The Lichters of Caledonia, MN
by Carol (Lichter) Hill, Mary Lichter, and Shaun Murphy-Lopez (Carol's son)
Lichter ("Leest-er") seems like an uncommon name. The three of us have been intrigued by the story of our brother John (Shaun's uncle) meeting a seemingly unrelated Lichter at a wind turbine work site (i.e., Jim Lichter, whose ancestors reportedly hailed from Racine, WI). To uncover some of our mysterious Lichter roots, the three of us decided in October of 2022 to visit Caledonia, MN, a small town once known for its Lichters.
The Iowa Connection
First we'll explain the story of how the Lichters of Pocahontas County, IA are connected to a little town in Minnesota. In the late 1800s two brothers named John Jr. and Nicholas Lichter arrived in Dover Township in Pocahontas County, several miles northeast of Varina. You can see evidence of them on this 1901 plat map, which Carol and Shaun found at the Pocahontas, IA library in July. See "N & J Lichter" in Section 10 of the Figure 1 map.
Figure 1. This 1901 plat map from Dover Township shows that John Jr. and Nicholas Lichter farmed 160 acres in Section 10. Their house is shown as a small black square. Note how each school district was 4 square miles (there were 9 school districts per township!).
We know they came from Caledonia, MN through the annals of findagrave.com, with their parents being buried there. Through Nicholas Lichter's obituary in the March 18, 1948 edition of the Rolfe Arrow, we also know they arrived in Pocahontas County in 1895, making a "short" stop (i.e. less than 2 years) in Remsen, IA where some of their siblings settled.We can't tell you exactly why John Jr. and Nicholas left Caledonia to come to Pocahontas County, but a likely reason (vis-a-vis our visit with a Houston County, MN historical society volunteer) was their birth order. They were the second and third of many children, with an older brother named William. He likely had the first option to purchase their parents' farm, which wasn't that large. When their father John Sr. died in 1907, the obituary stated that the farm was sold to William. We suspect that the farm was only 80 acres (i.e., a 1930 Houston County, MN plat map shows that William's daughter Susan Lichter Lovett owned 80 acres in the vicinity).
John Jr. and Nicholas did not come to Iowa alone. Nicholas had married Anna Wester in Caledonia in 1893, They had five children: Mary was born in 1894, Arthur in 1898, Lawrence in 1900, Regina in 1902, and Francis in 1906. Thanks to the 12th census of the United States (see Figure 2), we can see the exact makeup of their family in the year 1900.
Figure 2. The 1900 census shows there were 7 members of the Lichter household in Pocahontas County, including husband (Nicholas), wife (Anna), three children (Mary, Arthur, Lawrence), brother (John Jr.), and a servant (Colleen Otto).
In 1910, just 15 years after arriving in Pocahontas County, John Jr. died on the farm and his remains were sent back to Caledonia were he is buried. He was only 47. In 1911 the year after John Jr died, Anna passed away at 42 years of age, leaving Nicholas a single father with four children (Mary had died in 1902 at the age of eight). This left the second oldest child, Arthur Lichter at the age of 13 to help his dad raise his three younger siblings. You can see evidence of the early death of Anna in Figure 3 on Nicholas and Anna’s gravestone, which is in the same cemetery where our Joan Lichter was buried in 2021.
Figure 3. Carol (Lichter) Hill and John Lichter next to the gravestone of their great-grandparents, Anna (Wester) 1869 – 1911 and Nicholas Lichter 1863 – 1948 at St. Columbkille’s Cemetery outside Varina, IA.
Many in the older living generation remember Arthur, known as Grandpa Lichter, because he was Louis “Bud” Lichter’s dad. Bud Lichter, known to the older generation as “dad” and now also known to the middle generation as “Grandpa Lichter,” was born in a house across the road from where Nicholas, Anna, and John Jr. first began to farm.
What We Found in Caledonia
Caledonia is in Houston County, the most southeastern county in Minnesota. John Lichter Sr. and his wife Maria had migrated to the Caledonia area in 1864. They had 12 children of which John Jr. was #2 and Nicholas was #3 in the birth order. Some context for John Jr. and Nicholas’ departure from Caledonia was their eldest sibling William had become a successful businessman by the 1890s. All three brothers were in their 30s by that time. According to the Caledonia Journal in 1894:
William Lichter, proprietor of the Lichter House on West Main Street, commenced business here about six years ago. He furnishes board by day or week at very reasonable rates and by strict attention to business Mr. Lichter has done remarkably well. He has plenty of bar room and good accommodations for teams. About a year ago he purchased the adjoining property on the east (Abbotts’ wagon factory and blacksmith shop) which he is transforming and remodeling into a fine building for storage or other business.
