HOMER D. BLANCHARD
Lenau's
Ohio Venture
It is not often that we find in America
documentary source material relating to
events in the lives of German men of
letters. In the case of the poet Nikolaus
Lenau, however, we do have such sources
because he spent some time in the Uni-
ted States and purchased land in
Crawford County, Ohio. This writer has discovered
new documentary evidence which dispels
the old legends about Lenau's visit to
America and his speculation in Ohio
land. The time relationships of his movements
in America now appear in more reasonable
perspective, and we can get a more
accurate overview of events as the
property passed through his hands.
Nikolaus Franz Niembsch Edler von
Strehlenau (Nikolaus Lenau) was born of
German parents at Csatad, Hungary, in
1802. His father, a dissolute gambler, died
before the boy was five years old. The
high-strung, passionate mother struggled
against poverty for the sake of her
children, of whom her idol was Nikolaus. The
boy's first impressions of nature came
from the vast and solitary Hungarian plains,
the loneliness of which doubtless
nurtured in him an inherent tendency to melan-
choly. From 1821 to 1831 Lenau studied
variously agriculture, law, medicine, and
philosophy, but found satisfaction in
none of them. His mother's death in 1829
disturbed him greatly, while an
unfortunate love affair left him with a haunting
feeling of guilt and lost innocence.
In 1831 the young man wandered to
W??rttemberg, where his courtly bearing,
poetic temperament, and virtuosity on
the violin won him a circle of friends. His
uneasy spirit, however, gave him no
peace. He came to America in 1832, but the
supersensitive poet found only ruthless
nature and a materialistic, unpoetic people.
He returned to Germany in 1833 where his
poems had meanwhile won him fame.
There he became a restless wanderer,
living now in Vienna, now in W??rttemberg.
By 1844 ever-increasing melancholy drove
him insane, and he died in 1850 in an
asylum near Vienna.
Lenau has been called the classicist of Weltschmerz
(literally, world-grief), that
conflict between temperament and
environment in which no reconciliation seems
possible. His whole life was a desperate
search for peace and idyllic happiness. He
sought comfort in music, in masterful
violin playing, and in nature, which for him
became poetry. Preeminently a poet of
pessimism, he set forth with impressive
seriousness the gloomy, morbid longings
of his soul for solitude and death. His
lyrics speak in dark, autumnal tones,
but subtly and often quite impressionistically.
Lenau's motives for a journey to America
were mixed. He was weary of Austrian
political affairs, and at the same time
felt the pull of the current of emigration
Mr. Blanchard is professor of German at
Ohio Wesleyan University.
238
OHIO HISTORY
beginning to surge westward and the
effects of the propaganda praising the limit-
less opportunity in America.1
The desire to escape Austrian restrictions was per-
haps least important, for Lenau seems to
have seriously considered only a visit.
He hoped to school his imagination in
the forest primeval and find a new world of
poetry in the New World--in his own
words, "I need America for my cultural
development." There was also the
profit motive. He hoped to buy land cheap and
lease or sell it dear.2
Lenau embarked for America from
Amsterdam on July 27, 1832. The ocean
voyage, marred by storms and bad food,
lasted nearly two and a half months. On
October 8, 1832, the ship anchored in
Chesapeake Bay, and he and two other
passengers were rowed into shallow water
and then carried ashore on the backs
of sailors.3
On October 16, 1832, Lenau wrote his
first letter from America to his brother-
in-law Anton Schurz. He reported the
landing and complained about nearly every-
thing: "The American has no wine,
no nightingale! Let him listen to his
mocking-bird while he drinks his glass
of cider, with his dollars in his pocket. I'd
rather sit down with a German and
listen--while he drinks his wine--to a beloved
nightingale, even if my pocket is
poorer."4 Then, for over four months there was
silence. Finally, on February 28, 1833,
Lenau wrote to Schurz from Economy,
Pennsylvania, complaining about rheumatism,
apologizing for not writing sooner,
and promising to tell everything orally
at some later date.5
On March 5, 1833, he sent letters to
Emilie and Georg Reinbeck from New
Lisbon, Ohio (now Lisbon in Columbiana
County), where he was confined to his
room with a head wound as a result of a
sleigh accident the day before.6 He
wrote from there on March 6, 1833, to
Joseph Klemm7 that he was recovering, but
he continued to complain about the land
and the people. On March 8 he sent
another bitter letter to Schurz, also
from Lisbon.8
In the meantime the poet had purchased
land in America. On March 15, 1833,
he signed a lease at Economy,
Pennsylvania, with Ludwig Haberle, a fellow immi-
grant. The agreement was that Haberle
should clear and bring under cultivation
300 of 400 acres of land which Lenau had
bought in Crawford County, Ohio.
Lenau then departed for Niagara Falls
and New York City, and by late June 1833
was in Bremen.9
1. Eduard Castle, ed., Nikolaus
Lenau, Samtliche Werke und Briefe (Leipzig, 1910), III, 146; here-
inafter cited as Castle, Lenau. Hermann
Engelhard, ed., Nikolaus Lenau, Samtliche Werke, Briefe
(Stuttgart, 1959), gives a selection of
only about 120 from the more than 900 letters published by Castle
and omits all but the first one from
America.
2. Jozsef Turoczi-Trostler, Lenau (Berlin,
1961), 38-42; Castle, Lenau, III, 142, 145, 184.
3. Ibid., 184-186, 192.
4. Ibid., 193. "Der Amerikaner hat keinen Wein, keine
Nachtigall! mag er bei einem Glase Cider
seine Spottdrossel behorchen, mit
seinen Dollars in der Tasche, ich seize mich lieber zum Deutschen und
hore bei seinem Wein die liebe
Nachtigall, wenn auch die Tasche armer ist."
5. Ibid., 195.
6. Ibid., 195-200.
7. Anton X. Schurz, Lenau's Leben (Stuttgart,
1855), I, 204, 206; hereinafter cited as Schurz, Leben.
8. Castle, Lenau, III, 200-204;
VI, 6-8. Not in Schurz.
9. Castle, Lenau, III, 204-207; see
also ibid., V, 349, for Lenau's sworn statement in a court hear-
ing that he remained in America until the
middle of April 1833. When Lenau leased his 400 acres in
Crawford County to Ludwig Haberle in
March 1833, he was careful to spell out just what Haberle had
to do to improve the property. See text
of lease agreement at end of article.
