My interest in researching the German-Swiss Catholic families that settled throughout the Arkansas River Valley in the 1800s stems from the search for my own Arkansas family’s roots, which are in that area of Conway County that became part of Faulkner County when it was formed in 1873. In searching the 1880 census for links to ancestors, I was intrigued by page after page of enumerated families that gave Germany and Switzerland as their places of birth.
After searching hundreds of census forms from the 1840s forward that included families from no more exotic locales than the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana and occasionally more distant places, it was, to say the least, out of the ordinary to encounter real emigrants to Arkansas – people who obviously uprooted their complete lives to start new ones thousands of miles from their birthplaces and farther than that in terms of miles of the heart and mind.
The obvious question for me was, “Why?” Even though there had been a large German population in the United States from the 1600s, with a growing influx of German immigrants beginning with the 1830s, no period equals that of the 1880s, when one and a half million Germans migrated to America. Over a quarter of a million came in 1882 alone. Only the Irish were relocating in greater numbers.
It’s one thing to ascribe movement of families from within a young United States to the new territories with the promise of vast acreage for the staking, the spirit of adventure, the lure of economic prosperity. After all, it was only a few hundred miles to the frontier, and it wasn’t that long ago that where they lived WAS the frontier.
In many ways, the German migration was similarly motivated. There was no united Germany before 1871. Germany was comprised of dozens of small "state kingdoms" and principalities scattered across north central Europe. Religious persecution in the 18th centruy was followed by political oppression in the 19th century. But above all else, Germans came for the economic opportuniies.
They joined emigrants to Arkansas from Italy, Bohemia, Poland, Russia and Ireland, among other nations, in the search for a better life.
This blog is about tracking descendants of the families who made this trek, whether straight from Germany or other countries or from other states in the U.S. Finding people who have a story to tell about their descendants and relating them is one of the goals of this site. Although we may know how and why this immigration developed, it would be educational and entertaining to learn from journals, letters, anecdotes and other sources the how and the why.
Were the expectations of both the recruiters and the recruited met? Some of the arrivals were disenchanted pretty quickly and many of them relocated after a short time; other families remained, some of them now in their 6th generation.
How did they make a living? What were the significant contributions they made – churches, schools, establishment of the wine industry.
Some communities – Morrison’s Bluff comes to mind – thrived but have all but disappeared from the Arkansas landscape; an old cemetery still exists at Morrison’s Bluff and the church that was established there is still in existence.
What other nationalities came to the region – Bohemians in Dardanelle, Italians in Tontitown, Poles at Marche, etc.?
