Michael Leineweber

1830s

Born 20 May 1837 in Greimerath, near Trier, then in Rhineland Prussia; baptized at Zerf.

1860s

Left Prussia — family tradition says to escape conscription for the Franco-Prussian War — sailing from Le Havre and London aboard the Atalanta and reaching New York on 12 October 1868. He is said to have travelled with an uncle who had been an officer in Bismarck's army, and to have had a fierce temper and a falling-out with the relatives he came with.

1870s

Settled in the German farming community of Dubuque County, Iowa. He worked on the Gansemer family's farm, where he met Catharina Gansemer; they married at SS. Peter & Paul Church, Sherrill, on 29 September 1874. He filed his intention to naturalize in 1875.

1880s

Bought the Gansemer farmland from his mother-in-law in 1882 for $4,000 — 109 acres near Sherrill's Mound — and appeared on the tax rolls as its owner from 1883. He turned out to vote at the Bloody Run school-district meetings.

1890s–1900s

Farmed the land at Sherrill's Mound, Peru Township, until his death there on 12 June 1902.

From Prussia to Iowa

Michael Leineweber was born on May 20, 1837, in Greimerath, in Prussia's Rhine Province, and baptized the same day at Zerf. Family memory holds that he had a ferocious temper and fell out badly with the relatives he emigrated with — said to have been a couple of brothers or cousins and an uncle who had served as an officer in Bismarck's army and was smuggling several of his own conscripted nephews out of the country. However the party was assembled, Michael avoided the draft for the coming war with France, sailing from Le Havre and London aboard the Atalanta and reaching New York on October 12, 1868, the group said to have travelled on to Iowa by way of Canada. His grandson Peter Cornelius Leineweber later recounted the family story: Michael “came from a farm near Trier in Germany as a young man to escape the draft... He settled and worked on the farm of a family named Gansemer and there met a very young daughter named Catherine. They were married and I believe grandmother was but 16 or 17 years of age.”

Farmer of Peru Township

Michael and Catharina Gansemer were married at SS. Peter & Paul Church in Sherrill, Dubuque County, Iowa, on September 29, 1874, and Michael filed his declaration of intent to become a U.S. citizen the following June. He worked first as a farm laborer, quite likely on the Gansemer family's own land, before the couple bought that farm outright from Catharina's widowed mother in November 1882 for $4,000 — 83 acres described in painstaking legal detail, together with several rights-of-way across neighboring farms. Michael's name first appears on the county tax rolls for the property in 1883, and he farmed it for the rest of his life, active enough in local affairs to turn out for school-district meetings in Bloody Run township in 1887, 1890, and 1895, voting for school presidents and directors.

Death at Sherrill's Mound

Michael died at home at Sherrill's Mound, in Peru Township, Dubuque County, on June 12, 1902, at eleven in the morning. Catharina remained on the farm for decades afterward.