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The Encampment (ref 12) On July 25, 1847, the group from Langenholzhausen settled on their land that they purchased from land agents at the Milwaukee Harbor. The land bordered on the Sheboygan River. The Lipper immigrants reportedly encamped along the steep banks of the river. During the days, they cut down many tall pine trees, and started sawing the logs into beams for houses. During the nights, they slept along the steep river banks. They used pine branches to make diagonal roofs that went from the top of the river bank to the ground below. The pine branch roofs gave them protection from the rain. A picture of the steep banks and the river are shown in another section. Friedrich Reineking Loses His Wife (ref 2 and ref 12) Maria Sophia Bilstein, wife of Friedrich Reineking, died in early September just six weeks after arriving at the encampment site. It is believed that she was buried in an unmarked grave near the Reineking encampment site along the Sheboygan River. She was 70 years old. First Winter (ref 2 and ref 12) The Lipper families planned to build houses from their knowledge that they brought with them from Lippe-Detmold. Unfortunately, they were too ambitious. Building houses like those in Langenholzhausen was too difficult with the tools that they brought with them. The name of the town from where most of them came, Langenholzhausen, literally means "long wooden houses." Winter came before any of the Lippers families had a wooden house. Winters in Wisconsin can be very cold and snowy. That winter, the Lippers burrowed further into the steep river banks carving out shallow caves in order to escape the harsh Wisconsin winter weather. They built foliage walls a meter thick around the caves. Many days they could not leave their shelters because of cold and deep snow. When the weather permitted, wooden roof shingles were made and pulled to cities such as Sheboygan and Milwaukee to be sold. The colony shared two oxen named Fitz and Pieter for the job of pulling sleds of shingles to the cities. They used some of the money to buy some farm animals such as cows and pigs. Sometime during the winter, the Lipper immigrants found fresh water springs to supply them with drinking water. The Sheboygan River, of course, would have frozen over. As for food to eat, they had to slaughter most of their animals that they bought in the last few months. The animals had nothing to feed the animals so they were sacrificed to feed the people. When the animals were gone, the people ate leaves and foliage to fill their aching stomachs. The Lipper immigrants took time to study the Bible and the Heidelberg Catechism in their foliage-protected shelters every afternoon. Undoubtedly, they found strongly needed comfort in God's Word that sustained them in the nearly unbearable conditions. Another Death in the Wilderness (ref 12) During the first winter, another Lipper, Friedrich Stock, died. He was not buried until the spring when the ground was thawed. He was buried in an unmarked grave. It is likely, but not definitely known, that he may be buried near the grave of Maria Sophia Bilstein who died in September, 1847. Springtime (ref 12) The weather finally broke, and everyone in the Lipper colony gave thanks for surviving the winter on one sunny warm afternoon at an outdoor worship service. Everyone in the colony immediately continued the work of building permanent wooden houses. Now, however, they learned new building techniques from the Yankees (people from the eastern US) who lived in the area and the surrounding cities where they sold their roof shingles. The Lippers learned how to build homes more efficiently and quickly. Many, if not all, of the Lipper families had a wooden house in which to live in 1848. One of the first houses completed was for Friedrich Reineking and his family of two daughters and three sons. Friedrich Reineking's house was used as a sort of community center for the Lipper colony. It was used for worship services for the colony and also for baptisms and marriages. Indeed, the first marriage in the Lipper colony was between Friedrich Stock (son of the deceased Friedrich Stock) and Friedrich Reineking's daughter, Catharine Amalia Reineking. The Freidrich Reineking's house was probably located very close to the Sheboygan River near where the Reineking family encamped the first winter. One account of the original Lipper settlers claim that the first winter was mild and the second winter was harsh. In this account, the first semi-permanent wooden house in these stories was built after the second winter. This account is discounted because it is difficult to imagine that the Lippers would wait an additional year to build their first wooden houses. Encampment by the River |
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