans were looking for. Whenever a new settlement reached
sufficient numbers, a church congregation was founded. Most of the early
German congregations in the area were of the Lutheran faith. In April,
1812, the Lutheran Synod of North Carolina admitted nine congregations
in Tennessee (Sullivan, Washington, Green, Knox and Blount counties)
into its ranks. In succeeding years, petitions for German-speaking preachers
came from Sevier, Franklin, Lincoln and Bedford counties where a number
of German settlers from North Carolina had established themselves about
1800.¹
Most of these German congregations were quite small and they had
difficulties in finding pastors willing to serve them in the backwoods. In
July, 1820, representatives from a dozen Lutheran churches in East Ten-
nessee met in the small hamlet of Cove Creek in Green county and founded
there the Evangelical Lutheran Tennessee Synod.² They were joined by a
number of congregations in Virginia. German was proclaimed the official
language of the Tennessee Synod, and, although bilingualism crept very
soon into this organization, the language transition was delayed consider-
ably by the efforts of the clergy. Dunker and United Brethren groups from
Virginia also located in East Tennessee during the following years. By
1820, scattered German settlements reached a line which may be roughly
defined by the course of the Clinch and Tennessee rivers from the Virginia
border to Bradley county. A detailed study of this early phase of German
1
C. W. Cassell, History of the Lutheran Church in Virginia and East Tennessee (Strasburg, Va.,
1930).
2
Kurze Nachricht von den Verrichtungen der ersten Conferenz gehalten in dem Staat Tennessee
(New Market, Va., 1821); Socrates Henkel, History of the Evangelical Lutheran Tenneseee Synod (New
Market, Va., 1890).
[21]
settlement has never been made. It would represent an important contribu-
tion to the pioneer history of the state.³
In the year 1828, a German traveler, Traugott Bromme, passed through
several parts of Tennessee.
4
His account paints a very favorable picture of
the area presently covered by Roane, Anderson, Morgan and Cumberland
counties. He mentions the many German farmers whom he had encountered
along the Holston river. Bromine's glowing reports about the fertility of
the soil and the low prices for land were circulated widely among German
Americans in the North. Several German businessmen began to look into
investment opportunities in East Tennessee. When in 1839, five years after
the first publication of Bromme's book, large tracts of land in the Cumber-
land plateau region were offered for sale in New York City, Georg F.
Gerding was among the first buyers. The use he subsequently made of this
land and his project of a "New Germany" in Tennessee will be told in the
chapters of this article.
Gerding's Wartburg project, however, was to remain the only German
colonization venture in the state prior to the Civil War. German immi-
grants in search of farm land turned toward the Midwest. Certainly, the
larger cities and towns of Tennessee received modest numbers of German
tradesmen and shopkeepers during the fifth and sixth decades of the
eighteenth century, but the large waves of immigrants arriving in New
York, Baltimore or New Orleans headed elsewhere. Memphis and Nash-
ville were the only Tennessee cities with German colonies large enough to
support the usual clubs and German-language newspapers.
5
By 1854, a
lively German weekly, Stimme des Volkes, appeared in Memphis. Its editor,
August Kattmann, was a Forty-Eighter who was the leader of the Germans
in Memphis until his death in 1860. Evidently, there was room for a second
German weekly because Der Anzeiger des Südens commenced publication
in 1858. Nashville also had a German newspaper as early as 1857.
6
German residents of the Tennessee capital in 1850 had founded the German
Relief Society "for the protection of immigrants from fraud and other
misfortunes" patterned after the venerable German Societies of New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Charleston, South Carolina.
7
After the outbreak of the Civil War, many Germans left the state and
went North. Among those who stayed on, owners of considerable property
or substantial business enterprises formed the majority. A small number
of Germans from Tennessee fought in the Confederate armies. After the
war some of the refugees returned to their former homes but Tennessee was
also haunted by a goodly assortment of Germans who arrived within the
ranks of the carpetbaggers.
During the immediate post-war period, a group of politically active
German businessmen in Nashville, reinforced by speculators from the North,
tried to promote German immigration to Tennessee. In the spring of 1866,
they put up funds to establish the daily Tennessee Staatszeitung under the
3
Some research into the early German settlements was done in 1939/40 by R. S. Collins at Maryville
College and John G. Prank at Vanderbilt University but the results of these studies were never pub-
lished. A number of old Pennsylvania-German farm families were evacuated during World War II when
Oak Ridge was built by the Federal Government. Cf. George O. Robinson, The Oak Ridge Story
(Kingsport, Tenn., 1950), 32-83.
4
Traugott Bromme, Reisen durch die Vereinigten Staaten und Ober-Canada (Baltimore, 1834), 2 vols.
(Reference to East Tennessee in Vol. II, 125 ff.) In 1828 Bromme visited parts of Tennessee. He noted
the presence of numerous German settlers along the Holston River near Knoxville.
5
Alexander J. Schem (ed.), Deutsch-amerikanisches Conversations-Lexikon (New York, 1869-1874),
11 vols. "Tennessee," X, 650; "Nashville," VII, 691-2; "Memphis," VII, 193-4.
6
Karl J. Arndt and May E. Olson, German-American Newspapers and Periodicals 1732-1955
(Heidelberg, 1961). "Tennessee," 611-614. Olson lists a total of 26 wholly German or German-English
publications in Tennessee.
7
The First German Relief Society were Gerald Seiferle, John Buddeke, Francis Klotz,
H. B. Waldmann and Anthony Leonhard. Cf. Acts of Tennessee, 1850, 392.
[22]
editorship of J. Ruhm who was to provide a special, weekly edition devoted
to the promotion of immigration. In August 1867, the various German
societies of Nashville called a meeting at Turner Hall "to take into con-
sideration the best measures for promoting German immigration to this
state." Simultaneous meetings of Germans were held in Chattanooga, Knox-
ville and Memphis. The organizers were hopeful that "branch societies
of an association would be formed thoughout the state to assist immigrants
to find suitable locations, and help to get them established." At least in
Nashville the organizers had success. "The German Association of the
City of Nashville" was founded and received at once a charter from the
legislature according to which it was "authorized to procure laborers from
parties applying to them, to act as agents for land owners desirous of
selling their property, and for parties wishing to buy land in the State of
Tennessee." This association held regular meetings for a time. At its first
official meeting it suggested that the state government establish a "Bureau
of Immigration."
8
The State evidently carried out this suggestion at once because a "State
Board of Immigration" was appointed in December 1867. This Board
selected German-born Hermann Bokum as Commissioner of Immigration.
Bokum, one time professor of German literature in Philadelphia and Boston,
had been a clergyman in East Tennessee before the war and had fled to
the North where he earned a living as a lecturer, author and translator of
classical German literature, came back to Tennessee at war's end as an agent
of the Freedman's Bureau.
9
After his appointment as Immigration Com-
missioner he tackled his new task by putting his abilities as a writer to work.
He compiled a comprehensive handbook on Tennessee intended as a guide
for prospective immigrants. Both an English and a German edition of this
compendium appeared. In another move, Bokum saw to it that Ruhm's
Staatszeitung received a handsome subsidy for distributing copies of this
German newspaper free of charge to newly arrived immigrants in American
ports. Otherwise little activity was deployed by either the Board or its
appointed Commissioner and impatient friends at the state house soon
called the whole venture off.
10
The public tended to lump immigrants
together with carpetbaggers and emancipated Negro slaves as byproducts
of the Reconstruction. When a German settlement near Columbia failed
miserably in 1868, the local press declared that "the Germans were no
better than Negroes, who, at least, were able to speak English."
11
Despite the failure of official encouragement to immigrants, several
private schemes were tried to divert a part of the constant stream of immi-
grants from the Midwest and direct it toward Tennessee. In 1869, John
Hitz, the Swiss Consul General in Washington, and Peter Straub, Swiss
Consular Agent in Knoxville,
12
jointly sponsored a Swiss-German Colony
in Grundy County which resulted in the founding of the village of Gruetly
near Altamont.
13
Three German Emigation Societies settled some Germans
8
Nashville Daily Press and Times, August 14 and 21, 1867.
9
Hermann Bokum, Zeugnis eines Flüchtlings von Ost-Tennessee (Philadelphia, 1863). The two
editions of his handbook were published under the following titles: The Tennessee Handbook and Immi-
grant's Guide and Das Tennessee Handbuch: Eine Beschreibung des Staates Tennessee (both Philadelphia,
1868).
10
C. G. Belissary, "Tennessee and Immigration, 1865-1880," Tennessee Historical Quarterly VII
(1948), 229-248.
" Nashville Daily Press and Times, April 1, 1868.
12
Peter Straub (1828-1904) was a native of Bilton, Canton of Glarus, Switzerland. He settled in
Knoxville just before the Civil War and rose to local prominence as a manufacturer. In 1875, 1876 and
1881 he was elected mayor of Knoxville. Later he served as U. S. Consul at St. Gallen. Cf. Albert
Bartholdi, Prominent Americans of Swiss Origin (New York, 1982), 177-78.
13
Adelrich Steinach, Geschichte und Leben der Schweizer Kolonien in den Vereinigten Staaten
(New York, 1889), 162-167. In 1933 a M. A. Thesis entitled "The German-Swiss Settlement at Gruetli
Tennessee" was submitted by Frances Helen Jackson at Vanderbilt University.
[23]
near Dover in Stewart county. These societies also acquired a total of 65,000
acres in Lawrence, Lewis and Giles counties but anticipated mass settle-
ment never took place. The Appalachian Plateau region was the scene of
all sorts of real estate promotion schemes in those years. The fate of the
settlements ranged from tragic to near tragic.
The Swiss colony at Belvidere in Franklin county, settled gradually
between 1868 and 1880, met with moderate success.
14
The same may be
said of the "New Switzerland" at Hohenwald in Lewis county and of the
small German horticultural and farming colony at Allardt (about 1885)
in Fentress county.
