Immigration to the Batesville area peaked in the mid-1 800s, and the new country began to shape the lives of the immigrantsjust as they transformed the countryside.

The railroad made its appearance in this region in 1853. New towns sprang up along the route.  Batesville was platted in 1852;Spades was established in 1855; Sunman was platted in 1856.  Springfieldwas re-named Morris and platted in 1858.

Oldenburg had become a center for Catholic faith and missionsin southeastern Indiana.  In 1851 a convent was established at Oldenburg,and in 1866 the Franciscan fathers established a friary in what was theold stone church which remains standing today.

Three of the most notable priests in this region wereFather Joseph Ferneding from Ihorst, Holdorf Parish, Oldenburg, Germany;Father Franz Joseph Rudolph from Bettenheim, Alsace; and Father XavierWeninger from Austria.

Father Ferneding was the first pastor of St. Paul's Churchat New Alsace, and he established many of the Catholic Churches in southeasternIndiana.  Father Rudolph was the priest at Oldenburg from 1844 to1866 during which time Oldenburg developed into a Catholic center. Father Weninger began his missionary career at Oldenburg, the first ofover 800 missions he held throughout America.

Among the churches established in this area was St. Joseph'schapel at St. Leon in 1841, although for a while it remained part of DoverParish.  St. Anthony's Church at present day Morris was built in 1856. Missions were established at Enochsburg in 1844, St. Maurice in 1859, andHamburg in 1869.  St. Louis Church in Batesville had its beginningin 1870.

The history of the establishment of the early Catholicchurches has been well documented in a history entitled "Growth and Developmentof the Western Missions of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati" written by SisterDorothea Marie Bockhorst.  It is available at the Batesville PublicLibrary.

A variety of Protestant churches were established in thearea as well.  The predominant faith among Protestant Germans waseither Lutheran or Evangelical Protestant.  However, both the Baptistsand Methodists made in-roads into their numbers.  A good example ofthese relations among Protestant churches is found in the Sunman vicinity:

St. Paul's United Methodist Congregation was establishedsouth of Sunman in the early 1830s primarily by families of English descent. It met in houses and schools around Clinton until a church was built atits present site two miles south of Sunman in 1870.

In 1858 the Sunman community erected the first churchbuilding in the Town of Sunman.  It was a brick church which was opento all denominations and was also used as a town hall.

The Baptists were the first congregation to use the brickchurch, but they eventually folded.  In 1895 the Methodists also usedit for about five years.  The membership of these two congregationswas primarily of German descent.  The old brick church was razed aboutthe turn of the century.

The Christian Union Church (now known as the CommunityChurch) was established in Sunman in 1890 using the old brick church asa meeting place.  They erected their own building in 1898.

For a while the children of some ethnically German familieswould attend Sunday School at the Community Church in Sunman, but theirparents would send them to the Evangelical Protestant church at Penntownfor confirmation classes.  Today the membership of both St. Paul'sMethodist Church and the Community Church is primarily of German descent.

There is no burial ground in the town of Sunman. Consequently the cemetery at St. Paul's Methodist Church, Hubble's Lutherancemetery, and the Penntown Evangelical Protestant (U.C.C.) churchyard remainthe burying places for most of the ethnically German as well as nonGermanfamilies in the Sunman area.
 

In the 1850s immigrants continued to come from many partsof Germany, including Westphalia and Prussia which previously had not seenmuch immigration to this area.  However, immigration began to declinein the years just preceding the American Civil War.

Many of the German immigrants served their new homelandin the Civil War, particularly with the 83rd Indiana Regiment which waswith General Sherman at Vicksburg and followed him through Georgia andSouth Carolina to the sea.  It seems quite appropriate that JohannFriedrich Brinkmann from Venne, Germany, who built the Sherman House inBatesville at its present location should have named it in honor of theUnion General under whom many of the immigrants served their new country.

Around this time the grandchildren of the early Englishimmigrants began to intermarry with the children of the German Protestantimmigrants.  John Sunman Jr.'s daughters Fanny, Minerva, Gertrude,and Alice all married the sons of Germans.

Land in Indiana had been occupied and settled long beforethe war.  Many of the English families had already left for Missouriand other western states before the war.  After the war, some of thechildren of the German immigrants left Indiana for new land in Kansas,Iowa, and Missouri.  A new kind of separation was occurring, not withthe homeland in Germany, but with the communities in southeastern Indiana.

Nevertheless, the ties with this area were strong: Letterswere written relating to family matters and property and often expressinghomesickness.  An inheritance might be received in Indiana from afamily which left years earlier.  A young man in Kansas City named"Sunman Rowe" attests to the remembrance of the maiden name of his great,great grandmother from Ripley County.
 

