An autobiography by C. Philipp Koehler translated by Marcus Koch

Voyage to America

My heart was in anguish as our ship left the harbor [on October 8, 1854], and with a favorable wind the distance from my beloved fatherland increased. I kept my eyes fastened on it as long as I could still see land, but it vanished from my moistened eyes much faster than I would have liked. "Farewell, my fatherland," my heart whispered within me as the mouth of the Weser receded and the great watery wilderness stretched out before us.

On the 46-day voyage I had it about as good as one could expect under the circumstances. Our ship was large and beautifully built, a three-master which bore the name Helene. The captain was a veteran seaman and (what was more important to me) a dedicated Christian. He liked me and especially enjoyed speaking to me about spiritual matters. In addition he was much concerned about my well-being. I had a good bed in my cabin, meals fit for a prince, many conveniences, and a traveling companion to my liking.

Most of the passengers were estranged from God, solely concerned with worldly matters. It went against their grain that a clergyman was aboard. There was, however, a number of people of Christian persuasion with whom I could associate. It was for these that I conducted morning and evening devotions, in which the captain also often took part.

Among the devout passengers was a Mrs. Coleman from Bremen. In the course of the voyage she told me her family troubles and often sought comfort from me even though I was no more than a young and inexperienced man and could meet her needs only to a very limited extent. Her husband had been a teacher in Bremen who had run afoul of the law. In order to evade punishment he fled to America. There was also a God-fearing family from Bavaria down in the steerage. They also were pleased when I visited with them. The other steerage passengers were a careless lot, indifferent to God.

The ship's crew was well disciplined. I neither saw nor heard anything offensive among the stevedores and sailors. Almost daily I accompanied the captain on a tour of the steerage, comforting the sick and despairing while the captain dispensed medicine.

On three of the Sundays I was able to preach. On other Sundays when stormy weather made preaching an impossibility, the captain escorted me into the sailors' lounge where I conducted a reading service. I also had a funeral service. In front of me lay the body of a child tied to a board that was weighted down with a stone. After I had spoken on the basis of Romans 6:23 [For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord], the body was consigned to the sea as we sang a funeral hymn. A child was born en route, but I declined to baptize it since land was not far off.

All in all, the voyage itself went well. When we first entered the North Sea, the ship did not (as I expected it would) take a westerly course, but rather a northerly one. After a few days (to my great delight) we could once more see land because our ship coursed between the northern coast of Scotland and the Shetland Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

After that we had stormy and cold weather for weeks. Our ship was tossed about by the waves. Most of my fellow passengers were down of their backs seasick. In their misery they moaned so pitifully that it would have softened a stone to hear it. For the first fourteen days I kept myself on my feet and did not let the tossing bother my appetite for eating and drinking. I smoked my pipe every day. Then one day, just as a wave came cascading over the ship, I got a taste of sea water and fell down on the foredeck. I forced myself to get up and hurried to bed as fast as I could. But as soon as the captain missed me at mealtime and on the foredeck, he came to my cabin and got me out of bed. Although I kept myself on my feet from that time on and had grudgingly to thank the captain for forcing me to stay on my feet, I had an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, and my tobacco did not taste right anymore.

In spite of the cold and the wind I spent most of my time of the foredeck. When the captain had the 8 p.m. to midnight watch, I generally kept him company. We passed the hours speaking of spiritual matters and of the weal and woe of the church of our fatherland. Thus, considering the circumstances, the time passed quite rapidly right up to the last days of our voyage.

Then one evening the captain and I got into a heated exchange. We had been discussing confessional differences. He defended the Reformed position, I the Lutheran. Because he could not win me over, he walked out on me. The next day he avoided me so conspicuously that some of the passengers were pleased. Others noted this development with pity. Still, I could not bring myself to look him up and say a kind word to him. Later, however, when we drew so near the shore of America that we could see the coast with the naked eye (this on the second day after our word spat), the captain came to me, offering me his hand in token of reconciliation. Once again he was der Alte (the old man). During the last days of the voyage, he treated me with even greater endearment than previously.

On the 24th of November [1854] a small steamer piloted our ship into the New York harbor. I was as happy as any other passenger to see this long and dangerous voyage come to its end and that I had been permitted to set foot on American soil. The captain kindly invited me to make the ship my home while I was in New York, but I declined his offer. We part on the best of terms. In New York I made the acquaintance of Pastors Steimle and Garlinks, a colporteur, Jeb Killion, and a Mr. Frickenhand.