15
Two Catholic German communities, Loretto and St. Joseph near
Lawrenceburg, owed their founding to the initiative of J. B. Jeup, editor
of the Nashville German newspaper Der Emigrant und Beobachter im
Süden. Jeup persuaded the German Catholic Homestead Society of Cin-
cinnati to settle a number of Catholic immigrants in Lawrence county in
1871. Both villages achieved moderate prosperity.
In the urban centers the German population, despite a number of new-
comers in the decades before World War One, remained a small minority
Some of the typical immigrant institutions such as several Vereine and
German aid societies existed in Nashville, Memphis and even in Knoxville.
In the state capital there were German language newspapers, the Nashviller
Demokrat from 1866 till 1871 and the weekly Anzeiger des Südens which
lasted miraculously from 1880 until 1916 despite a circulation which never
exceeded 900 copies. Several papers were started in Memphis but alone
the Memphis Post (later named Südliches Post-Journal) ever had a men-
tionable circulation (about 2000 copies) during its long existence from 1875
until 1912. German churches and synagogues were supported in several
communities in Tennessee.
When World War One came, there were few vestiges of German settle-
ments and German American activity left in Tennessee. The decline had
set in already before that time. Besides a handful of German Catholic and
Swiss Reformed congregations and the independent Lutheran church at
Wartburg, only five Lutheran churches of the Missouri Synod were still
holding German services. The World War wiped out the last German
newspaper and most of the Vereine dissolved. In the history of Tennessee,
German and Swiss immigration was but an ephemeral event. With its
several and distinct colonization ventures, isolated and surrounded by a
native population unaccustomed to the influx of foreigners, the German
and Swiss element of Tennessee presents nevertheless an interesting chal-
lenge for case studies. For the following account, the case of the Wartburg
project has been singled out for presentation.
16
14
Walter Kollmorgen, The German-Swiss in Franklin County (Washington, 1940). This is primarily
a study of the significance of cultural consideration in farming enterprises.
15
A. R. Hogue, History of Fentress County, Tennessee (Nashville, 1916), 6, 143, 150. "The
Germans at Allardt have demonstrated this land to be suited to horticulture as well as general farming"
(p. 6). The leaders of the Allardt colony were Max Colditz, a civil engineer and later Finance Commis-
sioner of Fentress County, and Bruno Gemt who "controlled more land than any other man residing
in the county" (p. 143).
16
Hobart Schofield Cooper, "German and Swiss Colonization in Morgan County, Tennessee," M. A.
Thesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1925. Typewritten MS, 100 pp. plus Appendix A, 15 pp. and
Appendix B, 28 pp. H. S. Cooper (1897-1959) was the first and only local historian to gather records
on the Wartburg settlement. His work was entirely based on local sources without consulting any
German or German American material. His thesis represents an admirable work of local investigation
and it shows how love for a subject and systematic search on the spot can produce worthwhile results
even though its author had no knowledge of the German language and lacked the guidance of a professor
familiar with source material in immigration history. The present study of the Wartburg colony owes
great debt to Cooper's spade work. As a matter of fact, the reading of his thesis at the University of
Tennessee Library initiated our interest in this settlement.
[24]
THE EAST TENNESSEE COLONIZATION COMPANY
In the year 1839 much of the land in the Cumberland plateau region
until then owned by the State of Tennessee was sold in New York City.
In November, 1843, Georg Friedrich Gerding acquired some of this land
from one of the original purchasers, Henry Wells. "The news about East
Tennessee, its climate, mineral wealth, timber and its inexhaustible pasture
lands drew our attention toward this land as an area particularly suited
for sheep raising and for the development of iron and coal industries,"
17
Gerding wrote in later years trying to justify the reasons for his purchase
of so much property in a far-off state which he had never visited. Typical
of the accounts circulating on this area was the glowing description offered
by Traugott Bromine who called it "one of the best cultivated and most
fertile areas of the State. Only the western part which reaches into the
Cumberland mountains rising here to a height of over 2350 feet, is, though
arable everywhere, rough and covered by dense forests. The soil is rich,
fertile, and well-watered. Land in the western part is being bought at $4-6
per acre, near the Tennessee river, however, it sells for $30-45."
18
Gerding, a native of Osnabrück, had come to New York from Germany
in 1825 at the age of 25. He entered the export-import business and after
initial employment with a large company, he soon established a partner-
ship with G. H. Simon. This firm, F. Gerding and Simon, with a branch
office in Hamburg, became well known for its importation of cut-glass,
chinaware and other articles from Germany and France. Observing the
great number of immigrants coming into New York every day (in 1840
the Federal authorities registered 80,126 immigrants from Europe, in 1842
99,946 arrivals from Europe were listed),
19
Gerding looked into the profit-
able "immigrant trade." Already since 1831 he had been a member of the
German Society of New York, the largest immigrant aid organization.
As a member of the executive council of that society from 1838 until 1840,
he had ample opportunity to become famliiar with the practices of immi-
grant transportation. In 1842 he joined with J. C. Kunckelmann, the New
York agent of Charles Heidsiek's champagne firm, to found a packet-ship
line which was soon to operate four sailing vessels, Westphalia, Emanuel,
Sarah-Sheaf, and Provus, between New York and Antwerp.
"This enterprise brought me to Antwerp where I supervised the loading
of my ships. The war between Holland and Belgium was over by that time
but a business depression lingered on since now the Dutch colonies were
closed to Belgian products," Gerding recalled later in a brief account of
his Tennessee venture. He continued, "Reports from Tennessee and the
prospect of profits there (which is probably always the most decisive factor
for a businessman) caused us to organize a company. This company was
assured of the help of the Belgian government in the case we could secure a
charter guaranteeing the property of foreigners. We were certain to be
granted such a charter since it would have been very advantageous to the
State. We were assured of a capital of five million Belgian francs." This
was—in Gerding's own words—the beginning of the brief, official Belgian
participation in the East Tennessee Colonization Company. A prominent
Belgian emigration promoter, Theodore de Cock of Antwerp, a member
of the Conseil Général of the Compagnie Belge-Brésilienne de Colonisation,
a co-partnership of several capitalists in Europe and New York founded
17
Letter of George P. Gerding to Heinrich A. Rattermann, dated March 20, 1878. Published in
Der Deutsche Pionier, X (1878), 18-19.
18
Bromme, op. cit., II, 125.
19
Alien Passengers and Immigrants Arrived In the United States, 1820-1892 (Washington, 1893), 39.
[25]
in the early spring of 1844, was selected as the president of the new East
Tennessee Colonization Company. The other board members were: G. F.
Gerding (New York), Vice President; François Bishop (Antwerp), A. J.
Klein (Bingen), Joseph Stock (Kreuznach), J. C. Kunckelmann (New
York) and Anton A. Melly (New York), Directors; Dr. Georg Strecker
(Mainz), Secretary.
20
The stock of the company was divided into 250 shars of which de Cock,
Gerding, Kunkelmann and Melly owned the majority. Its avowed purpose
was "the colonization of Morgan, Scott, Fentress, and Cumberland counties
with German and Swiss immigrants."
21
As a first step, on August 23, 1844,
the Company appointed Friedrich B. Guenther, an employee of Gerding's
firm in New York, as its resident agent in East Tennessee. Guenther, a
native of Dresden, was invested with full power to lease, contract, build,
or execute any other necessary functions in the interest of the Company.
He left New York at once and located in Morgan county where he con-
cluded several important land transactions. Before winter set in, Guenther
was busy arranging for the reception of the prospective colonists. This
newcomer from the North was most effectively assisted by John White, a
native of Morgan County, who advised the Company in many practical
matters.
22
Meanwhile the directors and a number of specially appointed agents in
Europe began soliciting settlers for the Company's lands which soon con-
sisted of more than 170,000 acres comprising large portions of Morgan,
Cumberland, White, Fentress and Scott counties. The most concentrated
efforts were made in Saxony where a great number of people were willing
to emigrate to America due to the economic distress prevailing in several
sections of that kingdom. So-called Auswanderungsgesellschaften (Emigra-
tion Societies) were thriving in many communities. The Reverend Friedrich
Behr of Schwarzenberg (Erzgebirge) who had been involved in emigration
schemes ever since 1827, and Otto von Kienbusch, a young manfacturer in
Plauen (Vogtland) were engaged by the Company to sell land to prospective
immigrants and to entice as many people as could possibly be found to
colonize the lands of the Company. Preference was given to those who
had ready cash for the purchase of their own parcels of land.
23
The Company also concluded an agreement with the firm of Ernst
Weigel & Co. in Leipzig to act as the general agent for Saxon emigration
to East Tennessee. Ernst Weigel was to make all arrangements for the
emigrants' transportation to the port of embarkation. He immediately
took an active hand in the project. He placed numerous advertisements
and appeals in newspapers and circulated pamphlets extolling the great
advantages East Tennessee offered over other sections of America.
24
Similar propaganda was disseminated in the Rhineland, Baden and
Switzerland. Gerding himself could take a hand at this campaign to secure
settlers: in 1845 he was appointed United States Consul for Baden and
no doubt much of the activities of his office there was concerned with his
own projects.
25
Another network of agents was set up in the United States. In New
York, in New Orleans and in Charleston, South Carolina, arriving German
20
Heinrich A. Rattermann, "Eine alte deutsche Kolonie an der Cincinnati Südbahn," Der Deutsche
Pionier, X (1878), 12-19. Cf. also Knoxville Register, February 15, 1845.
21
Letter of Anton A. Melly to the Hon. Thomas A. R. Nelson, dated February 2, 1866. Seldon
Nelson Papers, McClung Collections, Lawson McGlee Library, Knoxville, Tenn.
22
Cooper, 14.
