History in the Landscape: Settlers from Mecklenburg in the Town of Middleton, Wisconsin

The Max Kade Institute is collaborating with Pope Farm Conservancy in Middleton, Wisconsin, on researching the history of immigration and settlement in the Town of Middleton, particularly the experience of settlers from the small German state of Mecklenburg.

Pope Farm Conservancy , a beautiful hundred-acre public park west of Middleton, features educational trails that interpret the site’s history and unique physical and cultural geography. One important group of visitors are fourth-grade students who study Wisconsin.

Recently, the footprint of a settler’s cabin was identified on Conservancy land that once belonged to Fritz Elver, a farmer from Mecklenburg. After 1867 the cabin was inhabited by another Mecklenburg immigrant family: Joachim Goth, along with his wife, son, and mother, and—over the years—nine more children. Joachim worked as a day laborer on the Elver farm. Following the typical chain migration pattern, Joachim had followed his uncle Jürgen Goth (immigrated in 1854) and his brother Carl (1857). Today, descendants of the Goth family and other Mecklenburgers still live in the area. One of them, Carl Goth’s granddaughter Mae Goth Hartwig provided us with invaluable information about her family, family documents such as original letters, and stories of what life was like in this German-American community.

Under the guidance of Mel Pope, three signs now have been posted where the cabin once stood. They inform visitors about the immigrant family that once lived there and the history of German immigration to the area in general. But this is only the beginning. As we continue to research the history of settlers from Mecklenburg in the Town of Middleton, we will also develop educational materials and post resources on the MKI Web site. And we invite you all to come and visit Pope Farm Conservancy and experience German-American history in the rural landscape!

325 or 400 Years?

In 1983, the Max Kade Institute was founded on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the first German settlement in America. Now 325 years ago, thirteen Mennonite families from Krefeld had settled a few miles north of the newly founded town of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their settlement was soon to be known as “Germantown.” While those Krefeld immigrants were the first German-speakers to successfully establish themselves for generations in America, they were not the first Germans to arrive on the continent. In fact, Germans were among the earliest European arrivals in Jamestown, Virginia. In October 1608, 12 years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, a group of five unnamed German glassmakers, three carpenters called Adam, Franz and Samuel and a Swiss-German mineral expert, one William Volday (or Wilhelm Waldi), arrived in Jamestown on the English ship “Mary and Margaret.” In 1620 a group of four saw mill wrights from Hamburg as well as two German miners recruited by the Virginia Company of London followed.
The German craftsmen were to help accomplish the Virginia Company’s mission of manufacturing tradable goods in the new world, and establish a livable space that could accommodate England’s overpopulation. However, like most of the earliest English Jamestown settlers the German colonists perished before they could accomplish their goal or leave any significant personal mark on America. Today only archeological finds give evidence to those early attempts at manufacturing. The remnants of a “glasshouse” with three ovens made of river boulders cemented together with clay was excavated in 1948. It is believed to be the earliest European manufacturing site on American soil. There is a record of “a trial of glass” being brought back to England in December 1608, but the glass trade imagined by the Virginia Company never took off. Today the remnants of the “glasshouse,” the worksite of the first German-Americans, can be visited in Historic Jamestown: http://www.nps.gov/jame/planyourvisit/glasshouse.htm