About

Kleinpeter Family History

During the reign of LouisXIV, the area along the French and German borders of the Rhine River was in constant turmoil. War, famine, disease, poverty and religious oppression caused as many as fifteen thousand people to leave their homeland. They sought passage to the English colonies of America.

Johann Georg and Gertrude Hetz Kleinpeter of Strassburg, Germany were among those seeking a better way of life for their family in America. They, with their children, left sometime after the year 1759 and settled in Frederic County, Maryland. At that time in England and in the British Colony of Maryland, it was impossible for Catholics to have religious freedom. Subjects who did not practice the faith of the crowned heads had their property confiscated and faced imprisonment.

Meanwhile in the Catholic Louisiana Territory, the first Spanish Governor, Antonio de Ulloa, came to the immense and sparsely populated area in 1766. Seeking settlers, he gladly welcomed the Acadian Catholic Exiles, who had been deported from Acadia in 1755. When word of the large Spanish land grants being given to new Catholic settlers in the Louisiana reached the Acadian and German settlers in Maryland, some of them chose to take their families to this new territory, where they would have the freedom to practice their Catholic faith.

In 1769 sixteen Acadian families, seven German families and six German bachelors sailed on the Ship Bretana to the Port of Orleans. One of these German pioneers was Nicolas Ory, who settled in Iberville Parish. Upon his death three years later, his son and son-in-law returned to Maryland to settle his estate. They enticed other German families in Maryland to make the move to Louisiana with them. Among these were the families of Johann and Gertrude Kleinpeter and Paul and Catherine (Ory) Sharp.

Spanish Documents and family oral and written history tell us of the incredible journey taken by these German pioneers.

They departed their home in Haggerstown, Maryland and travelled to Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania, where they stayed for 5-6 weeks while a barge was built to carry the families down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. They made their departure July 1, 1774 and upon the advice of an Indian guide, they travelled by night to avoid the hostile Indians. Spanish documents list the 21 travellers and their ages. Johann and Gertrude and their ten children made the journey along with Paul Sharp ,his second wife, Catherine and his children. They arrived in the heat of August 1774 and soon most were very sick with fever. Johann and three of his children died soon after arriving in Louisiana.

In a letter to the Spanish governor, Commandant Dustine states that he had tried to offer them land grants in the Lafourche de Chitimancha district, but they steadfastly refused stating that they had come to join their relatives and settle near them. They were given land grants above Bayou Plaquemine where they were, “getting along very well” and had started building a church on November 20.

The Kleinpeter’s faith brought them to Louisiana where their close ties with their family helped them to settle the region. They set about the task of farming. They were hard working people. They realized that the location of their original land grants, where the land is only five feet above sea level, left them at the mercy of the flooding of the river.

The men began to clear land on higher ground on the bluffs of the river along Bayou Fountain. They were given new Spanish land grants in that area. After they cleared the land, they brought their families over and built houses. This area became known as the “Dutch Highlands”. As one drives along Highland Road today, it is this very land that these settlers cleared so long ago. They were industrious farmers growing both cotton and sugar cane successfully.

To trace the history of the land that is to become The Settlement one must recall the original settlers that travelled by barge in 1774 and see their relationships. Travelling on board with their families were two fourteen year olds that would eventually marry: John Baptiste Kleinpeter, Sr. and Catherine Sharp. These two married July 4, 1781 and went on to have ten children. Catherine’s brother, Joseph Sharp, built Mount Hope Plantation on Highland Road. The Sharps and Kleinpeters had neighboring land on the Highlands. Catherine and John Kleinpeter’s son, John Jr., married Amelia Sharp, the daughter of Joseph Sharp and Marianne Choquet.

John Jr. and Amelia Sharp Kleinpeter married March 4, 1811. We believe that they built their raised Acadian planter’s home around the year 1820. Oral history tells us that the plantation was called Willow Grove. They went on to have nine children.

In 1851 they made an act of donation of 764 arpents of their land on Ward’s Creek to two of their sons, William Charles and George. These boys had married sisters, Carmelite and Mary Ann Brown.

The Civil War caused much hardship for these two brothers and their families. William Charles and Carmelite had the tract of land that is where Wimbledon Subdivision is today. They had seven children. William Charles was mustered into service for the Confederacy on May 15, 1862. One of the “East Baton Rouge Invincibles”, of 9th Infantry Battalion, he fought in the Battle of Baton Rouge and the Siege of Port Hudson. The 48 day siege is the longest siege in military history. It pitted 30,000 Union troops against 6,800 Confederates. The Confederates were surrounded. Supplies and the reinforcements of fresh troops were cut off. The entrenched men weak and starving, yet they held their positions. They were reduced to eating their starving horses, mules, dogs, birds and rats.

Even their spring had dried up. With the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 it was finally decided to surrender. On July 9, 1863 a treaty of surrender was signed. The Union troops brought a long line of wagons full of rations into the fort for the starving men. William Charles was paroled as a prisoner of war and sent home. He died soon thereafter. He was 37 years old.

George and Mary Ann Brown Kleinpeter had 12 children, although two died very young. He and Mary Ann lived in the family home and had 6 living children at the start of the Civil War. The Confederate troops came to the farm on July 4, 1862 and “seized for the use of the Confederate States of America 29 bales of cotton.” Imagine George’s reaction when this same cotton that he had worked and harvested was then “burned to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy” right in front of him. Perhaps he was told that he would be reimbursed for this sacrifice, that could have easily amounted to a year’s income. Nevertheless, he saved the receipt given to him by Captain Krump of Company E Louisiana Rangers and the family still has it to this day.

Five months later some Union soldiers came to the farm on Christmas night and stole two saddles. Mary Ann, who was then 5 months pregnant with her 9th child, made her way to the Provost Marshall to file a complaint. He wrote a note for her to take to Col. Paine, a Union officer, seeking his assistance. (The city of Baton Rouge was under Union occupation at the time.) We still have that note and wonder if Mary Ann and George ever got those saddles back. The Federal Government sent a post card to George in 1878 stating there was an extension of the time allowed for claimants seeking reimbursement of property taken for “actual use of the Federal army”. It was also noted that those Claimants who were “loyal to the United States from the beginning to the end of the late war” should “give the matter immediate attention.” We’re not sure of what type of attention George and Mary Ann gave the matter, but we do know that they kept that post card, and we still have it today. We may have missed the deadline of March 10, 1879, but we are hanging onto these “just in case.”