My great-great grandfather, Mathias Mahowald IV came to the USA from Luxembourg with his three brothers and a sister 101 years before I was born.  He was 22 years old, a skilled carpenter, surveyor and stone mason but he could not find work in his homeland.  Europe had widespread famine and depression.  He decided to go to the United States.  They traveled to St. Louis and then went up the Mississippi River by steamboat to Reeds Landing and then to Jackson, Minnesota before statehood.  They built a log house and were always ready to help immigrants as they arrived from Luxembourg and Prussia.  A new family was welcomed and able to sleep in the Mahowald's barn and draw water from their well for cooking and washing.  There was plenty of work for everyone and the Mahowalds were hard workers.  They sent money back to Simmern, Luxembourg for their families and also to provide the fare for their two cousins who arrived in 1854.  Jackson became known as New Market Township in Scott County, MN.  I am proud of my heritage and have visited the town they came from, renamed at the time of WWII to Septfontaine, Luxembourg.  I felt I had been there before and realized the town in Minnesota was laid out almost exactly as the one in Europe.  The church on a hill surrounded by the cemetery with a school below the hill.  The only difference is the town in Luxembourg had a castle.  My ancestors were most likely peasants who worked the land for the lord who lived in the castle.

– Catherine Mahowald

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more