The Habegger Story (from Switzerland to America)
...who through faith obeyed the call to go out to a land destined for themselves and their heirs, and left home without knowing where they were to go.
(Adapted from Hebrews 11:8 NEB)
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Left Switzerland April 11, 1876 and arrived in Berne, Indiana May 29, 1876
The Habegger home "Auf der Fluh" on the Münsterberg. The Peter Habegger family left this home in 1876 to come to America. This home was destroyed by fire in the late 1940s and a newer construction has replaced it. WE MOVE TO AMERICA In 1875 the Swiss Government made a new law. Every able young man of twenty years had to do military service. Before this we Mennonites were exempt, but were required to pay some military tax. But now the government demanded that we go into service. In the spring of 1876 I would be compelled to go. And one after another of my younger brothers would become old enough and would have to go. So a number of the Mennonite families decided to leave Switzerland and go to America. We corresponded with our relatives in America and they urged us to come. Father was a prominent, successful farmer, well liked in the community. It was hard for him to decide to leave. First he considered sending Solomon and me to America and perhaps follow us later on. But mother, as well as we, did not like that plan. My older brother, Abraham, was married and had three boys. He was ready to go to America at any time. Peter, my next brother, was also married and had one son, Christali. He wanted to go too but his wife and her parents were opposed to their leaving. So it was difficult to decide what to do. (Peter's wife's father, Jacob Moser, was tempted to come along but was lost one night enroute to market with a herd of cattle. He was not found till we had been in America for some time. He had fallen over a cliff to his death.) I remember that one evening we had a long conference together. My father's mother was living with us, and she, being almost eighty years old, (she was actually 86 years old) was too old to come along to America. Arrangements were made to take her to her daughter Anna's home. She was the wife of Abraham Oberli and mother of Peter Isaak and Louis. After long and serious deliberation father finally decided that evening that we would all go to America. So father informed the land owners that in spring we were moving to America. They did not like that. They urged father to stay. Also father's brother Hans and family did not like to see us go and they urged him to stay. Uncle Hans and father owned the farm on which Hans lived. If we would go to America Uncle Hans would have to buy out father, and he did not like to do that. All these problems made it difficult for my father. But he had made his decision and he began making preparations to sell everything. Uncle Hans, father of Schwitzer David, Peter and Chris, bought him out. Then our little farm, Berse, (Le Perceux) was sold too, and we prepared to make a public sale. In Switzerland they do not sell things as fast as they do in America. Everything is sold separately and they do not let it go at one or two bids. It requires a long while to sell a farmer's outfit. In this two day's sale everything was excepting what we needed to use before we left. We made big boxes to pack our belongings that we wanted to take along. Father collected all accounts possible. Our American relatives advised father to take as much of his money as was possible along in gold. At that time gold had about twenty percent more value that American paper money. So father did his best to get gold mney. We sewed the money into muslin cloth belts. A few days before we left father made another sale, this time to sell the balance of what was left of the first two days sale. Then we finished packing. Father sold his sale account (Steigerig Rodal) and finished his financial affairs. We strapped our money belts around our naked bodies, father, Solomon, and I each having one. These belts we kept on our bodies all the way. Finally the important day to leave the old home in Switzerland was at hand. On Tuesday morning, April 11, 1876, our whole family was loaded on a big wagon and taken to the county seat, Delemont. Father looked back with tears in his eyes as he gave a farewell glance at the old home. From Delemont we took the train for Basel. The next day we arived there and spent about half of the day there. Father had some business with the ship agent. I bought a diary from a street stand so I could keep a