Several years back Carol had reached out to the Houston County Historical Society, and a volunteer sent her the map in Figure 4 and the image in Figure 5. In the background of the photograph there a sign that says, “Lichter House & Saloon, W. Lichter.” In the foreground is William’s other building which at that time was being rented to J.F. McCormick, a licensed undertaker and embalmer.
Figure 4. An insurance map from 1909 shows the Lichter House & Saloon on West Main Street. The store to the right was also owned by William Lichter and at that time rented to a furniture retailer.
Figure 5. The Lichter House & Saloon was located on West Main Street in Caledonia, MN in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The year this photo was taken is unknown.
We knew from the volunteer that both buildings had been torn down. But we wanted to go to the site and see what they looked like today. Figure 6 shows the former lot for the Lichter House & Saloon is now a brick building occupied by Century Link, an internet provider. To the right is a parking lot, and in the middle is a garden and picnic table with a Little Free Library.
Figure 6. Mary Lichter and Carol (Lichter) Hill standing at the former site of the Lichter House & Saloon, owned and operated by Nicholas’ oldest brother William.
We were also curious to see the cemetery where John Lichter Sr. and his wife are buried. After John Jr. died in Pocahontas County, his remains were brought back to his mother’s home and he was buried next to his dad, who had passed away three years earlier. John Sr., his wife Maria, and John Jr. are now buried together. Here we made a few discoveries:
- Maria’s headstone notes her as “Mutter” (the German word for mother).
- John Sr.’s headstone says “Johan,” reverting to his boyhood German name. Also, in German he is noted as “Vater” (the German word for father).
- John Sr.’s burial plot had a veteran’s marker with the letters F, C, and L, as shown in Figure 7. A quick Google search reveals these letters stand for fraternity, charity, and loyalty, the principles by which the organization Grand Army of the Republic was formed (i.e., the fraternal group for the Union army in the Civil War). While we cannot find records elsewhere, this indicates he may have served in the Civil War in his 30s.
- On both John Sr. and John. Jr.’s headstones was the phrase “Auferstehung ew’ges Leben Wird der Seele Jesus geben,” which according to one of Shaun’s friends translates from German to English as “The resurrection of eternal life will give the soul of Jesus.” Transcribing took some close contact with the ground, as shown in Figure 8.
- Nearby was a headstone for Elizabeth Lichter (1875 – 1932), who was previously unknown to us in our research as shown in Figure 9. This was curious to us since she was buried alone. After further research it turned out she had married Peter Lichter, a younger brother of John Jr. and Nicholas. Peter died much later in 1956, and is buried elsewhere in the cemetery.
Figure 7. This veterans marker by John Sr.'s gravestone indicates he may have been a veteran of the Civil War.
Lastly, we wanted to see the church where the Lichters worshipped, married, and held funerals. Nicholas and Anna were married in Caledonia before they left for Iowa. The wedding was held on July 3, 1893 at St. Peter’s Catholic Church. The funeral of John Lichter, Sr. was held there on February 2, 1907 on a day with inclement weather. The funeral for Maria Lichter (Nicholas’ mother) was held there on September 11, 1920, after she had died in Remsen, IA at the home of her daughter. William Lichter’s funeral was held there on April 20, 1923 after he died from stomach cancer.
St. Peter’s was built in 1872 for German-speaking Catholics. In 1976 it merged with the Irish Catholic church (St. John the Baptist) in Caledonia, and was renamed St. Mary’s. It stands to this day largely unchanged from the days when Lichter weddings and funerals were held, as shown in Figures 10 and 11.
Figure 11. Mary Lichter and Carol Hill viewing the inside of St Peter's Catholic Church (now known as St Mary's).
The Germany Connection
So how did our German-speaking Lichter ancestors end up in America? They sailed on the ship Edwina out of Antwerp, Belgium in the 1850s, as the ship manifest in Figure 12 shows. A recently widowed woman, Margaretha (Dusburg) Lichter (age 54), brought her three young adult children, Wilhelm (21), Catherina (19), and Johan (18) to Dubuque County, Iowa. Their husband and father Cristoph was a stone cutter and had passed away in Germany before they immigrated.
Figure 12. The ship manifest from the 1851 voyage bringing Margaretha (Dusburg) Lichter and her three children, Wilhelm, Johan, and Catherina to the United States from Germany (via Antwerp, Belgium).
There is so much more to learn about our family ancestry. We encourage anyone in our family to contribute to this research, so we can leave a history for generations of Lichters to come.
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