Today’s birthday boy was one of the members of the Gesellschaft who arrived in Perry County in 1839. In fact, he was on the first ship in that group to arrive in America on December 31, 1838, the day before 1839.

Johann Christian Kuehnert was born on December 3, 1826. On forms over the years, he is sometimes called Johann and sometimes Christian. I am going to use Christian in this post. He was the son of Johann and Rosine (Ludwig) Kuehnert. The passenger list for the Kuehnert’s says that this family was from Kolkau, Germany. That town was located very near Seelitz, which was the name of the community in Perry County that the Kuehnert’s lived all their lives. The map below shows both Kolkau and Seeltiz. The distance between them is 1.6 miles.

The Kuehnert’s came to this country as passengers on the ship, Copernicus. We can see this family of 4 on the passenger list below. It says Christian was 11 years old, but I think he was either 12 or 13. His father was called a mason.

The passenger list found in the book, Zion on the Mississippi, says Christian was 12 years old.

The Kuehnert’s are found in the 1840 census. His father’s name is written as John Kuener, and his household consisted of 2 males and 2 females. That corresponds with the names on the above passenger lists. Other names nearby, Poppitz, Schlimpert, and Kuehn, were other early settlers in the Seelitz community.

Christian was confirmed in 1841. I think Rev. Buerger, the first pastor to serve in the Seelitz community, was his pastor at that time. His confirmation record is in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg, but it is located on pages that are attributed to the Seelitz community. It says he was confirmed on Palm Sunday in 1841. That would have been on April 4th. It would be just after Easter Sunday that year, on April 15 and 20, that the famous Altenburg Debate took place at the Log Cabin College. It was not long after that debate that Pastor Buerger chose to leave Perry County.

When the 1850 census was taken, Christian was still living with his parents in Seelitz. He was 23 years old and working on his father’s farm.

In 1852, Christian bought a parcel of land according to the document shown below. That land was also found in Seelitz.

Later during that decade, Christian would get married. His wife would be Anna Elizabeth Leim, who was born on April 14, 1830. However, that is about all I know about her early life. Her name on documents alternates between Anna and Elizabeth. I will use Elizabeth. The first document I located for Elizabeth was her marriage record. For some reason, Christian was married in St. Louis. A St. Louis marriage record shown below says that the pastor who married Christian Kuehnert and Elizabeth Leim was Pastor Wyneken, who was the minister at Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis. This marriage record is also included in the books of that congregation.

I like to speculate that perhaps the Kuehnert family knew the Leim’s in Germany and arrangements were made for Christian and Elizabeth to get married in America. Perhaps when Elizabeth arrived in St. Louis after her voyage to this country, Christian traveled to that city to get married. Of course that is just my imagination at work. Maybe someone in the Kuehnert family knows the real story of how these two met and were married in St. Louis.

Christian would bring his bride back to Perry County where they would have 6 children according to our German Family Tree, all of which were baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. If they were baptized in the church, that would have been in the 1845 church building that is now part of our museum. Although I have no proof of this, I like to think that Christian’s father who was called a mason on the passenger lists may have been involved in constructing that building in 1845. Not all of the Kuehnert children lived to adulthood.

In the 1860 census, we find the Kuehnert’s with 3 children. Christian was a farmer.

In 1863, Christian joined the Union Army during the Civil War. His military record shown here says he was a private who served under Captain Feig, who was also a Lutheran from East Perry County.

Next, we find the Kuehnert family in the 1870 census with 5 children. One of Christian’s sons, Gotthold, was old enough to be helping him on his farm.

In the 1880 census, there were 4 children left in the Kuehnert household. One son was a farmer, and another was a miller.

Elizabeth would not live long enough to make it into the next census we can view in 1900. She died in 1892 at the age of 62. At the time of her death, Perry County was keeping death records, and we can look at the one for Elizabeth shown below in 2 images. There are 2 doctors listed on this form. One of them was Dr. E.E. Buenger, who was also one of the original immigrants. The other was Dr. J.G. Neumeuller, who was Dr. Buenger’s nephew.

Since I could not find Elizabeth’s gravestone on Findagrave.com for the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery, I thought Elizabeth might have been buried in an old cemetery located in Seelitz that is not found on Findagrave. However, we have a list of all the people buried in that cemetery, and Elizabeth is not one of them. I decided to make a trip to the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery this morning to see if I could find Elizabeth’s gravestone. I did not find a gravestone, but I figure it must be between the two gravestones shown in the photo below. The one on the right was a person who died in January of 1892, and the one on the left is for Dr. and Mrs. E.E. Buenger. Mrs. Buenger died in 1893. Elizabeth died in September of 1892, so I figure her grave site is between these two.

Christian shows up as a widower in the 1900 census. Christian was the head of the household, which was made up mostly of his son, Julius’s, family. Julius had married Emma Schmidt in 1882. Both Christian and Julius were farmers, and one of Julius’s sons was also assisting on the farm.

It must have been about this time that a photo of the Julius Kuehnert family was taken that also included Christian, who is sitting in the middle. The youngest child in Julius’s family was born in 1896.

The last census in which we find Christian was the one taken in 1910. Christian is listed as the head of his household which consisted of just him. However, right below his entry is that of Julius Kuehnert and his family.

When the 1915 plat maps were produced, a parcel of land for Christian is found in the Seelitz area. Near his land, you will find several other parcels of land owned by Julius. The farms in Seelitz were always quite small compared to other areas around here.

Christian Kuehnert died in 1916 at the age of 89. Even though he died during the time when Missouri was keeping death certificates, I did not locate one for Christian. I did find an obituary for Christian in the Perry County Republican. I do not think Christian was the last of the Lutheran original colonists as the headline indicates.

Christian is buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg, and he does have a gravestone photo.

Since Christian came to America with just one sibling who was a girl, it was dependent on Christian to carry on the Kuehnert surname. As you can see from the family photo shown above, his son, Julius had plenty of sons to pass on this surname to another generation.