Lenau's Ohio Venture 239
Seventeen years after his return from
America Lenau died without publishing
any direct report of his Ohio experience
and apparently without confiding very
much to friends. Shortly after the
poet's death, several biographies appeared: one
by Emma Niendorf in 1853, one by Ludwig
August Frankl in 1854, one written in
1854 by his friend Anastasius Grun in
the 1855 edition of Lenau's complete works,
and a two-volume biography by Anton
Schurz in 1855. Schurz's work contains all
but the final letter from America.
From the last-named publication we learn
that after writing to Schurz from
Baltimore on October 16, 1832, Lenau
traveled under the familiar name of
Niembsch, bought a horse, and set out
for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, accompanied
by a servant, Philipp Huber. As he
neared Pittsburgh he passed through Bedford,
Pennsylvania, already famous for its
springs and resort. Here a Judge Alexander
King entertained him, presenting him
with a copy of Mitchell's Travellers Guide
Through the United States, on the flyleaf of which King had inscribed a dedication
to his friend Niembsch. Lenau did not
trust himself to speak English, so he and
the jurist are said to have conversed in
Latin.10
From Bedford, Lenau continued to
Pittsburgh, where he had letters of introduc-
tion to C. L. Volz and other successful
Germans. These men received him warmly
and, in response to his expressed wish
to buy land in the United States, directed
him down the Ohio River to Economy,
Pennsylvania, where George Rapp's com-
munistic colony was located. Here Lenau
would find German-speaking people able
to advise him in the matter of buying
land.11
Even before the appearance of the early
biographies, the story had been circu-
lated that Lenau was in such a hurry to
effect the land purchase that by October
26, 1832, he had already bought 400
acres in Crawford County. The 1852 little
Moderne Klassiker edition of Lenau contains a biographical sketch which
states:
"On October 26, 1832, he bought a
tract of virgin forest in Crawfort [sic] County
which he leased for eight years to a
carpenter from Wurttemberg."12
Anastasius Grin repeats the assertion in
1854 when he writes: "At his own
expense and risk Niembsch bought 400
acres of government lands in Crawford
County on October 26, 1832," and
points out that Lenau, in the company of C. L.
Volz and the writer W. R. Riedlen,
visited Economy, Pennsylvania, on February 7,
1833. Riedlen's translation of J. P.
Davis's Guter Rat an Einwanderer in die Verein-
igten Staaten is dedicated to Volz and Lenau in memory of the trip.13
Grun seems
to have been the first to mention the
purchase of government lands (Staatslander-
eien). Interestingly, the Schurz biography of 1855 makes no
mention of the land
purchase as such, except to include an
abbreviated form of the lease contract with
Haberle, although Schurz should have
known the details if anyone did.
In the same year, 1855, Ferdinand
Kurnberger's controversial novel Der Amerika-
Mide appeared.14 Kurnberger's imaginary hero,
Moorfeld, visited America much
10. Schurz, Leben, I, 196-211.
11. Karl J. Arndt, George Rapp's
Harmony Society, 1785-1847 (Philadelphia, 1965), I, 196-211; Lenau
is mentioned only in the caption of an
illustration.
12. Moderne Klassiker, Vol. I, Nicholaus
Lenau (Cassell, 1852), 13. "Am 26. October 1832 kaufte er
eine Strecke Urwald in Crawfort
County, welche er einem Zimmermeisler aus Wuremberg, auf 8 Jahre
verpachtete."
13. Anastasius Grun, ed., Nicolaus
Lenau, Samtliche Werke (Stuttgart, 1855), I, xl; Eduard Castle,
ed., Anastasius Grun, Werke, (Berlin,
1909), VI, 39. "Niembsch erkaufte auf eigene Rechnung am 26
Oktober 1832 in Crawford-County 400
Morgen Urwald an Staatslandereien."
14. Ferdinand Kurnberger, Der
Amerika-Mude (Frankfurt, 1855).
240
OHIO HISTORY
in the Lenau manner, had a horrible
experience, and so vividly suggested the real
Lenau that many at once assumed the
fictional figure was Lenau himself. Moorfeld
also went to New Lisbon, Ohio, bought
land there, spent time on that land, and
had a variety of disillusioning
experiences that revealed the barbarism of the
American people. Although Kurnberger
later denied to Schurz that he had written
about Lenau, the misapprehension was
very slow to die out.15 Some twenty years
later there appeared in Der Deutsche
Pioneer (The German Pioneer), a German
magazine published in Cincinnati, an
article by Emil Klauprecht entitled "Nicolas
Lenau as an Ohio Pioneer."
Klauprecht used Kurnberger's work freely and stated
as fact what was only the latter's
fiction.16
An examination of the treatment
subsequent Lenau scholars and biographers
have given to the matter of the land
purchase reveals certain patterns. Some, like
C. von Wurzbach, Max Koch, and Paul
Weber err in having Lenau buy his land
before he reached Ohio; that is, before
leaving Europe, in Baltimore, or in Econ-
omy, Pennsylvania.17 Some,
like Emma Poesche and J. Turoczi-Trostler, err in
reporting the amount of land purchased.
Others are confused in the matter of
geography: T. S. Baker, Eduard Castle,
and Paul Weber located Crawford County
in Pennsylvania, and Carl Schaeffer
located Pittsburgh in Ohio. O. E. Deutsch
even put Lenau in Pittsburgh on October
18, 1832, although we know he was in
Baltimore just two days before. Most
writers, however, cling to October 26, 1832,
and New Lisbon as the date and place of
purchase. Among these are G. A. Mul-
finger, H. Bischoff, L. Roustan, Karl
Arndt, H. Englehard, and Ruth Berges.18
One should note that it was not the
early biographers but the novelist Kurn-
berger in 1855 who named New Lisbon as
the place where the fictional Moorfeld
purchased American land. Kurnberger
wrote to Anton Schurz in 1854, before the
Schurz biography appeared: "It now
seems clear from the statement, with which
you have so kindly provided me, that the
Lisbon ruin was caused by two things
.... "19 This would seem to
indicate that Kurnberger had had access through
15. Otto Erich Deutsch, ed., Ferdinand
Kurnberger, Gesammelte Werke (Munchen, 1910), IV, 538.
