I was born more than 200 years ago in Wieglinghausen, Germany, the son of Casper Nieweg and Anna Hagemann. After my father died, I came to America along with my two younger brothers, Henry and William, on the ship "Copernicus."” We left Bremen and landed at New Orleans in 1839. From there we took a steamer up the Mississippi River to St. Louis and another steamer up the Missouri River to Washington, Missouri, and on to New Melle. My mother and sister, Wilhemina, arrived a year later.

    We Niewegs bought property for neighboring farms, ending up with a fairly large chunk of land west of New Melle. The area was even called "Nieweg Village" in those days. It ran along Holt Road from Foristell to Highway D. For those of you who know where Warren Nieweg lived, at the corner of Wild Horse Lane and Highway D, well, our property extended north from there. The 1875 plat map shows we owned more than 400 acres. The going price at the time was &1.25 an acre from the St. Louis land office.

    I was a weaver by trade and a farmer. Catharina Elise Welker, a neighbor girl, and I were married in the Femme Osage Evangelical church in 1842. Catharina gave birth to three children. Two died young. After Catharina herself died, I married Katharina Maria Trampe in 1846. That same year, 1846, I became an American citizen. My life in my new country turned out to be a long and exciting one. During the cholera epidemic in 1852, I helped prepare bodies for burial, a job few volunteered for I can tell you. I had a small still on my farm, which probably saved my life. I’d sterilized myself, inside and out, with plenty of home brew. At the time, many bodies were placed in mass graves at the southeast corner of St. John's Church Cemetery in Cappeln. Many of the older tombstones in this cemetery have inscriptions in German, often Bible verses. Once my still operation was raided by Federal agents, and some say Katharina had to bail me out of jail. I won’t confirm or deny this rumor. But I can tell you many a time I evaded the Feds, often with my neighbors’ help.

    Because the pay was good, I also accepted such dangerous jobs as dynamiting for local road building projects. My brothers and I owned what would later be Mitchell's Auto Salvage, or Sander's near the bridge on Holt Road.

    Then, during the Civil War, all three of us Nieweg boys joined the Missouri Home Guards, enlisting in New Melle as privates. Later I joined the Missouri Militia in Company H of the 75th Regiment of the Union Army and was discharged in 1864. We didn’t see a lot of action, but this was sure a tough time around here with families on opposite sides.

    Katharina and I had a large family, 10 children in all. Fritz, the only surviving child from my first marriage, farmed land on Morrison Lane, west of New Melle. His wife often served as nurse to Dr. Muhm, New Melle's longtime doctor. I died May 3, 1893, and Katharina on October 6, 1903. We are both buried in St. John’s Cemetery in Cappeln. But we have many descendants.

    All four of us Nieweg siblings had large families, although mine was the largest. Robert Nagel, one of our descendants, who put together a book called "The Niewegs in Germany and America," counted 615 descendants and 286 surnames in 1986. You may be a descendant of mine if you are a Theilmann, Dieckmann, Temme, Schroeder, Nagel, Almeling, Laumann, Sudbrock, Ruebeling, Giessmann, or Geiger, to mention a few. Or if your family traces back to one of these family names. I hope your life will be as long and productive as mine. Thinking back, I had quite a life!

    Sources: The Niewegs in Germany and America, Cracker Barrel News by Bill Schiermeier, 1975 Platte Map of St. Charles Co.,

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