Mathias 'Mathew' Meinhart, Sr.

MATHIAS MEINHART SR

Mathias Meinhart was born in Autergan County, Kreis Wells, Austria on May 8, 1811. His father's name was Martin. His wife Theresia Grois was born in the same place in 1812. They were married in Austria in 1830 at their home parish, St Georgan. They were the parents of five children; Mathias born in 1838, Theresia, 1840,(see Theresia Meinhart), Michael in 1842, Andrew in 1843 and Joseph in 1845. Andrew died in infancy.

When Mathias was about 20 years old he came to America. He landed in New York in 1855 and after working there to make some money he went to Freeport, Illinoiswhere he met an old friend, Jacob Oberswanton from Austria. He worked there for several years and wrote to his father about the wonderful place America was in which to work and live and his father should lose no time in bringing the rest of the family to America. Mathias Sr. was a very optimistic man after getting a letter from his son but was very concerned. After hearing much propaganda that was being circulated in his homeland about America, he decided to go to America himself to get the facts. About 1857, Mathias Sr. started his trip to America. Once he got there he was soon convinced that this was indeed the place to make a home for his family. The trip to and from America took almost a year. After arriving back at Home in Austria he started to make plans to move his family to America. So in 1860 Mathias Sr., his wife, daughter Theresia and sons Mike and Joe sailed for America, and settled in Freeport. In 1864 they moved again by covered wagon to Island Grove, Jasper County, Illinois where they purchased a section of land from the Illinois Central Railroad. The home place was on the south side of the section where Neil Meinhart now resides. Joseph Meinhart built a home east of his parents, Mathias built about a mile north in the same section, now the home of the Norbert Cohorst family. Mike lived with his parents and sister.

The three sons married women from the neighborhood. Mathias married Mary Weishaar. Mike married Theresa Weishaar and after she died he later married Mary Trapp. Joseph married Barbara Mammoser. Their sister Theresia never married, (see Theresia Meinhart).

Theresia (Grois) Meinhart died several years after moving to Island Grove in 1865 and was buried in the Cemetery at Teutopolis. Mathias died on August 12, 1890, and is buried in the St Joseph Cemetery next to his daughter-in-law Mrs. Mike (Theresa Weishaar) Meinhart. They are some of the first to be buried in St Joseph Cemetery.

Biography of Mathias Meinhart

Mathias Meinhart was born in Autergan County, Kreis Wells, Austria in 1811. His wife Thresia Grois was born in the same place in 1802. The couple was married at their parish St Georgan in 1830. To their union five children were born:

Mathias - 1838 Thresia - 1840 Michael - 1842 Andrew - 1843 Joseph - 1845

Four of the children grew to adults. Andrew died in infancy. They resided on a small farm which Mr. Meinhart had inherited from his father, Martin Meinhart. The farm was in a small community and consisted of six and a half acres of which the half acre was timber. It lay in a small valley in a mountainous region. The method of farming in those days was with the use of the hand sickle, hoe, and fork. Their main crops were oats, barley, flax, and wheat. Their crops were harvested by hand with the hand sickle and brought home either by wheelbarrow or by a sled pulled by their cows. Their grain was flailed by hand and consisted of very few bushels.

Their home consisted of one log building: house, barn, and shed all under one roof. This building was several hundred years old. Their water supply was piped to the farm from a nearby mountain stream through pipes made by their own hands.

There were a few fruit trees on their place. There was one apple, one pear, and two plum. The pear tree was very tall and beautiful. It was over a hundred feet tall. The fruit on this tree had to be harvested before ripe. If left to ripen on the tree, it would fall and squash.

Mr. Meinhart had other occupations besides farming. He was also Justice of the Peace, Tax Collector, weaver of cloth, and roof relayer for his community. The roofs were made of clapboards and were turned over every few years to make them last longer.

Their Church, St George, was built several centuries earlier. It was built of stone, floor and all, with a copper roof. It was built by the heathens but was converted to a Catholic Church in about the sixteenth century. At the time when the Meinharts still belonged to the parish, it consisted of over one thousand heads as they were enumerated at the time.

There was no heating system of any kind for heat, which made it very uncomfortable in real cold weather. There were five priests of the secular order who were in charge of the parish. St George parish was very poor with few wealthy parishioners. Their way of contributing was by giving one tenth of their crops or salary. Gathering grain made much work for the priests. At the time, the Church was receiving aid from the State. Without the aid, the parish would not have been able to exist.

The Cemetery or grave yard was around the Church and was much too small for the parish. Every eleven years, the grave yard would be filled and they would then start over from the beginning point.

In other words a body would have a grave for only eleven years. The school was also built of stone. It consisted of five class rooms. The students were taught by the priests of the parish with the assistance of a few lay people. The school was taught the year around with the exception of two weeks in August Their ways and means in the school were different from the order today. For instance, the paper used in the school. The children would save every old rag they could find during the year and then, before the term started in August, the children would carry the rags to a paper mill in Saltaburg, a city 18 miles away to exchange for paper and goose quills for the year. The goose quills were used to make writing pens, their only means of writing.

Their main studies were mathematics, reading, writing, geography and religion. Geography was studied without a map. Books were scarce and most lessons were studied from the blackboard on which the teacher wrote and from which the students copied their lessons. By the long terms and hard studying, they all received a very good education and all developed a nice scribe. The Meinharts lived about two and one half miles from the Church, school, and small village of Burg. The only way to get anywhere was on foot. There was no means of transportation in any other way. There were no roads of any kind in the area, only foot paths.