Arrival in Wisconsin

I continued my journey to Wisconsin by train. Mrs. Coleman along with her two daughters and a niece joined me in order to have a man nearby on whom they could depend. Of the trip I remember only that it was very monotonous, that in Cleveland I was swindled out of ten dollars, that in Toledo some of our trunks and boxes started to come apart and needed attention, that while attending to this we became separated and only after an anxious night did we find each once again in Chicago. This first train trip in America depressed me. It seemed that I had come into a land which was not only wild and uncivilized, but peopled as well with scoundrels, cheats, and thieves, among whom one could not be careful enough.

From Chicago I journeyed by steamship on Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. I arrived there on December 2, 1854, the evening before the first Sunday in Advent. I immediately looked up old Pastor Muehlhaeuser, to whom I had been recommended and directed. He had already received word of my coming and received me with joy. The next day I preached my first sermon in America at Grace Church in Milwaukee.

The next few days afforded a little respite. Then I set off some 45 miles on foot, deep into the interior in the company of a young farmer. He took me to Pastor Jacob Conrad who at that time was laboring in Town Herman in Dodge County. He lived with his parents on a farm. He, in turn, took me to a man by the name of Martin Genzmer, who lived on a farm between Woodland and Hustisford. Genzmer was elder of a Lutheran congregation. Pastor Muehlhaeuser had promised to find a pastor for this congregation, and this was to be my first field of labor.

I was too late, however. The congregation had already called a school teacher to serve them. Pastor Conrad then took me to the Town of Addison in Washington County. There were two small congregations which had been served off and on for a number of years by itinerant preachers. After they had heard me preach, these two congregations called me. I accepted their call in God's name.

I wanted to be ordained at this time, but according to a regulation of the Evangelical Synod of Wisconsin at that time, I had to submit to a so-called licensure. It was near Christmas of 1854 when I began my work in these two congregations.

Troubling Conditions

It soon became evident that I had come into a wild region. The people were wayward and worldly-minded. The Methodists, Baptists, humanists, and other errant spirits had already been at work there before me. How degraded, how raw, how wild and rude these people were! I could scarcely persuade them to take me into their midst and to provide a dwelling for me. Yet I did manage to convince them to furnish me an old log house which was standing empty. I attempted to enter my new home, but before I could settle down, I had to declare war on the rats, mice, and squirrels which had made the house their home. I emerged victorious in this war, the sole lord of the manor.

Now that I had a roof over my head, I set up housekeeping as well as might be expected of a bachelor. I cooked my coffee, practiced baking cakes, and made my own firewood. The people supplied me with pole wood, bread, floor, sausage, and meat. It often happened in the process of cooking dinner (frying a pancake) that I so completely lost my appetite that I did not even want to look at my freshly prepared handiwork. My first winter in America was an unusually severe one. The snow was so deep that it came up to my knees. I often froze in my miserable log house, and especially in bed at night. It was a difficult and wretched start to life in America.

A third congregation was soon added to the other two. This one consisted almost entirely of newly arrived settlers who were altogether indigent. I now had plenty of work to keep me busy, all the more so in that I had to vacate my old log house and take up quarters with a young farmer who made room for me in a corner of the only room in his house. For my bed he assigned me a small space under the roof. Although I no longer had to cook, bake, or fry my own food, I could no longer study my sermons unhindered because my hosts had a small child who cried most of the time. His crying so often exasperated me that I could not even outline a sermon, while the memorizing of it I always had to do in the woods. Thus, in the first half year of my work there I had to wrestle with all manner of pressing, plaguing, perverse conditions.

Conditions in the congregation were so bad that I hardly dared look for improvement. Most of the people were so vulgar and unmannerly toward me that I imagined that it could not be worse among complete heathen. It became increasingly apparent that they had no confidence in me. This was a result of their experiences with other preachers. These had proved to be such hirelings and cheats that they had thoroughly purged the people of every last vestige of respect for the office of the ministry. They had no confidence in any minister.

They supposed that I, too, would prove to be like those who had gone before, and they told me so at every opportunity. Each of the two churches stood near a saloon. The men would gather there on Sundays, not just after the service, but before so that they might offer their bellies a drop or two. They did not consider this an unsavory practice. Indeed, they thought that I should join them. There was little thought of any hunger for the Bread of Life. But there was plenty of evidence of a terrifying malaise and blindness of heart. They thought the minister should preach the Word of God to them, but that he should not concern himself with their souls or with their way of life. Nor dare he say anything which would be like a block in the way when their feet ventured on to evil paths. They would not tolerate it if specific sins were denounced in the sermons. Above all, they did not want to become true Christians, for (so they thought) they already were. In their aversion to true godliness, they desired a superficial Christianity, one in name only, one which conformed to the world, one which like a coat (however it fit) they could put on or off as they chose. They did indeed want to go to church and hear the Word of God, but not in order to work out their soul's salvation. Their church attendance was to be a proof of their godliness which they could use as an argument when badgered by the Methodists.