23
Otto von Kienbusch, Bericht über die deutsche Kolonie Wartburg (Leipzig, 1848); Hildegard
Rosenthal, Die Auswanderung aus Sachsen im 19. Jahrhundert. 1815-1871 (Stuttgart, 1931), 71.
24
Rosenthal, 73.
25
Cooper, B8.
[26]
immigrants were approached by the Company's recruiters. Along the prin-
cipal travel routes to East Tennessee arrangements for overnight lodgings
and feeding of the migrants were made well in advance.
26
The public in Tennessee also began to get interested in this first, large-
scale attempt to bring foreign settlers into the state. Newspapers sent
their reporters to Morgan County to interview Guenther and White who
had worked relentlessly and against many odds to make the wilderness
hospitable to the large number of colonists which the Company expected.
The following account, based on an interview with Guenther, "the very
intelligent agent of DeCock & Bishop of Antwerp," may illustrate what
the Company was planning just prior to the arrival of the first settlers:
About 200,000 acres of land have been purchased and two or three hundred immi-
grants are daily expected to arrive. Others will follow from time to time as fast as
preparations can be made for their reception. Both manufacture and agriculture will
engage the attention of the colony. For purposes connected with the former there is
water in great abundance. The agricultural operators will have reference to the
cultivation of the vine and fruit trees generally. Special attention will be given to
the raising of sheep and the growing of wool. In view of the last mentioned object,
the Company have already sent over a few of the finest Electoral Saxony Rains
whose original cost was $500.00 apiece. They also recently purchased from Dr. John
Shelby, of this vicinity, his valuable flock of Bakewells and Southdowns."
27
ARRIVAL OF SETTLERS FROM GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND
In July 1845 the much-anticipated event took place: the first fifty
immigrants reached the lands of the East Tennessee Colonization Company.
This first contingent of colonists had been recruited by Dr. Georg Strecker
in Mainz. They landed in New Orleans and proceeded up the Mississippi
and Cumberland rivers to Nashville where Guenther and White met them.
Agents for other colonization schemes, notably in the Midwest, were sparing
no efforts along the road trying to divert the newcomers to other parts of
the country, but seemingly without success. The reporter of the Nashville
Whig was on hand to witness their arrival:
Fifty immigrants arrived at this place yesterday on their way to the Georgia settle-
ment in Morgan County. Others to the number of 800 or a thousand will follow as
soon as the necessary preparation can be made for their reception. The immigrants
are far superior to the general run of that description of persons. They have been
selected with great care, and none but individuals with good character and habits
will be permitted to join the colony. We learn from the intelligent agent of the
colony, that it is intended to make the situation of these immigrants entirely com-
fortable. They are of a character, in fact, which entitles them to kind and respectful
attention on the part of their employers.
28
From Nashville the band of Germans crossed the Cumberland plateau
by ox carts, commonly known as "tar greasers," by way of the primitive
Nashville-Knoxville road.
When they arrived at the end of their long journey from the Rhine to
the Emory river, they found almost nothing but a wooded expanse at the
place where the new town of Wartburg was to be built. A large "Receiving
House" provided shelter for part of the families. Others were housed
temporarily at Scott's Tavern in the nearby hamlet of Montgomery (then
the county seat of Morgan). The Company's agent could hardly be blamed
for the absence of any signs of civilization. In less than a year he had
26
Johann G. Häcker, Bericht aus und über Amerika (Leipzig, 1849), 25-31.
27
Nashville Whig, May 3, 1845.
28
Ibid., July 3, 1845.
[27]
bought some 170,000 acres from many different owners, oftentimes only
after lengthy negotiations. Contrary to the map of the Company's terri-
tory which was being distributed by Ernst Weigel in Germany (showing
the entire property as one single, coherent area), the lands were widely
scattered over the area of several counties with many locally-owned farms
and large properties of speculating absentee owners lying in between them.
29
One of the largest contingent tracts was located at the southwest end of
Bird Mountain on a minor plateau between Crooked Fork Creek and
Emory river. Here Guenther decided to establish the center of the settle-
ment to which he gave the popular German name "Wartburg" evoking
the memories of the mountain fortress in Thuringia made famous by Martin
Luther. Guenther had already platted the projected town when the first
group arrived. Much of the resident agent's time had also been spent
surveying the lands lying close to the town site.
Guenther has been described as "a generally amiable and honest man
who unfortunately was more of a theoretician than a practician. This
accounts for many blunders committed at the time of the founding of
town and colony. They caused the Company heavy expenses and also
impeded the progress of the colony for years to come." The "Receiving
House," for instance, a roomy log structure, was built at great expense.
It had three rooms each on the ground floor and on the second floor, each
large enough to house a family of five. Windows were installed but
Guenther forgot to make provisions for stoves and for a chimney. During
the winter months its occupants could not heat the building and all cooking
had to be done outside. Evidently misunderstanding instructions from the
Company, Guenther released the first group of colonists to prepare their
own farmsteads for the purchase of which most of them had made arrange-
ments in Mainz. Thus the new settlers busied themselves clearing the land
and erecting log houses. They soon ran out of funds and provisions. Instead
of employing them for the construction of houses on the town site—most
of the men were highly trained craftsmen and as such carefully selected
by Dr. Strecker—Guenther had them build a fence around 400 acres
of timber land at the cost of 1300 dollars from the Company's treasury.
30
Unfavorable conditions which developed during the fall and winter
months greatly discouraged the settlers. A second party composed of Saxon
emigrants led by Pastor Friedrich Behr had also arrived meanwhile. Behr
instilled some optimism into the isolated band of pioneers during his brief
stay there. But he soon hurried back to Saxony to organize further emi-
gration to Wartburg. There is little doubt that most colonists must not
have shared the exaggerated enthusiasm of the good pastor who wrote
home from Wartburg: "I am here in a paradise of North America, in a
region resembling the surroundings of Teplitz or the forests of Thuringia!...
A beautiful country. Nowhere in America could be found a better climate,
a more excellent opportunity for mining and manufacturing."
31
Meanwhile Guenther tried his best to bring another project of the East
Tennessee Colonization Company nearer realization. The Nashville Whig
had this to say about it in September 1845:
We learn but little of the progress of the enterprise of late, but what we do hear
is of a character favorable to its success. We understand recently, that an elligible
site has been selected, and a plan for a town to be called Wartburg, projected, and
efforts are made for the removal of the county seat to the new town, from Mont-
gomery. In case the change is effected, Mr. Guenther proposes on behalf of the
29
Cooper, 23.
30
Häcker, 52-53.
31
Rosenthal, 53, 71.
[28]
Company, to erect without expense to the County, neat and commodious buildings
for a Courthouse and Jail.
32
The Spring of 1846 saw renewed building activity. Urgently needed
materials arrived, accompanied, interestingly enough, by a large shipment
of German books. Plans now called for the erection of a second large
building to be used as a school house while serving also as a temporary
center for divine worship.
The propaganda campaign of the Company's agents in Europe showed
further results. Again two large contingents of Germans and German-Swiss,
the latter from the Grisons and St. Gall, arrived. Besides, many individuals
found their way to Wartburg having been persuaded by agents in the ports
that the new "Teutonia" in the Erzgebirge of Tennessee was the most
desirable home for immigrants of means and imagination.
From 1846 on, the treks no longer used the river route from New
Orleans. They first landed in New York, where agents Constantin Brause
and Gottfried Schulze received them and arranged for their transfer on
steamers to Charleston, S. C. There in turn they we met by Friedrich
Schneider, proprietor of the Globe Hotel, who provided overnight accommo-
dations under contract with the Company. The following morning the
immigrants would board the train to Hamburg, South Carolina, the same
evening transfer to the Georgia train and reach Atlanta by the next
morning. Again another train ride from Atlanta to Dalton would bring
them to the end of the railroad line. By wagon they continued their journey
to Chattanooga where delays in their onward trip were frequent because
river boats were not always available. Once arrived at the Clinch River,
Guenther would meet them and lead them over the last strenuous leg of
their journey. This last part was done by wagon, ox cart and on foot. The
group which had left Europe on March 26th, 1846 arrived at Wartburg
early in July.
33
Those on the second transport which had sailed from
Europe on May 9th did not arrive at the site of the colony until September
17th because their ship had been driven off course on the Atlantic. After
horrid weeks at sea (which included an outright mutiny) they landed first
somewhere along the southern coast of Georgia before reaching Charleston.
A physician engaged by the Company for the colony, Dr. Gustav Brandau,
was on this eventful voyage.
34
The first shipload of 1846 was accompanied
by the Reverend Johann Friedrich Wilken whom Gerding had selected in
Germany as the pastor for the colonists.
During the second year of its existence, the colony began to assume
certain aspects of civilization. Some streets of the town site appeared. A
few roads received improvements. The company-owned "Haag's Tavern"
opened its doors to thirsty residents. In Mannheim, Gerding had persuaded
a dyer, Carl Haag, to become Wartburg's tavernkeeper. No doubt, the
presence of this modest recreational institution helped to enliven the spirits
of the settlers. Wilken, on a $200.00 annual salary from the Company,
began worship services and set up a school for the great number of children
of the colonists. Dr. Brandau opened his medical practice in Haag's Tavern.
The Company paid him $250.00 annual subsidy for the care of those among
the colonists who could either not pay at all or make only token payments.
35
Among the 1846 arrivals we encounter a number of poor individuals who
required financial assist from Company funds until they could be on their
own. While the number of settlers steadily increased and the first diffi-
32
Nashville Whig, September 23, 1845.
34
Cooper 25-27
33
Häcker, 26-31.
35
Hacker, 53-54.
[29]
culties were overcome, the shareholders of the East Tennessee Colonization
Company grew restless because no profits seemed to come forth from their
considerable investment. The directors considered replacing Guenther who
resigned hastily and turned toward an ill-fated venture of exploiting iron-
deposits near Kingston.
