Pieces of the Past: October 2016

When Hans and Margaretha Westphalen immigrated to America in 1855, they were probably looking for better economic opportunities for their children and grandchildren. They came from Holstein, a region with a large group of Germanic people, but one that was ruled by Denmark. Though there was political instability, the opportunities for land ownership and self-determination were more likely reasons to emigrate. They could not have imagined that one of those children and a grandchild would die during an Indian raid in northern Kansas.

Hans and Margaretha settled in New Holstein, Calumet County, Wisconsin. The family had sailed from Hamburg - the passenger list shows they were from Deichshörn - on April 16 and landed in New York on May 28. One son, my husband's 2nd great-grandfather, had come the previous year. New Holstein had been founded by German immigrants in 1848. By 1855 there were about 150 households. Hans and Margaretha remained in New Holstein, but between 1870 and 1873 at least three of their sons moved to Dodge County, Nebraska. They would have been among the first settlers in the area and though the area was reportedly good for farming, there would have been many challenges. A history of the county notes:

While the fertile lands of the Elkhorn Valley provided early settlers with much of what they needed for farming, it was neither simple or easy. During the grasshopper-plague years, from 1873-78, farmers paid 60 percent interest on money needed for purchasing seed.

Perhaps that is the reason that Peter and Ferdinand Westphalen decided to move their families 300 miles to Decatur County, Kansas, a land described as "well wooded and well watered...Springs are numerous...The soil is of good depth, a rich black loam."

Decatur Farm in the 1880s

It is not known exactly when they moved. Unfortunately, both families were there in September of 1878.

The previous years had been hard ones for the Indians of the Northern Plains. Prospectors found gold and the US government ordered the Indians off of their reservations destined for Oklahoma. Those who did not go were attacked and war was declared. According to a 2008 article in the McCook Gazette:

In May, 1877, the government forced about 960 Northern Cheyenne men, women and children from their northern homelands in Montana onto the Darlington Reservation in Indian Territory in what would become Oklahoma. Many died in the unfamiliar lowlands, hunting was limited to restricted lands and rations did not arrive as promised.

A year later 300 of the survivors left the reservation and began their journey back to Montana. Along the way they passed through Decatur County, Kansas.

According to the above article and one in the October 17, 1878 issue of The Telescope, a newspaper in Belleville, Kansas, Ferdinand Westphalen and his son were approached by Indians on September 30. They gave them food and went on about their work. The next day the Indians returned and killed them. The Telescope article states that Mrs. Westphalen was wounded by an arrow in her left side. Daughter Anna's obituary provides a more personal recollection:

During the Indian uprising in Kansas, her father Ferdinand and his son John were killed and her mother was shot in the back by Indians, just as they were ready to start on a trip with their team of horses and wagon. The horses were also killed and the Westphalen home was burned to the ground. The remainder of the family, taking the wounded woman with them, managed to escape, and reaching a nearby river, rendered first aid to the mother.

The McCook Gazette article reports that after the raid, Peter Westphalen took his own family, Ferdinand's widow and her seven children back to Nebraska. It goes on to say that "The sister-in-law, with no possible way to earn a livelihood, was forced to give her children away."

By 1880, Ferdinand's widow, Dora, was living in Everett Township, Dodge County, Nebraska, with 5 of her children ranging in age from 2 years to 17 years. In 1882 she was awarded $800 "for damages sustained by reason of the raid made in Kansas by the Cheyenne Indians in September, 1878". By 1905 she was living in Seattle, Washington as were several of her children. She remained there until her death in 1931.