When husband William Henry died at 48 in 1835, it may be assumed his mercantile business in Hamburg, Germany, was sold. Perhaps the proceeds enabled Henrietta to bring her family to America. She and the children, William H. (21), Emma (15), Edward G. (11) and Charles E. (8) spent 10 weeks crossing the briney deep.
Economic conditions in Hamburg, as in all of Europe, were experiencing major changes in rural and urban markets at the time. Commercial rather than subsistence farming resulted in the rise of large estates, increasing the price of land. The growth of the nascent industrial revolution resulted in cities over-crowded with factory workers, largely unskilled from rural areas. Improved transportation promoted distribution of factory-made products; the skilled artisan found a dwindling market. European population as a whole was increasing. One cannot imagine the heart-rending decision brave Henrietta had to make; whether to stay in the ancestral country or to avail her family of the opportunities on the other side of the ocean. They found themselves aligned with many of this areas settlers searching for a place to breathe life into a brighter future in which they had more control.
Christmas Day, 1840, finds the family in the log home, most likely built from timber on the newly purchased 80 acres of the E 1/2 NE 1/4 of section 34 in Genoa Township. Some comfort must have been found in the several other settlers from Hamburg and other German cities within a few miles radius. Henrietta was friendly to Indian visitors . . . who frequented their door and (she) fed them with a kindly hand. Sons William and Charles seem to have been the suppliers of meat for the family; shooting bears, deer, wolves and turkeys. Upon her death in 1860 she is among the first Beurmanns buried in Chilson Cemetery. Twenty family members are interred nearby.
Son Charles E., by providing much labor in 1873, kept the cost of a fine brick house, built on the site of the log cabin, at $4,000.00 The site is on the south side of Brighton Rd., about one mile west of Bauer Road. Charles and Phidelia Hoagland had 11 children. His siblings were not so prolific. Even today one finds Henriettas descendants in the area.
Compiled by Marieanna Bair from the 1891 Biographic and Portrait Album; atlases; Early Settlers and Land Owners of Livingston County by Milton Charboneau and the Chilson Cemetery transcription by Gladys M. Reeve.