16. Emil Klauprecht, "Irrfahrten
zweier deutscher Dichterfursten nach Amerika, I, Nicolaus Lenau
als Pionier Ohios," Der Deutsche
Pionier, VII (November 1875-February 1876), 348-356, 414-418, 459-
463, 492-497.
17. Constant von Wurzbach, Biographisches
Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich (Wien, 1869),
XI, 329, says Lenau bought land in
Economy, Pa.; Max Koch, ed., Lenaus Werke, in Deutsche National-
Literatur (Berlin, [1888]), CLIV, xxiv, says Lenau bought the
land before he left Europe; Paul C. Weber,
America in Imaginative German
Literature in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1926),
163, says Lenau set out from Baltimore
for the farm he had already bought.
18. Emma Poesche, "Nicolaus
Lenau," The Open Court, VI (June 23, 1893), 3292 says he bought
1400 acres; Turoczi-Trostler, Lenau, 56,
says he bought 1920 acres, the same as Kurnberger's hero;
Thomas Stockham Baker, Lenau and
Young Germany in America (Philadelphia, 1897), 19; Eduard
Castle, "Amerikamude. Lenau und
Kurnberger," in Karl Glossy, ed., Jahrbuch der Grillparzer-Gesellschaft
(Wien, 1902), 20; Weber, American
German Literature, 163 (There is, however, a Crawford County in
western Pennsylvania. The same error
persists in Gero Von Wilpert, Lexikon der Wellliteratur (Stutt-
gart, 1963), 794); Carl Schaeffer, ed., Lenaus
Werke (Leipzig, 1910), I, 37; Deutsch, Ferdinand Kurn-
berger, IV, 580; George A. Mulfinger, "Lenau in
Amerika," Americana Germanica, I (1897), No. 2,
p. 7-61, No. 3, p. 1-16; Ferdinand
Kurnberger, "Der Amerikamude, dessen Quellen und Verhaltnis zu
Lenaus Amerikareise," German
American Annals, I (June, July 1903), 385; Heinrich Bischoff, Nikolaus
Lenaus Lyrik, ihre Geschichte,
Chronologie und Textkritik (Berlin,
1920), 284; L[udovic] Roustan, "Le
Sejour de Lenau en Amerique," Revue
de Litterature Comparee, VIII (1928), 68; Karl J. Arndt, "Niko-
laus Lenau's American Experience,
1832/33," Monatshefte, XXIV (1932), 241-244; "The Effect of
America on Lenau's Life and Work," Germanic
Review, XXXIII (April 1958), 130; Engelhard, Lenau,
973; Ruth Berges, "Lenau's Quest in
America," American-German Review, XXVII (April-May 1962),
14-17.
Lenau's Ohio
Venture 241
Schurz to one or more
of Lenau's letters from Lisbon, hence knew the name of
the place. Yet
Kurnberger's hero bought land at a sheriffs sale held in the city
hall there, and no
mention of government lands was made at all. The "ruin"
referred to the entire
land-purchase fiasco.20
Although Anastasius
Grun in 1854 mentioned government lands, the more spe-
cific idea of a United
States land office being at Lisbon did not appear until intro-
duced by G. A.
Mulfinger in 1897.21 Mulfinger corresponded and conferred with a
number of persons
supposed to have known Lenau in America. His principal in-
formant, however, seems
to have been H. A. Rattermann of Cincinnati, editor of
Der Deutsche Pionier
at the time Klauprecht's rehash of the
Kurnberger novel
appeared in 1875.
Mulfinger said that after stops in Pittsburgh and Economy,
Pennsylvania, Lenau
hurried to Lisbon, "where the land office was located,"22 and
by October 26, 1832,
eighteen days after his arrival in the United States, had
bought 400 acres of
government land in Crawford County, Ohio, about 200 miles
from Pittsburgh and not
far from present Bucyrus.
Mulfinger then
developed the idea that since the purchaser could not claim full
possession of his land
until a deed bearing the signature and seal of the President
of the United States
was in hand, Lenau probably took up residence somewhere
in the neighborhood of
the land office. The author claimed that no place was more
ideally suited for this
purpose than Economy, Pennsylvania, situated as it was on
a good road between
Lisbon and Pittsburgh.23
Mulfinger, furthermore,
was the first to give us the colorful tale of a mid-winter
visit by Lenau to his
new purchase in the Ohio wilderness. Late in 1894 Ratterman
informed Mulfinger that
in April 1874, twenty years earlier and more than forty
years after Lenau's
sojourn in America, he had visited the land formerly owned by
Lenau in the company of
an eighty-year-old resident named Brunnert, who had
bought the farm next to
Lenau's in 1831 and who could still remember the poet.24
According to the
Brunnert-Rattermann-Mulfinger version, at about Christmas
of the
"extraordinarily cold" winter of 1832-33 Lenau went by sleigh to view
his
land in the Ohio
wilderness. He is supposed to have spent several weeks on or
near his property, on
the edge of what is now New Washington, Ohio. He is
described as a fine
gentleman who in no way fitted into the backwoods. He wore
elegant clothes: a fur
coat, dancing shoes, and white gloves. Wearing kid gloves,
he seized an axe in
order to cut down some trees, but laid it down after a few
strokes. He stayed with
an English neighbor, whom Brunnert recalled as being
named Boyle. Lenau had
difficulty communicating with Boyle and had very little
to do with the German
settlers in the area. He is said to have stayed in the house,
writing all the time
and having little to say. People called him the "crazy German."
Suddenly, in February
1833, he disappeared, having gone by sleigh back through
Lisbon to Pittsburgh.25
19. Deutsch, Ferdinand
Kurnberger, IV, 578. "Nun erhellt aber aus dem Expose, das durch
Ihre
Gute mir vorliegt,
dasz der Ruin von Lisbon durch zwei Unstande hedingt ward...."
20. Ibid., 346-355;
Castle, Lenau, III, 197; see also Schurz, Leben, I, 213,
II, 41.
21. Mulfinger, "Lenau in Amerika," No.
2, p. 37, fn. 2.
22. This information
came from Rattermann.
23. Mulfinger,
"Lenau in Amerika," No. 2, p. 39.