When a person died, the carpenter came, measured the body, made a casket, placed the body inside, and fastened the top with wood screws. He was called the undertaker. The casket had to be carried all the distance to the Church on the shoulders of the pall bearers for the funeral.

At that time, Kaiser Frantz Joseph was the ruler of Austria. He was very honorable, respectable, and loved by all. He was a catholic, doing much for the Churches and schools in Austria. One of the laws at the time was every man at the age of twenty-one had to take a five year course in military training.

Mathias, the oldest son, at the age of 19 or 20, decided to go to America to seek a better life. After much trouble in getting a passport and transportation, he finally sailed for America. In about 1855, he landed in New Yorkshire, penniless and not understanding the language. He had trouble finding a job. His first employment was in a wedrock shop for a few pennies a day.

Later he got a job on a steamboat from New York to Baltimore which paid better wages. The work was very hard and had long hours. He finally accumulated enough money to travel to Freeport, Illinois, which was his intention in the first place. At Freeport, he met his old friend and neighbor from Austria, Jacob Oberswanton.

He arrived in Freeport in August 1855. Jacob was a farmer and very up to date for the time. He had good implements and horse drawn machinery. When Mathias arrived, they were in thrashing season using a horse powered thrashing machine which amused Mathias very much. After seeing the nice plump grain of barley, oats, wheat and corn and the impressive large fields, he immediately went to work for Jacob on his farm to learn the modern ways of farming. He lost no time in writing to his father in Austria and stating what a wonderful place America was in which to work and live and his father should lose no time in bringing the rest of the family to America.

Mathias sr was a very optimistic man, after getting a letter from his son, he became very concerned after hearing much propaganda from his friends, neighbors, and local agitators, who claimed that if there were a bridge across the Atlantic, every American would cross back to Europe. To convince himself, he decided to go to America himself to get the facts. About 1857, Mathias sr started his trip to America. After sailing on the ocean for six weeks, he arrived in New York where he caught a train to Freeport.

There he met his son and old neighbor, Jacob. It was thrashing season when he arrived. After seeing the modern ways of farming and large fields of grain with the easier ways of handling crops and working the soil, he was convinced this was indeed the place to make a new home for himself and family. The trip to and from America took nearly one year. After arriving back at Home in Austria, he started to make plans to move to America. After telling his wife about the stormy, slow trip on a sail boat, they decided to take the family by steamboat.

At the time, there were few steamboats, but they could make the voyage in much less time. After they decided to go by steamboat, it so happened that their boat caught fire and burned in a British harbor. This changed their plan and they decided to go by sail boat. After they disposed of their farm and stock, they were ready for their long voyage.

In May 1860, they set sail from England to America. They took passage as third class passengers, which was on the lower deck. Their quarters were a room about ten feet square in which all five persons and their belonging stayed. One port hole, about eight inches in diameter was their only means of light for day and night. Water was rationed to less than one quart per person each day. If you wished to have water to wash, you could draw water from the ocean. Very few attempted it a second time.

The food on the ship was very coarse and of little variety. Bread was baked and stored in barrels before sailing. This was a biscuit type and was called pumpernickel. It had to be soaked in water before it could be eaten. It also became very stale long before the voyage was completed. Salt fish was another food. If eaten, it would aggravate your thirst and you would soon consume your daily water ration.

Practically everyone became seasick and could eat very little. Some jokingly remarked, "Six meals a day. Three down and three up." The sea voyage ended some time in July. After the long, stormy trip, their destination was Baltimore. Due to stormy seas, the ship had to stay out of the harbor for over a week before it could enter the harbor to dock.

After landing in Baltimore, they boarded a train for Freeport, the end of their journey. It had taken them over ninety days from Austria to Freeport. They settled on a rented farm where they remained for five years. They decided to buy their own farm. Land near Freeport was selling for 45 to 50 dollars an acre. After hearing about cheaper land further south, they decided to go where they could buy land from the rail road at 4 to 6 dollars an acre.

In 1864, Mathias sr asked his three sons to go investigate. They traveled by covered wagon to Jasper County, where Island Grove is now located. After arranging a contract with the Illinois Central RR, they purchased a section of land on a five year term. There were no roads and many of the section lines were more by guess than survey. Finding a high elevation on their purchased tract, they erected a shanty and a pole barn. After digging a well and putting up several stacks of prairie and slue grass, they started plowing some of the virgin prairie. To plow virgin prairie was a more difficult job than they had anticipated.

The following Spring, the rest of the family came by rail to Effingham, the nearest railroad station, a distance of 15 miles. The first few years on the land were very discouraging due to crop failures, severe rain and cold weather. The nearest post office was in Effingham. Teutopolis was a small town, ten miles away. At the time, it consisted of a monastery, a Church, a grist and flour mill, and several small stores. This distance was traveled many times by horseback or wagon, even on foot, to go to Church. Many times, they had to wade through water ninety percent of the way.

The prairie at the time had poor drainage. This caused sicknesses such as swamp fever and typhoid fever. Several settlers died from it. Farming at the time was discouraging with many disasters and disappointments such as crop failures, sickness, and even death. The people were determined to succeed and eventually they did. When they arrived, there were very few families in the area. The Crews and Caldwells were the first Several years passed before they had close neighbors. Eventually, the three sons were married to women from the neighborhood.