36
G. F. Gerding appointed Otto von Kienbusch, Jr. as the new resident
agent. Kienbusch had worked with the Rev. Behr in recruiting colonists
in Saxony. He brought sounder business concepts into the colony than his
predecessor. But his zeal in putting the Company's interests first lead to
much dissatisfaction. Criticism centered on his tendency "to exaggerate
the value of the Company's lands to sell them to newly-arrived immigrants
at the highest price," a practice which should have earned him the gratitude
of the Company's directors.
During the warmer months of 1847 new settlers arrived continuously.
One large organized contingent from Germany was led by young Dr.
Eduard Goetz whom Gerding had befriended in Mannheim. Early in 1847
he visited Wartburg briefly to get an impression of the place. After
returning to Baden just long enough to arrange his affairs, he cast his lot
with the colony.
37
MOUNTING DIFFICULTIES FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT
Wilken and Goetz both became recognized leaders in the colony. They
represented the interests of the settlers while Kienbusch tried to serve the
Company well. It came to unpleasant clashes between the agent on one
hand and the clergyman and the physician on the other hand. The pastor
found himself soon embroiled in another type of controversy. The Company
had hired him to serve as a pastor for all colonists which meant to conduct
union services acceptable to both Lutherans and Reformed (most of the
Swiss were of the latter persuasion). However, Wilken steadfastly refused
to preach and to serve communion in any other form than such as pre-
scribed by the "Unaltered Augsburg Confession." A deep split between
the Lutherans and the Reformed ensued and lamentable incidents disrupted
the much needed concord of the colonists. The climax came one day when
the Swiss, armed with pitchforks, stormed the pastor's house. Kienbusch
put the blame on Wilken's stubbornness but the latter was endorsed by
the vestrymen of his congregation. The Church Council expressed approval
of Wilken's actions on August 14, 1847:
Mr. John F. Wilken, pastor of the Lutheran Church at Wartburg, Morgan County,
Tennessee, has given splendid proof of a truly Christian character during his ministry
here. In word and deed he has served the congregation as a model most worthy of
emulation. In addition to his regular divine services, he has provided instruction in
the school with diligence, persistence, and most admirable patience. For this we owe
him special gratitude.
This testimonial (and probably other, more pressing problems) pre-
vented the dismissal of Wilken by the Company. Although he did not
compromise his convictions, he was able to deal with the dissenting elements
in a tactful and patient manner until a certain harmony was established.
The stricter adherents to Calvin's tenets left the church and conducted
their own religious meetings in the home of Johann Kreis, who, ironically
enough, had built the frame structure in which the Lutherans worshipped.
38
36
Ibid., 53.
37
Eduard Goetz (1818-1876) was a native of Baden. Cf. Cooper, 60.
38
The history of the Lutheran congregation at Wartburg was first compiled from the few extant,
[30]
Further unrest was caused by the presence of a good number of new-
comers who had not been selected by the Company in Europe but simply
had drifted in from various parts of the States after the new colony received
much publicity in the German American press. Many among them were
professionals with no practical abilities applicable to a two-year old pioneer
settlement.
39
Still another detrimental factor was an intensive "anti-Wartburg"
campaign emanating from certain members of the German Society of New
York with vested interests in Midwestern colonization schemes. Their agi-
tation against Wartburg and the East Tennessee Colonization Company
cost the colony a great number of prospective settlers.
Contrary to its established principle of non-involvement in speculative
immigration ventures, the Board of Directors of the German Society of
New York endorsed a publication recommending to immigrants the state
of Michigan where certain members had financial interests. Several other
members, among them Gerding, Melly and Kunckelmann, protested vehe-
mently against this endorsement, the more so since the Board of Directors
had previously refused outright to endorse similar literature on the Ten-
nessee project. A bitter feud was carried on for many years. Within the
Society heated debates took place filling many columns of the German
American press. It was customary to shower immigrants arriving in New
York harbor with promotional literature aimed at influencing their decisions
as to their final destination in the new country. For several months, if not
a whole year, they were also given a pamphlet by a man posing as an
agent of the German Society which caused many of them to stay away
from Wartburg—if we may believe J. G. Hacker who arrived in New York
in November 1848. This libelous broadside (actually the reprint of an
article which appeared in the Wochenblatt of the New York Deutsche
Schnellpost of March 1848) described Morgan County as "the penitentiary
of Tennessee," elaborating further: "Its population is made up of fugitive
criminals whom the local authorities decline to apprehend and of fugitive
slaves. One should pass through this part of Tennessee only armed to the
teeth." At the same time the German Society of New York in its annual
report for 1848 expressly repudiated a promotional publication on Wart-
burg written by C. G. Schultze. Schultze was accused of having described
himself as a member of that Society without being actually carried on its
roll.
40
G. F. Gerding whose appointment as consul in Mannheim had expired
in 1847 returned to New York to find his Wartburg project beset by many
difficulties. News from Saxony was most discouraging, too. A group of
760 persons in Annaberg ready to leave for Wartburg, were forced to
abandon their emigration when their home town failed to advance them
funds previously pledged for their transportation. Saxon authorities,
alarmed by reports of an impeding mass exodus, restrained municipalities
from lending financial aid to emigrants. A "Plan Concerning the Wart-
burg Colony" which the Emigration Society of Dresden submitted to the
Royal government in 1848, was flatly rejected.
41
primary sources and from personal interviews with old Wartburg and Knoxville residents by the Rev.
Oscar Feucht in 1922. His findings were later incorporated in a pamphlet edited by Richard B. Faerber,
Centennial of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1847-1947
(Wartburg, 1947). Cf. also Cooper,
65-71, and Morgan County News, April 7, 1944. The oldest church record still available is the Kirchen-
buch which dates back to 1878.
39
Rattermann, 12.
40
Anton Eickhoff, Die Deutsche Gesellschaft der Stadt New York (New York, 1884), 5, 96, 123;
Jahresbericht der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Stadt New York für 1848 (New York, 1849), 3; Häcker,
41
Rosenthal, 73.
[31]
From Wartburg Kienbusch reported that " agriculture is still in a sad
state,"
42
and Gerding stated with bitterness: "At this very time, the
Legislature refused us a charter because it wanted no part of Catholics
and beggars. These Know-Nothings! Of course, the partners then with-
drew. The Belgian government turned toward South America and bought
the possession of Santo Tomas de Guatemala. Tennessee thus lost the most
promising enterprise backed up by money, energy and ability because they
sent jack-asses into the legislature (comme toujours) and I was given an
elephant to ride which I could hardly tame and which was to absorb all
my means and all my strength."
43
At that time Gerding decided to abandon his business interests in
New York. Early in 1849 he moved to Wartburg with his family. " In order
not to remain stuck in the mud, I moved to Wartburg where I did all I
could to keep things together," he writes. Once Gerding assumed all respon-
sibility for the colony and the lands of the Company, a resident agent was
no longer required. Gerding's presence on the spot helped inspire the settlers
with more confidence in their future and contributed to restoring a certain
unity among them. The vigor of his personality made itself felt in a variety
of projects within the colony. Soon the people of the county bestowed upon
him the epithet Little Dutch King—indicating that his decisions did not
lack a certain degree of high-handedness. The colony surely needed strong
leadership. Additional burdens fell on Gerding's shoulders some time later
when Theodore deCock, the Belgian president of the East Tennessee
Colonisation Company, decided to dissolve the Company " owing to much
dissatisfaction in the administration of the affairs of the Company." This
action involved Gerding in lengthy litigation with other members of the
now defunct firm.
44
While new settlers still continued to arrive in the years between 1848
and 1885, there were no longer any large, organized groups coming to Wart-
burg. The additions in numbers were more than offset by the constantly
increasing departures from Wartburg. Among the Swiss, dissatisfaction was
particularly widespread. Many among them had purchased their farm land
under the high sounding name of " estate " (Landgut) only to discover
upon their arrival that they had become owners of a parcel of virtual
wilderness. Crop failures due to unfamiliarity with soil and climate and
an ensuing lack of cash funds prompted many a Swiss and German immi-
grant to seek employment in Nashville or in the less distant towns of
Knoxville, Kingston, Rockwood and Crossville.
45
The news of the California
Gold Rush also echoed in the mountain colony and a number of young
men in Wartburg promptly joined the westward treks.
46
When Gerding arrived from New York, the entire colony consisted of 475
souls not counting some native born inhabitants. His main concern was to
keep these people together. To achieve a certain stability for the colony, he
42
Ibid.. 72.
43
Rattermann, 19.
44
Cf. Letter of Anton Melly to Thomas Nelson.
45
" The settlement does not prosper and it will most likely be abandoned as a colony. The land
is too poor, the roads are too bad and the journey required to reach it is too costly and too troublesome
in relation to what one finds there . . .," wrote the traveler, Johann C. Büttner, in his Hand- und Reise-
buch für Auswanderer (Hamburg, 1853), 297.
46
An old story reminiscent of those days is still being told occasionally: During the Gold Rush of
1849, a Wartburger left for California where he made a rich strike. He returned to Morgan County
bringing his fortune in gold nuggets. After a short stay, he decided to go back to California. Fearing
that he might be robbed, he buried the gold somewhere on the bluffs of Big Clear Creek. Upon his
arrival in the West, the miner became ill and sent word of the cache to a relative in Wartburg who
failed to find the hidden gold. The miner died in California, and as far as anyone knows his treasure
has never been found. Many believe that it is still buried in the vicinity. Cf. Tennessee A Guide to
The State, WPA-Project (New York, 1949), 361-362.
[32]
decided to proceed first of all with the development of the town itself in
order to give the settlement a true center.
A STRUGGLING NEW TOWN: WARTBURG
We are indebted to Johann Gottlieb Häcker for a detailed description
of Wartburg as it looked at the time of Gerding's arrival: "The first
view of the town considerably dampens the expectations which had been
heightened by the rather well developed area through which we traveled.
