Joannis Klein & his wife, Maria Margaretha Dumont, were married in Worms and later moved to Nierstein, Germany. They had 6 children. The father died in 1843 of a fever. Three sons went to America with their families and their mother and settled in Tn. Rhine, Sheboygan County. One son and two daughters remained in Nierstein. Margaretha died in Tn. Rhine, Sheboygan Co., in 1873. Her 3 sons who came to Tn. Rhine, and their children are listed below.

Children married in Sheboygan Co.:

Margarethe - born Herrnsheim, 1842

Married 1859 to Philip Kramer - born Hesse Darmstadt - they lived in Tn. Rhine. She died in Elkhart Lake in 1936. They had 12 children, 7 lived to adulthood. Six of them died in Sheboygan Co. Son Louis died in Oklahoma and was buried across the border in Arkansas.

Henry - born Oppenheim, 1844

Married 1867 to Eliz. Strub - born Hesse Darmstadt, who died in 1872. He lived next to the Klein homestead. They had 2 daughters. In 1873 he married Eliz.Frick - born Hesse Darmstadt. - They had no children. Valentine Mueller married one daughter, who died young. Val. then married the other daughter. All died on the homestead in Tn. Rhine.

Dorothea - Oppenheim, 1848

Married 1867 to Frederick A. Wissbroecker - born Saxony. They lived first in Tn. Of Sheboygan and later in Tn. Rhine. They had 11 children. Some stayed in Sheboygan and some moved to Shawano & Langlade Counties. She became depressed with the loss of sight, hearing and other ailments of aging, and took her own life.

John - born Oppenheim, 1849

Married 1871 to Margarethe Gessert - born Hesse Darmstadt They lived and died next to the Klein homestead in Tn. Rhine. They had 5 children before he died at age 34. She lived to be 78. All their children died in Sheboygan county.

Henrietta - born Elkhart Lake, 1852

Married 1870 - Michael Poppert - born Hesse Darmstadt. They homesteaded in Harlan Co. in south central Nebraska, along the railroad, about 1879. The Popperts had woodworking businesses in Milwaukee. Some of the Poppert family went to Nebraska with the young couple for a while, before returning to Milwaukee. Their Lutheran minister evidently was trying to establish a community in Nebraska. They had 10 children, 4 were born in Milwaukee, one died there. Two sons later moved to Colorado, the rest of the children died in Nebraska.

Children:

Justina - born Nierstein, 1844

1873 married to Jacob Schoch in Sheboygan. He was born in Prussia. They moved to Clark county the next year. They had one child before going to Clark Co. and 7 more in Tn. Loyal. She died in 1891 when the youngest daughter was 1 yr. old. Jacob died in 1896. For some reason, the two youngest daughters were put out for adoption by their father, rather than send them to uncle, Jacob Klein, living in the area. Only the eldest daughter had a large family. Some of the Schoch children remained in Clark Co., others scattered around central Wisconsin. Only Henry left the State for Groton, S. Dakota in 1909.

Joseph - born Nierstein 1846

Came to America in 1868 before the rest of the family and settled in Tn. Rhine, Sheboygan County.

1874 He married Theresia Stassburg in Sheboygan falls. She was born in Sachsen Anhalt, Germany. They lived at the west end of County Line Rd. south of Kiel. Both are buried in Kiel cemetery. Joseph died at 51 yrs. Theresia had two daughters. Gusty lived in Hilbert and Emma died young leaving two daughters that Theresia raised. Their grand daughter married Ezra Charles. The Charles family still lives there in 2003.

Jacob- born Nierstein, 1851

1881 He married Amelia Brussow in Clark county. She was born north of Berlin, Germany. They lived and died in Tn. Beaver near Rock Creek. They had two sons, Richard and Emil. They also raised Annie as their daughter. Annie came to America with the Brussows. The consensus is that Annie was the child of Charlie Brussow and his Polish fiancée, who never came to America. Grandma Brussow sent Annie to live with her daughter Amelia and Jacob Klein. Annie was a very favorite child in the Klein household.

