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There was a story going around my family. Dad told me when I was young that when I heard about "Hessians" in the American Revolution, I should remember that one of our family had been forcibly conscripted from around Marburg, Germany and sent to the Colonies to fight with the British. He did not have much information beyond that, except the ancestor had defected and stayed to fight for the Continentals and had gotten land in the NW territory. There is a branch of the family living up by Toledo that I've never met, and he figured that was them. Our branch stayed home. I guess that makes my branch a bunch of Hessian draft dodgers, but what the hey!

Now you have to remember that from early on in the war, Ben Franklin was telling Congress to do everything they could to encourage Hessians to defect. There were about 200,000 of us in the Colonies at that time, and we were a prosperous bunch. Ben eventually drafted a handbill, translated into German that offered 50 acres, a cow, 2 pigs and farm implements to any Heinie that would come over the lines. A lot of them did. Of the 17,000 that went about a third took a powder.

All these years, I've been wondering what was up with that story. We're all big strapping German plow jockeys. We'd have made a good Grenadier or a Jager. There's even a story about one of us German mercs at Beemis Heights getting pissed off at our CO, a certain Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Christoph Breymann. You may want to look him up. There are two Germans who turned the whole Second Battle of Saratoga. One is Breymann. He got a little panicky at the wrong time and decided to urge on his grenadiers by beating them with the flat of his saber about the head. The other is the nameless sargent who supposedly ran his bayonet through Breymann's chest and told his men, "Genug ist genug!" and walked off the field just as Benedict Arnold was charging their redoubt. The redoubt fell, the British right collapsed. Saratoga was lost, and about this time, the French decided this whole American Revolution thing might be worth putting some skin into the game. I've got a 25 year old son that makes me look tiny. He can't stand anyone touching his head. I think its genetic. Yes, you can thank a German for winning the American Revolution for you.

So here it is 2017. A long time has elapsed between 1777 and now. The trail is pretty cold and I figured the 8th Air Force had done its job of wiping out the archives of the Hessian regiments, along with most of my family's baptismal records for the past 500 years. However, I was wrong. Yes, the records exist.

http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~amrevhessians/a/amhessians2.htm

It will take years of digging, but from that website I can deduce that we're in the book. Someone with my last name served in a Hessian Grenadier regiment and he stayed behind in America.

Bonus Fact: See Dad always used to mess with me the way his father had messed with him. No matter what subject came up in school Dad would say "A German invented that!" According to Dad, a German discovered America. Germans invented the light bulb, the airplane, and the automobile. He learned all this from his father who grew up in Germany. Come to find out, there are plausible arguments for all of them. I'm not saying I agree, but I've just given you a fact that a German or two turned the battle of Saratoga and in doing so swung things in favor of the Americans. If you're a German schoolkid in late 19th century Marburg, I'm you got your share of this stuff dished out with just enough fact in it.

So here's a fact bonus fact: The first man on the moon was a German. That's right. Neil Armstrong's mother was named Viola Louise Engel and she was from a German family from up around Wapokeneta, Ohio where the Continental Congress was handing out free land to the kraut defectors after the Revolution. I don't know if Neil's family defected like mine, but there you have it: A German was first to walk on the moon. I knew Neil Armstrong a little. We used to say hello each other at U.C. I never knew he was a krauthead. Dad would be proud.

I always figured Neil was American.





P

Wife comes from German families that had emigrated to Russia in the 1700's before coming to the US in the 1800's. No real reason given for the emigration, except that the Russian Tsars were recruiting Germans to move there by promising them land/etc., plus freedom from ever being conscripted. Germans kept their language, traditions, etc. - but when Russia started getting nasty in the 1800's a lot of those Russian Germans took off for the states. Many of those who stayed in Russia were purged by Lenin during WW2.

Never hear much about Germany in the 1700's, but must not have been a good place to live.

From what I gather, you're right. Up until the 1770's, German states had kept serfdom, so you really had to be somebody to own land. There were also a lot of wars going on. America, from early on, drew the attention of Germans.

I read a book from the 1840's that was written to entice folks to move to the Ohio River country-- talk about the land of Milk and Honey.

My wifes Hessian ancestor is listed as "Hessians remaining in America" Pg. 60 Daniel Hillgenburg. Captured at Trenton. He was from Roenfurth, Hesse. I would like to see his proof of turning as we know he was given land in West Virginia. The family homestead is still there. In fact they get so many Hillenburgs visiting they have the place fenced and gated asking people to stay away. The name was Americanized at some point and became Hillenburg. Daniels descendants split into two tribes basically, some going to Indiana and some to Missouri. Cool stuff.