To your right, you see a large, vacant space. On the left side of the street
stands a pleasant-looking house which contains Mr. Gerding's store. It is
presently inhabited by Mr. Friedrich Gerding, Jr. and a clerk. Then follows
a similar building serving as church and school house. It also contains an
office but otherwise it is uninhabited. Next comes a larger structure, a
German tavern which belonged to the Company until the beginning of
this year but has since been bought by the former tenant whose family
consists of five other persons. The Company physician, Dr. Brandau, also
lives there. At some distance, there is a little old log cabin which serves
as a home for widow Bauerkeller. Right beside it you find a nice frame
house belonging to Pastor Wilken who lives there as well as Dr. Cramer
with his wife and four children. On the opposite side of the street stands
a very old log cabin which is to be razed. Presently, however, it still
serves old Mr. von Kienbusch as a home. Behind it, at the corner of the
future market square, is a handsome frame house built by an American,
Mr. White. He lives there with his wife, his seven children and a slave.
A short walk behind the church near the woods and on the road to the
mills, there is the log building of the Company for the temporary lodging
of new arrivals which is presently occupied by about 25 persons of five
families."
47
Six houses and two old log cabins—that was all Hacker could
find of the "Town of Wartburg" in the Winter 1848/49, of the same town
which had been written up and presented as a real German center, the
new Teutonia in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee, in numerous
newspaper articles, advertisements and pamphlets.
The original plat of the town as designed by Guenther prior to the
arrival of the first immigrants in 1845, showed six streets running north
and south. They were numbered I to VI consecutively. Crossing them in
an east-west direction and forming town squares of 240 feet each, were
five other streets. One of them, the main street, was designated as Antwerp
Street. Three others bore frames of German cities, i. e. Frankfurt, Mainz
and Cologne. The squares formed by these streets were each divided into
six city lots of 80 by 120 feet. Each lot was offered for sale at the price
of 25 to 30 dollars. One exception to this pattern, however, was the area
bounded by Antwerp, Cologne, II and III Streets which was set aside as
the public square where the hopeful planners expected the Morgan County
courthouse to be erected. Cologne and Antwerp streets were to be lined by
trees planted at forty feet intervals. All streets were sixty feet wide while
their length was left more or less indefinite in the plan. During his service
as agent of the Company, Guenther had already planted the trees along
the two streets but most of the other space designated on the plat as
streets was not cleared for use for many years and remained covered with
its original growth of bushes and trees.
48
As the two successive resident agents, Guenther and von Kienbusch, had
47
Hacker, 49.
48
Cooper, 24-25. The town remains today essentially as it was conceived at that time.
[33]
concentrated on selling farm land instead of town sites, only seventeen of
the 475 members of the colony resided in Wartburg when Gerding took over.
The price for the town lots was very high compared to the selling price
of farm land which could be had for anywhere from fifty cents to four
dollars per acre. "Under these circumstances," Häcker writes, "a profes-
sional man would hardly venture into building a house. The farmers of
the vicinity cannot afford to and do not want to build a house in town
for their mere pleasure so long as they will not have much extra money
to spend. At my departure, I was asured that this year (1849) several
new houses would be erected. Their construction had not yet begun because
the saw mills had hitherto been unable to furnish any lumber."
49
Although Gerding was certainly as much interested in building up the
town as he was in disposing profitably of the farm land, he urged von
Kienbusch and White to obtain a charter for the town of Wartburg as soon
as possible. He effected a change of the street names, eliminating all
European traces, probably to appease native criticism. His new plat gave
the following names from West to East: Rose (the Gerding residence in
New York had been on Rose Street), Church, Maidenlane (the firm of
Gerding & Simon was located on Maidenlane in Manhattan), Kingston,
Cumberland and Mill streets. From North to South the new names became
Eliza (named for his wife, Eliza Lowe Gerding), Court, Main, Spring and
Green Streets. The incorporation of Wartburg occurred in 1857.
50
John
White became the Chairman of the Commission. The other Town Com-
missioners were Charles F. Kraemer, Carl Haag, Thomas Jones and William
Jones. Only Kraemer and Haag were not native-born Americans.
The building of the town made but slow progress. Most craftsmen who
were supposed to have opened shop in town, preferred to live on the cheaper
lands of the vicinity. Despite the lack of a real, central community, the
ensemble of settlers began to function as an economic entity. It was, how-
ever, a far cry from what the promoters had intended to create, namely a
complete economic unit, self-sufficient in every respect.
ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE WARTBURG SETTLEMENT
Gerding and his partners had high-flung but rather vague concepts of
the economic development of the colony. The first step was to establish a
sound agriculture, flour and saw mills and small crafts. Livestock raising
was one of the main features in the original planning but due to difficult
access to markets and partly inexperienced operators, neither sheep nor
beef cattle raising were ever carried out on a large scale. Even poultry
keeping was limited to the needs of local consumption with the exception
of a few flocks of geese which found their way into Knoxville every year.
Milk production likewise was entirely for use in the colony area. There
were times when meat was difficult to obtain in Wartburg and the nearest
butcher lived in Knoxville.
51
During the first two years, many crops were failures. Seed brought over
from Saxony and Switzerland did not lend itself to the soil of the new
country. Potato, green beans, cabbage, rye and barley crops failed. Kien-
busch observed in his report of 1848 that successful farming could be
practiced only by "capable people smart enough to test everything and to
retain but the best, people neither bent on introducing all at once a Saxon
49
Häcker, 50.
50
Western A. Goodspeed et alia, History of Tennessee (Nashville, 1886), 841.
51
The 1850 Census lists one "Gottlied Junker, Butcher" in Morgan County. In 1854, however,
the Rev. Johann Etter wrote "It was difficult to obtain meat since the nearest butcher was located at
Knoxville." (quoted by Cooper 75)
[34]
agricultural system nor following the American jog-trot."
52
Wheat and
garden vegetables were profitably grown from the first year on. The more
enterprising among the farmers soon added native corn to their crops.
A Swiss recalled the shortage of meat but added " we had plenty of good,
wholesome food—corn bread and potatoes as well as vegetables and milk."
53
Several large orchards were planted and in due time began to produce.
Not only their fruit but also various fruit brandies found a ready market
among the colonists. A special feature—common to many German settle-
ments at that time—was the moderately successful attempt to grow grapes
on the hillsides. The colony's vineyards attracted quite some attention
because wine growing was a practice hitherto unknown in that part of
Tennessee. In March 1854 the Kingston Gazetteer reported:
Recent experiments have been made which well attest to the fact that grape grows
finely and matures well in that region. Several enterprising Germans have planted
thriving little vineyards; and during the past year they have had the pleasure of
manufacturing one or two hundred gallons of wine which compare well with those
manufactured in Europe.
54
Several months later the same paper again spoke of the Wartburg vineries:
On the east and south are nice farming districts which are kept in a fine state of
cultivation. Many fine species of grape are successfully grown, from which a splendid
article of wine is manufactured, not such as is usually offered for sale, but such as
we read of.
55
In his Tennessee Handbook of 1868, Hermann Bokum calls Wartburg
"a settlement of German vinedressers" and states: "The census for 1860
gives 242 gallons as the product of the vineyards at Wartburg, and, I think,
needs correction in this."
56
A young Bavarian brewer, Franz Xavier Hey-
branck settled in the colony but nothing is known of any brewery in the
area.
57
Some settlers tried tobacco as a cash crop. In 1849 Otto von Kienbusch
and Gustav Brandau opened a tobacco factory in the town of Montgomery
one mile west of Wartburg. Eventually they marketed some of their
smoking tobacco and cigars in Knoxville, Nashville and even as far away
as Cincinnati.
Two miles southwest of Wartburg, on Crooked Fork Creek, G. F.
Gerding had several mills built. A corn grist mill, another one complete
with bolter for wheat flour and an oil mill were operated for Gerding by
an experienced Swiss millwright, Jakob Kreis.
Johann Kreis and Christian Kreis, like Jakob hailing from Glarus,
Switzerland, operated the first saw mill of the colony as early as 1846.
A new, large saw mill was opened two years later. Johann Kreis had
arrvied well-equipped for this task. He brought innumerable tools with
him from Europe. In subsequent years he became the leading contractor
and builder of Wartburg and the surrounding counties.
The abundance of lumber led to the establishment of another industry
which, however, never achieved any importance beyond filling the imme-
diate needs of the settlers: furniture making. The New York cabinet
52
Rosenthal, 72.
53
Cooper, 75.
54
Kingston Gazetteer, March 30, 1854.
55
Ibid., November 4, 1854.
56
Hermann Bokum, The Tennessee Handbook and Immigrant's Guide (Philadelphia, 1868), 37-38.
57
Much information on the occupations and professions represented in the Wartburg colony was
gathered from the original records of the Seventh Census of the United States for 1850 in the National
Archives. The Census of Morgan County (pp. 553-633) was taken between August 12 and November 28,
1850.
[35]
manufacturer, Johann A. Aurin came to Wartburg with his sons and set
up a shop in which a number of other craftsmen were employed.
The strangest enterprise in the colony was no doubt the "Wartburg
Piano Company." Gerding's oldest son had learned the fundamentals of
piano making in New York. At the age of eighteen his father let him set
up a piano factory in Wartburg with the assistance of Fritz Beneike, an
experienced piano builder from New York. The firm also employed a
journeyman, Heinrich Waltersdorf, who had worked in this trade in New
York for five years before coming to Wartburg in 1850. Supplies were
purchased from Bancroft-Beaver & Co. in Philadelphia through G. L.
Gillespie & Co. in Kingston who conducted much of the outside business
of the colony. Several pianos were actually produced in Wartburg.
Beneike's account book which has been preserved, reports at one instance:
"finished a fine instrument of seven octaves made of mahogany." According
to the elder Gerding, the factory's business "was quite profitable."
58
Several stores provided supplies of all types for the settlers. G. F.