24. Ibid., 51.
25. Ibid., 48-51.
242 OHIO
HISTORY
In 1927 John Blankenagel visited the
Crawford County courthouse in Bucyrus,
Ohio, and there found in the old records
the entries of the "three Patent Deeds,
two Quit-Claim Deeds, one statement of
procuracy by Lenau, one statement in
which his guardian, Dr. Alexander Bach,
confers power of attorney, and finally, a
deed of sale."26 The
courthouse records show that the patents for which Lenau
supposedly waited so long in and around
Lisbon were not in fact issued until
August 6, 1834, or more than a year
after he had returned to Europe and were
not recorded in the courthouse books
until December 2, 1845, thirteen years after
the land was bought.
Despite the claims of scholars and
biographers for more than a century, we can
now say the facts relating to Lenau's
Ohio story are these: Lenau did not buy
government land in Lisbon; he bought it
at the land office in Wooster, Ohio. Lenau
did not buy land on October 26,
1832; he bought it on November 26, 1832.
John Kilbourn in The Ohio Gazetteer of
1831 speaks of the:
Congress Lands ... so called because they are sold to purchasers, by the
immediate officers
of the general government ....
For the purpose of selling out these
lands; they are divided into eight several land dis-
tricts, called after the name of the
town in which the land offices are kept; namely, Wooster,
Steubenville, Zanesville, Marietta,
Chillicothe, Cincinnati, Piqua, and Tiffin ....
Wooster district includes the whole of
Richland and Wayne, and parts of Stark, Holmes,
and Knox counties; and a strip of three
miles wide off from the east end of Crawford and
Marion Counties.... the land office is
kept at Wooster....
Kilbourn speaks of Wooster as "a
post town, and seat of justice for Wayne
county .... Here also is kept the land
office for the sale of lands, in the Wooster
land district." He mentions no land
office in his description of Lisbon.27 Moreover,
the Senate Documents for the
Twenty-first United States Congress report on the
sale of public lands from the various
land offices, including Wooster, up to 1830,
but nowhere mention a land office in
Lisbon.28 Wooster is named as the site of the
land office in the courthouse records
located by John Blankenagel at Bucyrus, Ohio,
where the recorded patent deeds state
that the "Publick Lands" were "Subject
to sale at Wooster, Ohio," a clue
which scholars have overlooked for over forty
years.29
Acting on the hope that record of
Lenau's transactions might be found in the
National Archives and Records,
Washington, D. C., the author contacted the Ser-
vice and received the following answer:
The records of the former General Land
Office in the National Archives show that the
following cash certificates were issued
at the United States Land Office in Wooster, Ohio,
to "Nicholas Niembsch of Crawford
County, Ohio," for land in Crawford County, near
the present city of New Washington,
Ohio:
1. Cash Certificate Number 2594, issued
November 26, 1832, for the SE 1/4 of Section
1, Township 18 North, Range 21 West,
containing 160 acres of land at $1.25 an acre,
amounting to $200.00.
26. J. C. Blankenagel, "Deeds to
Lenau's Property in Ohio," Germanic Review, II (July 1927), 203.
27. John Kilbourn, The Ohio
Gazetteer, 10th ed. (Columbus, 1831), 51-55, 303-304, 225.
28. U. S. Congress, Senate, Documents,
21st cong., 2d sess., I, No. 1, p. 72.
29. Blankenagel, "Deeds to Lenau's
Property in Ohio," 204.
Lenau's Ohio Venture 243
2. Cash Certificate Number 2595, issued
November 26, 1832, for the NW 1/4 of Sec-
tion 12, Township 18 North, Range 21
West, at $1.25 an acre, amounting to $200.00.
3. Cash Certificate Number 2596, issued
November 26, 1832, for the S 1/2 of the NW
1/4 of Section 12, Township 18 North,
Range 21 West, containing 80 acres, at $1.25
an acre, amounting to $100.00.
The patents were issued for the above
certificates on August 6, 1834. The certificate
files do not include any personal
information about Nicholas Niembsch [Nikolaus Lenau]
nor do they contain his signature. It is
probable that the land was sold at the Land Office
in Wooster because that was the nearest
Land Office open at the time of the sale. A Land
Office usually sold land within a one
hundred mile radius and people often had to travel
even farther to reach an open Land
Office. It was not unusual for the land entryman to
state that he was a resident of the
County where the land was situated, or the County
where the Land Office was located for
there were no formal legal requirements as to
residence when land was sold for cash.
The documents in these files are the only instru-
ments created at the time of land sale:
one item is a Register's Receipt used to document
the entry on the records and the other
is a Receiver's Receipt issued to record the payment
of the money. No application was
required for a cash sale of the land.... The fact that
the patents were not issued until two
years after the sale is not significant for the General
Land Office was many years behind in the
issuance of land patents. In some instances the
patents were not issued until five and
six years after the sale....30
It is interesting that the parcels of
land specified by Castle and Schurz in the
lease contract with Haberle, the first
lessee of the Lenau land, are described by
the cash certificate numbers, which
agree with those in the National Archives
records.31 At the time this contract was
drawn up Lenau had no documents prov-
ing ownership other than these cash
certificates. Schurz, however, and later Castle
must have had access to the original
lease contract, and Schurz may possibly have
seen the cash certificates if Lenau took
them back to Europe with him. The patents,
however, remained in this country.
As for the ease of travel, Kilbourn's Ohio
Gazetteer describes the principal roads
across the state in 1831. The road from
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Tiffin, Ohio,
is the only main east-west road
mentioned. It was eighteen miles from Pittsburgh
to Economy, Pennsylvania, and forty
miles from Economy to Lisbon; it was sixty-
four miles from Lisbon to Wooster, the
seat of the land office; from Wooster to
Caroline, Ohio, was another fifty-eight
miles.32 Where this state road passed through
Caroline was probably less than eight
miles from Lenau's land. The road from
Wooster to Bucyrus, on the other hand,
would have passed twelve or thirteen miles
from Lenau's land.
The Ohio Repository, a Canton, Ohio, weekly newspaper, carried this
advertise-
ment in the October 26, 1832, issue:
"Daily Line of Stages, From Beavertown to
Wooster. The subscriber is now running a
Daily Line of Stages from Beavertown,
Pa. to Wooster, Ohio.... At Beavertown
it connects a Daily Line from Pittsburgh,
and departs Westward at 3 o'clock P.M.
and arrive at New Lisbon at 10 o'clock
same evening; leave next morning at 2,
arrive at Canton at 10 o'clock A.M.: leave
Canton at 11 o'clock A.M. and arrive at
Wooster at 8 P.M. Departs Eastward next
morning at 2 o'clock, arrive at
Massillon at 8--Canton at 10--New Lisbon at 8 P.M.,
and Beavertown next morning at 9
o'clock...."33
30. National Archives and Records
Service to author, June 21, 1965.
