The Younkers/Fauerbach Families

I want to thank Anna Younkers Miland for requesting information about her Maple Hill roots. That’s a great way to get me motivated to do the research.

I found abundant information and because of the quantity, it will likely require two or three posts to discuss. The Fauerbach Family is one of the oldest in Maple Hill Township and although there are no individuals with the name Fauerbach now living in the township, many of us have known members of their family.

Henry Fauerbach had a genuine pioneering spirit! According to his own accounts, he made three overland journeys to the California Gold Fields from Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. On those journeys, he would “frieght” taking wagon loads of cargo to sell there. Thus, Henry Fauerbach accumulated more than sufficient capital to buy a beautiful farm on both sides of Mill Creek about two miles upstream from its confluence with the Kansas River.

Henry Fauerbach was born on September 14, 1833 in Stadt Hannover, Niedersachsen in what is today Germany. He was the second child of Mathais and Elte (Jacobs) Fauerbach, who immigrated to America in 1845. Like so many who made the trek from Europe, they had friends and relatives in Illlinois with whom they lived and got established. Mathais and Elte Fauerbach never left their Illlinois farms but at least three of their children would eventually find their way to Kansas and to Maple Hill Township.

While engaged in making one of the trips to California, Henry met Charlotte Kemp whose family was living near Soldier, Shawnee County, Kansas. Charlotte was the fifth child of Thomas and Catherine Kemp, and was born November 29, 1848 at Gallatin, Daviess County, Missouri. When two-year-old, she moved to Kansas with her family, who were farmers.

Charlotte Kemp Fauerbach was always very proud that her family tradition was that President Benjamin Harrison was their cousin. I have not done the genealogy to verify that assertion, but I have no reason to doubt it is true.

Henry had made three trips to California and was ready to settle down and farm himself. I don’t know how he and Charlotte, who was called “Lottie,” met, but they were married by a Justice of the Peace in Topeka, Kansas on January 29, 1865. Henry had already crossed the Mill Creek Valley several times and knew the place that he wanted to purchase. He did so and then headed west from Topeka in his frieghting wagon. He and Charlotte lived in and under that freighting wagon on their new farm until Henry could have a house built. He first built a rather crude frame house (there was a sawmill just a mile north on the Wilmott Farm) and within five years built a very comfortable stone house.

Here the couple raised nine children. According to the 1900 US Census, Charlotte was the mother of ten children, but I have only been able to find information about nine, so one much have died as an infant or young child. They are:
John Thomas “Tom” Fauerbach – 1867-1958
Catherine Isabella Fauerbach – 1869-1954
Louis Daniel Fauerbach – 1871-1955
Robert Francis “Frank” Fauerbach – 1874-1938
Emma Fauerbach – 1876-1937
Henry Edward Fauerbach – 1878
Ettie Fauerbach – 1882-1882
Anna L. Fauerbach – 1883
Frederich Fauerbach – 1885

Henry Fauerbach was a hardworking farmer who broke his prairie bottom along Mill Creek and prospered. He and Charlotte were busy parents and as did most farm wives, Charlotte participated as an equal partner in the farm work.

Their first child, John Thomas “Tom” Fauerbach was born while they lived with the Kemp Family near Soldier, Shawnee County, Kansas. I have never heard or read why he wasn’t born on the Maple Hill farm. Perhaps Charlotte wanted her mother’s help or the house wasn’t finished. I don’t know.

However their second child, Catherine Isabella Fauerbach, was given credit for being the “first white child born in Maple Hill Township.” This is technically true, but there were a number of French/Native American/American children born to the Bourassa and allied families prior to that date. Catherine married well-known Paxico resident Sheriden C. “Sank” Clark and raised a large family on their farm east of Paxico—but that’s another story.

The fourth child of Henry and Charlotte (Kemp) Fauerbach, was Robert Francis “Frank” Fauerbach, who will be the connected to the Younkers Family. Frank Fauerbach was born April 19, 1874 on his parent’s farm at Maple Hill, and died November 7, 1938 at Maple Hill. He was a well-known farmer in the community. I don’t know exactly how the estate and land belonging to Henry and Charlotte Fauerbach was divided, but Frank was the recipient of at least a part of the original farm and also bought and farmed adjoining land.

Frank married Clara Charlotte Allen, who was the daughter of Charles Gustof and Matilda (Peterson) Allen. The Allens were both born in Sweden and immigrated to Kansas with a colony of Swedish people in 1873. They had relatives and friends in St. Marys, Kansas and lived there for a year or more. These were the Swedish stone masons and carpenters who in 1874, built two stone houses for the Warren Family and one for the Thayer family. They then moved to Halifax, Wabaunsee County, Kansas where some settled and again engaged in stone masonry and carpentry.

Clara Charlotte Allen was born on May 10, 1876 at Halifax, Wabaunsee County, Kansas and was married to married to Frank Fauerbach on April 19, 1898. Clara’s parents, Charlie and Matilda (Peterson) Allen had by that time moved to Kaw Township, north of Maple Hill, where they purchased a farm.

Frank and Clara Fauerbach lived and farmed northeast of Maple Hill on land adjoining that of Henry and Charlotte Fauerbach. There they raised a large family:

Matilda Frances Fauerbach – 1899 – 1956
Blanche Ellen Fauerbach – 1901 – 2002
Charles Henry “Chuck” Fauerbach – 1904 – 1994
Myrtle Mae Fauerbach – 1911 – 2008
Robert R. Fauerbach – 1914 – 1963.

It will be the oldest child of Frank and Clara Fauerbach, Matilda Frances Fauerbach, that will marry Arthur Eugene Younkers and make the link between the Fauerbach and Younkers Family.

Before beginning that history, I would like to mention that I knew Blanche, Chuck and Robert Fauerbach. They were all well-known in the Maple Hill and St. Marys Community. Blanche Fauerbach married William Carl Wild and they lived on a farm just north of the Kansas River for many years. At the time of the 125th Anniversary of the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church in 2000, Blanche Wild was the oldest living member, was in attendance at the celebration and lived to be 101-years-old.

Charles Henry “Chuck” Fauerbach had several businesses, but I remember him as the employer of my father, John Tim Clark, in building terraces and ponds in Wabaunsee and Pottawatomi Counties. Chuck was married to Esther O. Helliland and they had two sons, James and Ronald “Ronny” Fauerbach. James died as a young child and Ronny lived in St. Marys and had a television sales and repair business. They are all deceased and buried in the Maple Hill Cemetery.

Robert R. Fauerbach lived and worked on farms in the Maple Hill Community. He in later life harvested logs from the timber around Maple Hill and had a saw mill down near the elevator. He was married to the daughter of George and Susan Watt, Dorothy M. Watt, and they lived in and around Maple Hill. Robert Fauerbach died at a very young age on January 1, 1963 and is buried in the Maple Hill Cemetery. His wife, Dorothy Watt Fauerbach, remarried to a man named Farr and they moved to Washington State.

Time dictates that I end this portion today. I will continue with the Younkers Family tomorrow.

The photographs below are L-R: Henry Fauerbach, Charlotte (Kemp) Fauerbach, the Fauerbach headstone in Maple Hill Cemetery, and a photo of a stone house which I believe to be the stone house built by Henry Fauerbach on his farm. The photograph is among a collection of Fauerbach family photographs taken between 1900 and 1920 and among the collection of the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, Kansas. The pictures of Henry and Charlotte Fauerbach were owned by Blanche Fauerbach Wild and used in the red centennial book of the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church.