Gerding kept the largest general store in Wartburg where also German
books and newspapers were to be had. Ludwig Gohren was the local grocer.
Brandau and Kienbusch opened a store to supplement the meagre earnings
they derived from their tobacco factory. Charles and Henry Mozer were
dealing in all kinds of merchandise. Constantin Brause, former agent of
the Company in New York, established a general store in Montgomery
where he competed with five other stores operated by native residents.
Many of the skilled craftsmen—especially among the Swiss—owned and
operated farms but they provided various services to the settlers as a
sideline. A breakdown of the adult, male immigration population of Morgan
County from the Census of 1850 provides the following picture: 59 farmers,
15 laborers, 7 carpenters, 4 shoemakers, 3 cabinet makers, 3 merchants, 3
physicians, 3 pianomakers, 2 cigar makers and one each of the following
occupations: tavernkeeper, brewer, clergyman, painter, cooper, blacksmith,
butcher, stonemason, grocer, trader and clerk.
With the exception of the three piano makers, this array of trades and
professions seems realistic enough for a young colony in a rural setting.
But from other records it can be derived that the settlement was a gathering
point for a heavy number of people with academic and professional back-
ground. Among those listed as "farmers" are quite a few who had not
come to the colony with the intention of clearing the forest and tilling the
soil.
Some intellectuals came merely out of curiosity and soon afterwards
drifted on. Others hoped to find a congenial, little German community in
the mountains far from the hectic life of the emerging industrial centers.
A third type was expecting to make fast money through speculations in
land transactions and mineral deposits.
The number of physicians whose presence in the colony has been
recorded, is particularly striking. Besides the two Company physicians,
Drs. Brandau and Goetz, a third medical doctor, F. A. Sienknecht, a native
of Holstein, established a practice in the colony. He came in 1848, and
bought a small tract east of Wartburg. In 1855 he moved into town where
he opened a much needed drug store. Dr. Sienknecht grew his own herbs
and prepared many of his own medicines. He soon became the most succes-
ful physician of the area. When Dr. Brandau began to devote all his
attention to various business enterprises and to livestock raising and Dr.
58
Cooper, 49. H. S. Cooper had access to Fritz Beneike's Account Book. Gerding's version of the
enterprise is recorded in Rattermann, op. cit., 19. Beneike was a native of Braunschweig.
[36]
Goetz moved away to Kingston in 1854, Sienknecht remained the only
physician constantly at the service of the colonists until the Civil War.
59
A Viennese-born physician, Dr. Rudolf Knaffl, who had had a well-
established practice in New York, decided to take up an offer of agents
to buy land in Morgan County on account of his failing health. Although
he lived there in semi-retirement, he practiced to some extent among the
settlers.
Dr. Charles F. Kramer, English-born but of German descent, lived in
Wartburg for many years. Nothing is known of his professional activities.
His active interest in the colony, however, is attested by the fact that he
was a member of the first Board of Commissioners of the Town of Wartburg.
Dr. Augustin Gattinger, fresh from medical school in Munich, where he
had engaged in revolutionary activities arrived with his wife and his brother-
in-law, George Dury, in East Tennessee in 1849. While Dury settled near
Wartburg, Gattinger left the colony after but a brief stay there and located
near Kingston.
60
In 1847 another physician. Dr. Johannes Majorsky, played a guest role
at the colony. From 1847 until 1849 Dr. Christian Rauschenberg of Leipzig
lived in the vicinity of Wartburg as "a physician and explorer." Häcker
writes of him: "Christian Rauschenberg who has been in this area for the
past 1 1/2 years as a physician and naturalist, in cooperation with his
brother-in-law, Alexander Gerhardt, formerly Conservator at the Zoological
Museum of Leipzig, furnished me with their notes on climate, flora and
fauna."
61
Also from Saxony came the architect, Carl Rothe, who lent a hand at
the construction of the modest houses in the colony for a while before trying
his luck in Knoxville. The reports of a local piano factory had attraced
a "professor of music," Gustav R. Knabe, who purchased land in the colony
in 1847 from an agent in New Orleans. He could not find any pupils in the
mountain wilderness and being unwilling to till the soil, Knabe soon left
the settlement only to begin a brilliant life-time career as a music teacher
at Tennessee colleges.
The settlement did not lack its share of nobility either. The most
prominent representative of aristocracy was Baron F. von Forstner from
Stuttgart. The Baron had arrived in New York in 1847 with his young,
second wife, two sons and three daughters. He was on his way to Texas
in search of a place with a benign climate where he could improve his
impaired health and at the same time pursue some leisurely farming. The
collapse of the Texas venture sponsored by the Mainzer Adelsverein, a
society of nobelmen bent on founding a New Germany in Texas, and
personal contact with Gerding persuaded von Forstner to "take up an
estate in Morgan County, Tennessee." The Baron purchased 1500 acres
of land (one hundred acres of which were already cleared) and had a large
home built on it, "no doubt the most beautiful one in all of Morgan
County." The good baron was quite dismayed by the remoteness of his
new home from civilization but having invested most of his financial
resources, he stayed in Wartburg until his death at the age of sixty in 1860.
59
Cooper, 62.
60
R. A. Halley, " Dr. Augustin Gattinger," in Tennessee Old and New, 1796-1946 (Nashville, 1946),
II, 817-889. Gattinger (1825-1908) lived in several East Tennessee towns until the Civil War when he
joined the D. S. Army as an assistant surgeon. After the war he held several public positions. He
became well known for his books on botany and mineralogy. His collections of botanical material are
now at the University of Tennessee while his botanical library is being preserved at Peabody College
His brother-in-law, George Dury, whom Häcker met at Wartburg, became a successful portrait painter.
His portrait of Mrs. James K. Polk still hangs in the East Room of the White House in Washington.
Cf. also Häcker, op. cit., 51.
61
Häcker, 38.
[37]
He had little contact with the other immigrants except for taking an active
hand in organizing the Lutheran congregation there.
62
FAILURES OF OTHER COLONIZATION SCHEMES
The settlement as it presented itself some five years after its initiation
resembled very little the "New Germany" of the original project. It was
at best a struggling backwoods community endowed with a lot of human
ballast. Relentless hard work and endurance on the part of the hardier
among the settlers led slowly to a moderate success and as we shall see
later, the ill-begotten utopia was turned into a small, useful community.
The Wartburg project fared better than other similar endeavors in its
vicinity. In November 1847, Gottfried E. Schulze of Leipzig and A. Scholz
of Hessen-Nassau purchased 10,000 acres of land from G. F. Gerding on
the Obed's River and Crab Orchard Creek. They had already acquired
considerable acreage on the Kingston road from other owners. A New
York newspaper reported on their plans in July 1847: "They have also
acquired land here for a company and started to prepare the exploitation
of considerable iron deposits. A map of the adjacent mountain region
which they have drawn up themselves, show much diligence and accuracy
in typographical respect. It is full of interesting annotations." No record
could be found of even the slightest success of this venture. Moreover,
much of their land was bought by one Jean-Baptiste Letorey in 1853.
63
A more imposing scheme was that conceived of by Johann Gottlieb
Häcker of Chemnitz whose brother, Friedrich E. Häcker was one of the
early Wartburg settlers. J. B. Häcker was the mentor of a local Emigra-
tion Society in his native Saxony. In September 1848 he left for Tennessee
in order to investigate the area, locates sites for large settlements and
purchase suitable acreage. By early December 1848 he arrived at Wart-
burg and remained there until April 1849. During these four months he
compiled a comprehensive account of Morgan County with special emphasis
on agricultural possibilities, transportation, prices of commodities, material
and labor which seems quite accurate despite the author's great enthusiasm
for the place. In his book on Morgan County, Häcker included detailed
information on climate, flora and fauna of the County gathered by the
botanist Christian Rauschenberg and the zoologist Alexander Gerhardt.
He left Wartburg with a blueprint in his mind for two villages and a
large, supporting agricultural colony. The town of "Neu-Chemnitz" was
to be laid out along the right bank of the Big Emory River, twelve miles
from Kingston and seven miles from Wartburg. Häcker contracted with
Gerding for the option on thirteen tracts of land comprising, in all, 50,000
acres west of the Big Emory River. The purchase price was fixed at 35,000
dollars.
64
A second town to be named "Marienberg" was to be located along the
Nashville-Knoxville road some seven miles beyond Wartburg and eleven
miles distant from the projected site of Neu-Chemnitz. For this purpose,
Baron Forstner reserved Häcker the option on seven hundred acres of flat
land. Häcker lost no time after his return to Saxony. His Bericht aus und
über Amerika almost entirely devoted to descriptions of Wartburg and
62
Ibid., 51. For the Mainzer Adelsverein see F. August Strubberg, Friedrichsburg, die Colonie des
Deutschen Fürstenvereins in Texas (Leipzig, 1867).
63
Morgan County Deed Book B, 110. The article appeared in the New Yorker Deutsche Schnell-
post. It was reprinted in Der Deutsche Pionier, x (1878), 12-13.
64
Mirgan County Deed Book G, 388. Büttner, op. cit., 297, refers to this project laconically:
"Also the colony which Mr. J. G. Häcker in Chemnitz was planning to found in the same colony under
the name of "New Chemnitz " was doomed from its very beginning."
[38]
Morgan County was published soon after his return home. But despite
intensive agitation for his projects, he failed to recruit enough people willing
to emigrate to Tennessee. By 1853 he definitely buried his plans and his
contract with Gerding was cancelled. Thus another scheme, which, had it
been successful, would have immensely strengthed the precarious German
and Swiss colony in Morgan County, came to naught. Häcker had prepared
it soundly—probably more soundly than the East Tennessee Colonization
Company had devised its own planning. Furthermore he had staked his
personal fortune in this venture but the South once again proved unattrac-
tive to the German immigrant who saw much greater opportunities in the
westward push into the Great Plains.