31. Castle, Lenau, III, 204-207; see
also Schurz, Leben, I, 210-211, who condenses the contract.
32. Kilbourn, Ohio Gazetteer, "Appendix,"
112.
33. The Ohio Repository, October
26, 1832.
244 OHIO HISTORY According to Kilbourn it was ten miles from Economy, Pennsylvania, to Beaver- town.34 To go by stagecoach from Beavertown to Wooster, or return, could involve at least a twenty-nine hour journey with an overnight stop in Lisbon. Seven hours were scheduled for the thirty mile trip from Beavertown to Lisbon, which surely gives evidence of the primitive roads and harsh travel conditions of those days. We might conjecture that Lenau went by stage or on horseback to the land office at Wooster and there bought his land on November 26, 1832, which was a Monday. If he decided that, since he was so near, he ought to push on the remain- ing sixty or so miles and view his purchase, he would likely have gone on horse- back, since the commercial stage did not go beyond Wooster. If Lenau were going to wait near the land office in the hope of receiving his land patents, he might have waited in Wooster, or in Canton, which had a large enough German community to support a German newspaper in 1832.35 There is no longer any reason for assigning special importance to Lisbon apart from the fact that Lenau wrote four letters from there during one stay in early March while he recovered from a "hole in the head."36 Lenau's Ohio land consisted of three parcels, forming a reversed letter L. To the north lay the SE 1/4 of Section 1, Township 18 North, Range 21 West, 160 acres.37 Adjoining that to the south, lay the NE 1/4 of Section 12, Township 18 North, Range 21 West, 160 acres. Adjoining the lower half and to the west, lay the S 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of Section 12, Township 18 North, Range 21 West, 80 acres. |
|
Lenau signed the lease of this land to Ludwig Haberle on March 15, 1833, iden- tifying the parcels only by their cash certificate numbers. This lease is the first mention we find that he had made any such purchase, and from his correspon- dence we can see what happened to it.38 As early as January 1, 1835, and again on February 12, 1836, Lenau's former servant Philipp Huber wrote Lenau from America about his land. Receiving no 34. Kilbourn, Ohio Gazetteer, 112. 35. Karl Arndt and May Olson, Deutsch-Amerikanische Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, 1732-1955 (Heidelberg, 1961) names Der Vaterlandfreund and Geist der Zeit (1829-33), 432. 36. Castle, Lenau, III, 196. "Loch im Kopf." 37. Abbreviations such as SE 1/4 and S 1/2 are in regular use in legal documents. 38. Schurz, Leben, I, 340-343. |
Lenau's Ohio Venture
245
reply, Huber wrote again at length on
April 16, 1837, from Wheeling, (West Vir-
ginia). This letter reported that
Haberle had made a complete failure of everything
and had used up the capital Lenau had
advanced him. Even though the land,
fences, and skeleton buildings looked as
if they had no owner, Huber said he
would be willing to mend the fences and
go on clearing the land as planned. He
noted that taxes would fall due in 1838,
that the property might be forfeited if the
taxes went unpaid, that many would like
to buy this land for the unpaid taxes
(it would be worth about ten to fifteen
dollars an acre now), and he even offered
to settle on the land or to pay the taxes
in Lenau's name.
The poet mentioned this letter from
Huber and the land's increased value in a
letter to his friend, New York
businessman Ludwig von Post.39 Lenau requested
Post to look into the land matter, to
inform him of the possibility of making a
sale, and to furnish him with
information about how a power of attorney should
be made out so that Post could dispose
of the land in Lenau's name.
In a letter to Emilie von Reinbeck on
January 16, 1838, Lenau said he had
received a letter from Post offering to
do everything necessary for "safeguarding"
his little American property. Lenau was
probably replying to this letter when he
wrote to Post, as mentioned above. On
December 28, 1839, Lenau, writing again
to Emilie von Reinbeck, for the first
time mentioned that a squatter had settled
on his land.40
Another letter from Huber, written
January 24, 1840, from Wheeling, indicated
that Lenau had written to him in the
spring of 1839 and that he had replied at
once but had received no answer. This
1839 letter from Huber is probably the one
referred to by Lenau when he wrote to
Emilie von Reinbeck on December 28.
Huber reported that he had paid the
taxes for 1838 and 1839, $6.72 and $12.80
respectively, and was holding the receipts.
He said the land looked terrible and
that a squatter who had settled on it
refused to move until shown a proper power
of attorney bearing the legal seal of
the court. He requested such a power of attorney
from Lenau and also asked permission to
settle on the land himself with his bride.
Lenau mentioned the arrival of two
letters from America when he wrote to
Emilie von Reinbeck on March 31, 1840.
He cited Huber's letter of January 24 on
the condition of the land and its
increase in value, as well as the fact that Huber
wanted to lease it, promising to pay
annual rent. The other letter was from a New
Yorker named Hermann Oelrichs who said
Post had died and that all the certifi-
cates pertaining to the land were then
in his hands.41 These certificates must surely
have been the three patent deeds which
had been issued in 1834, had probably
been sent to Wooster, and had somehow
found their way into Oelrich's safekeeping.
On August 2, 1840, Jakob Huber, a
brother of Philipp, writing to Lenau from
Wheeling, reported the death of Philipp
in a mine accident on June 3, 1840, just
before the arrival of a letter written
by Lenau on March 26, 1840, containing a
power of attorney authorizing Philipp to
evict the squatter and settle on the land.
Jakob requested a new power of attorney,
since the old one was no longer valid,
so that he and another married brother,
Friedrich, could settle on the land and
care for it.42 In another
letter to Emilie von Reinbeck on October 20, 1840, Lenau
39. Castle, Lenau, IV, 268.
Letter dated January 1838.
40.
Ibid., 271, 268, 350; Schurz, Leben, II, 21-22; "Zur
Sicherstellung."
