On January 2, 1855, sixty-nine people left Scherzheim, Germany, a small village set in the Upper Rhine Valley in the southwest part of the grand duchy of Baden. They faced a four thousand mile journey across the Atlantic and much uncertainty as to what lay ahead.  Some embraced the opportunity of a new life, while others were bitter about being forced to leave their homeland.

The mayor of Scherzheim at the time was Christian Bertsch, a 54 year old father of three sons and four daughters who had been elected In 1844. By the spring of 1847 a terrible famine had broken out in Germany. Mayor Bertsch organized help for the poor of his village and founded one of the first municipal soup kitchens in the state of Baden. But times were tough, and an increasing number of families, already plagued by years of harvest failures and a failed revolution, fell deeper into poverty.

Between 1832 and 1854, 280 people had already left Scherzheim voluntarily to find a better life in America.  Many corresponded with family back in Germany, encouraging them to come and telling of the prosperity they could find in America if they were willing to work hard.  

By 1854, there was no money left to care for the poorest of the village’s remaining citizens. Nevertheless, constitutional law required towns to care for the poor. As unemployment worsened, there simply was no prospect for improving the situation of these poor families. 

This situation was widespread throughout Baden, so much so that the state government offered special loans to municipalities to pay for the complete travel costs for the poorest ten percent of their town’s citizens. The loans, however, were available only through December 31, 1854. Once appropriated, they could be distributed for travel after that date, but there would be no opportunity for further application in the year 1855.

On September 29, 1854, Mayor Bertsch presided over a meeting of the community council and a small committee appointed to study the government offer. Together they established the necessity to help the poor families start a new and better life in the USA as well as to help the community by relieving it of its crushing duty of day-to-day support for them in Germany. They concluded that the community would have a chance to rebuild only by accepting the state’s offer. 

The council identified fourteen families eligible to emigrate to the USA at the cost of the community. Eleven families agreed to go. Three families refused the offer and stayed in Scherzheim, aware that they would be completely on their own. The offer of a new life in America was the last offer the community was able to make.

The eleven families who emigrated left Scherzheim on January 2, 1855.  They traveled with four families from the nearby village of Lichtenau whose fate had also been decided by their government.  This is their story.