CONSOLIDATION OF LIFE IN THE COLONY
Life for the sturdy and for the weak who remained in the Wartburg
colony after the discouragements of the first few years, began to consoli-
date and optimism replaced the earlier gloom. "We progressed rapidly.
Every craft was well represented and slowly rising standards dispelled
petty bickering," Gerding recalled about the decade just prior to the
Civil War.
65
The church quarrel between the Lutherans and the Reformed also was
permanently settled. The Lutherans adopted a new constitution on
November 26, 1851 which set forth that "the services shall be held in the
German language according to the rules of the Evangelical Church, and
in accord with the Unaltered Augsburg Confession."
66
By Summer 1854
the congregation had raised enough funds to contract with Johann Kreis
for a new church. Thet solidly constructed building was completed in the
course of the following year. It was to serve the congregation well for
seventy-seven years. A part of the building fund had been contributed by
Lutherans in New York City.
67
The Swiss Reformed population was likewise able to establish a formal
congregation after having met for several years in the home of Jacob Kreis.
It owed its organization to a chance visit of a Swiss minister in Tennessee
in 1850. The Rev. Johann Etter, accompanied his friend, the Rev. Samuel
Weishaupt to Fair Gardens, Tenn., where two sons of the latter lived.
There Etter heard of the plight of the fifty Swiss families in Wartburg.
He went to see them and was quickly accepted by them as their minister.
Etter began to collect funds for a church but his parishioners were too poor
to contribute much. In the Winter of 1854/55 he set out on a fund raising
trip to the North and eventually to Switzerland. More than a year later,
in the Spring of 1856, Etter returned to Wartburg with sufficient funds
for building a church which was immediately constructed. Once the edifice
was completed and the financial affairs of the congregation put in order,
the minister left again late in 1857 for several months of English study at
the Reformed Seminary at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He was never
to return to Wartburg. A call to a midwestern congregation was more
enticing to him than the prospect of going back to the isolated mountain
village.
68
Nevertheless, his pastoral activities at Wartburg had firmly established
65
Rattermann, 19.
66
Kirchen-Ordnung der Deutschen Evangelisch-Lutheranischen Kirche in Wartburg, Morgan County
Tennessee (1853), 12-13
67
Faerber, op. cit., 6. Pastor Wilken also preached in other communities. He was called "the
missionary of East Tennessee "because he served groups at Kingston and Paint Rock, and held occasional
services at Mill Creek, Emory District, Montgomery, Knoxville and other communities where scattered
Germans lived.
68
Cooper, 74-75.
[39]
the Reformed church there which was being held together by Jakob Kreis
until the Civil War. In 1860 it was granted a charter as "German Reformed
Church of the Zwingli persuasion," specifying that this church "shall have
the same privileges and be governed by the same rules and regulations as
the German Lutheran Church."
69
The establishment of a school for the colony had been one of the first
preoccupations of the East Tennessee Colonization Company. Teaching
school was expressly included in the duties assigned to Pastor Wilken who
opened classes soon after his arrival in 1846 in the large hall which served
then also as a church. Wilken, sometimes assisted by the Rev. Etter,
taught regular elementary courses in German. This German school at Wart-
burg was for a period of time the only school in Morgan County. Other
schools were either not available or had such meagre curricula and reduced
school year (three months of school a year were not uncommon) that the
Wartburg school remained the most important educational institution avail-
able to the colonists' children until the Civil War. Thus the first American-
born generations grew up with the German language and remained largely
aloof from the other, English-speaking youth of the county.
This isolation, moreover, was not limited to the young people alone.
The entire German-speaking community remained apart from its old
Tennessee neighbors for a long time. The social and educational level of
many Wartburg settlers was quite different from that of the modest moun-
tain folk who sparsely populated the area. There was little business
activity within the county which would otherwise have brought about a
closer contact between the newcomers and the natives. The settlers trans-
acted all their local business in the German language. Direct commercial
relations seem to have existed with German American firms in New Orleans,
Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York City although many transactions
were carried out through merchants in Knoxville and Kingston.
The two churches and the tavern were the social centers for the
scattered settlers. Hacker observed in 1849 "A considerable number of
colonists consists of cultured people who have already developed a rather
pleasant social life. Some families have joined together in a Sonntagsnach-
mittags-Kränzchen or Club, and plans for setting up a Casino with its own
social hall are being considered. Last New Year's Day I saw the less
cultured colonists in a very merry mood in the tavern where they danced
to the tune of a clarinet."
70
The Casino was never built. The German
custom of afternoon Kaffeetrinken stayed alive for a long time. Christmas
was, of course, celebrated in the old country fashion. Weddings were
always preceded by a Polterabend. Just like Indian corn had invaded the
dinner tables of the settlers, whiskey was the first American intruder into
the social life of Wartburg. But it underwent some changes before being
consumed. It served as the base for a hot drink which was never absent
from any festivity. For generations this "Dutch Punch" remained a
favorite on the Big Emory River. Home-grown grape and fruit wines were
also plentiful.
The men of the colony often organized shooting matches. Harvest
parties, Swiss and Saxon style, were a popular diversion. Some American
frontier pastimes also made their entry such as quiltings and log rolling.
By and large, however, assimilation was very slow and few signs of it
were discernible before the Civil War. The number of native Americans
69
Incorporatiin of the German Reformed Church, February 28, 1860. Acts of Tennessee 1859/60
318.
70
Häcker, 54.
[40]
within the colony area was very small. Political interest and ambitions
were almost non-existent among the immigrants. Only Gerding, Goetz,
Wilken and Brause showed some concern in county affairs, mainly to
promote Gerding's project of removing the county seat from Montgomery
to Wartburg. The first unsuccessful attempt had already been made by the
East Tennessee Colonization Company in 1845.
71
In 1850 Constantin
Brause became a trustee of Morgan County. The Rev. Wilken accepted
a position as a teacher in the small school of Montgomery. Despite constant
prodding, Montgomery remained the county seat. A last try was made in
1860 when a bill was formally introduced in the Tennessee legislature for
removal of the courthouse to Wartburg but it was rejected by a majority.
72
Unlike many other small German settlements of that time, Wartburg
did not have a print shop of its own. German-language papers from New
York and Cincinnati were subscribed to, particularly the then popular
Schnellpost of New York. There was an ephemeral German weekly pub-
lished in 1857 in Nashville but it lasted only a few weeks. Memphis had
its Anzeiger des Südens from 1858 on which it tried to reach readers all over
the state and in other isolated settlements of the South.
It is doubtful whether a great number of the settlers maintained much
contact with the outside world. Most of them were preoccupied with their
own, precarious existence. The great distances separating them from their
countrymen in other sections of the country precluded interchange and
frequent visits. In this atmosphere of isolation from both the American
environment and from other German American communities, the Wart-
burg colony lived along quietly and inconspicuously until the outbreak of
the Civil War.
WARTBURG BECOMES AN AMERICAN TOWN
The economic and political issues leading to the secession of the South
seemed of little direct concern to this German community in East Ten-
nessee. Most of the farmers and artisans had no knowledge of the issues
involved. If they had read their German newspapers from the North,
they were more likely to share the pro-Union attitude which so many of
their countrymen in the North and in the border states supported. Since
they did not own any slaves, the Negro question was of no avail to them.
The intellectual leaders of the colony, however, passionately took sides in
the ensuing conflict. The others soon found themselves caught in an area
where both the Union and the Confederate cause had supporters and where
feelings ran high. The Union influence among the native Americans of the
Cumberland region was extensive. As the fortunes of war went up and
down and the armies of both factions brought disruption and disorder into
the area, the settlers began to take sides themselves. The two religious
congregations split into warring factions with Pastor Wilken strongly sup-
porting the Union cause. Drs. Eduard Goetz and Gustav Brandau joined
the Union armies as medical officers. Dr. F. A. Sienknecht likewise
emphatically stood for the Union while two of his sons volunteered for the
Confederate Army. Early in the war, many Union-sympathizers had to flee.
O. G. von Kienbusch sought refuge in the North. Pastor Wilken also left
temporarily but returned as soon as the area was firmly in Union hands.
Then the turn to flee came for the supporters of the Confederacy. Their
most outspoken leader was Georg F. Gerding. Carl Aurin, Rudolf Braun
and Rudolf Freytag also rallied around the Southern banner. While most
71
Nashville Whig, September 23, 1845. Cf. also Acts of Tennessee, 1845, 223, 225.
72
Acts of Tennessee, 1860, 534.
[41]
of the pro-Confederates remained in hiding nearby, Gerding fled to Louis-
ville, Kentucky, where he waited out the remainder of the war. Later he
described this trying period: "Then the war came and it destroyed almost
everything. The Southern sympathizers were chased away—I was among
them. The better ones among the Unionists, notably Kienbusch and Wilken,
went north—thus Wartburg lay waste!"
73
The colonists who remained on their lands, led an austere life during
these years of trial. Deprived of an effective leadership, at times without
a minister and teacher and through most years of the war without even a
physician, their homes and barns were an easy prey for marauding bands
of soldiers who looked with suspicion upon this settlement of foreigners.
When the war finally ended, Wartburg was only the shadow of its earlier
appearance. Some of the refugees returned in order to survey the devas-
tations and try to recover whatever was left of their possessions. Pastor
Wilken tried to rally his congregation but distress within and without
caused him to resign in August 1866.
74
There was another exodus from the
settlement which is partly revealed in the records of the First Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Knoxville. When this congregation was organized
in October, 1869, ten of the twenty-two charter members were former
Wartburgers.
G. F. Gerding, by now thoroughly disillusioned and filled with great
bitterness over his past experiences, turned his back on Wartburg. What-
ever land he owned in the town and its vicinity, he sold in New York in
1865 with the exception of some acreage which he retained until 1879
when he sold it to the Board of Aid to Land Ownership for the English
colony at Rugby, Morgan County.