41. Castle, Lenau, IV, 367.
42. Schurz, Leben, II, 40-41.
246 OHIO
HISTORY
told of the receipt of this letter from
Jakob and lamented Philipp's death.43 Anton
Schurz said at this point his
brother-in-law was so distressed by the apparent fail-
ure of the entire American venture that
he refused to keep up the taxes.44
A search in 1967 of the old Crawford
County records at Bucyrus, Ohio, revealed
a number of hitherto unknown entries and
copies of documents having to do with
Lenau's property. In the archives of the
County Auditor were found the Cran-
berry Township Duplicate of Taxes
Charged for 1837 and 1838. Lenau's name does
not appear on the 1837 tax duplicate,
but two of three parcels are listed for 1838,
which fact verifies Huber's statement that
taxes were first levied on the property
in that year. For some reason the
northernmost parcel is not mentioned. The
tax duplicate for 1839 could not be
found nor could copies of possible receipts for
taxes paid be located. There was found
for Cranberry Township A List of Lands
& Town Lots in Crawford County,
Ohio, made by the County Appraisor in 1840.
All three of Lenau's parcels are listed
here.
Much more interesting, however, is a
Cranberry Township Delinquent Land List
for 1841. Here the three parcels are listed under the name of
Nicholas Nimbsch.
Lenau's name is variously spelled in all
of the old records as Niembsch, Neimbsch,
or Nimbsch, as here. The striking thing
in this delinquent land entry is that the
name Nimbsch has been crossed out and
the name Ninbaugh written in. No delin-
quent land list for 1840 could be
located.
Still more significant is the discovery
in the County Recorder's archives of
copies of four deeds issued by the
County Auditor on January 11, 1844, conveying
Lenau's land to Lewis Young and Peter
Gartner. These deeds, moreover, reveal
that the land was first sold for taxes
by the County treasurer on December 27, 1841,
not to Young and Gartner, as has long been claimed, but to
one Samuel Myers.45
All of the deeds refer to the sale of
the land for taxes by the County Treasurer
on December 27, 1841. In each the land
is shown as having been first sold to
Samuel Myers who then assigned the
certificate of sale to Rudolph Harley who
assigned it to Peter Gartner. The first
of the County Auditor deeds shows that
Gartner assigned the W 1/2 of the S 1/2
of the NW 1/4 of Section 12, 40 acres, to
Lewis Young, to whom the deed was then
issued. The second deed shows that again
Myers assigned the certificate of sale
for the SE 1/4 of Section 1, 160 acres, to Harley
who assigned it to Gartner who assigned
it to Young. With this deed Young now
had a total of 200 acres in two
non-adjacent parcels.
The third deed goes through the same
steps for the NE 1/4 of Section 12, 160
acres, which is then deeded to Gartner;
similarly with the fourth deed for the
S 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of Section 12, 80
acres, 40 of which had already been assigned
to Lewis Young in the first deed
mentioned above. Gartner now possessed County
Auditor's deeds to 200 acres in two
adjacent parcels, while Young's parcels were
separated. The total back taxes,
interest, and penalty on the 400 acres amounted
to $23.18 and 4 mills.46
Thus Young and Gartner, or Gardner,
sought in January 1844 to legitimize
43. Castle, Lenau, V, 6.
44. Schurz, Leben, II, 41.
45. Mulfinger, Lenau, 60. In some
of the old records Gartner is also spelled Gardner. See also
Castle, Lenau, V, 425; all four
Auditor's deeds are recorded in Vol. 9, p. 480-483 of the Register of
Deeds, Crawford County, Ohio.
46. According to Blankenagel,
"Deeds to Lenau's Property in Ohio," 206-207, the taxes came to
$28.46 and 2 mills; see also
Schurz, Leben, II, 278, who says the total taxes amounted to only
$23.68.
Lenau's Ohio Venture
247
their possession of the 400 acres by
obtaining auditor's deeds and by having them
recorded, although they were not the
ones who had actually bought the land at the
tax sale. It is interesting that
everything was deeded to Gartner first, not to Young,
as maintained by Mulfinger.47
Possibly of greater importance, however,
are four entries having to do with
these parcels discovered in a volume
entitled Auditor's Deeds for Forfeited Lands.
We cite the first of the four:
The South East quarter of Section one,
township eighteen South of Range twenty-one,
charged in the name of Nicholas
Ninbaugh--and the whole tract sold to Samuel Myers for
the taxes of the years 1840 & 1841
on the last Monday of December 1841 for the sum of
nine dollars forty five cents three
mills--Deed made to Lewis Young 11th Jan 1844 Owen
Williams Aud C. C. O.
These are apparently the auditor's
memoranda to himself, since he was respon-
sible for the issuance of this
particular kind of deed. Each of the four entries says
"Charged in the name of Nicholas
Ninbaugh" and reports the sale to Myers and
the issuance of a deed to Young or
Gartner, as described above.
Soon after Lenau became mentally ill in
1845, those who knew him best became
concerned about his American property.
Schurz said his friend Max von Lowenthal
wrote the New York businessman Hermann
Oelrichs requesting information about
the land. Word came back that the
property had been sold for taxes but that pos-
sibly the sale had been irregular, in
which event there would be grounds for action
against the current owners. For a
hundred dollars the matter could be pursued to a
finish, but Lenau's power of attorney
would be required.48 On July 22, 1845, Lenau
was persuaded, in a lucid moment, to
sign a power of attorney to Louis Stanislaus
of Norwalk, Ohio, authorizing him to
recover the land if possible, pay the taxes
for 1840 and 1841, and then re-sell it.
The details may be found in the power of
attorney bearing this date which is
recorded in Bucyrus. Schurz received the power
of attorney, with all of the official
signatures, from the Wurttemberg embassy in
Vienna on August 11, 1845, and sent it
at once to New York.
Stanislaus seems to have been engaged by
the New York firm of Oelrichs, later
Oelrichs and Kruger, to handle Lenau's
affairs in Ohio. Schurz, in an expense account
rendered to the court in 1847, again
reported the offer from Oelrichs in New York
to make an effort for $100 to recover
the Ohio land that had been sold for taxes.
