Families of emigrants camped at the port of Le Havre, 18431
Johann Fuchs (1777-1847) and his wife Anna Maria (Schüller) Fuchs (1788-1860) immigrated to America from Langenfeld, Germany in the fall of 1840. They probably made their way via the Erie Canal to Buffalo, New York, where they spent the winter of 1840/1841. Johann wrote several letters home to his grown children, and his relatives and neighbors. In these glowing letters he espoused the abundance and virtues of America in hopes of persuading them to make the same journey.
In the 1930s, researcher Joseph Scheben solicited letters received by families in Germany from their relatives in America. He studied several hundred such letters to trace the origin and final destination of German emigrants in America. One community he studied was Westphalia, in Clinton County, Michigan just west of St. Johns. It so happens Johann and Anna Maria Fuchs settled in Westphalia in the spring of 1841. Scheben studied at least one letter by Johann Fuchs and found it so endearing that he transcribed it in his book about the community. He calls Johann Fuchs the Father of Immigration.
Footnotes- New York Public Library Digital Gallery, Digital Image ID #833602 (http://digitalgallery.nypl.org).