German Immigration to Quincy and Adams County: The Early Years

 Joseph was the nephew of Michael Mast, the first German to settle in the Quincy area, in 1829. While Joseph’s trip across the ocean had been plagued by bad weather and sea sickness, all had survived the voyage. In a letter to his parents dated July 20, 1834, Joseph noted, “The trip on the Mississippi is a sour and unhealthy trip, for cholera reigns mostly on ships. On two ships eight days later we continued; on one 8 died and on the other 28 died.”   

Neither did Joseph find life in Illinois promising. Although his uncle had become “a rich respected man” with the five houses he had built in town all rented, and two more built on 130 acres outside town where he intended to move, Joseph cautioned his parents not to sell up in Germany and join him immediately. According to Joseph, work was not readily assured, clothes and equipment were expensive, and farming required work from dawn to dusk. But, he advised, if they had sold their holdings, and were intent on coming, they should provide themselves well with food for the ocean voyage, so as to arrive at their destination in good health. Notwithstanding this inauspicious beginning, Joseph and his relatives prospered as citizens of Quincy and as farmers of Adams County.

 Beginning in the 1830s, German settlers arrived in this area of Illinois in increasing numbers. They were drawn by a mixed topography of upland prairie and timber broken by spring-fed streams, and rich forest and river bottomland soils with agricultural potential. These German farmers, taking advantage of land for sale in the vast Illinois Military Tract, would settle in the southern sections of the county, particularly in Melrose and Fall Creek townships.  

Others, interested in labor and business opportunities offered by the rapidly growing town of Quincy, would purchase small city lots and build their homes primarily on the south side of the growing city, in the area variously known as “New Bielfield,” “Hereford Meadows,” or “Calftown.” 

In 1833 Anton Delabar, a cabinet maker in his native Baden, brought his wife and ten-year-old daughter with him to Quincy, where he built a water-driven saw mill in the area of Third and Delaware. He also established the first brewery, on Kentucky Street between 4th and 5th Streets. Many German immigrants, like Delabar, left Germany with the Quincy area as their destination. Others, who had settled elsewhere in the United States, were drawn to the area by reports of its growth and prosperity.  

In some cases, their relocation to Adams County represented the end stage in the “chain migration” of their family and acquaintances across the country. Such was the journey of the family of Adam Schmitt, born in 1805 in Hesse, who arrive in the port of Baltimore in 1831. He was a furniture maker in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, when he married. He moved his new family to Pittsburgh, where he built and operated a furniture store which burned down after two years, leaving him penniless. Next, with 15 relatives, Adam traveled to St. Louis, then on to Belleville, Illinois, to join family already living there.  

Still searching for a place to settle, Schmitt and Wilhelm Dickhut, another German immigrant, arrived in Quincy in 1834. Liking what he found, Schmitt rented a log “blockhouse” at 3rd and Hampshire, then returned to St. Louis by the next steamer to gather the remaining members of the family. While his father-in-law soon moved to a farm in the county, Schmitt remained in town, building a home and a furniture workshop at 10th and Broadway.   

Quincy founder John Wood was also of German descent. His mother, Katharine Krause Wood was German by birth, and spoke only German with her son John, who was born in the Sempronius, New York. When Wood, who had settled in what would become Quincy in 1821, set out to build his Greek Revival mansion at the corner of 12th Street and Burton Road, he made a trip to St. Louis to recruit German builders and craftsmen to help with the construction. Many of these men, drawn to the area by a job opportunity, stayed to settle on land initially belonging to Wood. 

Indeed, when the German voting block became an important element in the elections of the 1850s, the Quincy Whig, the Republican newspaper in town, quoted from a letter published by its political rival the Herald, which referred to Wood, stating, “His Whig friends here say he’s the only man in the district who can carry the ‘Dutch’ vote” of Quincy. Further, the letter suggested, “should John Wood ever remove from Quincy the ‘Dutch’ would follow him.”  

Woods influence on local citizens of German heritage may have been exaggerated. However, it is clear that the city of Quincy, as well as Adams County, was enriched by immigrants of German ancestry, who built homes, farms and businesses, and raised generations of their families in their adopted land. This heritage was profound and lasting, and in the 1990 U.S. Census over 56% of Quincy residents claimed at least partial German ancestry. These numbers were far higher than those reported for Chicago (9.7%), Rockford (30.1%), Peoria (34.7%) or Springfield (36.7%).    

Sources

Bornmann’s Sketches of Early Germans of Quincy and Adams County. 1999 (reprinted

 2013). Quincy, IL: Great River Genealogical Society.

“Census shows Quincy’s Strong German Heritage.” Quincy Herald Whig, July 12, 1992.  

Jones, A.D. Illinois and the West. Boston: Weeks, Jordan and Company, 1838.

“The Old Game.” Quincy Herald Whig, June 18, 1852, 2.  

Slack, Kent P. The Germans and The Gem Study: A Study of the Impact of German Immigrants on the Growth of Adams County and the City of Quincy, Illinois, from 

1830 to 1890. MS thesis, Normal, IL: Illinois State University, 1994.

Wilcox, David, ed. Quincy and Adams County History and Representative Men, 2 vols. 

Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1919.