Jacob Neisinger II

Jacob and Gertrude Eberhardt Neisinger. Picture taken at Wahpeton, Dakota Territory 1887, ages 51 and 50 years old respectively.
  • BIRTH  7 Feb 1836 Schwabsburg, Landkreis Mainz-Bingen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
  • DEATH 13 Jul 1917 (aged 81) Lidgerwood, Richland County, North Dakota, USA
  • BURIAL Stine Cemetery Lidgerwood, Richland County, North Dakota, USA 

Son of German farmers Jakob Neisinger Sr. and Eva Mary Benz. His entire immediate family (parents, two brothers, three sisters) immigrated to America during the 1860’s. His father died during the 1870’s in Wisconsin and his mother died much later in Pelican Rapids, MN at age 88 years old.

Jacob married twice; firstly in 1864 in Germany to Gertrude Eberhardt (1837-1900) and later in 1902 in Lidgerwood, North Dakota to widow Katherine Bucher (1847-1935). Jacob died in 1917 at age 81 years old from liver cancer and is buried next to Gertrude in Stine Cemetery one mile north of Lidgerwood. 2nd wife Katherine is buried at the Canadian border in Roseau, MN, 270 miles distance from Lidgerwood.

Jacob and Gertrude grew up in proximity to each other in Germany, in the Rhine River Valley countryside maybe thirty-five miles southwest of Frankfurt. Their families lived in community inside their respective small hamlets and trekked out each day to work their fields. Jacob’s family lived in Schwabsburg and attended Catholic Church in Dexheim, a village south of their home. Gertrude’s family were Lutheran and lived seven miles south near Eimsheim.

In 1867, with three small children in tow, they traveled to Antwerp, Belgium for passage to America. They traveled with Jacob’s brother Christian Peter Neisinger (known as Peter to the family), and his four small children. Apparently, his wife had died before making the trip or for some reason she was not recorded on the manifest.

After arriving in New York City, Peter remained in the city finding work as a laborer, while Jacob immediately brought his family west as far as LaCrosse County, WI, Barre Township, 5 miles southeast of tiny Bangor, where they farmed and over the next twelve years, birthed at least three more girl children. In 1879, they relocated via train, possibly using new St. Paul and Pacific RR passenger service, to Richland County, Dakota Territory and homesteaded.

Their first Dakota home was a sod home in the “great wide open” of Belford Township where their last child, Elizabeth, was likely born. Fifteen years later, in 1894, Jacob and Gertrude sold their homestead for a nice profit (expanded to over three-hundred acres) and moved seven miles west to Dexter Township where they built a small new home within a quarter mile of their newly married daughter Emma Gully.

After Gertrude’s death in 1900, Jacob moved into nearby Lidgerwood where he built a house, successfully bought and sold building lots and expanded his bootlegging business for which he did serve jail time. (North Dakota was a dry state long before National Prohibition). Jacob was a feisty fellow. By local standard and according to two newspaper inferences, he was also considered a wealthy, retired farmer.

The corner home he built circa 1901 in Lidgerwood’s NW neighborhood remained in the family and was lived in by family for 95 years. It is still there today, kitty-korner from St. Boniface Church property. It is no longer owned by family.

Jacob Neisinger with granddaughter Rachel Neisinger. Photo circa 1893. Jacob and his wife Gertrude raised Rachel from infancy. At age three months old, she was abandoned by their eighteen year old and oldest daughter Julianna who bore Rachel out of wedlock. Rachel’s father was never identified. Julianna disappeared and was never heard from again. The family suspected foul play, wondering what happened to her — she never said goodbye — but as one relative mentioned, “..they never found a boy.” One day, Julianna simply disappeared forever. Rachel grew to woman hood in North Dakota and then moved to the cities. She married in her twenties, never had any children, lived a good life, and died in Florida in her eighties. She of course never knew either of her parents remembering her grandparents fondly.
The Large group picture was taken in 1917 at Jacob Neisinger’s funeral in Lidgerwood, ND in front of his home. Back Row: Paul, Emma Gully, Rachel Kerwin (Jacob’s granddaughter) and Annie Rieflin Mowrey, Front Row: Jake, Elizabeth Mollenkopf, Katharina (also spelled Catheryren) Held Bucher Neisinger (Jacob’s second wife), Christine Woidtke (Katharina’s daughter) and Katherine Morrow

written by Gregory Dorr (Copied from findagrave.com)