Giessen Emigration Society

In 1834, the largest organized German emigration group to ever set out for Missouri arrived. They came from small villages and large cities, were Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Free-Thinkers. They were lawyers, doctors, and teachers; and blacksmiths, tanners and farmers as well. They were organized, with good character references, who had pledged their entire life savings to join others with the same dream – Freedom and America! This was the life that they had sought for long.

These  five-hundred Germans emigrated to the United States, with an intention to establish their own state. Decades of revolutionary struggles had failed, convincing them that the power of their rulers could not be broken, for the time being. Yet, as passionate democrats, they were determined to establish a new German Republic – in North America. This bold, now almost forgotten, venture of the Giessen Emigration Society, was an event much-discussed across Germany at that time.The Society’s founders were unable to achieve their goal they had stated. However they did find the conditions right to contribute to the strong democratic beliefs they found in the fertile United States. Settling in Missouri, they began to create a lively intellectual center that exists even to this day. They led in the struggles against religious intolerance, and fought to abolish slavery during the Civil War. They promoted the State’s rich viticultural assets, and encouraged further emigration, ultimately achieving a State rich with German heritage, that still exists today.

In St. Charles County, members of this huge emigration group created various settlements, such as Hamburg and St. Paul, they turned earlier American settlements such as Cottleville and Augusta into German Settlements. These new emigrants in turn wrote letters home to their friends and relatives bringing even larger waves to settle here.