Aaron Robison

Tallant 2nd
13 February, 2015
11th language arts

Building McHenry
My family started by Jacob Schmitt emigrating to the U.S.A. on 30 Mar 1808 from his
home in Mayen, Mayen-Koblenz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany with his wife Anna Goedert and
their three children ("Millions of Stories. Find Yours"). From there my family and two others
moved to McHenry, Illinois, just as it was being formed. My familiy along with the Nicolas
Frett and Nicolas Adams families were the first three families to settle in what is now Johnsburg,
McHenry Co., IL. ("Millions of Stories. Find Yours").
When my family first moved out there nothing had been created; my family was starting
from scratch. So the first job my family had was building a farm to live on, and be able to make
some money, and trade for the supplies that they needed. Their farm was located in McHenry
Township, Sec 15, as shown on the 1872 plat map for McHenry Township (Illinois Public
Domain Land Detail Information). Today this location is on the north side of McCullom Lake
Road. A long drive that runs adjacent to the railroad tracks leads up to the farmstead which
burned down just a few years ago. All thats left is the brick work that made up the basement
and the boiler from the basement (Justan, Jack Telephone interview. 20 Feb. 2015). A large
Victorian house with white walls and a large front porch with a deep black roof once sat atop the
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Aaron Robison
Tallant 2nd
13 February, 2015
11th language arts

hillside and looked out across the farm. Jacob would sit on the front porch and watch the cattle
run, and watch the breeze blow across the fields. That can never happen again because, now all
that remains of the old is pile of ashes and the old boiler that used to heat the house above it.
(Murphy, Heidi) The memories of those who knew the house are slowly fading away; to this day
we only have one person left who still knows the stories of what life was like back then and what
the farm looked like back before we lost it to the flames.
My family was a dedicated Catholic Church family; they attended services every Sunday
up until they moved to McHenry. When they first came to McHenry they looked for place to put
a church, but there was not a lot of land that was cleared and ready to go. So they did what they
knew to do: they built one from the ground up. The church started as a small group of just the
original three families that would meet in the farm house every Sunday morning, and they did
that for many years until they raised enough money to buy the land from the US government, and
build the church. The price for the land was 1.25 per acre (Illinois Public Domain Land Detail
Information). The total price for the land ended up being eighty-eight dollars for the land, and
they hired a carpenter to assist in the building for seventy-five dollars. After the money was
raised by the families and by a trust fund that was set up by other cities in the surrounding area,

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Aaron Robison
Tallant 2nd
13 February, 2015
11th language arts

my family and the two others got to work building the new church. Within the next five years,
the church was finished and the first service was held.
The church that my family and the two others built is still standing and still active today.
It actually just celebrated its ninetieth anniversary. Most of my family from that area is buried in
the shadow of that very church, always watching over the place that they built. Nicholas and
Gertrude donated an acre of land for use to the German Catholic Cemetery known as St Marys
Cemetery in McHenry, IL where Jacob is buried. Jacobs gravesite is marked with a McHenry
County Historical plaque (Millions of Stories. Find Yours"), signifying that his was the first of
three families who settled in Johnsburg and his people were the founders of the St John's Parish.

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