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Nicholas Gonner's book in volume I describes the
primary reason for multiple decades in the 1800
that prompted the Luxembourg citizens to
immigrate to the United States. He also
identifies areas in the US where groups of
people from Luxembourg. The book contains
immigration ships lists & and index to names and
articles published in the Luxembourg gazette.
In Chapter IX
Minnesota, several paragraphs discuss Houston
County:
"Geographically,
Luxembourgers of Minnesota, most of whom are
farms tend to be concentrated in a discernible
pattern. Houston, Winona, and Wabasha
counties in the southeast on the Mississippi;
Dakota, Ramsey, Hennepin and Scott more to the
north; Blue Earth and Brown in the south-central
portion; Sterns almost in the middle of the
state; Polk far to the north on the western
border. Other Luxembourgers work as
craftsmen in the principal cities. The
farmers are well-to-do, on the average, and as
everywhere else in the West, Luxembourgers of
Minnesota are hard-working and thrifty.
Looking at the
counties individually, one may consider Houston
first. (Editor's note: In 1982 was
published a modern "History of Houston County"
which contains much valuable genealogical
information.) It forms the southeastern
tip of the state and, in 1885, had a population
of 15, 482 with the majority consisting of
Germans and Norwegians. The county seat,
Caledonia, is located fourteen miles from the
Mississippi River. It has separate
Catholic parishes for the Irish and the Germans.
St. Peter's, the German church, naturally has a
German pastor. The structure is an
imposing stone building which may have cost
around $25,000. Begun in 1872, the church
was consecrated in 1874. The parish has a
school and a parish house.
In and around
Caledonia and nearby Crooked Creek, the post
office which is Freeburg, there are 75
Luxembourger families plus 48 mixed families of
which at least one parent is a Luxembourger.
Crooked Creek has its own church, which is
administered from Caledonia. In the
vicinity of Hokah and Brownsville, in the same
county, there are some 12 Luxembourger families.
Hokah and Brownsville have their own churches;
Hokah has a school in addition. An acre of
land in this area brings (1889) $10 to $15 and
even more in some places.
Caledonia's first
Luxembourger settlers were Nicholas Fisch from
Brandenburg, canton of Diekirch, with his three
adult sons and three daughters, as well as Johan
Schanz of Senningen and Peter Klees of Feulen.
Fisch arrived in the fall of 1854; Peter
Klees, who had been previously a resident of
Tiffin, Ohio for two years, reached Caledonia in
1855. Schanz, who had lived in the state
of New York for some years, also arrived in
1855. Subsequently, some of the
Luxembourger residents of St. Donatus, Iowa
moved northward to Houston County.
The index of
Luxembourgers in the United States - from the
Luxembourger Gazette, combined with the
individuals born in Luxembourg from the 1920 and
1930 census should provide you with many new
clues for your Luxembourg family.
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