I am excited to announce that you will be able to read a blog post today that was written by a first-time guest blogger for this site. If you are a regular reader of this blog you may recall that he has been mentioned before. His name is Timm Yamnitz. Timm lives in Germany, but he was born and raised in Perry County and can trace his family tree back to many people who have been characters in previous stories. There have also been quite a few times when I have consulted Timm for help on one of my stories. He is an amazing researcher and is an invaluable resource when it comes to finding out information I am searching for about places and people in Germany. Our museum uses his translating skills on occasion because he has the special talent for helping us understand what is being said in old texts that include old German handwriting.

Timm has written this story about one of his ancestors, John Muench. It is a story that is a bit longer than the ones I write, and he has given me the permission to divide it up into two parts. That is what I am going to do. You will be able to read the first part today and the second part tomorrow. I know you will enjoy this post, and I am certainly hoping that Timm becomes a regular contributor to our blog.

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Like many of this blog’s previous subjects, both of the German immigrants in today’s tale made their way to Missouri, where they met one another and married. The groom, Johann Paulus Münch (anglicized as John P. Muench—rhymes with “inch”), was born in Großenhül, Germany on 23 June 1825, making today his bicentennial birthday. John’s home village lies in the Bavarian region of Upper Franconia (called “Oberfranken” in German). In the map below (excerpted from a 19th-century Bavarian survey), the names of villages with Lutheran churches are highlighted in blue, while other villages mentioned in today’s story are in yellow.

As the map suggests, Großenhül did not have its own church, so local Lutherans belonged to the parish in nearby Wonsees, where John’s baptism was the 24th recorded in 1825. The entry identifies his parents as Paulus Münch, a farmer (“Bauer”) residing at Großenhül #21, and his wife, Margaretha née Pollach, from Kleinhül. His sponsor was Johann Leikam, a farmer in Kainach.

 John was the 5th oldest of the 38 children in the class confirmed at Wonsees on 11 Feb 1839. His entry indicates he had fulfilled his weekday school attendance requirements and had reached the statutory age. He appears to have been an adequate pupil, though not exemplary, as his entry lacks a flattering comment about his grades (“Noten”), like those recorded for a handful of his confirmation classmates (“vorzüglich”/superb, “sehr gut”/very good, “gut”/good). Silence speaks louder than words, as they say.

John was still known as “Paulus Muench” when he arrived at Baltimore on 6 May 1852 as a 26-year-old laborer. He had departed from Bremen six weeks earlier (March 23) aboard the ship, Bremerhaven. Several passengers listed near him—with surnames like Lange, Angermann, & Popp—also settled in Perry County, Missouri.

Although the ditto marks in the second-to-last column of the passenger manifest indicate John intended to head to Missouri—just like the entry for the passenger several rows above him (not pictured)—a railroad job in Ohio appears to have temporarily derailed his plans. A biographical sketch published in Goodspeed Publishing’s 1888 History of Southeast Missouri corroborates much of what we’ve already explored and fills in some of the details about his early years in the U.S.:

That work history helps explain why John’s 1855 naturalization form on file at the clerk’s office in Perry County, Missouri was originally signed at Steubenville in Jefferson County, Ohio:

Let’s now turn our attention to the woman introduced in the biographical sketch, who would become his wife. Christina Rosina Meyer was born 1 February 1831 in Bavaria as the daughter of Johann Meyer and Maria Margaretha née Maisel. Rosina’s home village is purported to have been Wiesentfels, which belonged to the Krögelstein parish (both of which are shown on the map above). Unfortunately, the Krögelstein church books haven’t yet been published online, so we can’t view her baptism record. Although the exact date of her family’s arrival in the U.S. is currently unknown, the sketch above suggests it occurred about 1842. This also fits what is known about her youngest brother being born in Bavaria in August 1840 and her youngest sister being born in Perry County in June 1843.

Rosina’s mother died in 1845, so she wasn’t enumerated in the 1850 U.S. Census with Rosina (here called “Christine”) and the other Meyer family members. Widower, “John”, was listed as a farmer in Cinque Hommes Township. Perry County only had three townships until the mid-1850s, so the boundaries were rather different than they are today. Property records and John Meyer’s 1856 probate records indicate the family resided northwest of Perryville along the South Fork Saline Creek (about a mile due west of what’s now Richardet Floor Covering, a prominent landmark along I-55).

“John P. Minch” and “Christina Meyer” were married on 25 July 1855 in Perry County by Robert Milton Brewer, Justice of the County Court. Since they both appear to have been members of Peace Lutheran in Friedenberg at the time, one might expect their marriage certificate to have been signed by its pastor. However, there was a pastoral vacancy from early 1855, when Rev. Ernst Otto Wolff left for Jefferson County, Missouri, until Rev. Theodor Karl Gruber took over in 1856. Since John’s naturalization form placed him in Ohio at least as late as February 1855, I wonder if they had been writing letters to one another before he made his way to Missouri.

Now let’s return to the second half of John’s 1888 biographical sketch from Goodspeed’s:

The 1857 land acquisition it referenced came at the public sale for his late father-in-law’s estate.

On the 1845 plat map of central Perry County below (12 mi x 6 mi), the small red dot near the center represents the Perryville Square, and the yellow highlight represents most of the Meyer/Muench farm. However, their farm also included roughly a quarter of the adjacent property (outlined in black) where their farmhouse stood. Bede Moore originally obtained that larger tract through a Spanish land grant before the Louisiana Purchase.

Although the farm’s location remained unchanged for the 1860 U.S. Census, “John and Rosanna Munich” were enumerated in Saline Township, which was one of two new townships established in Perry County during the 1850s. They were joined by the first three of the six children mentioned in the sketch above. Their eldest son, listed as “Pomgratz,” was previously featured in the post, “P is for Pancratius.” He was probably named after John’s older brother, Pancratz Muench, who also immigrated to Perry County. A 12-year-old boy called “John Interest” was also living with them. He is believed to have been John Endres, whose father died in Perry County in 1857.

During the U.S. Civil War, John served in the 64th Regiment of the Enrolled Missouri Militia (EMM), headquartered in Perryville. This was the Home Guard unit mentioned in John’s sketch. They performed part-time garrison duties and local policing, allowing the more combat-focused Missouri State Militia (MSM) to actively pursue guerrilla forces.