Hermann Heinrich SANDFORT

Robert Sandfort writes: Little is known of Hermann Heinrich Sandfort s youth except he served as a farm hand and also learned the trade of of Schreiner , which is translated as Joiner . More precisely, he learned craft of furniture making. He apparently attended school in Menslage where he learned to read and write. In fact, his generation, or his father s may have been the first generation ofSandforts able to read or write.

According to the Passenger list for the Olbers , Hermann Heinrich Sandfort and his family sailed from Bremen on October 4, 1836. Robert Sandfort writes: On Thursday, December 8, 1836, Captain Exterfiled his passenger manifest with the New Orleans Port Authority. No doubt the passengers were delighted to escape from the hot, confined steerage quarters on board the Oblers .

Equally important to these immigrents was the need to find a job immediately. Most of the emigrants from Menslage were planning to stay in the New Orleans area for several months to work and replenish their financial reserves. Probably Hermann Heinrich Sandfort worked on a plantation from December 9, 1836 until the middle of February 1837, and then left for St. Louis. Most likely they stayed there a day or two and then came to St. Charles County about March 1, 1837. They are thought to have settled in a rented log cabin in the St. Charles Commons.

Robert Sandfort writes: While Hermann Heinrich Sandfort was the first of his immediate family to leave Germany, there were others of his friends and neighbors who had already emigrated and settled inSt. Charles County, MO. Undoubtedly, these former close neighbors had written back to Germany describing their experiences in their new home , and this must have played a part in his decision to emigrate.

Part of Hermann Heinrich Sandfort s decision to emigrate was probably motivated by fear that his eldest son would in a few years be conscripted into the Hanoverian army, which by that time was firmlyallied with the increasingly belligerent Prussian military establishment.

It was a legal requirement at that time in the Kingdom of Hanover that anyone desiring to leave the Kingdom had to request permission from the local civil authorities and had to satisfy the militaryauthorities that he and his sons were not subject to military service. A search of the records indicates that Hermann Heinrich Sandfort left the country without a passport and without permission. Thisis a reflection of the desperate situation of these peasents, because there was little possibility they could ever return having left under these conditions.

Whatever the resons and circumstances surrounding their decision to leave Germany, Hermann Heinrich Sandfort and his wife Catharina Margaretha packed up their family in the late summer of 1836 and traveled to Bermen, Germany to sail to America. Traveling with them were several members of Catharina s family. There were others from Artland traveling in the same group.

Located on the Weser River, Bremen was fast becoming a boom town where ship s agents had established ofices catering to the emigrant business. It was though the firm J. D. Luedering and Company thatHermann Sandfort and the others in his party booked passage to New Orleans aboard the sailing ship Olbers.

Notes from Dorothy Blumeyer Dixon: The arrival of the first Sandforts to America was the family of Herman Heinrich Sandfort. Herman and his wife had six children, the oldest of whom was Anna Maria Sandfort, my great grand mother.

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