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Visitor's Guide
German Heritage
Ste. Genevieve's colonial period.
There were few Germans in Ste. Genevieve during its French colonial period. Bernard Gibkins served the town as a doctor during the 1770s and a Bavarian by the name as Franz Kuhlmann ( François Colmand in the French records) became a resident and was the local brewmeister of beers. Three Burtcher brothers, Michael, Sebastian, and Bartholomew, all stonemasons, came to Ste. Genevieve in 1797. They were responsible for many of the early stone buildings, fireplaces, and other stone structures around Ste. Genevieve. In Dehault Delassus's 1797 census of New Bourbon just south of the Ste. Genevieve, he listed one German, Jacob 
Weiser. Weiser's occupation was that of a mill worker and evidently had come to the area to work in the mill that Delassus planned to build.
Father Paul von Heiligenstein (known as de St. Pierre in this French community), a German Carmelite, ministered in Ste. Genevieve beginning 1785 and later in 1789. He had served with the French expeditionary force during the American Revolution and established what was perhaps the first school in Ste. Genevieve.
Post colonial period.
In the post Colonial period, Germans like Otho Schrader helped found the first Masonic Lodge west of the Mississippi and merchants such as Albert Bisch, Henry Keil, and the Ziegler brothers became leading citizens of the growing community.
While not technically a German, the Swiss born but German speaking Joseph Hertich came to Ste. Genevieve and established a school named the Asylum just a short distance from Ste. Genevieve. In this school, he instructed in the Pestalozzian method of education.
In 1822, after the death of the native born Father Henri Pratte, Father Francis Dahmen, a native of the Rhineland in Germany, became the pastor of parish of Ste. Genevieve and served the parish during the building of the stone church.
The first major migration of Germans to Ste. Genevieve came in 1832. This early wave of immigrants came from the Black Forest area of the Duchy of Baden in the southwest corner of present day Germany. This area is now known as the Ortenau district of Baden-Württemberg. The majority came from villages surrounding the town of Offenburg but others came from villages up the Rhine as far away as present day Karlsruhe. By the end of 1840, German families with now familiar local names included Armbruster, Baumann, Eichenlaub, Fallert, Fischer, Gegg, Grass, Gremminger, Grieshaber, Hoog, Hermann, Hogenmiller, Huber, Huck, Hurst, Jokerst, Karl, Roth, Schmidt, Schwent, Sexauer, Siebert, Vaeth, and Vogt .
Why did these Germans come to Missouri?
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Prior to the post colonial period, there had been an earlier German settlement on the Missouri river near Hermann. A German writer by the name of Gottfried Duden had written a glorious account of the land in Missouri and had it published in Germany. The area around Ste. Genevieve appealed to the Black Forest immigrants because the Big Field area and surrounding hills were reminiscent of the Offenburg area along the Rhine.
In 1848, the lower and middle class in southern Germany revolted against the traditional rulers. This revolution was put down and, as a result, the exodus of Germans to Ste. Genevieve increased and continued from the 1850s through the 1870s resulting in over sixteen hundred first generation Germans residing in the County. Eighty percent of the Germans who immigrated to Ste. Genevieve came from southern Germany and were predominately Catholic. Eighty percent of these were from Baden - often called Black Hats because of their traditional black headwear. Ste. Genevieve also had a number of German immigrants from northern areas such as Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, and Prussia as well as the middle German area of Hesse-Darmstadt. They arrived in the late 1850’s and soon founded Holy Cross Lutheran Church. This church is oldest existing church building in Ste. Genevieve and is part of the Missouri Synod, a German Lutheran denomination which originated in southern Perry County, MO. This German immigration left its mark on Ste. Genevieve and it can be seen |
in the town’s brick architecture, diligent work ethic, and most importantly their local foods. Townspeople are proud of their Oberle Sausage and each cook as his or her own special recipe for liver dumplings (Leber Knöpfli). You can still have Spätzle (German pasta) at the Old Brick restaurant, purchase Pumpernickle (or dark rye) bread at the local market, eat a traditional German fruit cake (Hutzelbrot) at Christmas and enjoy the German Lenten dinner called the White Meal on Fridays. Like the French, the Germans enjoyed making homemade wine and this tradition continues today. And, like the French, the Germans enjoy the practice of giving each other nicknames.Our German Sister City
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To honor our German heritage, the little village of Bohlsbach, Germany became Ste. Genevieve’s first Sister City in 2002. For more information on Bohlsbach, visit SteGenevieve.org/Sister_City.html. |
