Lone headstone marks final resting place of Germania’s first settler
by Trinity Gruenberg
There is a lone headstone next to the ditch on County Road 24—not far from the County Road 11 intersection. A large American flag flies overhead, marking the last grave of a former cemetery and the founder of Germania township.
The headstone marks the burial plot of Johann “John” Paul Steinbach, Germania’s first settler.
Steinbach was born in Saxony, Germany, in 1828 and immigrated with his parents to Wisconsin in 1846.
When Steinbach turned 16, the Civil War broke out, and he enlisted in Co. D., 44th Wisconsin Infantry. Making an excellent record for himself, he was discharged on September 17, 1865, with the rank of Corporal. He actively served from September 1864 through June 1865.
In June 1877, Steinbach settled on a homestead in the northeast quarter of Section 8, which would become Germania. Two years later, his first neighbor arrived, Samuel H. Hamilton, followed by Lewis N. Shelly, Jacob Egley, and August Lubke, several other first settlers of Germania.
Steinbach suggested naming the town Germania after the ship that carried his parents across the Atlantic.
A meeting was held at Steinbach’s in February 1879 to organize the first school, the Pioneer School, School District 59, with Hamilton as the first teacher.
Steinbach’s oxen died shortly after he arrived in 1877, and in the early 1880s, four of his children died from Diphtheria. In 1883, his oldest son, David, was murdered....
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