As of the last census, Germans were still the #1 ethnic group in the US which goes a long way in explaining this country's success...

FYI,

http://texasalmanac.com/topics/culture/german/german-texans

Forty years ago I got the top score on a history test, and was my High School's representative at a Daughters of the American Revolution banquet. One of the nice old ladies asked me if I had any ancestors who fought in the Revolution. I answered "Only Hessians."

But most of my family came over in the 1870's from Alsace to keep their sons from being conscripted by the Kaiser. Damn Prussians.

Hessian Mercenary Humor:

Otto: Heinie! Wo warst du? Der Sargent dachte, du wüstest.
Heinie: Ich war in einem Keller stecken, Otto. Es fiel auf mich während der Sperrfeuer. Ich brauchte drei Tage, um mir die Trümmer zu holen und zu klettern.
Otto: Aber du bist seit sieben Tagen weg.
Heinie: Ja, nachdem ich rauskam, fand ich dieses schöne kleine Mädchen. Wir haben vier Tage lang gefickt.
Otto: Hat sie einen guten Kopf gegeben?
Heinie: Nein. In der Tat hat sie ihren Kopf vermisst.

had a dear friend that taught communications at a state agriculture college. her story was that her ancestors were recruited (as jews?) from jewmany to come to the ukraine and grow wheat for the Czar. they did, and loved it. a bit later, in fast forward, the czar was deposed. they gathered their stuff and migrated through france by train to america. in new york city, they procured train tickets to the pacific northwest (washington state) where they bought up wheat farm land and established a new life.

one of the daughters, my friend, attended Berkeley back in the late 60's. and then got half-right in carbondale illinois ag. school before moving south towards the Truth.

now, retirees in the mtns of western north carolina, i guess you could call her a survivor.

You're not correct about the area around Wapakoneta being handed out to German or any other veterans after the Revolution. For many decades that area was the property of the Shawnee nation, which had split during the War of 1812. The Wapakoneta area was given in gratitude to the faction that supported the Americans. In 1830 the government got Duquochet, the French interpreter for the Shawnee, drunk and got the Indians to put their "X" on a document relinquishing their lands. Then most of Auglaize County was sold, sight unseen, to Germans and Swiss who later moved there, not war veterans.

Today about half the names of residents living there are German names. Not surprised if that included Armstrong's mother. The new immigrants, who were mostly farmers, immediately sought to become as American as possible and within two generations had stopped speaking German at all, unlike today's Mexicans.

After the moon landing, Armstrong became a recluse. He had a friend in Wapakoneta. When he visited, the friend would keep the garage door open and close it immediately after Neal drove in. "Wapak" kept inviting him back to town on the anniversary of the moon landing but he never even answered their invitations.

The two biggest heroes of that area, in my opinion, were Catecehassa (Black Hoof) and Bob Stultz. Black Hoof was principal chief of the Shawnee Nation and made the peace with the whites after fighting them in battles going back to the French and Indian War. He was 105 when he died.

Bob Stultz flew P47s out of East Anglia for the 56th Fighter Group. "Cave Tonitrum"--beware the Thunderbolt. On August 17, 1943, a very dark day, when 60 B17 crews died horrible deaths over Europe, Stultz saved two of them, killing two Bf110s. But he forgot to "check 6" until, too late, he saw the FW109. He managed to parachute. A Belgian woman from the town of Tongeren, named Mme. Lys de Lyon, found the body. There was blood on the parachute. Some say that Germans machine gunned him as he hung in the shrouds but I doubt this. Hid victor, you see, was Hauptmann Johannes Naumann, who had 35 kills. In 2000 a very old man, a former B17 pilot from America, visited Tongeren. Someone pressed an old gold watch into his hand.

The watch had belonged to an American Air Hero!

I was named in honor of Bob Stultz. I do not forget that. Maybe that's why I have no truck with Jane Fonda or the NFL bums who disrespect our country.

Interesting thread.

You're so right, wabigoon. Being an amateur history buff, this kind of stuff fascinates me. Thanks, shaman, for kicking this off.

germans are uber. food, beer, engineering, big titted blondes, all uber. deutschland uber alles.

oh i don't know, there is a wedel, deutschland near hamburg, the german of my name. Lots of vons in there, spreading into denmark.
there is a statue in wedel of a 15th century relative holding a sword.

Nice story....
I have ansesters on both sides who fought in the revolution...

