The Hauer Family
The Hauer family included five brothers, four of them civil war veterans. They were Andrew, Jacob, Matthias, Nicholas (Klaus) and Nicholas (Nick). The family also had a daughter named Margaret. They moved to the area in 1867
Only Mathias and Nicholas (Klaus) remained in this area after long-term. Andrew moved to Fort Dodge, Iowa and Jacob left and settled near Montgomery. Nicholas (Nick) lived briefly in Iowa before settling in the town of Belle Plaine. In later years he returned to Union Hill and lived with his niece.
The children belonged to Nicholas and Eva Schlinker Hauer who brought their family from Trier, Germany. They first settled in Michigan, but did not like it and moved to St Paul around 1850. Although they remained in Union Hill, the elder Nicholas Hauer is noted as saying for the rest of his life that he wished he had never left St Paul.
In August of 1861, Matthias, Jacob and Andrew enlisted in the Union Army to fight in the Civil War The three boys served with the Minnesota Second Infantry Regiment, and all three were discharged at the end of the conflict in 1865. Nicholas (Klaus) joined them in the military in 1864 when he was drafted into the Minnesota Fourth Infantry Regiment. Amazingly, none of the four sons suffered injury during their time in the military.
In 1865, Matthias was married to Mary Peters of St. Benedict. They were the first couple to be married in St. John's, and although their marriage took place in Union Hill, they had known each other as children and even been neighbors in Germany.
Nicholas (Klaus) Hauer lived to be 96. Before he left for the Civil War, he married Gertrude Renneberg at her home in Shakopee. The couple had ten children: eight sons and two daughters.
The Schoenecker Family
Nicholas Schoenecker is believed to be the first European American settler in the Union Hill area. He arrived from Waxweiler, Germany in 1852 and purchased section 25 of Belle Plaine Township. This land was still in the family over 100 years later.
Six years after his arrival in Union Hill, Nicholas briefly returned to Germany after the death of his father. When he returned, he brought back his mother Katherine, his brother Matt Schoenecker, and Matt’s wife Anna Maria. Katherine passed away in 1868 and was the first adult buried in St John’s Cemetery at Union Hill.
In 1867, Nicholas was elected as spokesman for the community in their attempt to convince the Bishop Grace in St. Paul to assign a permanent priest to the community.
Matt and Anna Maria lived to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. They had five sons and five daughters. Nicholas married Katherina Lochen and they raised a family of six boys
The Witt Family
Carl Witt and their four children came from Wangerin, Germany to LaCrosse, Wisconsin in 1857. In 1859 the family relocated to begin farming in the Birch Coulee area of the Minnesota River Valley in Renville County near Morton, Minnesota. Three years later, Mrs. Whitt was killed by a stray bullet during the US Dakota War of 1862. One of their children, Carl Witt Jr. was also wounded After her death, the family packed up their possessions and moved into Fort Ridgley, where a doctor was able to tend to Carl’s wounds. The family remained for a time at Fort Ridgely, before traveling with other families who had lost their homes in the conflict to New Ulm, and later Belle Plaine.
After a brief stay in Belle Plaine, the Witt family went to stay with Franz Giesen in Union Hill. Carl Witt Sr. later married Mrs. John Giesen, a widow with two children.