Schurz arranged funds for this purpose
as early as August 1845, completing the
financing on December 2, 1845.49
Stanislaus, however, must first have had to estab-
lish Lenau as the original owner of the
Ohio land and probably did this by filing
the original patent deeds on December 2,
1845, in Bucyrus.50
A May 2, 1849 report of Oelrichs and
Kruger is of interest here. It says that in
early 1846 Stanislaus discovered the
land had been publicly sold in 1841 for taxes
that had not been paid since 1840,
although this fact was apparently well known in
mid-1845 and was surely known to him
before he filed the patent deeds in Decem-
ber.51 Oelrichs and Kruger
then say that Stanislaus fortunately discovered that
47. Mulfinger, Lenau, 60.
48. Schurz, Leben, II, 278-279.
49. Castle, Lenau, V, 395; see
also Blankenagel, "Deeds to Lenau's Property," 207-208; Schurz,
Leben, II, 279; Castle, Lenau, V, 414-415.
50. Blankenagel, "Deeds to Lenau's
Property," 203-205.
51. Castle, Lenau, V, 425-426.
248 OHIO
HISTORY
the sale had not been concluded in the
proper form.
While we do not know exactly what this
meant, and while nothing has been
found in the contemporary court records
at Bucyrus indicating any sort of lawsuit,
Stanislaus must have been operating from
a position of strength. On March 27,
1846, he succeeded in obtaining
quitclaim deeds from Young and Gartner to Lenau
for the entire 400 acres.52
If we recall that the name Nimbsch had
been crossed out of the Delinquent
Land List for 1841 and replaced by Ninbaugh and that the County
Auditor's
memoranda of Deeds for Forfeited
Lands show the sale of the land for taxes
charged to Nicholas Ninbaugh, not
Niembsch, we may well have hit upon the
"irregularity" mentioned. Any
tax sale in a wrong name would have provided a
lawyer with ample grounds to contend.
The name Nimbsch, or its variants,
appears clearly in the 1838 Tax Duplicate,
in the 1840 List of Lands and Lots, and
in the Delinquent Land List for 1841,
only to be altered in the latter to
something quite different. The County Treasurer
who made the sale in 1841 would have had
no legal right to sell Niembsch's land
in the name of Ninbaugh, nor would the
County Auditor in 1844 have had any
legal right to deed the land in the name
of Ninbaugh, which he clearly did accord-
ing to his own record. The quitclaim
deeds are ample evidence that Young and
Gartner recognized their position to be
untenable.
Incidentally, the quitclaim deeds that
are recorded in Bucyrus are those filed by
Peter Gardner and wife Sarah, not Georg
Gartner, as claimed by Mulfinger, and
by Lewis Young and wife Mary Ann, not
Joseph Jung, as claimed by Mulfinger,
returning the land to Lenau.53
The May 2, 1849 report from Oelrichs and
Kruger said that Stanislaus persuaded
the current owner, whom Castle named P.
Gardner, to relinquish his claim on the
400 acres to Lenau in exchange for 40
acres in early 1846. In April 1846, accord-
ing to Oelrichs and Kruger, Stanislaus
sold 360 acres to Lewis Young for three
dollars per acre, payable in five yearly
payments beginning August 1, 1846. The
purchaser was to pay interest at six
percent per annum and had to pay the back
taxes after April 1, 1845. Since Lewis
Young was, in Stanislaus' judgment, a pros-
perous man, there was no doubt that he
would complete the payments by the
date due, if not earlier. The whole
arrangement seemed adequately assured since
the buyer would not receive the deed to
the property until payment was completed,
holding it meanwhile only under land
contract.54 Lenau's power of attorney to
Stanislaus, dated July 22, 1845, was
filed by Stanislaus on June 2, 1846, after the
conclusion of this sale to Young, if
Oelrich's report of the sale is correct.
On August 22, 1846, Dr. Alexander Bach
was appointed guardian of the poet.
On the same date he prepared a power of
attorney made out to Stanislaus and
on August 28, 1846, asked the court for
permission to send this new power of
attorney to him, since the one obtained
in 1845 by Schurz could no longer be
regarded as valid after Bach's
appointment as guardian. Bach urged that it be
sent through official channels to the
Austrian Consulate in New York for transmis-
sion to the business firm of Hermann
Oelrichs, which had handled all correspond-
ence thus far, for forwarding to Louis
Stanislaus in Ohio.55
52. Blankenagel, "Deeds to Lenau's
Property," 205-207.
53. Mulfinger, Lenau, 60.
54. Castle, Lenau, V, 425-426.
Lenau's Ohio Venture 249
It is interesting that the deed records
show the entire 400 acres as having been
transferred from Dr. Alexander Bach to
Louis Stanislaus through the instrumentality
of this power of attorney. Stanislaus
must have made some sort of arrangement
with Gartner, however, having to do with
the 40 acres represented by one of the
halves of the S 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of
Section 12. The County Auditor's deed gave
Gartner title to the E 1/2 of this
section. Gartner's quitclaim deed turned this back
to Niembsch. But on August 27, 1846,
after Stanislaus had arranged the sale of the
entire property to Young, and actually
long before Bach's power of attorney gave
Stanislaus authority to do anything, we
find Gartner selling the west half of this
half section to a William Jewell,
although that half was quitclaimed back to Lenau
by Young, and not by Gartner.56 We have
no idea how Gartner acquired this land
for there is no record of any deed to
him by either Stanislaus or Young of this west
half and his deed to Jewell makes no
mention of how he obtained it.
On July 29, 1847, Lewis Young sold the
other, that is the E 1/2 of this half sec-
tion, to a John Burger. One wonders how
Young could sell any of the land since he
had not finished paying for it and did
not as yet have the deed. Upon completion
of payment in 1850 Stanislaus gave Young
on May 29 a deed to 360 acres, spe-
cifically including this E 1/2 of the S
1/2 of Section 12, which Young had sold in
1847, but not mentioning the W 1/2 which
Gartner had long since disposed of.
Gartner's sale of this 40 acres to
Jewell was not recorded until 1848.57
Young's first payment on the property of
$200.00 was reported by Oelrichs to
Schurz on February 27, 1847.58 On
September 23, 1847, Oelrichs and Kruger
forwarded another payment of $272.00 and
a third payment of $207.85 on July 5,
1848. On May 2, 1849 Young still owed
$424.00 plus interest. Two more payments
show up in a report of November 18,
1850, one of $197.50 and the final payment
of $220.00. The final deed transfers the
land to Young for payment of $1181.00,
but the total of the payments noted
above is only $1097.35.59 How Oelrichs and
Kruger were paid is not clear, but they
did not collect anywhere near the prevail-
ing price per acre of 10, 15, or 18
dollars.