Such was the lay of the land in that first half year. Besides all this I was pressed by the worry that I would myself soon be spiritually bankrupt and no longer be able to preach. From Germany I had brought along the good intention of continuing my studies once I had a charge, but now I found no time for that. I was forced to spend too much precious time on domestic affairs. Then, too, the fact that I was not ordained but had to be content with a licensure, this also contributed not a little to the fact that my good intentions sank to a low ebb and my heart was not buoyed up by real joy. When we had first met, old Pastor Muehlhaeuser had said that America was a wonderful land, but in my eyes it was an altogether terrible land.

New Beginnings

It was with this background of such experiences and with such sentiments that in the first days of June, 1855, I traveled to Milwaukee to attend my first synod meeting. The sermon with which the synod opened was one I had read not long before in a printed collection of sermons. This was my first impression of an American synod meeting, and it was not one which would have induced me to join this synod. I would not have, either, except that the synod dropped its practice of licensure and agreed to ordain me. I had to undergo another examination to prepare for this. Afterwards I was ordained together with another man in an evening service in Grace Church wherein all the pastors laid their hands on us in blessing. Encouraged by this, I returned to my field of labor.

I had no more begun my work there again when a letter from my old friend, Pastor Muehlhaeuser, called me back to Milwaukee. It was a joy for me to make this trip, for my fiancée had arrived in Milwaukee. We were married in Grace Church, with a reception following at Pastor Muehlhaeuser's house. The next day I took my wife out into the country. Since I did not as yet have a house where we could live together, I took her to my friend, John Bading, who at that time lived in Theresa, from whence he served several congregations.

The congregation I served would certainly have to come to a decision soon to build a parsonage near the church. When it was completed, I went to get my wife, and we entered the new parsonage. It proved a blessing that neither of us had been brought up in palaces. We could be satisfied easily; our needs were small. We had not come to America looking for a good life. Had it been otherwise, it would have been difficult to persuade us to settle down in the house which had been built for us. We could not help remarking to each other that in Germany cattle were housed better than we were. It was a very shabbily built log house with the most meager arrangements. It contained only two rooms. The total dimensions were 18 feet by 24 feet. The farmers thought the minister did not need to have things any better than they did, and yet, in general, they lived in better houses with better accommodations.

It very nearly happened that we never had a chance to occupy this house. Just before it was completed, a terrible windstorm swept through the area, uprooting the largest trees, tearing roofs off barns and houses, and causing great destruction. The parsonage had stood in the path of the storm. Uprooted trees lay all around the ground, but none of them had struck the house. I looked upon this as a sign that we were not to despise this house. It did have a very pleasant location in a valley and stood on a parcel of land covered by trees which we could use for firewood. We had no well or any other amenity one would expect to find in the vicinity of a house. Yet, by and large, we lived the first years of our married life quite happily in this humble dwelling.

Whatever the house lacked either inside or out, I tried to supply with my own hands and often at my own expense. I built a study in the loft, had a well dug, and built a bake oven. We fared about as well with the bake oven as Jonah had done with his cucumber vine which grew up in one night and in one night withered away. While in the process of burning it out, we had to tear it down in order to avoid a greater catastrophe.

We cleared the yard around the house, hauling away stones and tree stumps in order to make a garden for flowers and vegetables, a garden which richly rewarded and blessed us for our labor and care. Thus, necessity gave birth to invention, spurring me on to make the best use of my time and strength.

Sowing the Seed

I had very little time left over for such matters. My field of labor had greatly increased, and I was now busier than ever. By the end of the first year I had as many as seven congregations to serve with Word and sacrament. At two charges I had to teach school for two days a week. Then there were sick calls and other pastoral acts. It was a good thing that I was blessed with good feet. Otherwise I should not have been able to carry on without a horse and buggy. As a matter of fact, I had provided myself with a horse, but I knew nothing about riding it. Besides that, I had no barn near my house. I had to entrust the care of my horse to others. There I got rid of it and reverted to my hobbyhorse [walking stick].

Under these circumstances I was, of course, away from home the greater part of the time and had to leave my wife at home alone. But I could also see more and more that my work was not in vain, that God's Word did not return empty. Attendance at the neighborhood saloon fell off. The blame for this was laid at my feet, and as a result we were no longer permitted to get our drinking water there. The people no longer pursued the pleasures of the world as avidly as before. They came to church more often and showed signs of a greater longing for the Bread of Life. They also showed more confidence in me when they took note that I was neither a drunkard nor a hireling. My little St. Paul's congregation gave me the greatest joy. A thankful love of God and his Word showed itself in this congregation. They also displayed a joyful zeal for spreading the gospel, a determined opposition to the attacks and inroads of the Methodists and Anabaptists, and all the while a fine sense of congregational fellowship. Although the congregation contributed least to my sustenance, they did what they could, and of all the congregations it was the most willing to make sacrifices.