[quote=Calhoun]Wife comes from German families that had emigrated to Russia in the 1700's before coming to the US in the 1800's. No real reason given for the emigration, except that the Russian Tsars were recruiting Germans to move there by promising them land/etc., plus freedom from ever being conscripted. Germans kept their language, traditions, etc. - but when Russia started getting nasty in the 1800's a lot of those Russian Germans took off for the states. Many of those who stayed in Russia were purged by Lenin during

I have a whole lot of German extraction relatives - shirt tail and otherwise - that settled homesteads in NoDak and Saskatchewan by way of Czarist Russia for reasons stated. Family tradition claims the czar reniged on the no draft thing, so they bailed for the Great Plains. I had classmates who spoke German at home and accented English in school. I'm third generation 3/4 German, 1/4 Norwegian myself. I can almost speak English. :)😋

Shaman
Thank you so much for that web site. I found both my relatives listed. According to family lore my mothers relative was in Frederick the Greats Army when he discovered that he was to be executed for misappropriating a great coat so he beat feet and ended up with the Hessian's in the US. He is supposed to have been with Washington when he crossed the Delaware.

Cool stories!

My wife's people are "Volga German". The way they tell it they migrated to Russia when Katherine the Great (a German) was Russia's ruler. Left for greener pastures a couple of generations later.

I stand corrected. I do know the NW territories was where a lot of Revolutionary War vets got land grants, including the Hessian defectors. There are quite a few Revolutionary War vets buried in the cemetaries up there. However, you're right. In the 1780's that was still Indian territory.

No one, and I mean no one, can over engineer something like a kraut.

And that was invented by a German.

"Hessian draft dodgers", and you can be a member of the 'Sons of the American Revolution".

I believe The term Hessian became rather generic during the revolution refering to any German soldier, as there were a 1/2 dozen more German Principalities who supplied troops to George III. And there were I believe even three distinctly different Hessian principalities too! Complicated!

Blondes with big boobs sounds interesting

two things going on here, captain.

lots of germans kept their language, customs and communities going for years and generations. WWI and WWII made that a lot less popular.

Mexicans drop their language pretty fast also, but we keep getting new ones. the ones you are seeing are new ones. anyone born in mexico still speaks it. in arizona, 2-3 generations pretty well wipes it out.

teevee and the innanet.

Sycamore

I'm got a Hessian defector as well on my dad's side that always interested me. Seems like he massively over compensated to show how American he was after the revolution as all of his kids were named after founding fathers. Funny about the Germans inventing everything. my grandmother was a german from the hill country, when ever she would praise us for some accomplishment as kids it was never because we were smart, worked hard, etc., it was always "because we're German".

True about the german's keeping their language/customs, grandma was 4th generation american but german was her first language (and nothings scarier to a little kid who doesn't speak much of the language than to be scolded in German-just sounds meaner) and the copy of her birth certificate that I have is in German, my mother's generation was the first in our family that didn't speak german as a first language.

One of the reasons German hung on so long in some areas of Texas (especially hill country) was isolation.

Now there's another "fact" that would make my Dad proud. Somewhere way back, I read that Texas BBQ as we know it was invented by Germans. Supposedly a butcher shop in New Braunfels started slow-cooking meat over mesquite and came up with what Central Texas calls BBQ. They even invented serving it on brown butcher paper.

I've made a pilgrimage to Coopers in Llano to eat under W's picture. KYHillChick has family down there that sends it to us as a Christmas Present.

. . . and I love going to a Mexican restaurant in Cincinnati and hearing polka music. It's the only places in town you can hear it. The Krautheads are too embarassed to own up to it, but the Mexicans eat it up. Germans taught the Mexicans to play it!

Whoever it was who invented it Im thankful. My adopted grand dad's cousins over in Lockhart had good BBQ back in the day. They were all Kreuz's!


Prolly wasn't mesquite they were slow cooking with. But that's ok.

Thats funny as hell, and while true for some hardly true for all. More to it than speaking English......

Hutterite?

Not any that I know of. Vast majority I'm familiar with are mostly plain jane Lutherans.

We looked back through a genealogy site at her family's ancestors in Russia.. and talk about a hard freaking life. I think we were looking at something like a minimum of 50% child deaths in the first couple of years. Trust me, to leave your family and friends behind and move up to the Sandhills of Nebraska with hardly any money, tools, maybe one mule, and try to eke out a crop? And then consider that a better life? Russia had to be a nightmare.

As a world we owe a lot to the Germans. A huge lot.



Clark

That's interesting. I knew the Mennonites (which split into various Mennonite denominations and Hutterite variations) had done the move to Russia to escape military service, then when the Russians reneged they went to Canada, who then reneged and a bunch of the Mennonites went to Mexico. I didn't know the Lutherans had too. Cool info, would've been a very tough life in Russia!

My uncle was Neil Stiegelmeier from South Dakota. He wasn't exactly Irish.