The pattern of settlement before the war largely determinedthe population of this part of Indiana into the 1900s.  German immigrationto this area continued in part because previous German immigrants had settledhere.  Post Civil War immigrants tended to come from a variety ofplaces in northern Germany now known simply as Prussia after the Prussiantakeover of northern Germany in 1866.  Some left to escape Prussianrule.

Throughout this period the immigrants applied for U.S.citizenship, renouncing all allegiance "to any foreign Prince or Potentateand particularly to_____________". (The name of the foreign King such asthe King of Prussia was written in the blank.)

History became more localized as the important eventstook place in individual communities rather than affecting the area asa whole.  Tradesmen came to the towns: merchants, doctors, wagonmakers,cigar makers, bricklayers, blacksmiths.  Oldenburg opened its Academy. Sunman experienced a devastating fire in 1905, and Batesville became industrialized. The woodworking craft in Batesville emerged into the 20th century as amajor industry with furniture, hospital equipment, and caskets.

Over the years more people of Irish and English descentcame from the southern states.  Originally they came from Virginiathrough Kentucky and later from Kentucky and Tennessee.  They broughtwith them a variety of churches, many of them Baptist.  Other nationalitiesarrived with the coming of the railroads and industrialization.

Many families moved from surrounding communities and thecountryside to Batesville.  Marriages occurred between communities. Improved transportation and school consolidation furthered this processin recent years.  Citizens of this area frequently trace their ancestryto more than one of these immigrant groups.

Many of the descendants of the early English and Germanimmigrants left for the cities of Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and elsewhere. People of other origins came from the cities, particularly to Batesvillewhich had developed a manufacturing base.  Others came to live inthis area and commute to larger cities.

Although immigration continued, there was no longer anyhuge influx of people from one particular place outside the area. The families of the earlier immigrants provided most of the populationgrowth.  The period of mass movements to the area had ceased. Consequently, the German immigrant culture has remained the predominantone in the Batesville vicinity.
 

Today, northern Ripley, northwestern Dearborn, and southwesternFranklin counties remain the center of a significant population descendedfrom German immigrants.  Ripley County as a whole has the second highestpercentage of German ancestry of any county in the state, second only toDubois County in southwestern Indiana.  In the 1980 census 53 % ofits people claimed some German ancestry and 341/2 % claimed only Germanancestry.

Franklin County as a whole has the 4th highest percentageof population with German ancestry. 51 % of its people claim some Germanancestry and 33 % claim only German ancestry.  This compares to 341/2% of the people of Indiana who claim some German ancestry and 131/2% whoclaim only German ancestry.

However, in the area around Batesville, these percentagesare much higher: 74% of the 10,741 people in Laughery, Adams and Ray Townshipsclaim some German ancestry and 60% claim only German ancestry!  Thisis the area of heaviest north German settlement.

Further east, 70% of the 4,882 people in Jackson, Kelsoand York Townships of Dearborn County and Highland Township of FranklinCounty claim some German ancestry, and 50% claim only German ancestry. South German settlement was particularly strong in these townships.

Heavy German settlement extends beyond these seven townshipsand encompasses about 300 square miles in northern Ripley, southern Franklin,and northwestern Dearborn counties.  It extends from Yorkville, NewAlsace, and St. Leon in the east, to Napoleon and Enochsburg in the west,and from Peppertown and Klemme's Corner in the north to Stumpke's Cornerand Fink's Church in the south.  There are approximately 20,000 peoplein this entire area of whom 2/3 claim some German ancestry and 1/2 claimsole German ancestry.  Significant German ancestry is also found inDecatur County communities such as Millhousen.

The other significant ancestral groups today in this areaare the English and those who claim some Irish ancestry.  About aquarter of the population in Ripley and Franklin counties claim some Englishancestry and about 14% only English ancestry.  About 19% claim someIrish ancestry, but less than 5% claim only Irish ancestry.

The next largest group are of French origin. 4% of thepopulation in these two counties claim some French ancestry, but less than1% claim only French ancestry.  Some of these may even be of Germanancestry from Alsace in France.  People may change the way they reporttheir origins in the census when political control of their ancestral homelandchanges.

Finally, there are only 80 to 160 residents of these twocounties who claim solely Dutch, Italian, Scotch, or Polish origin, respectively. Other groups are smaller still.  Twelve percent of the respondentsto the census in Ripley and Franklin counties did not report their ancestryat all.  Thus, the present population of Batesville and the surroundingcommunities is overwhelmingly German in origin.

The next two chapters will deal specifically with thehistory of the north German ancestors of many of the Batesville area families. The first concerns their religious history.  The second concerns theirpolitical and economic history.