The following is an excerpt from “Good Harbor, Michigan: The Story and the People, 18501931, written by Norbert Bufka.”
John and Dorothea Wichern Johan (John) Wichern (1826-1890) was born in Hanover, Germany. At age 25, he boarded the passenger ship Patria in Bremen and headed for New York where he arrived on July 2, 1852, according to the New York Passenger List. Dorothea Schaffer (March 1838-1920), his wife, was born in Hesse Darnstadt. The records of her arrival vary from 1849 (1860 Census) to 1857 (1910 Census, corrected by a reader to 1851. A likely scenario is that the two of them met in New York and married there where their first daughter Cathrine (b.1856) was born.
The three of them journeyed onto Michigan where they settled on North Manitou Island by 1860 for a brief time. The postal address for the Island was St. James on Beaver Island. They moved from there to Port Oneida on the Leelanau County mainland where john purchased 48.73 acres under the term of the Land Act of 1820 at T28N R13W Sec. 7 on 1 April 1862. This parcel was in the current Cleveland Township in the Port Oneida area. In 1866 John Wichern was appointed to the Board of Commissioners for Highway in that township. In November 1889 John Wichern was sick and slowly recovering.
Larry Wichern, great-grandson of John and Dorothea, told me that this land was on the same side of the road as Elmer Klett.
“On the south side of M-22 was the original John Wichern farm. He was Lutheran and there was a church at Good Harbor 10 miles away. He didn’t want to live that far from church, and there was somebody over here and wanted to be in that direction. He owned a farm where my dad (Edward Wichern) was born. And also they traded farms even up, swapped deeds, and moved over here.”
This is how the Wichern family ended up in Good Harbor where they attended St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. Descendants of John Wichern still live in the area.
Fiver more children were born to John and Dorothea while living on the farm in Centerville Township: Margaretha (b. 1859), Henry T. (b. 1863), Louis (May 27, 1869-Nov. 9, 1950), Ella (b. about 1873), and Emma (July 16,1876-January 13, 1880.)
Henry T. married Ingabor (b. May 1875) in 1894. Ingabor was born in Denmark and arrived in the United States in 1884. In 1900 Henry and Ingabor were married with no children. However, Henry’s father, John, had died in 1890 and his mother Dorothea was living with them. Ingabor’s sister, Jenny F. Olson (b. November 1872) who had immigrated with Ingabor, was also living with Henry and Ingabor along with Jenny’s two daughters, Jenny and Martha. It probably made for an interesting household that may have led to Henry’s later divorce. In 1889 Jenny had married a man from Norway but he was not present for the Census. Was he working on the Lakes? The Census also indicated that Jenny had a third child who had died. Both children, Jenny and Martha, were born in Michigan.
Henry homesteaded a small tract in Section 1 of Cleveland Township (Lot/Tret 2) on April 17, 1889 and later built and owned a little general store about an eighth of a miles from the county road. He also had a gas pump for those people who had an automobile. This store was later the home of his nephew Edward Wichern and his family until about 1948 when they moved to the southeast corner of the same intersection.
In August 1889, Henry had a reputation for going fast with his horses as the newspaper item suggests, “H. Wichern is breaking his colts and it is “hold fast to me he whispers in her ear” when he sails around these corners.
In January 1893, one of the costs got the better of him, as “H. Wichern had his good look somewhat spoiled for a few days, by the hind foot of his spring colt.”
Louis married Rachel Ann Schlueter (May 14, 1871-August 13, 1948) in 1890. Rachel had arrived with her family in 1878 (1900 Census) at age 9. Together they had nine children: Emma (March 3, 1893-Sept 4, 1965), Christian (March 4, 1896- April 9, 1961), Williams (April 12, 1898-February 27, 1973), John (April 3, 1900-August 1986), Henry L. (March 26, 1903-July 1970), Della Amelia (August 13, 1905March 14, 1988, Henry L. (March 26, 1903-July 1970), Edward (April 30, 1908-Janaury 1, 1982), and Dora Anna (1912-April 9, 1937). The other two were Hattie and an unnamed baby. Hattie tipped over a boiling pot of water on herself and died from the accident. Rachel died in 1948 and Louis moved in which his son Edward until his death in 1950.