Valtin - born Nierstein, 1854

Never married and traveled around the country. He spent many years in San Franscisco, but returned to die in Clark county He is buried in Loyal.

Peter - born Nierstein, 1860

1882 He married Elizabeth Condon in Unity, Clark Co. She was born in Canada of Irish parents. They had 7 children we know of. A picture taken in 1899, shows a daughter still unidentified. They lived in Tn. Eaton, Clark Co. until 1900, when they moved to Parma, Michigan. Two children died before moving and another son died in WW I. One son died in Florida, another in Cedarburg, Wis. The rest died in Jackson Co., Mich.

John - born Nierstein 1860

1899 He married Emma Zeddies in Jefferson Co., Wis. She was born in Hannover, Germany. Her parents lived in Sullivan. John had spent his youth selling trees in southern Wisconsin, where he met the Zeddies family. When he married he had just opened a meat market in Waukesha. They had a child that died at birth. He sold the meat market to a nephew 7 yrs. later and retired. Both he and Emma are buried in Waukesha.

Children:

John - born Nierstein 1849

1874 He married Louisa Mueller in Kiel. She was born in Sheboygan. Her parents were from Wuertemburg, Germany. They lived on his parent’s homestead until his death of Typhoid Fever at age 50. They had 8 children, one died in childhood, one died in Brillion, one in Strattford, Wis. The rest died near Kiel.

Katharina - born Nierstein1852

1874 She married Joseph Lupfer - born in Baden, Germany. They lived and died in Sheboygan and had 4 children that we found, 3 that lived to adulthood. The 1900 census reported 3 lived out of 6. One daughter died in Oshkosh, the rest died in Sheboygan.

Justina - born Tn. Rhine 1857

1876 She married Frank Leonard - born in Sachsen, Germany. They lived in Tn. Rhine and then Tn. Schleswig, where they died. They had 11 children. The death of Henry, the youngest, was not found. The rest died in Sheboygan Co. or in the Milwaukee area.

Joseph - born Tn. Rhine 1861

1885 He married Mary Menne - born in Prussia, Germany. They lived and died in Kiel. and had no children. He was a well known carpentry contractor in the area. He was commonly known as Roter Joseph.

Henry - born Tn. Rhine, 1863

1887 He married Anna Dietrich - born in Tn. Meeme of parents from Baden, Germany. They lived in Tn. Meeme, New Holstein and then died of TB in Kiel. They had two children . One died in Sheboygan, the other in Plymouth.

Beginning in the 1840s and continuing for about 25 years, Sheboygan was the destination of several hundred thousand immigrants -- primarily Dutch and German settlers. Some made their homes in the Sheboygan area while thousands of others moved to Minnesota, Iowa, and the far west.

The immigrants flooding to the new world arrived in New York and then boarded trains, traveled the Erie Canal, or journeyed overland to Buffalo, NY, where they could board a schooner or steamship to continue their trip west. Most of the immigrants chose the Great Lakes water route rather than the arduous trek overland to the West.

It was no accident that many of these immigrants headed for Wisconsin. The state of Wisconsin had set up an information office in New York which supplied the immigrants with somewhat exaggerated claims as to the weather and fertility of the soil here. The state also took many ads in foreign newspapers extolling the virtues of the fertile lands of the great "western state" of Wisconsin. Sheboygan, located in the exact center of the western shore of the state [lake? -ent-], was considered a convenient port for travelers. One resident complained that there were so many persons passing through the city that it reminded him of a mining camp with all its dirt and clamor.

In the year 1853, 13,400 people landed at Sheboygan and Port Washington. The following year, Mr. T. J. Townsend, the immigration agent of Sheboygan, reported that 20,194 persons landed in Sheboygan alone. By 1855, the number of immigrants disembarking in Sheboygan had reached 68,381. By the mid 1850s, the flood of immigrants passing through Sheboygan by way of the Great Lakes had reached its peak. At that point, some people predicted that Sheboygan would become a more important city than Chicago!

By the 1870s, however, most immigrants traveled overland due to improved roads and railroads. By the late 1870s, few immigrants traveled by ship, and Sheboygan's popularity as a point of arrival had declined.