75
Gerding withdrew completely from
public life and spent his remaining years on a farm owned by him near
Oliver Springs, Anderson County, Tenn.
76
The 1870 Census lists only 57 German-born and 41 Swiss-born inhabi-
tants for all of Morgan County. Most of these remaining immigrants lived
in or near Wartburg, Mehlhorn and Lansing. They were soon outnumbered
by the influx of other people, particularly in Wartburg which finally
became the county seat in 1870. The distinctly German settlement had
ceased to exist. The final integration of the immigrants and the first
American-born generation could proceed. The Lutheran Church remained
the last vestige of German language and traditions.
The Wartburg Germans began to take their place within the East
Tennessee population at large. German and Swiss family names began to
appear on the rosters of public life. Charles H. Delius was the first Wart-
burger to become prominent in public affairs. He was a magistrate, county
judge, chairman of the court, county superintendent of schools, and United
States Commissioner in quick succession. The Kreis family rose to promi-
nence. Johann Kreis was entrusted with many public building projects,
among them the handsome courthouse in Wartburg. Harmon Kreis, son
of the 1847 settler Jakob Kreis, made a sizable fortune in the marble
business. As a leader in civic and business affairs he was elected Sheriff
of Knox County and a member of the Tennessee legislature.
In the 1880s the construction of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad
provided an unexpected source of income for many Wartburg craftsmen
73
Rattermann, 19.
74
Faerber, 7. Wilken accepted a professorship at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, where he served
until his death twenty years later.
75
The English immigrants' colony at Rugby and its fate were recently well described by Wilma
Dykeman in the New York Times of March 25, 1962.
76
Gerding died in 1884. Cooper, AB 8-9.
[42]
and farmers' sons. The master stonemason, Franz Schubert, who built
bridges and tunnels under contract for the CSRR employed many fellow-
Wartburgers.
77
Slowly the wounds of the war began to heal. Gerding wrote to Ratter-
mann, editor of the Deutsche Pionier
in Cincinnati in 1878: "Wartburg
has now recovered considerably from the war. It has now three churches,
a good hotel, four stores, and without doubt will become the summer
resort for many Cincinnatians once the railroad has been completed."
78
The expected summer guests from Cincinnati and other places, however,
never came.
The three churches mentioned by Gerding were the old Lutheran
Church, now called St. Paul's, a Presbyterian church which had absorbed
many Swiss members of the defunct Reformed congregation, and a Roman
Catholic Church. A very small Catholic congregation had been in existence
as early as 1847. It was then served by an itinerant priest. In 1878 a
congregation was again formed and a church built in the following year
but it was soon afterwards supposedly "destroyed by enemies of the
Church."
79
The only institution founded by the East Tennessee Coloniza-
tion Company which has survived to the present day is St. Paul's Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church.
The early events in the life of this congregation have been related
above within the context of the entire colony. After the Civil War, St.
Paul's assumed a singular position as the rallying center of the German-
speaking inhabitants of Morgan County. This additional function as the
only German social center enabled the church to survive prolonged periods
without a pastor. Laymen such as Johann Kreis, Franz Freytag and
Friedrich Engert conducted public reading services while Lutheran pastors
from Nashville and notably Pastor J. Heckel of Knoxville, preached occa-
sionally in Wartburg. In 1872 the congregation secured the services of an
aging clergyman of the Lutheran Iowa Synod, John L. Hirschmann who
rendered an almost heroic service to his mountain flock during two years.
While serving at Wartburg, Hirschmann frequently visited Lutherans in
Chattanooga where he organized a congregation which called him as its
own pastor in September 1874. With the exception of a brief sojourn in
Illinois, Hirschmann never fully deserted his people at Wartburg, visiting
them for ministerial acts at frequent intervals and finally returning there
for his retirement.
Meanwhile St. Paul's appealed to various synods in order to procure
a permanent, German-speaking pastor. Most Lutheran churches of the old
immigration in Tennessee had formed the Holston Synod in 1860. This
group became an affiliate of the United Synod of the South eight years later.
Practically all its congregations were English-speaking and for many years
the Holston Synod had no German pastor available to answer the call of
St. Paul's. But in 1877 this Synod found a German-speaking, evangelical
minister, Carl A. Bruegmann who was willing to accept the Wartburg
charge. Bruegmann proceeded at once to reorganize the congregation,
liberalizing its doctrines in order to make it a place acceptable to all
people willing to share in its worship without strict adherence to purely
Lutheran doctrine. He urged St. Paul's to join the Holston Synod because
of this body's liberal and lax practices. The school was reopened and a
new Kirchenbuch started in 1878 which became a faithful chronicle of
77
Information on several German families in Wartburg was contained in the Special Historical
Edition of the Morgan County News of April 7, 1944.
78
Rattermann, 19.
79
Cooper, 79-80.
[43]
the further life of the congregation. Lutherans in Rockwood and Kingston
donated the church bell which is still in use today.
Die-hard Lutherans within the congregation and the now feeble, old
Pastor Hirschmann became increasingly disturbed by the new minister's
lack of doctrine. Their severe criticism centered on Bruegmann's sermons
and on the "Unionistic Hymnals" he had introduced. After much strife,
the congregation acceded to the urging of the orthodox critics. Pastor
Bruegmann was dismissed and in 1881 St. Paul's withdrew formally from
the Holston Synod. Hirschmann advised the congregation to affiliate with
the Missouri Synod. A vote was taken on the issue with the result that
the majority decided in favor of St. Paul's independent status as it had
existed before it became a member of the Holston Synod. The Missouri
Synod, however, became interested in this steadfast outpost of Lutheranism
and tried to furnish the church with pastors.
80
This dependence on
Missouri Synod clergy contributed much to preserving the distinctly
German character of this congregation. The Missourians were not always
able to speedily provide new pastors when others went on their way to
more comfortable posts. But a number of mostly young pastors of the
Missouri Synod have served St. Paul's during the more than eight decades
since. Most noteworthy among them were Otto Carl Praetorius (1884-
1889) ,
81
John G. Goehringer (1890-1899),
82
Edward Nauss (1910-1913),
Edwin H. Demetrio (1913-1920), Oscar E. Feucht (1920-1925) and Richard
B. Faerber (1943-1948).
Until the turn of the century, St. Paul's remained a purely German
congregation but then the English language made considerable inroads.
English services were introduced to accommodate the young people and to
prevent their drifting away to other churches. By 1910 English and
German services were given equal time every Sunday but already in 1913,
when Pastor Nauss left St. Paul's, only one German service was held each
month. During World War I community pressure was strong against
everything still sounding German in this isolated area. The descendants
of the hardy German and Swiss settlers put their critical neighbors to
shame by proving their patriotism in every way. Several of their sons
served in the armed force. Of the 110 members of the Wartburg chapter
of the Red Cross, 93 belonged to the "German Church." In the Third
Liberty Loan drive alone, the small band of St. Paul's members raised
6000 dollars under the leadership of Pastor Demetrio. Although the twelve
German services a year where not discontinued during the war years
despite pressure to dispense with them, the use of the German language
became soon unnecessary for want of participants. Pastor Feucht preached
the last German sermons in the early twenties. At precisely the same time
he began to probe into the German past of Wartburg. We owe him the
preservation of many a fact of bygone days. Thus the German colony of
Wartburg became the object of historical interest at the very moment
80
St. Paul's Church did not join the Missouri Synod until the early 1920s.
81
During the pastorate of the Rev. Praetorius a church building was erected in the Mehlhorn settle-
ment southwest of Wartburg at the ford of Crab Orchard Creek, immediately west of the Emory River.
This German settlement had developed around a tract of 1886 acres of land purchased by Christian
Mehlhorn in 1848. Adjacent to the west and north was another complex of German farms, long called
the Ruppe settlement. It was grouped around the property of Friedrich Ruppe. Both settlements were
too far removed from the center at Wartburg to have frequent contact. The inhabitants of both areas
organized their own Lutheran congregations. Wartburg pastors visited them occasionally but "Father"
Ruppe himself held regular lay services there for several decades. Mehlhorn Station was later called
Deermont and it is known today as Camp Austin. The present Wartburg pastor, the Rev. Robert P.
Nerger, is still holding services for the small flock there every Sunday evening.
82
Goeringer was succeeded by the Rev. John P. Barkow, pastor of the Lutheran congregation at
Allardt, Fentress County. Barkow also served a small colony of Polish farmers at Deer Lodge.
[44]
when the German language disappeared from its last refuge, the pulpit
of St. Paul's.
83
Today, even to the casual visitor, Wartburg is still full of lingering
memories of its German past. Its name alone provokes questions as to its
origin. Along the highway names like Kreis and Freytag and Heindle are
still commonly found on mail-boxes and billboards. The weary traveler can
rest at a Schubert Motel and the curious tourist will be surprised to find
German inscriptions on the tombstones on the little God's Acre. When the
German Bundestag deputy, Dr. Ludwig Ratzel of Mannheim, visited
Wartburg in April 1960, he was cordially welcomed by the descendants
of the German immigrants.
84
After the Hon. Ratzel had addressed them
in St. Paul's Church and brought them the greetings of the city in
Germany where G. F. Gerding once was the U. S. Consul and where
he had gathered immigrants for Wartburg, Pastor Robert P. Nerger closed
the meeting with a prayer in German. Before parting with their visitor,
the congregation spontaneously rose and all those present joined in the
singing of Martin Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." At
that moment many Wartburgers felt the strange emotion of being aware
of their long and thorny history which created this small American town
in the mountains out of the Utopian dream of a businessman who was
looking for profits and found himself suddenly in charge of men and women
and children who looked up to him for leadership which despite his faults
and shortcomings he provided for many years.
83
For details on the recent history of St. Paul's Church see Faerber, op cit. 8 -9
84
Morgan County News, April 21, 1960.
[45]
 |