brief account of our journey. I still have it, pencil and all. At Basel we took a train for Paris and Havre, where we were to embark. The ship agent of Basel, with whom father had contracted for the journey, came along with us. The next morning we arrived in Paris. The ship agent took us on a sight seeing trip through the city. We went up into a high tower, 292 steps up. There we had a good nice view over the big city of Paris. It was very interesting to me. Never before had I seen such a sight. In the evening we drove to the depot to take the train, and it was snowing fast. I was up with the driver on the high seat of the bus wagon. It was interesting for me to sit up there. We had no sleeping car and slept the best we could. It was hard for the little children. On the morning of April 14, on Friday we arrived in Havre. In the afternoon we boarded a German ship. It was a combined steam and sailing ship. At that time it was one of the better ocean liners. We traveled third class. (The group of 70 Mennonites were given one large room on the ship.) Towards evening our ship sailed out of the harbor. Soon some began to feel seasick. It did not affect me and I was well all through the journey. The weather was very favorable for six days and the ship made good time. Then on the night of April 21 we had a severe storm. In the morning it was quiet again, but the ship was standing still. Some deck railing had broken off, and the water propeller, which drove the ship, was broken off. Steam power could not be used any more. So the ship crew pulled up all the sails, and the ship turned east, traveling to Plymouth, England. This was the nearest harbor. Here the ship was repaired. It was a slow tedious journey to Plymouth. Traveling by sail power was very slow, although the weather was nice. After going in this manner for six days a big steamship appeared going east. Our officers pulled up the flag signal for help. The steamer stopped and some of our officers went over in a boat. After a while they came back and the steamer went on. We kept on going for five more days, when on May 4 at 3:00 P.M. a small steamer came to meet our ship. Towards evening another small steamer came to meet our ship, and the two were hitched to our ship and pulled us into the harbor. The next day we arrived at the Plymouth harbor. They worked for three days to make the repairs on our ship. During this time we had an opportunity to see the city of Plymouth. We walked around in groups. It was amusing for us, as well as for the city people. When we would stop at some place a crowd of city people would soon be standing around us and we would gaze at each other. We Swiss mountain people with our heavy home made clothing were quite differently dressed than the English city folks. We ate and slept in the ship, but otherwise we were free. On Tuesday, May the 9th at 5 P.M. our ship left Plymouth for a new ocean journey. It had been reloaded with provisions for the new journey. Now we had good weather all the way and the ship made good time. We arrived in New York on Friday, May 19, 1876. This double journey of five long weeks was hard time for some of the people on the ship. It was especially trying for mothers and small children. On the second journey from Plymouth to New York, the measles broke out. Many people became very sick. All of our family had had the measles so we escaped. On this journey we were six Mennonite families, a few newly married couples, and a few other young people (a total of 70 persons.) We were a bunch of young lively folks, most of us deeping well the entire journey. When the weather was nice we had our good times on the deck. We played games and stunts and did a lot of singing. We also helped the sailors pull up the sail cloth and again let it down when bad weather came. The sailors like us. When they wanted to pull up the sails they called for the Swiss boys. We enjoyed helping them. The higher class people like to hear us sing. I remember they called us up to the upper deck to sing for them. We sang our Swiss folk songs and, of course, some yodels. They were delighted to hear us, and we were happy to sing for them. They treated us with bottles of beer. So we all had a fine time. At New York City father had quite a little job to get our baggage from the ship and transfer it to the train.
MAKING A HOME NEAR BERNE, INDIANA
The Habegger home near Berne, Indiana. It was farmed by three generations of Habeggers. The original barn was destroyed by fire in 1902. It remained in the Habegger family from 1876 until 1949.