Early Pastoral Experiences

There was a number of memorable as well as horrible things which I experienced in that first field of labor. One of my official acts was to perform the marriage of an aged couple. The bridegroom was a seventy-five year old Mecklenburger who in Germany had deserted his fiancée to marry another who, however, had died before he emigrated to America. Since this widower was well along in years, he did not feel like getting married again, but he did feel an obligation to take his first fiancée to America and there care for her. The fiancée was seventy-two years old.

Not long after this wedding I had a funeral in which a man bearing my name was murdered together with his wife. A large number of people were gathered at the graveside when during the service I was publicly attacked by a freethinker who told the mourners that what I was preaching to them was not the truth and could offer them no comfort. The murderer, however, who had shot himself immediately after the act, was the scoffer's brother in the faith and had led a godless life. In order not to disturb the funeral service still more, I thought it best not to respond with a single word.

In West Bend, where I had also gathered a small congregation, I experienced a lynching. The lynched man was an American who had murdered a German farmer and his child and had grievously abused his wife. While the trial was underway, the courthouse was besieged by some five hundred German men who had firmly resolved to lynch the murderer. In order to prevent this, a company of soldiers had been called up from Milwaukee, but they dared not fire a shot and were glad enough to get off without being molested themselves. The murderer was forcibly taken from the sheriff, dragged for some time through the city on two long ropes, and finally hanged from a tree and shot. Members of my congregations had been in on this but could not see that they had done anything wrong.

There were several Methodist congregations in my territory. I would gladly have lived with them in peace, but they challenged me to the point that I had to take up the fight against Methodism both in spoken and written word. In the beginning they came to our services and listened to my sermons. Some of them came to see me in my house and gave me the opportunity to speak to them about conversion. Then they spread the gossip that I was a wayward son who had caused his father much sorrow and had absconded with a goodly sum of his father's money, fleeing to America.

After that I tapped them on the fingers whenever I could. In my services I often took the opportunity to expose the error of Methodist doctrine, that gruesome stage production in which they manhandled conversion and preened their sins. After I had attended a Methodist revival meeting as an observer, I wrote a paper against them and their carryings on. I portrayed them as those foxes who despoil the vineyard (Song of Songs 2:15). This article appeared in a widely read Lutheran periodical and created a furor not only among the Methodists but also among the Lutherans. Not long afterwards an article attacking me appeared in a Methodist paper. The author claimed to be a Lutheran pastor from southern Illinois, but [he] defended the Methodists.

This induced me to write a second and more incisive article against the drumbeating of the Methodists. The Methodists in our neighborhood then summoned me before their quarterly meeting to publicly retract everything I had said or written against them, or else they would bring charges against me in the courts of the land. I sent them word that I would not retract a thing. They could hail me before the courts of the world for all I cared; I stood ready to defend myself.

After that they left me along because it became increasingly evident that the holiest among them were real shabby fellows, hypocrites, thieves, adulterers, some of whom took French leave under the cover of fog and darkness lest they fall into the hands of the civil government.

This tribulation, however, taught me to respect the Word of God. It also contributed not a little to my growth in the knowledge of Lutheran teaching and my commitment to it. The latter was also strengthened by the monthly conferences I started at that time with two pastoral colleagues who were my nearest neighbors.

Our first child, a girl, was born on April 28, 1857, at our first parsonage in Addison. She received the name of Dorothea at her baptism. We already had a child at that time in the person of an orphan we had adopted in Milwaukee during the first year of our married life.

Fighting Wisconsin Winters

When the next winter descended upon the land, it was not possible for us to remain any longer in the Addison parsonage. The walls of the house had become so drafty that we would not have been able to endure the cold winter days. I asked the congregation to have the damage repaired, but they allowed the winter to get ever closer without undertaking the repairs.

I had to look around for a different dwelling. I approached my St. John's congregation for one. They had an old, empty house made ready for us, and before the cold settled in, we made the move. The house, however, was at the far end of my field of labor. I now had to walk even greater distances. It was more difficult than ever to serve the seven congregations regularly. Finally, my call for assistance was answered. I could divide my workload, relinquishing the three most distant congregations to a brother pastor who had come from the East.

I now had only four congregations to serve with Word and sacrament and school to conduct on four days a week at two places. The workload resting on my shoulders was still heavy enough. More and more I felt in my bones that I would not be able to carry this load much longer. It was no small matter to travel the roads which then were still very primitive, making my rounds in heat and cold, snow and rain, day and night. This was true pioneer work requiring not only a strong constitution but also courage and endurance. Our gracious God, however, did not allow matters to come to the point where I got sick or could no longer function. He desired to make use of me for many years to come in his vineyard, so he brought it about that in 1858 I received a call to another field.