The first permanent settlers of Hall County, Nebraska arrived on July 5, 1857, after traveling 35 days by mule and ox team from Davenport, Iowa.

The Group Makeup

• Total Number: 37 people in all.
• Composition: 32 German immigrants (25 men, 5 married women, 1 grown woman, and a 4-year-old child named Linda Andresen) and 5 American men.
• Backers: Financed and organized by a group of land speculators from Davenport, Iowa, with the goal of establishing a town in the Platte River Valley anticipating future railroads.

Key Names & Origins

• German Settlers from Holstein: Fried. Doll, George Schulz, Friedrich Vatje, Johann Hamann, Detlef Sass, Nicholas Thede, and Peter Stuhr.
• German Settlers from Schleswig: Christian Andresen (with wife and daughter).
• German Settlers from Prussia: Heinrich Schaaf, Mathias Gries.
• German Settlers from Mecklenburg: Friedrich Landmann.
• German Settlers from Waldeck: Theodor Nagel.
• German Settlers from Thuringia: Herman Vasold.
• American Settlers: Included Richard C. and four others.

What They Did

• Platted Grand Island City and started farming communities.
• They represented the last outpost of white settlement between Columbus, Nebraska and the West Coast, aside from military garrisons and Mormons in Utah.