When we left Switzerland, father's plan had been to go to relatives in Hickory County, Missouri and settle down at that place. (Mother Elisabeth's half-brother Peter S. Lehman was the pastor of the Mennonite congregation near Elkton.) But we also had some relatives and friends in Wayne County, Ohio. All the other Mennonite people in our company wanted to go to Ohio so father said we would make a short stop there too. We arrived at Orrville, Ohio (May 24, 1876) the day after leaving New York City. We were a group of more than fifty people. The Sonnenberg farmers came with wagons to take us to the Swiss settlement. Father was taken to the Peter Hofstetter family. Mrs. Hofstetter was a first cousin to father. When he told of his plan to go on to Hickory County, Missouri, the Sonnenberg people advised him not to go there. They said it was stony, hilly country and it would be hard to make a living. Besides, there was no market near where the Swiss folks had settled. Father had also planned to stop at Berne in Adams County, Indiana. My parents had many close relatives there. These people had left Switzerland about twenty-five years before. After we visited at Sonnenberg for about a week, father, brothers Abraham and Peter with their families, left for Berne, Indiana (arriving May 29, 1876). Here the relatives welcomed us warmly and earnestly advised them all not to go to Missouri. They also said the land was not good and the settlement was far from any good market. The relatives offered father help and urged him to buy land for $40 or $45 an acre for which he paid cash in full. The gold we carried with us from Switzerland father exchanged for American money at Decatur. There the bankers secured a Holthouse who spoke German to serve as an interpreter for father whom they referred to for some time as the "Gold Habegger." The buildings on the farm were poor, there being only a small old log house and an old log barn. Some of the fields were in bad condition as there were many stumps with thick woodsy growth. We moved on our farm at once and all began to work to improve the place. But we were ignorant about the methods American farming so our progress was a little slow. During the summer we cut down trees, made logs, and hauled them to the sawmill to get the lumber ready to build a house. In the early fall father got two carpenters to build our house, which was to have four rooms. The weather was very damp that fall and there were many mosquitoes. Nearly all of our family got the "shuettle fieber" (a malarial fever). It was a hard time for us. Father felt very bad and then he got homesick for Switzerland. That winter we prepared to build a big barn. We boys cut down many trees, made logs, and hauled them to the sawmill. Father hired carpenters to prepare timber for the barn frame. At times I helped cut timber. One day I missed aim and cut into my right foot and nearly cut off two toes. A doctor took care of the wound and I had to stay in the house for two weeks. It healed up nicely again. It was quite difficult for us boys to get all the timber and lumber and stone ready for the barn. Father could not help much as he felt bad all winter. Every once in a while I got back the fever. I remember one time when I drove with our team west to the Wabash River to get a load of stone I had an attack of the fever. I shook so I had to stop loading stone for a while. Then when I finally finished loading the stone and was ready to drive home I had a high fever which lasted all the way home. So our early years in America were not all easy ones. But in the early part of the second summer a good big barn was built. We boys became accustomed to American farm work and things began to look better for us. We stored the hay in the new barn and also harvested grain and hauled it into the barn. Later in the fall we threshed the grain out of the barn. So we had a nice barn in which to feed our stock in the winter. During that second winter when the weather was nice we boys worked in the fields, cleaning some of the stumps and shrubbery. We accomplished quite a bit in getting the farm cleaned up that winter. From the book "The History, Ancestry and Descendants of Peter Habegger and Elisabeth Lehman" written and compiled by David L. Habegger and presented at the 100th year Habegger reunion in 1976. |
HABEGGER NAME ORIGIN
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HABEGGER: Feeding into the Emme is a stream named Ilfis. It is on the hills and valleys that feed into this stream that the Habeggers lived. One kilometer from the village of Barau is a farm complex on a hill named Habegg. It is from this farm that we received our family name. In Switzerland each farm or farm complex has a name. The family or families living on that farm are known by the name of the farm. In the middle ages common people did not have family names. When distinctions needed to be made between persons, family names were added. The name of the farm they were living on frequently became the source of that name. Even today when a farmer goes to town he will frequently be called by the name of the farm rather than by his family name. The name Habegg is a shortened form of Habichtegg which Hawk Ridge. The Habegg farm is on a hill rising from the valleys to the west and south. It is the shoulder of a higher hill named Riegenen. Hawks can be seen soring on the air currents coming from the valley to the west. The hawk is able to remain motionless by balancing on the upward moving breeze. It was probably from such a common sight that the hill was given its name. It is a place where hawks have been coming for centuries to hunt for rodents. Habegger definition from the book "The History, Ancestry and Descendants of Peter Habegger and Elisabeth Lehman" by David L. Habegger |
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