Thus Austria's foremost lyric poet, the
restless, melancholy wanderer Lenau,
tried his fortune in the rough forests
of central Ohio. He failed to see the colorful
beauties and natural wonders of America,
but rather was repulsed, depressed,
and wounded by its primitive ruggedness.
AGREEMENT60 15 March 1833 between
Nicolaus Niembsch of Csatad in Hun-
gary and Ludwig Haberle of Lauffen in
Wurttemberg.
Nicolaus Niembsch leases to Ludwig
Haberle the following lands: the two Quar-
ter Sections Nr. 2594 and Nr. 2595,
situated in Crawford County, and the similarly
55. Blankenagel, "Deeds to Lenau's
Property," 208-210; Castle, Lenau, V, 393, 395-396. This power
of attorney from Bach to Stanislaus is
recorded in both German and English at Bucyrus; the German
on page 210 and the English on page 329
of Vol. 13 of the Register of Deeds.
56. Blankenagel, "Deeds to Lenau's
Property," 205-207.
57. Ibid., 210-212.
58. Castle, Lenau, V, 419. See
also Schurz, Leben, II, 291, who says he received the first payment
through Oelrichs shortly before April
20, 1847.
59. Castle, Lenau, V, 423, 426,
433; Blankenagel, "Deeds to Lenau's Property," 211.
60. Lenau's advisers in the Rapp colony
at Economy, Pennsylvania, drew on their experience in
frontier dealings in helping him
formulate the terms of this lease. They knew the land would have to be
cleared, fenced, and have suitable
buildings on it before it could be sold for real profit. Lenau paid
$600 for his 400 acres late in 1832. In
March of 1833 he was already anticipating that within eight
years the property would increase to ten
times its original value.
250 OHIO
HISTORY
situated Eighth Section Nr. 2596, under
the following conditions.
1. Ludwig Haberle assumes the lease of
this land for the period of eight years,
reckoned from 1 January 1833 on.
2. The same binds himself to clear 37
1/2 acres in each year of the lease, so that
in the entire lease period 300 acres
will have been cleared and placed in cultivation,
as well as fenced in.
3. In addition to the cash advance
already received, Ludwig Haberle has
received this date six hundred dollars,
partly in cash and partly in its equivalent as
operating capital in farming the
above-mentioned lands.
4. Ludwig Haberle binds himself at his
own cost and expense to erect the fol-
lowing buildings during the period of
the lease:
1. A 44 foot long, 36 foot wide blocked
dwelling [blockhouse], of two storeys,
with shingle roof.
2. A barn
3. Necessary stables
5. Ludwig Haberle promises to turn over
to the owner of the land, Nicolaus
Niembsch, at the end of the lease period
the following cattle:
5 cows, 3-8 years old, and a bull; in
addition, 18 other head of beef cattle
from sucking calves up to 3 year olds.
2 pairs of oxen, 3-8 years old.
36 head of hogs from suckling pigs up to
150 lbs.; but no more than 6 suck-
ling pigs among them.
If Nicolaus Niembsch should sell the
property within 5 years, Ludwig Haberle
only has to turn over half of the cattle
designated above; however, in case the
land is sold during the last three years
of the lease period, Haberle has to deliver
two thirds of the cattle so stipulated.
6. Ludwig Haberle assumes the
responsibility of cultivating this land entirely
at his own expense and of paying
Nicolaus Niembsch in the year 1836 one hun-
dred dollars rent; in the year 1837
another hundred dollars; in the last three years
[of the lease] two hundred dollars each
year.
Ludwig Haberle binds himself to transmit
these rent monies to Nicolaus
Niembsch each year aforementioned at the
place of his residence, wherever this
may be, and in such a way that Nicolaus
Niembsch can receive the money each
time in the month of December.
7. If Ludwig Haberle properly and
accurately fulfills these promises made by
him, he shall have the right to demand
the following benefits from Nicolaus
Niembsch or his eventual heirs:
If Nicolaus Niembsch sells his property
during the eight years of the lease,
which he is at liberty to do, then
Ludwig Haberle has the right to demand one
fifth of the purchase price and besides
this some indemnity for the premature ter-
mination of the lease agreement. If the
property is sold within the first five years
of the lease this indemnity shall amount
to six hundred dollars; if, however, it is
sold during the last three years of the
lease period it shall amount to eight hundred
dollars. If, however, the full eight
years have passed without the land being sold,
then Nicolaus Niembsch has the right to
pay off said Ludwig Haberle in full with
the sum of twelve hundred dollars, so
that, apart from this sum, Haberle has no
further claim on him. This sum must then
be paid within three years after the
expiration of the lease. Niembsch must
pay Haberle interest at five percent on this
Lenau's Ohio
Venture 251
money until the 1200
dollars is paid in full. This 1200 dollars is to be considered
as the equivalent of
the agreed upon fifth of the sale price that Haberle would
have received if the
land had been sold during the eight year lease period. If
Nicolaus Niembsch
should elect to turn over to Ludwig Haberle one fifth of his
land in natura [in
the raw] instead of the 1200 dollars, he is free to do so, and he
may himself select
the fifth of the land and turn it over to Haberle as his property.
In this case,
however, the fifth of the property must be turned over to Ludwig
Haberle immediately
after the end of the eight year period.
8. Ludwig Haberle has
already been compensated for the trips he has made on
business for Nicolaus
Niembsch and for any other trouble that he has taken, and
will, moreover,
regard the operating capital of six hundred dollars already received
as entirely
sufficient compensation for all expenses incurred or to be incurred and
will never make
further demands of Nicolaus Niembsch except those to which the
foregoing 7 points of
this agreement and the following 9th point entitle him.
9. If Nicolaus Niembsch
sells the land after expiration of the lease period, he
shall be obliged to
pay to Ludwig Haberle one fifth of the purchase price received
as his property.
Ludwig Haberle, on the other hand, immediately has no further
claim on Nicolaus
Niembsch, all of his claims having been completely satisfied with
this fifth portion.
10. If, after eight
years have passed, Ludwig Haberle should have cleared only
266 acres, including
the proper fencing of same, then Nicolaus Niembsch will be
satisfied if 34 more
acres remain as forest than Item 2 above stipulates.
WITNESSES
John Schreiber Nicolaus
Niembsch
Joseph Gotz Ludwig
Haberle