Notizen zu dieser Person
3 Söhne 6 Töchter
New York Passenger lists 1851-1891 lists their arrival date as January27, 1867 Ship name "UNION" arrival city as New York place of originGermany,. Shows Heinrich as age 5 and another baby boy age 6months, ShowsBremen Germany as place of deprture. Also shows wife as age 29.
Emmigration: Cook County Illnois
Christening: 3 JUL 1785 Apelern, Amt. Rodenberg, Kreis Schaumburg
Alternate spellings Koelling, Kolling w/umlaut.
Transcribed by David Fleer, great-great-grandson of Heinrich ChristophKolling.
"The following is transcribed from notes taken at the Rice County MNHistorical Society, various sources supplied by a very helpful staff,esp. John Velishek, Historian. Details are from land and tax records.Much of the narrative is excerpted from History of Rice County, amultivolume text published in 1888. This text refers to H. C. Kolling as"Henry" and Louis Helberg as "Lewis." Church records form the basis formy use of different spellings. Quoted portions are from this book.
Settlement of Wheeling Twp. commenced in June 1854 by Louis Helberg andabout four others. Louis staked his claim to the E ½, NW ¼ + W ½, NE ¼ ofSect. 21. That's 320 acres, or two claims, so he must have had a brother.Heinrich Christoph Kölling (also spelled Kolling and Koelling) was thesixth to settle in Wheeling twp. He emigrated to Cook County Illinois in1845. On Oct 23, 1854, he staked a claim to the 160 acres designated theSW ¼ of Sect. 21. Price for the homestead was $200.00. Heinrich planted afew acres of oats and corn in 1855 and added ten acres of wheat the nextyear. He threshed it by hand and carried it to market in Hastings, fortymiles away. Louis Helberg became Heinrich's brother-in-law by themarriage of his daughter, Dorothea Sophia, to Heinrich. The marriagerecord should be in the St. John's UCC record book.
Heinrich lived in Louis Helberg's house from August 1854, until hecompleted a log house in the spring of 1855, sawing the lumber with awhip-saw. He lived in the log house "a few years," then built "the neatframe house in which he now lives..."
The precursor to the Rice County Historical Society was an organizationcalled the "Old Settler's Association," founded in February 1874.Heinrich was a charter member and V.P. of that organization.
Mr. Velishek reports that a town of Wheeling was formed, although I sawno evidence of it other than references in the History. The first townmeeting was in a schoolhouse in Dist. 27, on 5/11/1858. Officers electedat that meeting included Louis Helberg, Collector, and J.P. Covert and H.C. Kolling, justices of the peace. At the spring election in 1882, H. C.Kolling was elected town Clerk. He was still Clerk in 1888, the date ofthe publication of the History.
The tax records for 1895 show that H.C. Kolling owned 234 acres in Sects.9, 16, 21, and 28, with a total valuation of $4,218. F. A. Kolling owned155 acres in Sects. 15 and 22, valued at $3,122. In the tax records of1899 (after the death of H. C.), F. L, Kolling was shown to be the ownerof 232 acres in the same sections as H. C's holdings, valued at $4,218.I'm curious as to the disposition of those two acres.
F. L. Kolling's holdings in 1899 were the same acreage, but the valuationhad risen to $4,102. This was probably due to the founding of Nerstrand,which encompassed some of his Sect. 15 holdings.
History of Rice County shows that Louis Helberg was married in 1855 toWilhelmina Myer (sp. Meyer?), th e first such marriage in Wheeling Twp.There were eight children: Caroline, Sophia, Bertha, John, William, Emma,Anna, and Ernestine [Sophia is probably Dorothea Sophia]. He must haveabandoned his original claim near St. Peter or Mankato, because the textreports that he couldn't drive his team and cows any further in 1854because of the "musquitos." Louis had emigrated to Chicago with hisparents and worked on a farm until 1852, when he "engaged in draying twoyears." He then moved to Wheeling twp with four others."
Commentary. The most troubling of the research for me was the deathrecords. The Kollings weren't trouble-free, but their family history ispractically silent here compared with that of their friends and relativesin the same community (they may have had the same problems, but in otherlocations). The tragedy that plays out on these pages is staggering, wehave no counterpart in our generation against which to measure it. Wehave been told that the early settlers needed large families to run thefarms. The truth may be closer to natural selection than to economics, arace against the odds of stillbirth, infant mortality, whooping cough,and a myriad other ailments. Procreation in nineteenth century America,from the perspective of a pioneer plains church journal, looks to be lessa calculated financial investment than an attempt at survival born ofdesperation, awash in pain. Were our parents or grandparents less lovingor tactile than we think they should have been? Look at the deathrecords. Ask yourself how many times your heart could break at the lossof an infant or young child, and what you would do to protect your sanity
Gaby F
